Tag: Cretaceous
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Science Quickly: The dinosaurs at your window: How birds survived the asteroid that killed all other dinosaurs
Scientific American’s “Science Quickly” had an interview with Steve Brusatte on a recent episode. Steve’s new book “The Story of Birds” is available to day April 28th, 2026.
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Video for ESCONI April 2026 Paleontology Meeting – “Digging the Marl of the Lance Formation”
The April 2026 Paleontology Study Group Meeting featured Keith Robitschek and his presentation “Digging the Marl of the Lance Formation”.
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ESCONI April 2026 Paleontology Meeting via Zoom and in-person – “Digging the Marl of the Lance Formation”
The April 2026 Paleontology Study Group Meeting will feature Keith Robitschek and his presentation “Digging the Marl of the Lance Formation”. You can attend in-person at the College of DuPage, TEC, Room 1038B (Map). The meeting will also be available via Zoom.
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A large tyrannosaurid from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) of North America
The journal Nature Scientific Reports has a paper about a new large tyrannosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) in North America. The unnamed animal lived from about 74 to 75 million years ago in what is now New Mexico, USA. Abstract The Tyrannosauridae emerged as the dominant large predators in Laurasia during the Late Cretaceous.…
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You Wouldn’t Want to Butt Heads With This Small Dinosaur
The New York Times’ Trilobites column has a story about the discovery of a new dinosaur in Mexico. The animal, Xenovenator espinosai, was discovered in 2000 in the Cerro del Pueblo formation in northeastern Mexico by Martha Aguillón-Martinez. It lived about about 73 million years ago when the area was a marshy coastline. The animal’s…
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Collecting Echinoids (Sea Urchins) in North Jutland, Denmark
Today, we have an interesting guest post from long-time ESCONI member Marie Angkuw. Marie is part of the Lyme Regis Babes as John Catalani has named them. Marie, Rhonda Gates, Jann Bergsten, and Deborah Lovely have taken numerous trips to Europe to collect fossils. They’ve been to Lyme Regis (multiple times), Whitby, Yorkshire, and the…
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PBS: Inside the Vault Where They Keep the Dinosaur Apocalypse
PBS has an interesting video about the K-Pg extinction. Check it out! A giant asteroid impact ended the age of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. How did this mass extinction play out, moment by moment? In this video we meet a geologist who has explored the asteroid crater and learn what the rocks tell…
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This Dinosaur Really Knew How to Get a Grip
The New York Times Trilobites column has an interesting story about a tiny egg stealing dinosaur that lived about 67 million years ago in what is now Mongolia. Manipulonyx reshetovi had a strange spike-covered hand, which provided its genus name meaning “manipulating claw”. The animal’s fossil was discovered in 1979 and described in the journal…
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Adam Savage at the American Museum of Natural History
The AMNH has a new exhibit called “Impact: The End of the Age of Dinosaurs”. Adam Savage visited the museum just before the exhibit opened in November, There are a series of videos on Youtube. How do you come up with the physical representation of animals we know lived on Earth, when the evidence of…
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Spinosaurus relative longer than a pickup truck stalked Thailand’s rivers 125 million years ago
LiveScience has a story about a spinosaur that lived in Thailand 125 million years ago, during the early Cretaceous Period. The animal was about 25 feet long (7-8 meters) and likely ate the fish that swam in the rivers. The new dinosaur has yet to be named and was discovered in the Sam Ran locality…
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Ancient oceans were ruled by super predators unlike anything today
ScienceDaily has a story about the top predators of the past. Researchers from McGill University looked at Colombia’s Paja Formation, which dates to the early Cretaceous Period, some 122 million years ago. That formation preserves the ancient marine ecosystem, which had a very complex food chain, more so than the modern oceans. The paper was published…
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“Bones Almost on Top of Each Other” – Extraordinary Dinosaur Fossil Site Discovered in the Hațeg Basin
SciTechDaily has a story about an extraordinary dinosaur fossils site in Transylvania. The Hateg Basin is famous for its dinosaur fossils. The site dates to the late Cretaceous Period, some 72 million years ago. So far, thousands of fossils have been found, including bones of amphibians, turtles, crocodiles, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and mammals. A recent paper in…
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Fossils of Some of the Last Dinosaurs in North America Have a Story to Tell
The New York Times “Trilobites” column has a story about the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs some 66 million years ago. A long standing question about the extinction has been whether the age of dinosaurs came to a sudden end or were dinosaurs in decline when the asteroid struck the Yucatan Peninsula. The diversity of…
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‘Shockingly Beautiful’ Fossil Reveals Oldest Dome-Headed Dinosaur
The New York Times has a fascinating look at beautiful pachycephalosaur specimen from Mongolia. The animal was recently described in a paper in the journal Nature. Zavacephale rinpoche was found in the Gobi Desert by Tsogtbaatar Chinzorig, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University. The name means “root” and “jewel” in Tibetan, which is a…
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‘Rare’ ancestor reveals how huge flightless birds made it to faraway lands
LiveScience has a story that looks a paper about flightless birds and how they may have dispersed across multiple continents. The paper “Quantitative analysis of stem-palaeognath flight capabilities sheds light on ratite dispersal and flight loss” was published in the journal Biology Letters. Ostriches, emus, rheas and other large, flightless birds (paleognaths) are closely related,…
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Digging Wyoming: People Flock To Glenrock To Dig for Dinosaurs In The Dark
