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Dinosaurs

Sotheby's is auctioning one of the largest and most complete T. rex skeletons ever found.

This T. Rex Fossil Could Fetch the Largest Sum of Any Dinosaur Ever Auctioned. Scientists Worry They’ll Lose the Chance to Study It

Bids on “Gus” will start at $19 million, a steep price for public institutions. Specimens in private collections can be harder for researchers to examine, and they’re practically impossible to include in studies in top-tier scientific journals

Dinosaurs and other animals might have eaten the fruits of angiosperms during the Late Cretaceous.

Early Flowering Plants May Have Relied on Dinosaurs to Eat Their Fleshy Fruits and Spread Their Seeds

According to fossils preserved by volcanic ash, the plants, known as angiosperms, began producing relatively large, blueberry-size fruits millions of years earlier than previously thought

The bone was collected in December 1985 by the late geologist Mike Thomson, who described it as a "vertebra of large reptile" in his field notebook.

A Fossil From Antarctica Sat in a Drawer for 40 Years. It Turned Out to Be the First Dinosaur Bone Ever Found on the Continent

After being forgotten for decades, the mysterious tail vertebra has finally been identified as part of a titanosaur. The discovery helps researchers understand how dinosaurs may have traversed Earth’s southernmost regions

An artist's rendition of the new species, Jian changmaensis, on the left attacking the early bird Gansus yumenensis

This Strange, Feathered Dinosaur May Have Glided Between Trees Like a Flying Squirrel to Hunt Birds 120 Million Years Ago

A fossil of the creature provides the first evidence that microraptors lived in what is now northwestern China. Its discovery might also solve an ancient murder mystery

An artistic rendering of Labrujasuchus expectatus

Meet the ‘Witch Croc,’ a Strange Ancient Crocodile Relative With Two Legs and No Teeth That Roamed New Mexico During the Triassic

The reptile, a dinosaur look-alike called a shuvosaur, represents a long-awaited discovery that helps paleontologists fill a gap in the fossil record

Researchers weren't sure what drove some theropods, like T. rex, to evolve tiny arms relative to their body sizes.

Tyrannosaurus Rex and Other Terrifying Predatory Dinosaurs Had Itty-Bitty Arms. Scientists May Have Finally Figured Out Why

A new study suggests that certain theropods—two-legged, mostly meat-eating dinosaurs—had shrunken forelimbs as an evolutionary trade-off for their strong skulls

Enormous dinosaurs like the Brachiosaurus in this illustration evolved multiple times over millions of years.

What Was the Biggest Dinosaur? Fragmentary Fossils Make It Hard to Tell

Pinning down the most titanic of the large sauropod dinosaurs is not an easy task, since the odds were generally against the biggest ones being buried and preserved

An artistic rendering of Tylosaurus rex

Paleontologists Discover an Ancient Marine Reptile They’ve Dubbed the T. Rex of the Sea, Crowning Another King of the Cretaceous

Scientists figured out that the predators were lumped in with a previously named mosasaur species. The new one, called Tylosaurus rex, could grow to 43 feet long, about the length of a school bus

Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis was a long-necked, plant-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now Thailand between 100 million and 120 million years ago.

Cool Finds

A Man Spotted Strange-Looking Rocks Near a Pond in Thailand. They Turned Out to Be the Bones of a Massive New Dinosaur Species

Paleontologists have dubbed the long-necked, plant-eating creature “Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis.” It’s the 14th named dinosaur from Thailand, and it might be the biggest one ever found in Southeast Asia

Illustration of the giant ancient octopus

Cool Finds

This Bone-Crunching Octopus Was Nearly the Size of a Semitruck and May Have Feasted on Giant Reptiles 100 Million Years Ago

The massive invertebrates may have been top predators, according to an analysis of their fossilized jaws. The work suggests that ancient oceans weren’t completely ruled by spine-bearing creatures, as previously thought

Mountains in Montana’s Makoshika State Park, where some of the Hell Creek Formation lies.

250 Places to Celebrate America

The Hell Creek Formation Is North America’s Legendary Boneyard. See the Top Five Discoveries Found in the Iconic Fossil Bed

From preserved plants to T. rex, the material found in these Late Cretaceous rocks has resulted in countless breakthroughs for paleontologists

Spinosaurus was the largest and most aquatic of the spinosaurs, a group of dinosaurs with crocodilian snouts.

Was Spinosaurus Really a ‘Hell Heron’? Digging Into the Star of Netflix’s ‘The Dinosaurs’

With an incredible sail and heavy bones that might have acted as ballast, Spinosaurus seems primed for snatching fish. The creature has long captivated the public, from its early mysteries to the recent discovery of a new species

The shin bone was found in New Mexico.

This 74-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Bone May Have Belonged to a Surprisingly Large Ancestor of Tyrannosaurus Rex

The massive reptile may have weighed more than 4.5 tons and been 35 feet long—much bigger than its related peers at the time

Sue the T. rex is one of the largest and most complete skeletons of the species ever discovered. She's housed at the Field Museum in Chicago and was analyzed in this study along with three other specimens.

Like an ‘Eight-Ton Chicken,’ Tyrannosaurus Rex May Have Run on Its Tiptoes to Catch Speedy Prey

A new study suggests that the giant dinosaurs’ locomotion resembled that of modern-day birds

A reconstruction of Archaeopteryx, including its recently discovered oral papillae, flexible tongue, and bill-tip organ at the end of its beak.  

Scientists Still Have So Much to Learn About Archaeopteryx, the Dinosaur That May Have Flown Like a Bird

A new study suggests features in the prehistoric creature’s mouth helped it eat more efficiently, giving the species the energy needed to go airborne

Spinosaurus mirabilis prowled around what is now Africa some 95 million years ago.

This Massive, Meat-Eating Dinosaur Was a ‘Hell Heron’ That Waded Into Shallow Waters to Nab Slippery Fish

Paleontologists unearthed a new species of Spinosaurus in the Sahara Desert in Niger, a discovery that adds to the debate over whether the prehistoric creatures were fully or semi-aquatic

Paleontologists have found early examples of theropods, the group that would eventually include tyrannosaurs. But precisely how another group of dinosaurs, known as the bird-hipped ornithischians, evolved remains a major question in paleontology.

An Asteroid Ended the Age of the Dinosaurs. But How Did Their Reign Begin? Mysterious Early Reptiles May Hold the Answer

Researchers are uncovering the evolutionary steps that set the stage for dinosaurs to rule the planet

New life may have evolved surprisingly fast after a famous mass extinction event about 66 million years ago.

After the Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Wrecked the Planet, Life May Have Bounced Back Surprisingly Fast

The steady rate of falling space dust helped researchers recalibrate the timeline

DinoTracker was trained on almost 2,000 dinosaur fossils to classify new tracks. It is especially helpful for three-toed dinosaurs, as so many tracks fall under this umbrella, co-author Paige dePolo writes in The Conversation.

A New App Can Match Footprints to the Dinosaurs That Made Them

Using artificial intelligence, DinoTracker can accurately classify dinosaur tracks around 90 percent of the time

The small dinosaur Patagonykus—one of an odd-looking group called alvarezsaurs—puzzled experts with its stout claws and bird-like bones.

Small, Stubby-Armed Dinosaurs Have Confounded Paleontologists. Are Answers Finally Within Reach?

Recent discoveries about an alvarezsaur called Manipulonyx have drawn renewed attention to this group of bird-like, clawed creatures and the mysteries around their anatomy and behavior

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