A team of geologists at the University of Rochester has discovered a new species of bird in the Canadian Arctic. At approximately 90 million years old, the bird fossils are among the oldest avian records found in the northernmost latitude, and offer further evidence of an intense warming event during the late Cretaceous period.
A new study by Burke Museum and University of Washington paleontologists describes an early marsupial relative called Didelphodon vorax that lived alongside ferocious dinosaurs and had, pound-for-pound, the strongest bite force of any mammal ever recorded.
The study focused on the skeletal changes that occurred during growth in the small carnivorous dinosaur Coelophysis (SEE-lo-FY-sis), one of the earliest dinosaurs.
A new study published in Scientific Reports shows how higher latitude ecosystems recovered after the World's most cataclysmic extinction event 252 million years ago.
What do enormous dinosaurs have in common with tiny shrews? They are both four-legged vertebrates, otherwise known as tetrapods. In the course of evolution, tetrapods developed various body shapes and sizes - from the mouse to the dinosaur - to adapt to different environments. Their feeding habits range from pure herbivory to fierce carnivory, and their body structure reflects this feeding diversity. As plants are usually more difficult to digest than meat, herbivores are thought to need larger guts and more voluminous bellies. Nevertheless, this hypothesis had never been tested scientifically.
SUE the Dinosaur’s forearm came to the Advanced Photon Source for its most detailed scan ever, which could shed light on why the large dinosaur had such small arms.
newly described species of extinct reptile that roamed Texas more than 200 million years ago had a strikingly dome-shaped head with a very thick skull and a large natural pit on top that lends the appearance of an extra eye, according to a study released Sept. 22 in Current Biology.
Fossil remains from an ancient reptile known as Drepanosaurus reveals unusual skeletal adaptations in the forelimb that scientists have never before recorded in land animals.
New research from North Carolina State University shows that theropod dinosaur species with bony crests, horns and knobs evolved to giant body sizes 20 times faster than those species lacking such embellishments.
A rare small-bodied pterosaur, a flying reptile from the Late Cretaceous period approximately 77 million years ago, is the first of its kind to have been discovered on the west coast of North America.
Scientists today announced the discovery of a new species of pterosaur from the Patagonia region of South America. The researchers have named this new species ‘ Allkauren koi’ from the native Tehuelche word ‘all’ for ‘brain’, and ‘karuen’ for ‘ancient’.
Paleontologists with the University of Washington's Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture have discovered a Tyrannosaurus rex, including a very complete skull. The find, which paleontologists estimate to be about 20 percent of the animal, includes vertebrae, ribs, hips and lower jaw bones.
New research reveals that 50-million-year-old bird fossil specimens, some of which are on display in the Museum’s special exhibition Dinosaurs Among Us, are from a previously unknown relative of the modern-day ostrich.
A new species of megaraptorid dinosaur discovered in Sierra Barrosa in northwest Patagonia may help discern the evolutionary origins of the megaraptorid group, according to a study published July 20, 2016, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Philip Currie from the University of Alberta and Rodolfo Coria from the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas in Argentina.
The discovery of a theropod dinosaur with Tyrannosaurus rex-like arms suggests that these unusual forelimbs may have evolved multiple times, according to a study published July 13, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sebastián Apesteguía from the Universidad Maimónides, Argentina, and colleagues.
There has been a long debate about why dinosaurs were so successful. Say dinosaur, and most people think of the great flesh-eaters such as Tyrannosaurus rex, but the most successful dinosaurs were of course the plant-eaters.
Sauropod dinosaurs were the largest land-dwelling animals of all time, with highly elongated necks and tails that were held suspended above the ground.
A new reconstruction of Antarctic ocean temperatures around the time the dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago supports the idea that one of the planet's biggest mass extinctions was due to the combined effects of volcanic eruptions and an asteroid impact.
The first-ever record of a tumourous facial swelling found in a fossil has been discovered in the jaw of the dwarf dinosaur Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus, a type of primitive duck-billed dinosaur known as a hadrosaur.
With the help of University of Alberta scientists, a newly described pterosaur has finally flown home. This spectacular fossil material was discovered in a private Lebanese limestone quarry more than a decade ago and has led to what UAlberta paleontologist Michael Caldwell calls “priceless scientific findings.”
New research reports that, contrary to popular belief, mammals began their massive diversification 10 to 20 million years before the extinction of the dinosaurs.
A study of more than 6,000 marine fossils from the Antarctic shows that the mass extinction event that killed the dinosaurs was sudden and just as deadly to life in the polar regions.
