gear Push settings
While dinosaur walking and locomotion is a subject of great interest and study for paleontologists, whether some could swim too is a controversial matter. Recent evidence found by an US graduate student sheds new light on the subject and suggests some dinosaurs could paddle for long distances through water with coordinated leg movement. Scott Persons, […]
The current leading theory that explains the mass extinction of the dinosaurs – once the dominant group of animals on Earth for millions of years – states that an asteroid impact some 65 million years ago brought their demise, wiping them out along with 70% of all life on the planet. A new study, however, […]
Some 200 million years ago half of all life on Earth went extinct, thus providing a window of opportunity for the dinosaurs to evolve in now unoccupied niches and dominate the planet for the next 135 million years. Curiously enough, after the dinosaurs were at their own term wiped out by a calamity – presumably at the […]
Paleontologists were stoked by the discovery of hundreds of fossilized dinosaur eggs, belonging to various species, in a region of Spain. The dinosaur fossil eggs were said to be about as big as a basketball, while others were smaller. Since eggs belonging to various species were found in the same are, the findings add further […]
Though we’ve accomplish our knowledge a great deal in the past decades of bird evolution there are still many loose ends and debate is far from being settled. A general consensus among paleontologists is that birds today are actually a sort of modern dinosaurs, now recent fossils findings from China suggest early birds some 150 million years ago were four-winged […]
Today’s birds’ ancestors descended from non-avian dinosaurs according to a recent paper that thoroughly studied Anchiornis (155 million years ago) and Archaeopteryx (between 152 million and 168 million years ago) – the oldest known feathered dinosaurs. Archaeopteryx is so far the oldest bird-like dinosaur found thus far, and since it was first discovered almost 150 years ago, it was thought that […]
A team of international scientists from Britain and the United States have devised a new mathematical formula, considered more accurate than previous methods, which measures the body weight of dinosaurs – they found that dinosaurs weighed much less than previous estimates had considered. For instance, the giant Berlin Brachiosaur, which lived in the late Jurassic period (from about 200 […]
During the tumultuous Cretaceous and Jurassic periods if you could only choose one word to describe the world, it would’ve certainly be ‘big’. Big dinosaurs, big plants, big trees, big fish and big insects, of course. Chinese scientists have found almost perfectly preserved fossils of two previously unknown extinct flea species in Inner Mongolia, which are roughly […]
A remarkable paleontological discovery surfaced from China recently, after scientists reported they’ve found fossils belonging to the Yutyrannus huali,a very close relative of the Tyrannosaurs Rex, which prove that its entire enormous bus-sized body was covered in feathers. This officially makes it the biggest animal covered in feathers ever found, and also forces paleontologists to rethink […]
Paleontologists have recently named two new horned dinosaur species, closely related to the famous Triceratops, which were dug up from a site in Alberta, Canada some time ago. Dubbed Unescopceratops koppelhusae and Gryphoceratops morrisoni, the dinosaurs are extremely tiny, as far as plant eating dinosaurs dating back from the late Cretaceous go, and belong to the Leptoceratopsidae family of […]
Although the T. rex isn’t the largest carnivorous dinosaur to have roamed Earth, a new study that used computer models to reconstruct its skull muscles reveals that his bite was the most powerful one ever of all terrestrial animals, extinct or living. Biomechanics experts at Liverpool University, UK, used laser scanners to digitize the skulls […]
Scientists at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania have set on a path that promises to revolutionize the way paleontology is studied, and model reconstructions are made from fossils. By using 3D printers, the researchers intend on cheaply and efficiently replicate bones, without going through the hassle of casting with plaster molds. This way, they can actually build very […]
New Jersey will soon be home to the closest thing to Jurassic Park so far, after yesterday the only press release in the world to feature dinosaurs announced that Field Station: Dinosaurs, an new kind of innovative theme park which opens in Secaucus in May 2012. With the guidance of paleontologists from the New Jersey State […]
The art of science is most evident when one manages to accurately assert truths about a given fact with little information provided. A great scientists knows how to properly churn information, turn it over a million sides and correlate it with other related facts to form a clear picture. It’s incredible for instance how astronomers […]
