Paleontology
Exceptional Fossils Record Dinosaur Feather Changes
Over the past decade and a half paleontologists have found the remains of numerous feathered dinosaurs, but, as announced in this week's edition of Nature, a new pair of specimens may show how the feathers of some of these dinosaurs changed as they grew up.Among birds, feather growth is relatively ...
April 29, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Dental Dinosaur
Among other things, dinosaurs are well known for having big mouths full of teeth, so it is not altogether surprising that at least one orthodontist has taken a dinosaur as a mascot. Sent to us by reader Jason Brunet, this week's dinosaur sighting features a Jurassic Park-style Velociraptor outside ...
April 28, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Tyrannosaurus rex, the "Prize Fighter of Antiquity"
It has now been 105 years since the famous dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex was described by the paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn, and just about every major dinosaur museum has at least one skeleton of the terrifying predator in their paleontology exhibits. Thanks to the discovery of numerous indiv...
April 27, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Digging Up Dinosaurs in South Africa
In November of last year paleontologists working in South Africa announced the discovery of Aardonyx celestae, a sauropodomorph dinosaur which has helped scientists better understand the evolution of the immense sauropod dinosaurs. It took quite a bit of work to get those bones out of the ground, t...
April 26, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Was "Jack the Ripper" Really a Tyrannosaurus?
It's pretty common that when a blockbuster film premieres, there's a cheesy direct-to-video version right on its heels, so it is not altogether surprising that the B-movie production company the Asylum recently released their own version of Sherlock Holmes. What is surprising, however, is that the ...
April 23, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Tracks of Giants Created Dino Death Traps
Around 160 million years ago, an enormous sauropod dinosaur trudged across an ancient marsh in what is now Xinjiang, China. It was not easy going. The eruption of a nearby volcano coated the area in a layer of ash which formed a thin surface over a morass of mud and volcanic debris, and as it walke...
April 22, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Campground "Brontosaurus"
Some of my favorite dinosaur sightings are ones in which a dinosaur was put in a certain place just for the heck of it. Photos from abandoned dinosaur sculpture parks are cool, but unexpected roadside dinosaurs are even better, and such was a photo sent to us by Callan Bentley. Just outside Elkton,...
April 21, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
A New "Bonehead" Dinosaur From Texas
In the entire history of life on earth, there was nothing quite like the pachycephalosaurs, or the "bonehead" dinosaurs. These herbivorous, bipedal dinosaurs were most recognizable by the array of bumps, knobs, and spikes on their reinforced skulls, and a newly discovered species of this kind of di...
April 20, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
How Dryptosaurus Got Its Name
In 1866, back when the scientific study of dinosaurs was only just beginning in North America, the naturalist E.D. Cope received word that workers at the West Jersey Marl Company in Gloucester County, New Jersey, had discovered the gigantic bones of an unknown fossil animal. As Cope did much of his...
April 19, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
The History of Air
Paleontologists are looking to the fossil record to decipher what the earth's atmosphere was like hundreds of millions of years ago
April 19, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Discovery Channel and Pixar Team Up For New Dino Show
When it comes to animated films, Pixar is the best of the best, and now it appears that the famous movie studio is teaming up with the Discovery Channel to bring viewers a new dinosaur series. When the Discovery Channel announced their 2010-2011 schedule last week they included a few tidbits about ...
April 16, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Marsh's "Megalosaurus" From Utah
In 1988, a little more than a century after O.C. Marsh first described it, Allosaurus was declared to be the state fossil of Utah. What fewer people know, however, is that seven years before Marsh named the famous theropod dinosaur, he had discovered the signs of another predatory dinosaur.Accordin...
April 15, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Rock Out With Hevisaurus
Here in the US, just about everybody knows about that annoying, purple dinosaur "Barney," but kids in Finland are more likely to be familiar with the hard-rockin' metal group Hevisaurus. Dressed up in green dinosaur costumes adorned with extra heavy-metal style spikes, the group produces original s...
April 14, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
The Dinosaur Casualties of World War I
On December 6, 1916, two years into "the war to end all wars," a German naval crew destroyed a set of 75-million-year-old dinosaur skeletons
April 13, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: A Classic Mascot
While driving through Utah and Wyoming last summer, I regularly saw dinosaurs along the side of the road. Most of them were the mascot for the Sinclair Oil gas stations, the green "Brontosaurus" the company has used for the past century. Reader Mark Ryan has seen them too, and sends us this photo o...
April 12, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Rare Juvenile Diplodocus Skull Tells of Changing Dino Diets
From movies to museum displays, the dinosaurs we most often see are fully mature animals. There are a few good reasons for this. The first is that the skeletons of adult dinosaurs are among the most impressive specimens in the whole of the fossil record, but it is also true that the bones of juveni...
April 09, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Looking For a Challenge? Try Putting Together a Tinysaur
Dinosaurs are famous, at least in part, for being some of the largest animals ever to have evolved, but a new set of models called "Tinysaurs" are taking them in the opposite direction.Available through Makers Market, the minuscule oak tag paper models come in tiny metal tins complete with glue and...
April 06, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Fossil Fragments are Table Scraps of an Enormous Alligator
I love B-grade monster movies, and one of my all time favorites is the 1980 creature feature Alligator. As its title suggests, the film's protagonist is a 40-foot-long alligator, literally pumped up on steroids from consuming the bodies of medical research lab animals which had been dumped in the s...
April 06, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
Museum Receives an Exquisite 215-Million-Year-Old Gift
A few weeks ago my friend Jason Schein, natural history assistant curator at the New Jersey State Museum, told me I had to come down to the museum sometime. They had just acquired an exquisite new fossil reptile, he said, and so I took the short drive to Trenton to see the specimen for myself.It wa...
April 05, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
A New Ant-Eating Dinosaur, Xixianykus
Paleontologist David Hone has been on a hot streak lately. Earlier this month he and his colleagues described the new predatory dinosaur Linheraptor, and just last week he was part of another team of researchers who described another new dinosaur, Xixianykus zhangi.As presented in the journal Zoota...
April 02, 2010 |
By Brian Switek
