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Paleontologists

The original AMNH mount of Brontosaurus, reconstructed in 1905

Brontosaurus Returns

Paleontologists may have killed the dinosaur a century ago, but it was revitalized in the King Kong remake

A gliding Stegosaurus

The Fantastic Gliding Stegosaurus

Stegosaurus was as aerodynamic as a brick, but one writer thought the prickly dinosaur used its huge plates for gliding

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Tarbosaurus on Trial

An almost certainly poached tyrannosaur skeleton kicks off a legal dispute over Mongolia’s fossil heritage

The microstructure of Smets' "dinosaur" revealed the fossils to be petrified wood.

The Demise of a Wooden Dinosaur

A Victorian-era naturalist thought he’d found a new kind of dinosaur, and he threw a fit when other naturalists disagreed

Camarasaurus, as envisioned by Erwin Christman

Wading With Sauropods

Before the Dinosaur Renaissance moved sauropods out of the swamps, paleontologists recognized that some of these dinosaurs were better suited to land

The original AMNH mount of Brontosaurus, reconstructed in 1905

Why Brontosaurus Still Matters

Though it never actually existed, Brontosaurus is an icon of just how much dinosaurs have changed during the past century

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Arthur Conan Doyle’s Ethereal Dinosaurs

Prior to the 1925 debut of The Lost World, the novelist pulled a stunt to make people think dinosaurs might still be alive in a distant jungle

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Excavating the River of Giants

Rare footage shows how paleontologist R.T. Bird diverted a river to excavate a set of Texas dinosaur tracks in 1938

The backside of Diplodocus, photographed at the Utah Field House of Natural History

How Did the Biggest Dinosaurs Get it On?

Of all the dinosaur mysteries, how dinosaurs like the 23-ton Apatosaurus mated is one of the most perplexing

A restoration of Hypselosaurus, a sauropod dinosaur which may have laid some of the eggs found in Cretaceous rock of Southern France.

Who Was the First to Discover Dinosaur Eggs?

Despite an immense wave of publicity heralding the discovery of dinosaur eggs in 1923, French paleontologists had discovered them decades earlier

A restoration of the Cretaceous snake Sanajeh about to gulp down a baby sauropod.

Scrambled Eggs and the Demise of the Dinosaurs

Did egg-eating lizards and snakes contribute to the dinosaurs’ extinction?

Ceratosaurus nasicornis at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

The Largest Ceratosaurus

How many species of this rare, ornamented genus were there?

The hips of the ornithischian dinosaur Stegosaurus (left) and the saurischian dinosaur Allosaurus (right)

Dinosaur Division is All in the Hips

Thanks to one 1888 paper, paleontologists still divide dinosaurs between the bird-hips and lizard-hips

Tyrannosaurus faces off against Triceratops at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Some early 20th century paleontologists thought the size and weapons of these creatures indicated that dinosaurs were degenerates due for extinction.

The Way of the Dinosaur

“Going the way of the dinosaur” is a popular phrase, but one drawn from bizarre 20th century ideas that dinosaurs were due for an extinction

A Parasaurolophus at the Natural History Museum of Utah

Dinosaurian Snorkels, Air Tanks and Tubas

Parasaurolophus is one of the most perplexing dinosaurs - what did it use its huge crest for?

A Corythosaurus with skin impressions--similar to this one on display at the American Museum of Natural History--was lost when a German military vessel sank the SS Mount Temple on December 6, 1916.

Charles H. Sternberg’s Lost Dinosaurs

On December 6, 1916, a German military vessel sunk a highly-valued shipment of Canadian dinosaurs

Theropod dinosaur tracks along Potash Road in Moab, Utah. Tracks like these have inspired myths about giant birds at locations all over the world.

China’s Dinosaur Folklore

Dinosaur tracks aren’t just scientific curiosities—they have also inspired many legends in China

The reconstructed skeleton of a Deinonychus, representing the modern image of dinosaurs, in front of Rudolph Zallinger's 'Age of Reptiles' mural in Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Creating the Age of Reptiles

Why is an image of the Garden of Eden considered art, while an exquisitely detailed depiction of Jurassic life is derided as juvenile junk?

Matthew Carrano, a paleontologist with the National Museum of Natural History, recommends Dinosaur State Park in Connecticut for those evotourists interested in dinosaurs.

A Smithsonian Paleontologist Suggests His Evotourism Sites

For even more ideas on where to take an evolution vacation, we turned to one of our own dinosaur experts

An articulated Iguanodon hand on display at London’s Natural History Museum

A Mysterious Thumb

What did Iguanodon use its big thumb spikes for—stabbing attackers, breaking into seeds, or possibly stripping foliage from branches?

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