Want to dig for dinosaurs? Well… there a place near Glenrock, Wyoming that might be perfect for a vacation next year! Cowboy State Daily has a nice article about it. A plethora of paleontological discoveries continues to shed light on the world of Converse County 67 million years ago. Most of that light is coming…
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PBS Eons: That Time the Earth Was Sticky
PBS Eons has a new episode. This is about Cretaceous amber… what it is, how it forms, and what is found in it. The Cretaceous Resinous Interval, a 54-million year period where amber was preserved in hundreds of locations across the world, was a gooey, gummy point in Earth’s history – and then amber suddenly…
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Paleontologists Describe New Species of Rhabdodontid Dinosaur
SciNews has a story about the discovery of a new rhabdodontid dinosaur species, Obelignathus septimanicus. Obelignathus septimanicus lived about 72 million years ago in the late Cretaceous Period in what is now southern France. Rhabdodontid dinosaurs were small to medium-sized, probably bipedal herbivores that grew to between 2 and 6 m (6.6-20 feet) in length. …
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Scientists shed light on life and times of ‘Fiona’ the pregnant ichthyosaur
Phys.org has a story about Fiona, the pregnant ichthyosaur. Fiona lived about 131 million years ago during the early Cretaceous Period. Her remains were discovered a few years ago in a glacian ice field in Patagona. Her story was published in a paper in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Fiona is the only fully preserved…
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125-Million-Year-Old Scorpion Fossil Uncovered in China
SciNews has a story about a 125 million year old scorpion. The amazing fossil was discovered in the Yixian Formation at Heishangou village, Chifeng city, Nei Mongol, China. The fossil animal has been named Jeholia longchengi and dates to the early Cretaceous Period. The paper “First Mesozoic scorpion from China and its ecological implications” was…
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66-million-year-old vomit fossil discovered in Denmark
NBC News has a story about fossilized vomit. Yes, fossilized vomit, Unlike coprolites, which are fossilized dung, regurgitalites are rare in the fossil record. A danish fossil hunter, Peter Bennicke, found a strange clump of sea lily fragments embedded in chalk. He took it to the Geomuseum Faxe in November 2024, where a museum curator…
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PBS Eons: What Killed These Sleeping Dinosaurs?
PBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about the fossils of Liaoning in northwestern China… amazingly, beautifully preserved dinosaurs that give us insight into dinosaur and bird evolution. Since the 1990s, paleontologists have been pulling 125-million-year-old complete dinosaur skeletons from the rocks of the Lujiatun in Northwestern China, most seemingly posed in perfect…
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New Pterosaur Species Discovered in Japan
SciNews has a story about the discovery of a new species of quetzalcoatline azhdarchid pterosaur in Japan. The animal has been named Nipponopterus mifunensis. It lived about 90 million years ago in what is now the Japanese island of Kyushu. The quetzalcoatline azhdarchids include the largest flying animals ever known, with up to 30+ foot…
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98-Million-Year-Old Ichthyosaur Fossil Uncovered in New Zealand
Sci News has a piece about the discovery of a new species of Cretaceous ichthyosaur from New Zealand. The specimen, GS15687, is still unnamed as it is too fragmentary. It was found disarticulated in a concretion from the Swale Member of the Split Rock Formation. The concretion dates to the Cenomanian (Ngaterian) about 98 million…
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Paleontologists Discover Dinosaur Fossils in Hong Kong for the First Time
Smithsonian Magazine brings news of the first discovery of dinosaur fossils in Hong Kong. The fossils were identified as a “large, aged dinosaur”. They were found on the tiny uninhabitied Port Island. The animal lived during the Cretaceous Period. China—along with Argentina, Canada and the United States—is one of the main geographical regions for identifying…
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PBS Eons: The Dinosaurs That Evolution Forgot
PBS has a new episode. This one is about the dinosaurs of the east coast of North America. North America was divided into two land masses by the Western Interior Seaway at the end of the Cretaceous about 100 to 66 million years ago. The east coast landmass is called Appalachia. Where are all the…
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New Species of Ichthyosaur Identified from Colombian Fossils
SciNews has a post about a new species of ichthyosaur from Columbia. Platypterygius elsuntuoso, an ichthyosaur, lived about 125 million years ago during the early Cretaceous Period. Researchers from the Fundación Colombiana de Geobiología collected the fossil remains of a young adult in 1999. The specimen consists of an almost complete skull, some axial elements…
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NPR: Paleontologist Ken Lacovara and the fifth extinction that killed the dinosaurs
NPR’s Ted Radio Hour has a video segment with paleontologist Ken Lacovara speaking on the extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous Period. That event took out the non-avian dinosaurs and led to the rise of the mammals. Paleontologist Ken Lacovara is founder of a new museum and fossil park in New Jersey where visitors can…
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Paleontologists discover fossil birds with teeth had seeds in their stomachs, indicating that they ate fruit
Phys.org has a piece about birds with teeth. As rare as hen’s teeth is only a phrase for modern times… back in the Mezozoic – sometimes referred to as the “Age of Reptiles”, many birds had teeth. Longipteryx chaoyangensis is the subject of a new paper in the journal Current Biology. L. chaoyangensis lived during…
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120-Million-Year-Old Footprints of Polar Dinosaurs Discovered in Australia
SciNews has a story about the discovery of dinosaur footprints in Australia. The footprints date back 120 million years, which corresponds with the early Cretaceous Period. At that time, Australia was still connected to Antarctica. The footprints were found in the Wonthaggi Formation south of Melbourne, Australia. They were made by a medium to large theropod…
