Fossils
Sewer Workers Find Dinosaur Bone Stash Under Edmonton
Every year scores of paleontologists head out to the field in search of dinosaur fossils, but sometimes the remains of the charismatic creatures are hiding right underfoot. As reported in various news outlets earlier this week, sewer construction workers Aaron Krywiak and Ryley Paul discovered din...
August 27, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Fossil Plant Debris Key to UK Dinosaur Preservation
When I think of dinosaur bones, the rocky and shrub-flecked expanses of western North America immediately come to mind, but it should not be forgotten that some of the first dinosaurs recognized by science were discovered across the Atlantic in England. Paleontologists have been searching for dino...
August 26, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Prehistoric Poo Linked Dinosaurs to Snails
One of the many reasons I love paleontology is that every now and then I stumble across a paper on some aspect of ancient life I had never considered before. There is much more to the science than descriptions of new species, and one of the studies that most recently caught my eye carried the title...
August 20, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Whatever Happened to Seismosaurus?
In 1991, paleontologist David Gillette announced that he had found the largest of the enormous sauropod dinosaurs. He called it Seismosaurus halli, and based on the parts of the skeleton that had been prepared at the time, Gillette believed Seismosaurus to be between 127 and 170 feet long! Even gia...
August 17, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Don't Get Strung Along by the "Ropen" Myth
Growing up, I often heard that there might still be dinosaurs living in some distant, tropical jungle. In television documentaries and some of the less-reputable "science" books carried by my elementary school library, rumors of long-lost prehistoric creatures abounded, and I could not help but hop...
August 16, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Pakasuchus: The Croc That Ate Like a Mammal
Modern crocodylians—from alligators to gharials—can't chew their food. Their jaws are adapted for snapping shut quickly and powerfully on prey, but once these archosaurs have captured their meal, they must either swallow it whole or tear off a smaller piece and bolt it down. Given that these extant...
August 06, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Relax -- Triceratops Really Did Exist
During the past week, people all over the Internet have driven themselves into a tizzy over the new study by John Scanella and Jack Horner in which the paleontologists hypothesized that the dinosaur known as Torosaurus was really the adult stage of the more familiar Triceratops. "Triceratops Never...
August 05, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
How Bacteria Help Create Dinosaur Fossils
As stated in many popular-audience books and documentaries, the fossilization of a skeleton involves the gradual transformation of bone into stone, often by way of mineral-rich groundwater percolating through bones over a long period of time. Yet things are not that simple. Thanks to recent discove...
August 02, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Hunting Dinosaurs in Montana
Over the past few years, most of what I have learned about dinosaurs has come from books and papers. I am constantly trying to keep up with the literature—both from my own edification and to bring you news of the coolest new discoveries—but there is only so much libraries can do for you. Sooner or ...
July 26, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
New Study Says Torosaurus=Triceratops
Late last year paleontologists Jack Horner and Mark Goodwin made waves by proposing that what had previously been thought to be two distinct genera of "bone-headed" dinosaurs—Stygimoloch and Dracorex—were really just growth stages of Pachycephalosaurus. Together the three body types illustrated ho...
July 22, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
A Mammal's Worst Nightmare: Hungry, Digging Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs overshadowed mammals for most of the Mesozoic, but evidence of actual dinosaur-mammal interactions are very rare. On the mammalian score, a specimen of the relatively large Cretaceous mammal Repenomamus robustus described in 2005 was found with the bones of baby dinosaurs in its stomach—i...
July 16, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Tarbosaurus: A Predator and a Scavenger With a Delicate Bite
Back in the 1990s, paleontologist Jack Horner proposed that Tyrannosaurus rex—popularly cast as the most fearsome predator of all time—was really a giant-sized scavenger. With its small arms, a large part of its brain devoted to analyzing smells, and a mouth full of rail-spike-sized teeth, the tyra...
July 15, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Sinornithosaurus Probably Wasn't Venomous After All
Every now and then, I come across a study that makes me hope my first doubtful impression is wrong and that the authors have better evidence to back up their claims. One such case was the hypothesis that the feathered dinosaur Sinornithosaurus had a venomous bite, as was proposed by scientists Enpu...
July 09, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Fossil Traces Show How Small Dinosaurs Sped Up
Fossil dinosaur tracks don't often get the same popular attention that skeletons do. The impressions within the rock seem to pale in comparison to the beautiful organic architecture of the bones, but, while they might not be as aesthetically interesting to some, tracks are bits of behavior preserve...
July 08, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Tyrannosaurus Didn't Have the Nerve to Run Fast
It was one of the most memorable scenes in Jurassic Park—a hungry Tyrannosaurus rex chasing after Ian Malcolm, Ellie Sattler and Robert Muldoon as they make their escape in a Jeep. It was also among the moments that probably made paleontologists in the audience facepalm. Tyrannosaurus was fearsome,...
July 06, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Were Crests and Sails Used in Competition for Mates?
Paleontologists have long been fascinated by bizarre structures on prehistoric animals. The horns of Styracosaurus, the sail of Dimetrodon, the crest of Tupuxuara and more—these odd ornaments raise the questions, "what were those structures used for, and how did they evolve?" In a recent review of ...
July 02, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Sauropod Dinosaurs Used the Earth's Heat to Warm Their Nests
Even though they grew to be some of the largest animals ever to walk the earth, sauropod dinosaurs started off small. From numerous nesting sites found all over the world it appears that gravid female sauropods, rather than putting all their effort into laying a few enormous eggs, created large nes...
June 30, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Small Mammals Bit Down on Dino Bones
Mammals have long been characterized as the underdogs of the Mesozoic world. They diversified in habitats ecologically dominated by dinosaurs, but, even though most were small, they did not simply cower in their burrows until the non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago. In fact, Mes...
June 25, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Horns, Clubs, Plates and Spikes: How Did They Evolve?
As a group, dinosaurs were certainly well-ornamented animals. Horns, spikes, crests, plates, sails, clubs and other strange structures marked the bodies of many dinosaurs, but figuring out why these dinosaurs had these structures in the first place has often been difficult to figure out. Numerous h...
June 22, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Some Extinct "Sea Dragons" Ran Hot
During the 1970s a major debate erupted among paleontologists. On the basis of new evidence, from the anatomy of the recently-discovered dinosaur Deinonychus to the microscopic bone structure of dinosaurs, paleontologists such as John Ostrom and Bob Bakker proposed that dinosaurs may have been endo...
June 18, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
