Dinosaurs
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Discovery Channel Dinosaurs Bite Back
In the summer of 2008, the History Channel debuted Jurassic Fight Club, a blood-spattered ode to prehistoric violence. Not to be left out, the Discovery Channel is set to enter the ring with its own new series, Clash of the Dinosaurs, and it, too, will leave viewers awash in dinosaur gore.Unlike th...
December 01, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Blog Carnival #14 -- Dawkins speaks out, Medellin Dinosaurs, Calgary Zoo and more...
New Blog Takes Flight: Please join us in welcoming the latest addition to the paleosphere: Dragons of the Air, a blog published by Ross Elgin, a member of the “Pterosaur Flight Dynamics Group,” based in the Museum of Natural History, Karlsruhe, Germany. Be sure to check out this fascinating post ab...
November 30, 2009 |
By Brian Wolly
Is Your Dinosaur Ready For Thanksgiving?
Ah, Thanksgiving, the day when families across the United States sit down for a delicious feast of dinosaur with all the trimmings.You read that correctly. Scientists have recognized that birds and dinosaurs are closely related for over a century, and within the last thirty years a tidal wave of di...
November 25, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Megalosaurus and the Balance of Nature
The vision of dinosaurs that I grew up with in the 1980s is very different from the one we are familiar with today. It is no longer appropriate to show a Brachiosaurus wallowing in a lake or a Tyrannosaurus dragging its tail on the ground. Yet these changes are relatively minor compared to the tran...
November 24, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Colorful Stegosaurus
When my wife and I pulled into the parking lot of Dinosaur National Monument we were greeted by a rather imposing figure. Standing in front of us was this sculpture of a strikingly-colored Stegosaurus. Just what color this dinosaur would be in real life is open to discussion, but I had never seen o...
November 23, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
A Mix-and-Match Dinosaur from Henry Francis' Novel
We just can't let dinosaurs stay dead. They were real dragons that (notwithstanding their bird descendants) lived and died millions and millions of years before our species evolved, and they are so fascinating that we keep finding new ways to bring them into our world. Among the various ways humans...
November 19, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Calling All Dino Blogs
Looking over our blogroll the other day I noticed that a number of the blogs have either moved, disappeared, or have not been updated with anything about dinosaurs in ages. It is high time for a blogroll revamp.In order to make sure that our blogroll represents the best of dino bloggers, though, I ...
November 18, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Jingo the Dinosaur -- a World War I Mascot
By the spring of 1916 it seemed inevitable that the United States would enter World War I. This prospect unsettled those opposed to our country's involvement, and there was no better symbol for the military buildup these people feared than the great armored dinosaurs.The papier-mâché Stegosaurus fe...
November 16, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Dinosaur Inn
While driving through northern Utah on the way to Dinosaur National Monument this past summer, my wife and I passed through Vernal, Utah. There were dinosaurs everywhere. Big ones, small ones, green ones, pink ones... it was hard to look in any direction and not see a dinosaur.One of the most promi...
November 13, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Introducing Aardonyx, the "Earth Claw"
The sauropod dinosaurs were the largest animals to have ever walked on the earth. They were so incredibly huge, in fact, that they had to move about on four legs—but since the earliest dinosaurs were bipedal, paleontologists have long known that the ancestors of giants like Brachiosaurus and Apatos...
November 12, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Large Dinosaurs Ran Hot
When dinosaurs were first recognized by European naturalists during the early 19th century, they were interpreted as being immense, lumbering reptiles similar to iguanas and crocodiles. Since that time our understanding of dinosaurs has changed substantially; early paleontologists such as Gideon Ma...
November 11, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sightings: Giddyup!
This week's Dinosaur Sighting comes to us from David Williams, who snapped a shot of a cowgirl riding a rather threadbare dinosaur outside Stewart's Rock Shop in Arizona.Fortunately for her the dinosaur appears to be some sort of narrow-footed sauropod so she doesn't have to worry about being eaten...
November 06, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Why Did Darwin Neglect Dinosaurs?
November 24, 2009 will mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and scientists have already started the celebrations. Last week, for example, the University of Chicago hosted a series of talks by some of the top evolutionary scientists working toda...
November 05, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Terrible Tyrannosaur Teens Bit Each Other on the Face
Humans youngsters often use their hands and arms to push and shove, but young Tyrannosaurus were obviously a bit different than us. It would take a lot of effort for two of the fighting dinosaurs to get close enough to scrabble at each other with their small arms, and so they employed a different t...
November 04, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Bedrock, Arizona
When Brian Switek polled readers about the Dinosaur Capital of the World, he included "Bedrock" as a gag answer. It did pretty well—beating out "Other" but losing, as did Liaoning and Glen Rose, to Drumheller. An astute reader pointed out that there is a way to visit Bedrock aside from being a cart...
October 30, 2009 |
By Laura Helmuth
Blog Carnival Unlucky #13: Julia Child, Bad Dino Reporting, Quizzes, Auctions and more...
Croutons Not Recommended: Paleochick points us to this blast from the past: Julia Child turns her kitchen into a biolab and cooks up a batch of primordial soup. (The video played in the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum's now-closed “Life in the Universe” gallery.)Worst. Article. Ever. Th...
October 29, 2009 |
By Mark Strauss
"Bone-Headed" Dinosaurs Reshaped Their Skulls
If you knew nothing at all about dogs, but you were presented with a lineup of the skeletons of a variety of breeds from chihuahua to bulldog to German shepherd to mastiff, you could be excused for thinking they were different species. Their skeletons seem to be so different, yet we know they are a...
October 28, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Paleontologists Announce New Tiny Dinosaur
From movies to museums, the most famous dinosaurs are among the largest. We like superlatives, and want to know what the biggest, fastest, and fiercest dinosaurs are. Yet, just like living animals, dinosaurs came in a variety of shapes and sizes, and a team of paleontologists has just announced, in...
October 26, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Tyrannosaurus Asks 'Paper or Plastic?'
Today's Dinosaur Sighting comes to us from reader Cameron, who snapped this photo of a Tyrannosaurus popping out of an IGA grocery store wall in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada. The dinosaur may look mean, but I'm sure he's just enthusiastic about helping shoppers take bags to their cars. Too bad he's ...
October 23, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Scott Sampson Goes on a Dinosaur Odyssey
Given the number of books that are published about dinosaurs, there is bound to be some overlap among them. Most titles fall into a handful of categories: the "menagerie" approach, where a collection of various dinosaurs is prefaced by a few short summaries of paleontology; the "life in the field" ...
October 22, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
