SUE the T. rex is one of the most complete, best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex specimens ever found. That level of preservation helps reveal details about SUE’s life.
Field school was ending in 20 minutes when Emma Puetz, a junior in geology at Missouri S&T, hiked into the Montana canyons to hunt fossils one last time before heading home to Rolla. She climbed up a steep hill covered with loose gravel in a promising area for fossils. Nothing. Disappointed, Puetz decided to head down the hill by a different path.
Nearly 66 million years ago, a large asteroid hit Earth and contributed to the global extinction of dinosaurs, leaving birds as their only living descendants.
Smithsonian researchers have discovered a new extinct species of lizard-like reptile that belongs to the same ancient lineage as New Zealand’s living tuatara.
Did the first ancestors of whales pick up where the mosasaurs left off 66 million years ago, after the extinction of all the large predatory marine reptiles?
Just over 250 million years ago during the end of the Permian period and start of the Triassic, reptiles had one heck of a coming out party.
Large dinosaur predators, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, evolved different shapes of eye sockets to better deal with high bite forces, new research has shown.
Scientists have cracked an enduring mystery, discovering how sauropod dinosaurs – like Brontosaurus and Diplodocus – supported their gigantic bodies on land.
This has been confirmed in the article 'New contributions to the skull anatomy of spinosaurid theropods: Baryonychinae maxilla from the Early Cretaceous of Igea (La Rioja, Spain)' published in the journal Historical Biology by Iker Isasmendi (lead author) and Xavier Pereda of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country, Pablo Navarro of the UR-University of La Rioja, Angélica Torices, director of the Chair of Palaeontology at the UR, plus other experts of the Complutense University of Madrid and the Palaeontological Visitors’ Centre of La Rioja.
About 201 million years ago, volcanic eruptions covered an area roughly the size of South America in lava as Pangaea started to split. The Earth was changed. In the years that followed, 40% of all four-legged land animals were wiped out in the End Triassic Extinction (ETE). The exact cause was unknown. However, researchers recently discovered that atmospheric changes as a result of the eruptions caused freezing temperatures at high latitudes. The land animals that survived had feathers or hair as insulation: large dinosaurs.
An international team that includes a University of Minnesota Twin Cities researcher has discovered a new big, meat-eating dinosaur, dubbed Meraxes gigas, that provides clues about the evolution and anatomy of predatory dinosaurs such as the Carcharodontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex.
Many of us know the conventional theory of how the dinosaurs died 66 million years ago: in Earth’s fiery collision with a meteorite, and a following global winter as dust and debris choked the atmosphere.
Palaeontologists in the UK and China have shown that the natural world bounced back vigorously following the End-Permian Extinction.
A group of researchers from CONICET and the University of Utah demonstrated that during the time of the first dinosaurs, variations in the diversity and abundance of the plant and vertebrate animal species cannot be related to the climatic changes recorded throughout its deposition, in contrast with previous hypotheses.
Research involving palaeontologists from the Universities of Portsmouth and Southampton has identified the remains of one of Europe’s largest ever land-based hunters: a dinosaur that measured over 10m long and lived around 125 million years ago.
Plesiosaurs, which lived about 210 million years ago, adapted to life underwater in a unique way: their front and hind legs evolved in the course of evolution to form four uniform, wing-like flippers.
For decades, paleontologists have debated whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded, like modern mammals and birds, or cold-blooded, like modern reptiles.
One of the most exciting moments of the new Jurassic Park sequel, Jurassic World Dominion, is when the Quetzalcoatlus swoops down from the sky and attacks the heroes’ aircraft.
A new study led by SMU paleontologist Anthony Fiorillo identifies the key role precipitation and temperature play in structuring vertebrate herbivore dinosaur populations in Alaska. The findings, which are published in the journal Geosciences, may also provide historical insights into the consequences of climate change.
New research published today in eLife by researchers from the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP) and the University of Bristol (UB) moves back the moment of the radiation of squamates ―the group of reptiles that includes lizards, snakes and worm lizards― to the Jurassic, a long time before current estimates.
Una nueva investigación publicada hoy en eLife por personal investigador del Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP) y la Universidad de Bristol (UB) retrasa el momento de la radiación de los escamosos ―el grupo de reptiles que incluye lagartos, serpientes y lagartos gusanos― al Jurásico, mucho antes de las estimaciones hechas hasta el momento.
Flying reptiles could change the colour of their feathers, research finds.
In Triceratops Traits, students work alongside paleontologists to solve an evolutionary mystery by analyzing and interpreting data from the fossil record under the premise that natural laws have operated the same throughout the history of life on Earth to fit 7th grade learning standards in Utah and 6th-8th grades around the U.S.
Over the two decades paleontologist Kevin Padian taught a freshman seminar called The Age of Dinosaurs, one question asked frequently by undergraduates stuck with him: Why are the arms of Tyrannosaurus rex so ridiculously short?
