Paleontology
Pterosaurs Were Born to Fly
Just a few hours after yesterday's post on dinosaur embryos went up, another major egg-based discovery was announced, in the journal Science.In October of 2009, paleontologists first described the flying reptile Darwinopterus, a pterosaur that lived in what is now China over 160 million years ago....
January 21, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Exceptional Eggs Preserve Tiny Dinosaurs
Baby dinosaurs are hard to find. While the bones of large, adult dinosaurs were often sturdy enough to survive the processes involved in fossilization, the bones of young dinosaurs were small and delicate and have rarely made it into the fossil record. In many cases we just don't know what baby di...
January 20, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Dino Brew
University of Alberta scientist Phil Currie is one of the most famous paleontologists in the field today, but what many people don't know is that he's also a brewer of his own brand of beer. Sent to us by reader Casey Tucker, the above label came from a homebrew Currie made in the 1990s, and the a...
January 19, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Tyrannosaurus Wrecks
There are many ways to make a dinosaur cake. You could bake one in the shape of a dinosaur, you should create an icing dinosaur on the cake, or otherwise give your delicious creation a prehistoric theme. Unfortunately, this means that there are just as many ways to screw up making a dinosaur cake, ...
January 18, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Eodromaeus Adds Context to Dinosaur Origins
Tracking the origin of the dinosaurs has been one of the most difficult tasks paleontologists have faced, but since the 1990s, multiple discoveries in South America have provided scientists with a look at what some of the earliest dinosaurs were like. Eoraptor, Herrerasaurus and the recently-descr...
January 14, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
The Tangled History of Connecticut's Anchisaurus
East Coast dinosaurs are relatively rare finds, often because the geological formations in which they rest have been built over. Dinosaurs surely remain to be found under parking lots, housing developments and city streets, and one of the now-lost dinosaur quarries is located in Manchester, Connec...
January 13, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Minne the Lake Monster
Frequent dino-spotter Mark Ryan has sent us another sighting from the Twin Cities area, this time at the Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis. Named Minne, the prehistoric creature in this photo has popped up in several lakes over the past few years, although it is difficult to say exactly what Minne i...
January 12, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Blog Carnival #27: Mammoths, Stegosaur Wars, Shrink-Wrapped Dinosaur Syndrome and More...
March of the Mammoths: How do you draw a woolly mammoth? Peter Bond walks us through his step-by-step process, and the final version stomped its way over to the ART Evolved elephant gallery. Woolly mammoths dominate the assemblage, but I was glad to see some of my shovel-tusked favorites, like Ame...
January 11, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Velociraptor Table Scraps
What did Velociraptor eat? Despite what the Jurassic Park franchise might suggest, the answer is not "tourists and hapless scientists." Those were in rather short supply during the Mesozoic. Instead, as reported in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology last year, recently found fossils ...
January 10, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Zombie Dinosaurs!
I love AMC's gritty TV-adaptation of The Walking Dead, and the only way it could be better would be if they added zombie dinosaurs. That isn't going to happen, but, fortunately for those of us who would like to see undead theropods stomping around the place, young artist Martin Kevil has been worki...
January 07, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Where Have All the Sauropods Gone?
For the past century, paleontologists have been trying to figure out one of the most puzzling disappearing acts in the fossil record.In both Europe and North America, the Jurassic was the heyday of the sauropod dinosaurs. After the beginning of the Cretaceous period 145 million years ago, however, ...
January 06, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: "Safety Steve"
Today's sighting comes to us from reader Teresa, who passed along this photo of "Safety Steve" from when the Dinosaurs Unearthed exhibit was being loaded up after a run at the Calgary Zoo. Every such operation requires someone to oversee safety, and I know I would pay attention to a Baryonyx on th...
January 05, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
A Giant From New Mexico: Titanoceratops
Many unknown dinosaurs await discovery in rock formations all over the world, but some new species are hiding in plain sight. One such animal, described in an in-press Cretaceous Research paper, had one of the largest heads of any dinosaur.As recounted in the study by Yale paleontologist Nicholas L...
January 04, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Dinogami
With the start of 2011, the holiday season is now behind us, but while visiting the American Museum of Natural History, I spotted a lovely group of yuletide dinosaurs. Arranged around a Christmas tree were origami versions of many creatures, living and extinct, including numerous dinosaurs. Stegosa...
January 03, 2011 |
By Brian Switek
The Top Dinosaur Discoveries of 2010
2010 has been a good year for dinosaurs. Numerous new species have been named, long-awaited conference proceedings have been published, new techniques for studying the past have been devised, and scientists finally allowed us to answer one of the most confounding questions in dinosaur science. The...
December 30, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Colorado Dinosaur Tracks in Danger of Disappearing Forever
The Cretaceous dinosaur tracks scattered along Morrison, Colorado's Dinosaur Ridge have persisted in the fossil record for 1o0 million years, but they are now in danger of being lost forever. Exposed on the surface, the tracks are being eroded away bit by bit, and a local controversy over the aesth...
December 29, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
"Capitalsaurus," A D.C. Dinosaur
When I think of North American dinosaurs, my mind immediately jumps to the impressive giants like Diplodocus and Tyrannosaurus scattered in rock formations around the West. But there were East Coast dinosaurs, too. One of them, an enigmatic creature discovered at the close of the 19th century, even...
December 28, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Top Dinosaur Books of 2010
Another year, another spate of dinosaur books. The following is a brief review of the major dinosaur and dinosaur-related books I reported on during the past year (plus one extra that I have not yet reviewed but that no "best of 2010 dinosaur books" list could be without):Barnum Brown: The Man Who ...
December 27, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
What Killed Alaska's Dinosaurs?
In northern Alaska, along the banks of the Colville River, a series of fossil bonebeds preserve remnants of the Late Cretaceous world. These ancient environments were quite different from those found farther south.Even though the climate of Cretaceous Alaska was warmer than that of today, areas nea...
December 23, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Frozen Triceratops
There has been virtually no snowfall where I live this year, dashing my hopes of making a snow dinosaur. One of our readers, Wim, has had better luck. In a comment on our last Dinosaur Sighting, Wim included the above picture and wrote:I spotted a “Snowceratops belgicae” in my garden last week.Unf...
December 22, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