Pawpawsaurus's hearing wasn't keen, and it lacked the infamous tail club of Ankylosaurus. But first-ever CT scans of Pawpawsaurus's skull indicate the dino's saving grace from predators may have been an acute sense of smell.
Two hundred and fifty million years ago, life on earth was in a tail-spin--climate change, volcanic eruptions, and rising sea levels contributed to a mass extinction that makes the death of the dinosaurs look like child's play. Marine life got hit hardest--96% of all marine species went extinct. For a long time, scientists believed that the early marine reptiles that came about after the mass extinction evolved slowly, but the recent discovery of a strange new fossil brings that view into question.
In the Mesozoic, the time of the dinosaurs, from 252 to 66 million years ago, marine reptiles such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs were top predators in the oceans. But their origins and early rise to dominance have been somewhat mysterious.
Researchers have found an evolutionary connection between dinosaurs and dung beetles. An international team of scientists uncovered the first molecular evidence indicating that dung beetles evolved in association with dinosaurs. The findings place the origin of dung beetles (Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) in the Lower Cretaceous period, with the first major diversification occurring in the middle of the Cretaceous. This timeline places their origins approximately 30 million years earlier than previously thought. The research explores the potential of a co-extinction with dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The study was published today in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
Scientists have discovered Sarmientosaurus musacchioi, a new species of titanosaurian dinosaur, based on an complete skull and partial neck fossil unearthed in Patagonia, Argentina, according to a study published April 26, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Rubén Martínez from the Laboratorio de Paleovertebrados of the Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia San Juan Bosco (UNPSJB), Argentina, and colleagues.
New research based on high-resolution x-ray movies reveals that despite having extremely underdeveloped muscles and wings, young birds acquire a mature flight stroke early in their development, initially relying heavily on their legs and wings to work in tandem to power the strenuous movement. The new study, published today in the journal PLOS ONE, is important for understanding the development of flight in modern birds and reconstructing its origins in extinct dinosaurs.
Ligaments in the long necks of certain sauropods probably helped them graze more efficiently, according to a Montana State University paleontologist who recently published his theory about sweep-feeding in an international journal.
When asked to think of meat-eating dinosaurs we usually conjure images of voracious predators chasing down helpless prey. These visions are no doubt inspired by the depiction of species such as Tyrannosaurs rex and Velociraptor in the movie Jurassic Park; however, new research conducted at Trinity College Dublin suggests that many of these species might be better remembered as oversized, scaly or feathered hyenas.
A team of international paleontologists demonstrate that ancient mammal relatives known as therapsids were suited to the drastic climate change by having shorter life expectancies and would have had a better chance of success by breeding at younger ages than their predecessors.
A pregnant Tyrannosaurus rex that roamed Montana 68 million years ago may be the key to discerning gender differences between theropod, or meat-eating dinosaur, species.
A team of Montana State University paleontologists have identified several new types of dinosaurs from fossil evidence discovered in eastern Idaho, demonstrating the presence of a much more diverse group of theropods in the area than was previously known.
An international team of scientists have discovered two new plankton-eating fossil fish species of the genus called Rhinconichthys from the oceans of the Cretaceous Period, about 92 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the planet.
An international research partnership has discovered the first Mosasaur fossil of its kind to be found in Japan. Not only does the 72-million-year-old marine reptile fossil fill a biogeographical gap between the Middle East and the eastern Pacific, but also it holds new revelations because of its superior preservation.
A new study by a team of scientists from Argentina, Brazil, California and the Natural History Museum of Utah at the University of Utah has determined that the time elapsed between the emergence of early dinosaur relatives and the origin of the first dinosaurs is much shorter than previously believed.
UK researchers stumbled across several hundred dinosaur footprints in a coastal lagoon on the Isle of Skye, which they dated to the Middle Jurassic, 170 million years ago. The researchers, which include Stephen Brusatte from the University of Edinburgh, UK and his colleague Tom Challands, surmise that the footprints were left by sauropods, primitive cousins of the more famous Brontosaurus and Diplodocus. The largest of the footprints measure around 70 centimetres across, larger than those that would have been left by T. Rex. This find is the largest dinosaur site found in Scotland to date. The researchers report their findings in the Scottish Journal of Geology.
A new study in Nature Communications by Luis Ossa, Jorge Mpodozis and Alexander Vargas, from the University of Chile, provides a careful re-examination of ankle development in 6 different major groups of birds, selected specifically to clarify conditions in their last common ancestor.