Paleontology
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
The Second Jurassic Dinosaur Rush
Many visitors to natural history museums—especially children—come to see just one thing: dinosaurs. No major institution can be without a hall of enormous Jurassic and Cretaceous animals (with the smaller, lesser-known Triassic dinosaurs taking their places along the margins), but the American occu...
August 13, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Twenty Years of Tyrannosaurus Sue
Twenty years ago today, fossil hunter Sue Hendrickson discovered the dinosaur that now bears her name—the immense, 80 percent complete Tyrannosaurus rex called Sue. Arguably the most famous representative of the superstar of the dinosaur world, Sue is one of the most fantastic fossil discoveries ev...
August 12, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Santa Monica's Spitting Dinosaur
Sent to us by Karen James of London's Natural History Museum, this badly-mannered dinosaur was spotted in Santa Monica, California. I don't suppose anyone told this theropod that it is rude to spit in public.
Have you stumbled across a dinosaur in an unexpected place? If you have, and hav...
August 11, 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
Dinosaur Sighting: Quebecois Theropod
While on her way to the Festival d'été de Québec in Canada, my old friend Ashley Rosenfeld happened upon a row of shoddy-looking dinosaur sculptures. With missing arms or with necks snapped backwards, many of these dinosaurs have seen better days—the theropod in this photo was one of the few that...
August 04, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Drive-In: Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds
When you get right down to it, most dinosaur movies are missing something. "Good special effects" might be one answer, and "a plot" is an even better one, but if "a trippy jazz-disco musical score" was your reply, then 1977's Japanese monster flick Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds may be just ...
August 03, 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
Blog Carnival #22: Prehistoric Alphabets, New Blogs, Dinosaur Day and More
An Evolving Blog: Please welcome the latest blog to emerge from the primordial ooze of the Internet. Pick & Scalpel is the official blog of the WitmerLab. Their mission statement: “We’re a collection of scientists at Ohio University using 21st century approaches to ‘flesh out’ the past. Our mis...
July 30, 2010 |
By Mark Strauss
Monsters Resurrected: Everything I Love, and Hate, About Dino Documentaries
I knew it was probably going to be bad, but when I saw that the prehistoric critter documentary series Monsters Resurrected was on Netflix, I couldn't help but hit the "play" button. As I soon found out, the series represents everything I love and hate about modern dinosaur documentaries.First broa...
July 29, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and... Dinosaurs?
What do Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and dinosaurs have in common? According to Hollywood scuttlebutt, the answer is a soon-to-be-released film called The Tree of Life, but it doesn't sound like it's going to be your usual prehistoric-monsters-run-amok film.Details of what the movie is actually going to be...
July 27, 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
Blast From the Past: The Last Dinosaur
The first thing you need to know about the 1977 B movie The Last Dinosaur is that the name of the film's chief protagonist is Maston Thrust. I'm not kidding. Played by Richard Boone of Have Gun—Will Travel fame, he's an ornery old cuss with a face like a catcher's mitt and a penchant for wearing sc...
July 23, 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
The End of the Red Deer River Dinosaur Expedition (For Now)
One month ago I wrote about the efforts of paleontologist Darren Tanke and crew to launch a dinosaur-hunting expedition along Alberta's Red Deer River using the same techniques employed by famous fossil collectors Barnum Brown and Charles H. Sternberg. That journey has now come to a premature end.A...
July 21, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Reading Triassic Life on Land
As the great 20th century paleontologist William Diller Matthew once wrote, "The story of life on Earth is a splendid drama, as interesting as we watch its action and study the interplay of causes and motives that lie behind its movement as any great historic play." Within this great play, the Tria...
July 19, 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
Dinosaur Sightings: Rusty Bones
Today's Dinosaur Sighting comes to us from reader Mark Ryan.While traveling along Route 97 just outside of Port Jervis, New York, Mark spotted this rusty spinosaur on a business rooftop. Looks to me like this dinosaur could use a touch of Rust-Oleum.Have you stumbled across a dinosaur in an unexpec...
July 14, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