Armageddon can wait, NASA‘s in charge for a little while longer. The space agency recently released to the general public a report which censuses more than 93% of the total number of asteroids in the vicinity of Earth’s orbit, meaning they’re all tagged and tracked – risk of undetected collision to a minimum. That’s not all either, […]
It wasn’t just a devastating asteroid that killed off all the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Scientists from Boston University now claim that a massive eruption of lava fronts around the world, coinciding with the asteroid impact, sealed their fate forever. The controversial theory is betting on two unusually hot blobs of mantle 1,700 miles […]
In a paper published in the journal Nature, Chinese paleontologists have detailed their impressions on the finding of a chicken-sized feathered dinosaur which might lead to a total reconsideration of the origin of birds on Earth. In 1861, just two years after Darwin published his infamous Origin of Species, scientists unearthed the fossils of Archaeopteryx, […]
Around 200 million years ago, the Earth was still one big continent – the great Pangaea. Around that time came, what’s commonly referred to as, the End-Triassic mass extinction period in which half of all marine life on the planet went extinct. For years, scientists believed that this came as a result of a mass […]
A recent discovery made by Argentinian paleontologist uncovered wasp cocoons hidden inside the 70 million year old fossilized egg of a titanosaur sauropod, suggesting that these ancient wasps used to dwell, consume and breed inside of them. The find was made after researchers carefully analyzed one of the five titanosaur eggs uncovered back in 1989 […]
Were dinosaurs slow and lazy, as you see most reptiles today, or active and quick like you see them in the movies? It pretty much depends on their body temperature – if they are cold blooded or not. The kingdom of T-Rex It seemed to be a no-brainer that dinosaurs are cold blooded, relying on […]
I recently came across this poll, which was conducted about a year ago. Ok, so it’s not extremely actual, but one year can’t change the data significantly. So, almost 1 in 3 Texans believes that humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and over half of them don’t believe humans evolved from […]
In a remarkable discovery, reported Friday in the journal Science by a team of paleontologists headed by Robert Reisz of the University of Toronto, archeologists unveiled detailed photos and insights of the world’s oldest dinosaur embryo found to date. In the past years, archelogists have managed to find true dinosaur relics, unveiling dinosaur eggs containing […]
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 […]
An international team of researchers from the University of Leicester (UK), and the Geological Institute, Beijing (China) managed to identify a new type of a flying reptile that can prove to be a crucial step in understanding evolution, or at least a big part of it. Pterosauria was the general name given for flying or […]
In 1980, Luis Alvarez and his team shocked the whole world when they announced their theory that an asteroid impact that took place 65 millions years ago was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs and much of that time’s living organisms. Despite the fact that they delivered substantial evidence, there are still some minor […]
And when I say that snake was big that’s how it was- really BIG. It had the length of a regular school bus and weighed about as much as your family car. Fortunately for us though, this prehistoric “dragon” lived long time ago, about 6 million years after another teethed nightmare became extinct- the T-Rex. […]
How the dinosaurs appeared is clear, but it’s not so clear how they dissapeared. One thing’s for sure, they ruled this planet for a significant amount of time. But how much truth is behind this avalanche of publicity and fiction, and which dinosaurs are the true leaders of these amazing lizards?? Here’s just a small […]
Archaeopteryx has been the subject of many controversies, but it is now widely considered as the world’s oldest bird; however, reptiles were flying for 50 million years when it appeared, even before the world was roamed by dinosaurs. Now, paleontologists have unveiled an extraordinary prehistoric ‘flying’ reptile which lived 235 million years ago.It’s called kuehneosaurs […]
Birds evolved from lizards, (nearly) all scientists agree about that, but strangely enough there is still a debate around when the first bird showed up in the Mesozoic scene. While paleontologists who have studied fossils think that birds evolved from dinosaurs about 60 million to 65 million years ago, right when the dinosaurs went extinct, […]
This debate has been indecided for years and years and there are serious evidence which backs up both theories. Recently a vast number of scientist leaned towards the meteor theory; they claim that a meteor impact in the Gulf of Mexico made changes which the dinousaurs could not adapt to. But scientists found out how […]
