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One of the most important open questions in paleobiology today is whether dinosaurs were cold-blooded or warm-blooded. Their appearance suggests dinosaurs had a low metabolic rate, lazying around, charging at the sun much like modern reptiles like crocodiles. At the same time, their direct descendants are warm-blooded birds. Unfortunately, you can’t stick a thermometer up […]
A new species of plant-eating dinosaur was discovered in Alaska, a variety of hadrosaur -- duck-billed dinos that roamed in herds, said Pat Druckenmiller, earth sciences curator at the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks. Researchers named the creature Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis (oo-GROO'-nah-luk KOOK'-pik-en-sis), meaning "ancient grazer," chosen by scientists with assistance from speakers of Inupiaq, the language of Alaska Inupiat Eskimos.
About 260 million years ago, this pre-reptile might not have looked like much. With its knobby face and about as big as a cow, Bunostegos akokanensis was actually pretty remarkable. According to a new analysis, it was actually the first creature to walk upright on all four legs, maintaining a fully erect gate.
Now there’s a question you don’t ask yourself every day – or ever, for that matter – what if Disney princesses were dinosaurs? Laura Cooper of the webcomic XP asked herself that question, and took it upon her to reimagine them as velociraptors. The results – you can see below. I won’t tell you who the […]
Some 30 million years after dinosaurs emerged, they managed to rise up and dominate much of the world - then all clumped together under a supercontinent known as Pangea - except the tropics. Why dinosaurs proved so successful in higher latitudes, but failed miserably in the tropics has perplexed scientists. A possible explanation might be that during those times the tropics had an unpredictable climate, rapidly shifting from wet to dry due to a high concentration of carbon dioxide. This hypothesis is supported by a detailed analysis performed on samples collected at the Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico, a site rich with fossils from the Late Triassic Period.
Canadian paleontologists discovered a new dinosaur which looks strikingly similar to the famous Triceratops. While the two are very similar in many respects, the new species stands out due to the size and shape of its facial horns and the shield-like frill at the back of the skull. It also had a longer nose horn than Triceratops, and two small horns above its eyes. The radiating frill and pentagon-shaped plates must have made the dinosaur look like a crowned Triceratops. Once you consider this, it's not surprising how the team named the new dinosaur Regaliceratops peterhewsi (regal is latin for royal, and Peter Hews is the paleontologist who first discovered the fossils).
New controversial research concluded that dinosaurs weren't the cold blooded lizards we tend to see them today - instead, they had much in common with mammals, and were warm blooded.
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have discovered a new species of dinosaur, closely related to the famous velociraptor. This new species, Saurornitholestes sullivani was a bit bulkier, probably had a better sense of smell, an researchers believe it was an even better predator than its cousin.
Each year, hundreds of millions people fly by plane to meet family, do business or travel for leisure. Quite a feat, considering humans don't have any wings. Like all advanced technology we have at our disposal today, flying is also taken for granted. In the early days, however, just getting a few feet off the ground for a couple of seconds was considered a triumph. Like human pioneering flight, nature also had to experiment a lot before flying creatures could evolve. One newly discovered dinosaur species fits well into this story. Unearthed in 160 million year old sediments in China, this queer dinosaur strangely had bat-like wings. It's uncertain however if it was able to fly or even glide, owing to the degraded state of the fossil records. One thing's for sure, it makes the evolution of flight much more interesting to study.
A seven year old has discovered the fossil of a turkey-sized dinosaur that roamed South America over 140 million years ago. The tiny dinosaur was related to T-Rex, but had few similarities to it; aside for its size, the dinosaur was a vegetarian, munching on plants instead of terrorizing other creatures.
When tyrannosaurs ruled the world, no one was safe from them - not even other tyrannosaurs. The skull of an unfortunate adolescent tyrannosaur shows signs of brutal fight; the individual was defeated and then eaten by members of its own species, new research shows.
Just like Pluto, the iconic dinosaur genus was demoted decades ago and classified under another sauropod genus. But a more sophisticated taxonomy recently published by researchers in the UK and Portugal warrants a revisit of the shelved, but never forgotten Brontosaurus.
