Dinosaurs
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The Diplodocus Tripod
When paleontologists were still just becoming acquainted with the great dinosaurs of the American West, Charles R. Knight created a curious vision of the long-necked dinosaur Diplodocus
May 17, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Tiny Tarbosaurus Shows How Tyrants Grew Up
The new Tarbosaurus juvenile is a truly remarkable specimen
May 16, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
A Delayed Tyrannosaurus Showdown
In 1913, paleontologists at the American Museum of Natural History made plans for what would have been a spectacular reconstruction of a prehistoric battle. Too bad that their plans did not come to fruition.Tyrannosaurus rex—the most celebrated dinosaur of all time—made its debut at the AMNH. The f...
May 11, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Kelmayisaurus Gets a Family
What was Kelmayisaurus? Discovered in 1973, the lower jaw and partial upper jaw of this large, predatory dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of China have been frustratingly difficult to interpret. Maybe Kelmayisaurus belonged to some obscure lineage of archaic theropod dinosaurs, or perhaps the fos...
May 10, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
The Myth of the Eight-Spiked Stegosaurus
Everybody knows that Stegosaurus had four tail spikes. The formidable weapons this odd dinosaur sported were some of its most prominent features. Yet, when Stegosaurus was new to science, it seemed as if this dinosaur bristled with even more spikes. In 1891, the first full skeletal drawing of Stegosaurus ungulatus was created under the direction [...]
May 09, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Bringing Dinosaurs Up to Speed
Dinosaurs are ambassadors of paleontology. Much to the frustration of scientists who study plants, invertebrates, and even fossil mammals, the word "paleontologist" is closely associated with the image of scruffy researchers digging around for dinosaur bones. Despite the popularity of dinosaurs, th...
May 06, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
A 1980s Look at Smithsonian Dinosaurs
I thought that I had seen just about every major dinosaur documentary from the 1980s, but I just found out that I missed at least one: the Smithsonian Video Collection's Dinosaurs. It was one of many programs—like A&E's miniseries Dinosaur!—that were inspired by deep changes to what we thought ...
May 05, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
The Dinosaurs of Twitter
Non-avian dinosaurs have been extinct for about 65 million years, but that has not stopped them from showing up on Twitter. Several dinosaurs have been making the most of the social media platform. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History doesn't have one yet—I would personally love to he...
May 04, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
How Tyrannosaurus Lost a Finger
Everybody knows that Tyrannosaurus had small arms tipped in only two fingers. The relatively small arms of the Late Cretaceous predator are part of its charm. When paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn described Tyrannosaurus in 1905, however, the fingers and forearm of the dinosaur were missing. E...
May 03, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
March of the Dinosaurs
A Gorgosaurus tries to scare a group of Troodon away from a hapless ankylosaur in this promotional image for March of the Dinosaurs.
The Discovery Channel's "March of the Dinosaurs" is the kind of dinosaur documentary that could not have been made until this point in time. When I was fi...
May 02, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Blog Carnival #31: Ancient Earth, World's Oldest ToothAche, Pot-Bellied Dinos and More
Thirty Earths: ArtEvolved points us to this remarkable set of images depicting the changing physical appearance of the Earth over the last 750 million years. The thirty visual reconstructions were recently released by the Planetary Habitability Laboratory of the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo...
April 29, 2011 |
By Mark Strauss
How to Build a Giant Dinosaur
Sauropods were humongous creatures, but how they got so large is a mystery that paleontologists are still trying to unravel
April 29, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
What Tales Do Albertosaurus Injuries Tell?
TMP 2003.45.64 is not exactly a headline-making fossil. The left lower jaw of an Albertosaurus, most of the teeth have fallen out and the bone is only one part of a well-known species represented by many other skeletons. But, for those who know what they are looking for, this specimen bears the tr...
April 28, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Tyrannosaur Stowaway
If you spot a tiny tyrannosaur peeking out from the back of a jeep in the vicinity of Fort Campbell on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, you aren't seeing things. The dinosaur and the custom-painted Jurassic Park jeep are the creations of Daniel Peterson, the director of the U.S. Army Museum at the mi...
April 27, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
When Dinosaurs Were New
I spent Sunday morning among the dinosaurs of Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The skeletons of the prehistoric creatures stood nearly shoulder to shoulder—the Tyrannosaurus appeared to snarl at a nearby Triceratops, and an Allosaurus stood dangerously close to the business-end of...
April 25, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Will the Dinosaurs Return?
When the American Museum of Natural History's paleontologist William Diller Matthew published his book Dinosaurs in 1915, no one understood how the famous Mesozoic creatures originated or went extinct. Both the beginning and end of the "Age of Dinosaurs" were mysterious. Yet, tucked away in a foot...
April 22, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Come Into My Parlor, Said the Spider to the Dinosaur
Just in time for Halloween 2008, several gruesome spider photographs popped up in the news. The shots recorded two incidents—both of which took place in Queensland, Australia—of huge golden orb weaver spiders eating birds that had flown into the webs of the arachnids. Birds aren't exactly a staple...
April 21, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Miniature Mesozoic Battle
Most of the dinosaur sightings readers have sent in are of big creatures, but this week we have dinosaurs on a smaller scale.Following up her last submission of a giant pliosaur—which wasn't a dinosaur, but a fearsome Mesozoic marine reptile—former Food & Think blogger Amanda Bensen (now Fiegl)...
April 20, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Just When You Thought Velociraptor Couldn't Get Scarier
Randall Munroe, the creator of the webcomic XKCD, isn't going to like this one bit. Fear of attack by Velociraptor is a running theme in the science-themed series—lazy computer programmers should be especially wary—and two separate discoveries announced last week gave those with a phobia of raptor...
April 19, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
The Long-Awaited Return of 'Prehistoric Beast'
When I opened my email inbox this morning, I was met with a pleasant surprise. Phil Tippett's exquisite short film Prehistoric Beast has finally been released in its entirety.I had only seen bits and pieces of Tippett's stop-motion story as a kid. The short's dinosaurs - a Monoclonius and a tyranno...
April 15, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
