Paleontology
Georgia Elementary School Trades One Dinosaur for Another
If the principal of Thomson Elementary School in Thomson, Georgia, thinks she has rid her school of dinosaurs, the joke's on her. According to the McDuffie Mirror, principal Anita Cummings recently decided to paint over a dinosaur mural and remove dinosaur tracks from the school because:
The dinosa...
August 04, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Where Did Dinosaurs Come From?
When I was growing up I absolutely loved the lavishly illustrated Zoobooks series, so I was glad to hear that the series creator, John Wexo, has just published a new dinosaur book for kids. Called Where Did Dinosaurs Come From?, the new book is geared towards young readers and is chock-full of colo...
August 03, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sighting: A Hadrosaur Goes to the Ball in Nashville
In 2004, a traveling dinosaur exhibit came to visit Nashville, Tennessee's Cheekwood botanical gardens, and during that time the garden hosted its annual Swan Ball. I don't think any dinosaurs were invited, but as this photo by reader Susan Adcock shows, at least one dinosaur got dressed up in the ...
July 31, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinoblog Carnival #10—The Skinny on Toys, Ice Cube Trays, and the Wyoming Museum
More Than One Way to Skin a Dinosaur: At Archosaur Musings, David Hone posts a photo of a nicely preserved piece of dinosaur skin on display at the Geological Museum of China. Hone speculates it’s from a Psittacosaurus. However, the specimen lacks scientific value since we don’t know what part of t...
July 30, 2009 |
By Mark Strauss
Mammals Under the Feet of Dinosaurs?
Scientists at Utah's Dinosaur National Monument have been quite busy this summer. At the beginning of the season they were blasting some sauropod skulls out of the rock for collection, and now the Chicago Tribune reports that they have discovered hundreds of tiny footprints in rock about 190 millio...
July 29, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
The Five Worst Dinosaur Movies of All Time
It is hard for me to say "no" to any movie with a dinosaur in it, so I have seen a LOT of really bad movies. For every Jurassic Park there is a multitude of cheesy movies that can only be endured if you invite some company over to make fun of the film with you. There are a few, though, that make ev...
July 28, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dorset Dinosaur Removed Under Police Escort
Local council members of Weymouth Bay in Dorset, England were not so pleased when a dinosaur sculpture appeared off one of their beaches
July 25, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Sightings: George Washasaurus
Dinosaurs are everywhere, from natural history museums to roadside signs, so we here at Dinosaur Tracking are starting up a new regular feature called "Dinosaur Sightings."Our first entry comes from our own Brian Wolly, a Smithsonian.com web editor who stumbled across "George Washasaurus" while vis...
July 24, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Why We Need the University of Wyoming Geological Museum
Due to state funding cuts, the University of Wyoming Geological Museum was recently closed down. This is a crying shame, especially since good paleontology museums are as important as ever when it comes to helping the public understand science. Indeed, a recent opinion piece in Rock Springs, Wyomin...
July 23, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Hominids’ African Origins, 50 Years Later
Before Mary Leakey’s discovery of hominid fossils in East Africa, many experts thought that human ancestors evolved in Asia
July 23, 2009 |
By Laura Helmuth
Texas Paleontologists Uncover a Cretaceous Croc
A few months ago I wrote about the rush to study and excavate a Cretaceous fossil site in North Arlington, Texas before developers start construction on the land. University of Texas at Arlington paleontologists and students have been scouring the site to learn what they can, and this week they ann...
July 22, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Return to the Land That Time Forgot
One of the first dinosaur movies I ever saw was The Land That Time Forgot. Based upon the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel of the same name, the film followed a mixed group of British and German World War I sailors stranded in a dinosaur-infested lost world. I did not care very much about the human chara...
July 21, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Nothronychus Raises Questions About Dino Diet
Everybody knows that dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor were meat eaters, but what might come as a shock is that some of their close relatives often ate plants.When I was a kid things were simple. Theropod dinosaurs were meat-eaters and all the rest were plant-eaters. Since the 1980s, th...
July 20, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Dinosaur Capital of the World, Continued: Drumheller, Alberta Bites Back
Last month I asked readers of this blog to vote for which location deserved the title of "Dinosaur Capital of the World." Glen Rose, Texas quickly jumped into the lead, but many commenters voiced their preference for Drumheller, Alberta. Glen Rose might have the tracks, they say, but it is hard to ...
July 17, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Burgess Shale's Weird Wonders
The fossils found in the Burgess Shale include the 500-million-year-old ancestors of most modern animals
July 16, 2009 |
By Smithsonian.com
Did Dinosaurs Roar?
I will never forget seeing Jurassic Park for the first time in the summer of 1993. Not only did the dinosaurs look real, but they sounded real, each dinosaur having its own array of chirps, bellows, hoots, and roars. According to paleontologist Phil Senter, however, dinosaurs may not have been able...
July 13, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Tyrannosaurus: Better Than a Guard Dog
Few animals are as intimidating as Tyrannosaurus, and that little fact might be keeping the property of Rick Pariser of Galena, Illinois a little safer. According to the Telegraph Herald, Pariser recently purchased a 10-foot-long metal sculpture of the famous dinosaur to round out his collection of...
July 10, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
"Dakota" the Hadrosaur Makes Her Debut
In the winter of 2007, news agencies were all a-twitter over the news of another "mummy" hadrosaur found in North Dakota. Nicknamed "Dakota", the dinosaur was said to "exceed the jackpot" of what paleontologists could have hoped for, and two books, a documentary and a lecture tour were arranged to ...
July 08, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
The Dinosaurs of Ice Age 3
If you want to enjoy Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, you are going to have to suspend your belief for a bit. There is no use nitpicking over a children's movie featuring talking extinct species of mammals from different places and time periods (to say nothing of saber-toothed squirrels). The late...
July 07, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
Meet Banjo, Matilda and Clancy: Three New Dinosaurs From Australia
Australia has always been a tough place for dinosaur paleontologists to work. Aside from the harsh conditions, dinosaur skeletons found "down under" are often extremely fragmentary. A bit of leg, a claw, a rib, a toe bone; often there is not much more to be found of dinosaurs that once roamed the s...
July 06, 2009 |
By Brian Switek