Long before T-rex claimed the top dog spot among terrestrial predators, a vicious crocodile ancestor that walked on its hind legs was at the top of the food chain during the Triassic. The fossils of the Carnufex carolinensis, also known as the the “Carolina Butcher,” were discovered decades ago in the Pekin Formation, a geological formation in North Carolina's Chatham County. It was only recently that researchers reanalyzed the fossils and concluded they were dealing with an all new predator that roamed the Earth several million years before dinosaurs were even around.
Although mammals surfaced only 20 million years after the first dinosaurs evolved, there's a general consensus that mammals were shadowed and reclusive in the face of dinosaurs, seeing how they were the dominant animals on the planet back then. As such, early mammals are thought to have been mostly nocturnal with minimal interaction with dinosaur environments, occupying very limited ecological niches. This conventional thinking might be toppled by recent findings made by Chinese paleontologists who discovered two highly sophisticated early mammals each at least 160 million years old: the first tree-clinging mammal and the first burrowing mammal. These creatures munched on the same plants dinosaurs did, proving they seemingly coexisted in the same ecological framework.
It was about as big as T-Rex, but not quite as fit – new fossils have revealed that Deinocheirus mirificus had quite a beer belly. “This is an entirely new body plan” for such dinosaurs, says Stephen Brusatte, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Indeed, few scientists would have imagined such a scientific appearance. The […]
Scientists have discovered a new dinosaur that possibly had the largest nose in prehistory. Ironically, it didn't have a keen sense of smell.
A newly found superdinosaur Dreadnoughtus schrani, is the largest known land animal for which mass can be accurately calculated, a recent study concluded. The giant speciment, which isn’t even fully grown, probably measured 85 feet long and weighed about 65 tons. The name literally means “fear nothing”, and the dinosaur has already been nicknamed Dread. It is named […]
When herbivorous dinosaurs went to sleep, they had bad dreams about Tyrannosaurs. But what where Tyrannosaurs afraid of? If you’re thinking “Nothing”, then you’re really wrong. A new species of carnivorous dinosaur (one of the three largest ever discovered in North America) competed with them 98 million years ago – the newly discovered species, Siats […]
Most fossils are very fragile, difficult to handle and transport Researchers conducted CT scans on fossils still trapped in sedimentary material, creating 3D models The models were then 3D printed – an accurate, non invasive method to replicate fossils for schools, museums and other researchers Doctors and dinosaurs Being a paleontologist and working […]
A group of paleontologists believe that the same event that killed off the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago also caused a widespread extinction in bee populations. Currently, the widely accepted theory is that an asteroid or comet struck our planet 66 million years ago (the Cretaceous-Paleogene event, or K-Pg event), the impact and its […]
Paleontologists have scratched the surface of what appears to be a very promising dinosaur site near the Arctic circle, in Alaska. When these dinosaurs roamed the Earth, they stepped in mud; their footprints quickly filled with sand, and were preserved in the form we see them today, like blubs with toes. In July, the scientists […]
Instead of digging through layers of rocks, a few paleontologists focused their efforts on ‘digging’ through museum collection instead – and their efforts were quite successful. Their unique approach led to the discovery of never-before seen structures, which they think are something called dino-fuzz. The fluffy structures trapped in the small bits of ancient amber […]
Though built in 1933, the Fossil Cabin near the dinosaur graveyard at Como Bluff is, in a way, the oldest building in the world: the walls of the building were built out of 5,796 mortared-together dinosaur bones, dug from nearby areas. Initially, the building was part of a gasoline filling station along US 30 by […]
A new, unusual species of dinosaur has been discovered in the deserts of Utah. The 5m-long is a member of the triceratops family, and as fierce as they may look, this dinosaur was a herbivore. The huge ‘nose’ and exceptionally long horns are unlike any other dinosaurs previously described, which explains its name – Nasutoceratops […]
Despite the fact that triceratops are some of the most well known dinosaurs, finding a complete skeletons is an extremely rare treat. It was one of the last non-avian dinosaur genera to appear before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event – the extinction which caused the end of dinosaurs and the Mesozoic. The scientists from the Black […]
