Paleontology
Alternate Evolution and Avatar
Like many other people over the holiday break, I saw James Cameron's blockbuster film Avatar. It was absolutely amazing. Set on a far-off world in the not-too-distant future, the film is a sort of Last Samurai or Dances With Wolves in space, but what really grabbed my attention were the creatures t...
December 29, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
A Plesiosaur That Ate Ichthyosaurs for Lunch
Finding an articulated fossil skeleton is always a delight for paleontologists. Not only do such specimens illustrate how all those bones went together, but sometimes there are little associated bonuses that could not be seen if the skeleton had been scattered. In the case of a 161- to 155-million-...
December 28, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Were Feathered Dinosaurs Venomous?
Though its dinosaurs looked pretty good, Jurassic Park was not particularly accurate as far as science was concerned. One of the real howlers that sent paleontologists reeling was the decision to make Dilophosaurus, one of the largest of the early predatory dinosaurs, the dinosaur equivalent of a s...
December 22, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Scientist, Filmmakers Clash Over Dinosaur Documentary
Earlier this month, the Discovery Channel premiered the four-part documentary miniseries Clash of the Dinosaurs. I was not all that impressed. It was good to see some scientists get some air time, but overall the hyperbole and repetitiveness of the show made watching it a bit of a chore.Some of the...
December 21, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Tawa hallae and the Making of Meat-Eating Dinosaurs
Part of what so fascinates us about dinosaurs is that they came in such a wide array of forms. Stegosaurus, Velociraptor, Brachiosaurus, Triceratops, Spinosaurus and more; they were all very different creatures. Yet we also know that dinosaurs share a common ancestry. If we had the bones of every d...
December 17, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Were Dinosaurs Meant to Fly?
One of the most important insights Charles Darwin had was that evolution does not follow a pre-ordained path. There is no evolutionary endpoint that organisms are striving toward. The "endless forms most beautiful" we observe in nature are both shaped by adaption to local conditions and constrained...
December 16, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Doing the Hadrosaur Hop
I always feel a bit sorry for hadrosaurs. They are sometimes referred to as the "cows of the Cretaceous," herbivorous dinosaurs that lacked the impressive armor, spikes, and horns of their relatives the ankylosaurs and ceratopsians. This does not mean that hadrosaurs were entirely defenseless again...
December 15, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Return of the "Thunderbeast"
Apparently Oregon's dinosaur statue parks were where it was at in the 1980s.This week's sighting comes to us courtesy of the Barry family, who stopped by "Thunderbeast Park" back when it was still in operation. The park has since been shut down, but that rumor has it that this Tyrannosaurus still l...
December 10, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
New Dinosaur Helps Fill Out the Early History of "Raptors"
When the big-screen adaptation of Jurassic Park premeired in 1993, "raptors" instantly became some of the most popular dinosaurs. For scientists, though, they posed a troublesome problem. There were only a few types of raptor, technically called dromaeosaurs, known at the time, and paleontologists...
December 09, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Did Caterpillars Starve Dinosaurs to Death?
I love discarded hypotheses for the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. Some ideas, such as a global pandemic, sound at least somewhat reasonable, but others seem to have come out of left field. One particular paper, published in the Journal of Research on the Lepidoptera in 1962 by entomologist...
December 08, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaurs Clash on the Discovery Channel
Ever since the time of their discovery, dinosaurs have fascinated scientists with their arsenals of teeth, claws, spikes and armor. Clearly the extinct creatures often fought each other to the death, and for the past century and a half artists have been envisioning what such epic battles must have ...
December 04, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Worst... Dinosaurs... Ever...
It is not very difficult to bring dinosaurs back to life anymore, at least in movies. Film special effects have progressed to the point where virtual dinosaurs can easily be built to spec on the computer and directed with precision. If anything, sometimes it seems like there are too many computer-g...
December 03, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Stars and Stripes Stegosaurus
Stegosaurus is one of the most immediately recognizable of all dinosaurs (it is hard to miss something with a tiny head, a back decked with bony plates, and a tail tipped in spikes), and this sculpture makes it even harder to ignore. Decked out in a top hat and stars and stripes, this piece of art...
December 02, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Discovery Channel Dinosaurs Bite Back
In the summer of 2008, the History Channel debuted Jurassic Fight Club, a blood-spattered ode to prehistoric violence. Not to be left out, the Discovery Channel is set to enter the ring with its own new series, Clash of the Dinosaurs, and it, too, will leave viewers awash in dinosaur gore.Unlike th...
December 01, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Blog Carnival #14 -- Dawkins speaks out, Medellin Dinosaurs, Calgary Zoo and more...
New Blog Takes Flight: Please join us in welcoming the latest addition to the paleosphere: Dragons of the Air, a blog published by Ross Elgin, a member of the “Pterosaur Flight Dynamics Group,” based in the Museum of Natural History, Karlsruhe, Germany. Be sure to check out this fascinating post ab...
November 30, 2009 |
By Brian Wolly
Is Your Dinosaur Ready For Thanksgiving?
Ah, Thanksgiving, the day when families across the United States sit down for a delicious feast of dinosaur with all the trimmings.You read that correctly. Scientists have recognized that birds and dinosaurs are closely related for over a century, and within the last thirty years a tidal wave of di...
November 25, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Megalosaurus and the Balance of Nature
The vision of dinosaurs that I grew up with in the 1980s is very different from the one we are familiar with today. It is no longer appropriate to show a Brachiosaurus wallowing in a lake or a Tyrannosaurus dragging its tail on the ground. Yet these changes are relatively minor compared to the tran...
November 24, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: Colorful Stegosaurus
When my wife and I pulled into the parking lot of Dinosaur National Monument we were greeted by a rather imposing figure. Standing in front of us was this sculpture of a strikingly-colored Stegosaurus. Just what color this dinosaur would be in real life is open to discussion, but I had never seen o...
November 23, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
A Mix-and-Match Dinosaur from Henry Francis' Novel
We just can't let dinosaurs stay dead. They were real dragons that (notwithstanding their bird descendants) lived and died millions and millions of years before our species evolved, and they are so fascinating that we keep finding new ways to bring them into our world. Among the various ways humans...
November 19, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Calling All Dino Blogs
Looking over our blogroll the other day I noticed that a number of the blogs have either moved, disappeared, or have not been updated with anything about dinosaurs in ages. It is high time for a blogroll revamp.In order to make sure that our blogroll represents the best of dino bloggers, though, I ...
November 18, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
