Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Fossils

A skeletal restoration of Smok wawelski. The black parts are missing elements of the skeleton.

The Dinosaur That Wasn’t

Even so, a terrestrial, 16-foot, carnivorous crocodile-like predator is not something I would like to meet in a dark alley (or anywhere else, really)

With the Beartooth Mountains looming to the west in the morning light, team members set up the coring rig on Polecat Bench.

Wyoming Paleontology Dispatch #8: Polecat Bench Badlands

Can the team drill past an ancient river channel?

The products of our first day of coring. Drying in the hot Wyoming sun are segments of cores in their Lexan liners.

Wyoming Paleontology Dispatch #7: The Excitement—and Dread—of Coring

Looking ridiculous, we rush around like inexperienced wait-staff in a busy restaurant

None

Victoria’s First Dinosaur Trackway

After moving a few track slabs myself this summer, I can tell you that it’s not easy work!

The truck-mounted coring rig set up at the Basin Substation site.

Wyoming Paleontology Dispatch #6: Bringing Up a Core

One thing everyone has told us is that you never know what you will find underground

A reconstruction of Protoceratops at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, WY

Eaters of the Dinosaur Dead

Over the past few years, paleontologists have reported a growing number of cases of scavenging by insects

A Protoceratops skeleton with an associated track (outlined in a box near the hips).

Protoceratops: The Cinderella of Dinosaurs

Have scientists found “the holy grail of vertebrate ichnology”—a dinosaur dead in its tracks?

Allie and Elizabeth make their way across a steep badland slope as we prospect for new sites to collect Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum plant fossils. The red layers on the hill behind them represent the lowest part of the PETM.

Wyoming Paleontology Dispatch #5: An All-Star Team of Scientists

A geologist, a geochemist and a paleontologist go into an (ancient sand) bar

Part of a sauropod trackway from the Teruel, Spain tracksite

Spain’s Tiny Sauropods Traveled Together

At least six individuals moved in the same direction, nearly parallel to each other—the tracks represent a herd

After three days of working, Scott Wing and his crew went to the Churchill family picnic in Powell, Wyoming.

Wyoming Paleontology Dispatch #4: Paleontologists’ Summer Family

Mired in the mud? Need an emergency place to stay? The Churchill family has helped out for more than 80 years

The head of Coelophysis - a close relative of Camposaurus - as restored by John Conway

The Intriguing, Frustrating Camposaurus

Paleontologists have reexamined the paltry bones and affirmed that the creature is an important link to the early days of theropod dinosaurs

The bones of Giraffatitan as discovered in Tanzania.

Tendaguru’s Lost World

The African fossil sites preserve dinosaur fossils that are strangely similar to their North American counterparts

Allosaurus, on display at the CEU Museum in Price, Utah

Taking a Bite Out of a Sauropod Tail

The tail vertebra has gouges, divots and scores in five places from at least two different predators

Line drawings of the skulls of Acristavus (top), Maiasaura (middle), and Brachylophosaurus (bottom)

Acristavus: North America’s New Hadrosaur

Dinosaurs with weird structures such as sails and arrays of horns often make the news, but in this case, the lack of specialized structures is important

Part of a fossil palm frond from the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum in Wyoming.

Wyoming Paleontology Dispatch #3: How to date a fossil

The Bighorn Basin’s colorful stripes reveal an ancient riverbed

A dinosaur egg with preserved wasp cocoons inside

Making a Home in a Dinosaur Egg

There were five spherical eggs in the 70-something-million-year-old clutch. One egg was cracked in half and filled with cocoons

The estimated sizes of several Allosaurus specimens, including "Epanterias."

A Truly Exceptional Allosaurus

Cope did not know it at the time, but he had described an especially large representative of a species his rival had named just a year before

None

Wyoming Paleontology Dispatch #1: Why 56 Million Years Ago?

What did the earth look like during the Paleocene Epoch? A Smithsonian researcher investigates

After an hour or two of searching, Scott Wing and his team found a spot to set up camp.

Wyoming Dispatch #2: The Scene at Field Camp

Before digging, the paleobiologists must go through the arduous process of setting up camp

The skull of Stegoceras

Dome-Headed Dinos Well-Suited to Butting Heads

The researchers compared the skulls of Stegoceras and Prenocephale with head-butting mammals including elk, duiker and musk ox

Page 47 of 62