Nyasasaurus parringtoni may have not been revered by other dinosaurs, but according to a new study published in Biology Letters, he is the oldest dinosaur to walk the face of the Earth, surpassing the previous record holder by 10-15 million years. It walked on two legs, measured 2-3 m in length, had a large tail […]
This spike-headed dinosaur roamer a much warmer Canada 78 million years ago, making it the earliest horned reptile ever. “In terms of large-bodied ones that look like Triceratops, this is definitely the oldest,” said biologist Michael Ryan, lead author of the new study describing the dinosaur, published online Thursday by the Canadian Journal of Earth […]
Named after the almost all-powerful dark spirit from the Lord of The Rings, the Sauron dinosaurs roamed Africa some 95 million years ago. The species was named Sauroniops pachytholus, which more or less means “The eye of Sauron”, and it was identified so far from a single fossil found in Morocco. The fossil had only […]
Why would a dinosaur with a body built for running have not two, but four wings, as well as a feathered tail? There seems to be only one real reason: flying. But why would it need to fly in the first place? Paleontologists have long wondered about it, but now it seems, they’ve finally found […]
Scientists in Canada have made a remarkable discovery: they have unearthed the first fossils of a feathered dinosaur ever found in the Americas. Their research, which was published in Science, includes 75 million year old specimens, including a juvenile and two adult ostrich-like creatures which go by the name of ornithomimids. Until now, the only […]
Velociraptors have been repeatedly described by paleonthologists as voracious predators, however a recent study of a 75 million year old specimen revealed that the dinosaur wasn’t picky at all, and didn’t miss the chance to pass a free meal. The conclusion came after a pterosaur or “Pterodactyl” bone was found in its gut, suggesting that its […]
Paleontologists have unearthed in Montana the fossilized bone of a the last known dinosaur so far, dating back from 65.5 million years ago. The finding carries a big weight in supporting the currently leading asteroid impact dinosaur extinction theory. What paleontologists found was actually the horn of a thought to be triceratops in a sediment […]
Paleontologists turned into dentists after an examination of the fossilized jaw of a reptile from the Paleozoic era revealed what’s considered to be the world’s oldest tootache. Dated back 275 million years ago, the Oklahoma found Labidosaurus hamatus must have had some serious issues with its sugar tooth, as researchers observed missing teeth and eroded […]
A team of paleontologists from the Smithsonian Institute have uncovered the fossils of a brand new dinosaur species in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico which posses a particular importance by filling the family tree gap between early predatory species such as Herrerasaurus and later theropod dinosaurs. Researchers named the species Daemonosaurus chauliodus, based on the Greek […]
In a recent remarkable find in the war-torn country of Angola, archeologists have uncovered the fossil of what’s considered a new, up till now unknown, dinosaur. The dinosaur has been appropriately been dubbed Angolatitan adamastor – Angolatitan means ”Angolan giant”, while the adamastor is a sea giant from Portuguese sailing myths. A paper published on […]
A groundbreaking research conducted by the University of Manchester showed that terrain thought to be ruled only by giant dinosaurs was shared by numerous other smaller species. Dr. Peter Falkingham made a very interesting discovery, showing that dinosaurs can create lasting footprints, but under the right circumstances, combined with the right animal weight. The research […]
Fossil hunters have recently unearthed the fossil remains of a species that can easily claim the title of the horniest dinosaur ever to be found. Kosmoceratops lived some 76 million years ago, in the warm and wet swamps of (what is today) Utah; but what’s really fascinating about him is the fact that he has […]
A recent study conducted by a Montana State University doctoral student and one of the world’s top paleontologists shed some new light on more than 100 years of thought regarding the dinosaurs known as Triceratops and Torsaurus. The general belief since the late 1800s was that they were two separate dinosaurs: Triceratops had three horns […]
The previous 5 mass extinctions wiped out more than three quarters of the world’s animals, and if things continue to move in the same way, the same thing will happen in North America, according to a University of California, Berkeley, and Pennsylvania State University analysis. Numerous scientists have warned that the direction things are moving […]