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Page 33 of 43

By now it should not surprise anyone that birds and theropod dinosaurs were closely related. Numerous discoveries have revealed that many "bird" characteristics, like feathers, first evolved in dinosaurs and were passed on to the avian descendants of one group of theropods called coelurosaurs. Tyra...
September 30, 2009 | By Brian Switek

For the past several years the Walking With Dinosaurs live show has been enthralling audiences around the world with its life-size dinosaur puppets, but next week will see the opening of another impressive dino-spectacle that will soon be touring the United States.Called "Darwin the Dinosaur," the ...
September 29, 2009 | By Brian Switek

Our latest Dinosaur Sighting (and a special Monday edition since Friday brought the exciting news of Anchiornis) comes from the Denver Botanical Gardens, where this year's fall maze is a Tyrannosaurus carved out of a cornfield. This bit of artistic gardening coincides with the park's current "Juras...
September 28, 2009 | By Brian Switek

Ever since the first skeleton of Archaeopteryx was discovered in 1861, the feathered dinosaur has been considered the oldest bird. During the last several decades, however, scientists have found that many "bird" features, such as feathers, first appeared among theropod dinosaurs. What defines a bir...
September 25, 2009 | By Brian Switek

There is no shortage of dinosaur encyclopedias available today. Each is organized a little differently and is aimed at a different audience, but there is a lot of overlap among them. The Great Dinosaur Discoveries, written by paleontologist Darren Naish, is a wonderful exception to this trend.Rathe...
September 24, 2009 | By Brian Switek

There are at least two ways to look at dinosaurs. You can examine their fossilized bones, the stuff that comes directly from the fossil record, or you can imagine what those bones would have looked like when they were clothed in muscle, sinew, and skin during the animal's life. At the George S. Ecc...
September 23, 2009 | By Brian Switek

In one of the early scenes of Jurassic Park, the fictional paleontologist Alan Grant terrorizes a child visiting his dig site with a Deinonychus claw. If the dinosaurs were still alive they would have used the enlarged claw on their second toes to rip open the boy and eat his guts, Grant says, a fa...
September 22, 2009 | By Brian Switek

Much to the frustration of paleontologists, fossils are big business. Sites all over the world are raided for the petrified treasures, which are then shipped to private collectors. Such practices destroy dig sites, rob countries of their natural history, stifle our scientific understanding of the p...
September 21, 2009 | By Brian Switek

Most of the Dinosaur Sightings that come in are of Tyrannosaurus, so it was refreshing when a snapshot of a hadrosaur came our way. Reader Paul Trap sent us this snapshot of his son posing next to what would appear to be a Corythosaurus outside the Beijing Museum of Natural History. The crest on th...
September 18, 2009 | By Brian Switek

Tyrannosaurus and its close kin Daspletosaurus, Tarbosaurus, Albertosaurus, and Gorgosaurus were among the largest land-dwelling predators the world has ever known. They had massive heads full of huge, serrated teeth and were the dominant predators in the times and places in which they lived. Surpr...
September 17, 2009 | By Brian Switek

The dig site looked like something out of a Hollywood movie. New dinosaurs are often described from partial, fragmentary skeletons, but the bones of Spinophorosaurus nigerensis made a beautiful circle in the pink rock of the Niger desert. This was the kind of preservation paleontologists dream abou...
September 16, 2009 | By Brian Switek

Despite the fact that it was rejected over 100 years ago, "Brontosaurus" still remains one of the most recognizable dinosaur names. Today we know the same fossils as Apatosaurus, the name given to the bones first and thus having scientific priority, yet there is something pleasantly evocative about...
September 15, 2009 | By Brian Switek

On the last day of our vacation, my wife and I had a few hours to kill before we had to get to the airport, so we started poring over a map of Salt Lake City to see if there was anything fun to do. A little icon in the upper right corner of the map caught our attention: there was a natural history ...
September 14, 2009 | By Brian Switek

Who would expect to run into a dinosaur at a wood furniture store? Readers Karin and Tegan certainly didn't. While driving along Hwy 11 in Ontario, Canada they spotted a Tyrannosaurus looming over the wooden chairs at the Woodmill of Muskoka furniture store. Just why the store has the dinosaur on-g...
September 11, 2009 | By Brian Switek

The long-necked dinosaur Brachiosaurus has always stood out next to its sauropod kin. Its long front legs give it a prouder stature than other sauropods such as Diplodocus, and while newer discoveries have stripped it of the title of "largest dinosaur ever" it is still a giant. Not all brachiosaurs...
September 10, 2009 | By Brian Switek

Everyone knows that paleontologists study fossils, but how do they actually do that? How do scientists go from discovering a fossil bone to describing that fossil in a scientific journal? The public rarely sees how scientists work, but a new initiative called the Open Dinosaur Project might help to...
September 09, 2009 | By Brian Switek

During my trip to Utah several weeks ago I knew I had to stop by the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point, not far from Salt Lake City.As the Web site for the attraction states, the Thanksgiving Point facility "is not an ordinary museum." Its impressive collection of dinosaurs do not stand ...
September 08, 2009 | By Brian Switek

If you are on your way to Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, keep your eye out for dinosaurs by the side of the road. There are plenty of them, and one of the most prominent is a large Diplodocus that stands outside a gift shop just before the entrance to the park. The store itself was closed when...
September 04, 2009 | By Brian Switek

If you loved the dinosaur-filled 1980's pop song "Mesozoic Mind," then you will be glad to hear that the alternative rock band They Might Be Giants has just released a possibly even more infectious tune about fossils on their new album Here Comes Science. The CD/DVD album is meant to help introduce...
September 03, 2009 | By Brian Switek

Could the African nation of Angola be the next hot spot for paleontology? According to the BBC, the recent cessation of Angola's civil war has allowed paleontologists to start working in the country again. As the news company states, the country seems to be a new "fossil frontier" that is brimming ...
September 02, 2009 | By Brian Switek

As soon as I arrived at the temporary visitor's center in Utah's Dinosaur National Monument two weeks ago, a ranger asked if I would like to go on a hike to an active fossil dig. "Sure!" I said, to which the ranger replied "Well then you had better get ready. We're leaving in five minutes."I ran ba...
September 01, 2009 | By Brian Switek

Summer might be coming to an end, but the Dinosaur Hall in the National Museum of Natural History still echoes with the voices of tourists. As a spinoff of DCist’s fantastic weekly series "Overheard in DC, here’s our version of “Overheard at the Museum”:An older gentleman: “I always thought they we...
August 31, 2009

I had not expected to find a dinosaur in the woods of Mount Kisco, New York, but there it was. While going on a little hike I saw the big, purple head of the dinosaur sticking out from behind a storage shed. When I got a better look I saw that it was a big playground toy meant to be ridden by child...
August 28, 2009 | By Brian Switek

Stop the Presses: David Hone's paper on theropod behavior got picked up by the mainstream press. Then, he watched in dismay as each subsequent report piled error upon error. (For instance, he was surprised to read that he was German.) Hone presents a detailed case study of lazy science journalism, ...
August 27, 2009 | By Mark Strauss

I have often wanted to visit the natural history museums and famed fossil sites of China, but sadly such a trip is a bit out of my price range. Fortunately, though, paleontologist Jerry Harris has recently returned from a grand dinosaur tour of China with colleagues Matt Lamanna and Hailu You and s...
August 26, 2009 | By Brian Switek

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