A group of Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian geologists provide critical new evidence for the timing of volcanic activity in the Karoo province, the largest of the Jurassic magma systems. The remnants of the province are widespread in southern Africa and Antarctica.
Spinosaurus is the largest predatory dinosaur known - over two metres longer than the longest Tyrannosaurus rex - but the way it hunted has been a subject of debate for decades. In a new paper, published today in Nature, a group of palaeontologists have taken a different approach to decipher the lifestyle of long-extinct creatures: examining the density of their bones.
Danish and Swedish researchers have dated the enormous Hiawatha impact crater, a 31 km-wide meteorite crater buried under a kilometer of Greenlandic ice.
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Relatively small, but fearsome-looking stegosaur measured about 2.8 metres (9 feet) from nose to tail—but scientists can’t tell whether the remains are those of an adult or juvenile.
A new analysis of Tyrannosaurus skeletal remains reveals physical differences in the femur, other bones and dental structures across specimens that could suggest Tyrannosaurus rex specimens need to be re-categorised into three distinct groups or species, reports a study published in Evolutionary Biology.
The asteroid which killed nearly all of the dinosaurs struck Earth during springtime. This conclusion was drawn by an international team of researchers after having examined thin sections, high-resolution synchrotron X-ray scans, and carbon isotope records of the bones of fishes that died less than 60 minutes after the asteroid impacted.
Approximately 80 miles from the westernmost reach of China’s Great Wall, paleontologists found relics of an even more ancient world. Over the last two decades, teams of researchers unearthed more than 100 specimens of fossil birds that lived approximately 120 million years ago, during the time of the dinosaurs.
Researchers in Japan, Sweden, and the US have unearthed evidence that low volcanic temperatures led to the fourth mass extinction, enabling dinosaurs to flourish during the Jurassic period.
New research led by the University of Bristol has revealed how giant 50-tonne sauropod dinosaurs, like Diplodocus, evolved from much smaller ancestors, like the wolf-sized Thecodontosaurus.
German and Austrian scientists took a closer look at the braincase of a dinosaur from Austria. The group examined the fossil with a micro-CT and found surprising new details: it was sluggish and deaf. The respective study got recently published in the scientific journal scientific reports.
A 72 to 66-million-year-old embryo found inside a fossilised dinosaur egg sheds new light on the link between the behaviour of modern birds and dinosaurs, according to a new study.
A new bird-like dinosaur that used brute strength to overcome its prey has been found by paleontologists combing through fossils found on the Isle of Wight, on the south coast of Great Britain.
Giant, long-necked sauropods, thought to include the largest land animals ever to have existed, preferred to live in warmer, more tropical regions on Earth, suggesting they may have had a different physiology from other dinosaurs, according to a new study led by researchers at UCL and the University of Vigo.
A groundbreaking study led by researchers at FAU and an international team of scientists conclusively confirms the time year of the catastrophic Chicxulub asteroid, responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs and 75 percent of life on Earth 66 million years ago. Springtime, the season of new beginnings, ended the 165 million year reign of dinosaurs and changed the course of evolution on Earth.
Italy is not exactly renown for dinosaurs. In comparison to its excellent artistic and archaeological heritage, dinosaur fossils are very rare.
We all know that the dinosaurs died in a mass extinction. But did you know that there were other mass extinctions?
Fossil footprints found in an Australian coal mine around 50 years ago have long been thought to be that of a large ‘raptor-like’ predatory dinosaur, but scientists have in fact discovered they were instead left by a timid long-necked herbivore.
“Throw me the idol; I’ll throw you the whip!” - From Raiders of the Lost Ark
A new study led by palaeontologists at the University of Southampton suggests that bones found on the Isle of Wight belong to two new species of spinosaurid, a group of predatory theropod dinosaurs closely related to the giant Spinosaurus.
A team of scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and from the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature (STM) has isolated exquisitely preserved cartilage cells in a 125-million-year-old dinosaur from Northeast China that contain nuclei with remnants of organic molecules and chromatin.
A team of paleontologists from the University of Washington excavated four dinosaurs in northeastern Montana this summer. The four dinosaur fossils are: the ilium of an ostrich-sized theropod; the hips and legs of a duck-billed dinosaur; a pelvis and limbs from another theropod; and a Triceratops specimen.
In a paper published August 23, authors Cameron Pahl and Luis Ruedas, of Portland State University, show that Allosaurus, a large carnivorous dinosaur from the Jurassic that has long been thought to be a top predator, could probably have acquired most of its calories by scavenging on the carcasses of enormous sauropod herbivores that lived alongside it.
Tyrannosaurus rex was not just a huge beast with a big bite, it had nerve sensors in the very tips of its jaw enabling it to better detect – and eat – its prey, a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Historical Biology today finds.
Expert Q&A: Do breakthrough cases mean we will soon need COVID boosters? The extremely contagious Delta variant continues to spread, prompting mask mandates, proof of vaccination, and other measures. Media invited to ask the experts about these and related topics.
Among the fierce carnivores that lived during the late Cretaceous was a predator named Daspletosaurus.
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