Paleontology
What Will Become of Vermontasaurus?
There can be a fine line between "art" and "eyesore"—especially when it comes to roadside dinosaurs. Which side the 122-foot-long "Vermontasaurus" falls on is a matter of taste.As reported by the Associated Press, last month the 61-year-old Vermont resident Brian Boland decided to create a dinosaur...
July 12, 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
Dinosaur Sighting: Maine's Pink Triceratops
The coast of Maine, like any good vacation destination, is full of fudge shops. They all tend to have the same selection of candies, the same line of sunburned kids and the same sticky sweet smell. But only one (that I know of) has a shocking pink triceratops Styracosaurus (sharp readers: thanks fo...
July 07, 2010 |
By Laura Helmuth
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
Blog Carnival #21: Boiling Ostrich Heads, Dinoshoes, Rex Riders and More
Spun Around: Ediacaran displays a fossil of Redlichia takooensis (a large trilobite, around 12 to 14 centimeters in length) suffering from a curious malady: its head is on backwards. The reason? Not demonic possession, but a tragic molting accident.Top Paleo-Chef: Mike Taylor at SV-POW! demonstrate...
July 01, 2010 |
By Mark Strauss
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
Dinosaur Sighting: Funky Sculptures
Even though some roadside dinosaur parks may be going extinct, there are still plenty of funky dinosaur sculptures standing on the side of highways and in front of gift shops. These two, photographed by Smithsonian staffer Erik Washam, stand outside of the Crystal Forest Museum Gift Shop in Holbroo...
June 23, 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
Hunting Dinosaurs by Boat
Between 1910 and 1916, during the second great dinosaur "bone rush" in North America, the famous fossil hunters Barnum Brown and Charles Sternberg engaged in a bit of friendly competition along the Red Deer River in Alberta, Canada. The areas along the banks, often inaccessible by land, were rich i...
June 21, 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
The Dinosaurs Never Saw it Coming
Since the time dinosaurs were first recognized by science in the early 19th century, naturalists have puzzled over why they disappeared. Everything from hungry, hungry caterpillars to asteroid strike (the present favored hypothesis) have been proposed as extinction triggers, but an ad for a new ani...
June 15, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
New Study Probes the Details of Dinosaur Bites
On a very superficial level, the skulls of the carnivorous theropod dinosaurs might look very much the same from species to species—big jaws filled with lots of pointy teeth. If they are examined in even a little bit of detail, however, it is quickly apparent that meat-eating dinosaurs were diverse...
June 14, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Leonardo da Vinci - Paleontology Pioneer
Although he’s been dead for nearly 500 years, Leonardo da Vinci is still remembered as the quintessential Renaissance man, a polymath whose curiosity and creativity ranged widely among the arts and sciences. One of his interests was the study of fossils. In a new paper in the journal Palaios, Andre...
June 11, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
When Diplodocus Invaded Europe
On July 4, 1899, the steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie finally got his Diplodocus. He had set his eye on this fossil prize in the fall of the previous year when the New York Journal ran a fanciful illustration of the giant dinosaur peeping into a 10th story skyscraper window, and after some initial disa...
June 09, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
New Study Suggests That Some Sauropods Reached High for Leaves
How high did the sauropod dinosaurs hold their heads? It is a simple question, but for years it has been part of an ongoing controversy about the evolution and habits of these long-necked, large-bodied vegetarians. Depending on whom you ask, sauropods either kept their heads down to vacuum up low-l...
June 08, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Chronicles of Paleo Adventures in China
Last month a group of nine students from Montana State University, Dawson Community College and Rocky Mountain College left for China to study dinosaur eggs, and they have been chronicling their experiences on the new blog MSU China Paleontology Expedition. About two weeks into their six-week stay...
June 03, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Island-Hopping Ceratopsians Made it to Europe
Ceratopsians, or the "horned dinosaurs" such as Triceratops and Centrosaurus, were among the most distinctive members of dinosaur communities in North America and eastern Asia during the Cretaceous. Even so, bits and pieces of fossil bone collected by paleontologists over the years have hinted that...
June 02, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
