Tag: dinosaurs
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Meet the New Monopoly Tokens: A Rubber Ducky, a T-rex and a Penguin
Apparently, I don’t pay attention to events in the board game world… even when they touch the paleontology world. A co-worker recently made me aware that there is now a T-rex piece in every Monopoly game, which is very cool! This change happened about 3 years ago in 2017. The NY Times even did a…
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PBS Eons: The Giant Dinosaur That Was Missing a Body
PBS Eons has a new video. This one is about Deinonychus, whose name means horrible hand. From end to end, its forelimbs alone measured an incredible 2.4 meters long and were tipped with big, comma-shaped claws. But other than its bizarre arms, very little material from this dinosaur had been found: no skull, no…
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New species of Allosaurus discovered in Utah
Phys.org has a story about a new Allosaurus species discovered in Utah. The first specimen of the new species of Allosaur, called Allosaurus jimmadseni, was discovered back in the early 1990s in Dinosaur National Monument in northeastern Utah. It lived between 152 and 175 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period. It differs from the…
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LiveScience: Are Birds Dinosaurs?
LiveScience has an interesting story that explains how and why birds are dinosaurs. What do sparrows, geese and owls have in common with a velociraptor or the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex? All can trace their origins to a bipedal, mostly meat-eating group of dinosaurs called theropods (“beast-footed”) that first appeared around 231 million years ago, during the…
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ESCONI Flashback Friday #36: SUE at the Field Museum
As part of the celebration of ESCONI’s 70th Anniversary, here is Flashback Friday post #36. If you have pictures or stories to contribute, please send them over to esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! SUE had her Grand Opening at the Field Museum on May 17th, 2000. Here is a link to the ESCONI page to document the event. …
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World Atlas: What Is The Difference Between Paleontology And Archeology?
Check out this article in the World Atlas. I hear this all the time when I mention fossil hunting… quite often they say something like “I love archeology” or “When did you get interested in archeology” or even “Where do archeologists find dinosaur bones?” Hopefully, this will clear up the concepts, paleontologists study dinosaurs and…
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SciNews: Paleontologists Uncover Fossilized Remains of Baby Ornithopod Dinosaurs in Australia
SciNews has a story about the fossils of baby Ornithopod dinosaurs discovered in Australia. The animals are baby Weewarrasaurus pobeni dinosaurs, that lived about 100 million years ago during the middle Cretaceous period. Southeastern Australia, where these dinosaurs lived, was much closer to the South Pole at the time. These specimens reveal important insights into…
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Earth was stressed before dinosaur extinction
Phys.org has an interesting story about the extinction of the dinosaurs. A new study, led by researchers from Northwestern University, shows that the chemistry of fossilized clam and snail shells changed greatly in the years leading up to the K-Pg mass extinction event. This change is likely due to a large influx of carbon into…
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Early meat-eating dinosaur revealed via spectacular fossil
National Geographic has a story about a new dinosaur discovery. This new dinosaur, named Gnathovorax cabreirai, dates to about 230 million years ago during the Triassic Period. It represents one of the earliest dinosaurs ever found. This discovery was made near the town of Sao Joao do Polesine in southern Brazil. Details can be found…
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New Cretaceous-Period Mammal Unveiled
Sci-News has a story about a new mammal that lived along side the dinosaurs during the Mesozoic Era. The animal, named Origolestes lii, is part of the famous Jehol Biota, which dates to the Cretaceous Period 133 to 120 million years ago. This biota was a terrestrial and freshwater ecosystem found across the Chinese provinces…
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Did a million years of rain jump-start dinosaur evolution?
Nature has an interesting post about a spell of wet weather in the middle Triassic that may have spurred the evolution of the dinosaurs. This wet spell occurred for about a million years about 232 million years ago. The evidence for the very wet period (pluvial episode) is contained in Triassic rocks from the Carnian…
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Flesh-Ripping Dinosaurs Replaced Their Teeth Multiple Times a Year
The Smithsonian has a story about tooth replacement in theropod dinosaurs. A new study published in the journal PLOS ONE has found that Majungasaurus probably replaced its teeth every 56 days. This is faster than the previous highest tooth replacement rate which was about 100 days in Jurassic carnivores Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus. This new rate…
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Dinosaur skull turns paleontology assumptions on their head
Phys.org has a piece about a well-preserved Styracosaurus skull which is enlightening paleontologist to the morphological variability of the species. The skull was not symmetrical and has implications as to how we should identify new (and currently known) species of dinosaurs, especially ceratopsians. Details are in a paper published in the journal Cretaceous Research. The skull was…
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Palaecast Episode 105: Ferrodraco
There’s a new episode of Palaeocast. This one is about the new Australian pterosaur, Ferrodraco lentoni, which was recently described in a paper that appeared in Scientific Reports. Discovered in the Winton area of central western Queensland, it had a wingspan of about 4 meters (13 feet). This animal lived about 96 million years ago,…
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First evidence of feathered polar dinosaurs found in Australia
Phys.org has a story about the first polar dinosaurs with feathers. Fossilized dinosaur and bird feathers have been found in what are fine muddy sediments in Australia. The deposit was once the bottom of a shallow lake that was close to the South Pole during the Cretaceous. The feathers date to about 118 million years…
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‘A scientific goldmine’: U of A paleontologists discover complete skeleton of small, carnivorous dino
The Edmonton Journal has a story about a recent dinosaur find. In 2014, a remarkablely complete, small, carnivorous dinosaur in “exquisitely preserved” condition was discovered by University of Alberta paleontologist Clive Coy. The animal, called Saurornitholestes, lived about 76 million years ago. Saurornitholestes is a small, feathered carnivorous dinosaur part of the dromaeosaurid family —…
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CBS Sunday Morning: Our fascination with Tyrannosaurus Rex
CBS Sunday Morning had a segment about our fascination with T rex. One of the most aptly named dinosaurs, it’s name means “Tyrant Lizard King”. This piece an interview with Mark Norell, head paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History. As the CBS crew joins a University of Kansas expedition to Wyoming to find…
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The Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Acidified the Ocean in a Flash
New York Times has a story about the K-Pg mass extinction event. A recently published paper in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that the meteor at the end of the Cretaceous had an immediate and catastrophic effect on the ocean. What happened to the dinosaurs when an asteroid about six miles wide struck…
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PBS Eons: The Case of the Dinosaur Egg Thief
There’s a new PBS Eons episode. This one’s about Oviraptor. The would be “Egg Thief” is now a caring mother… Paleontologists found a small theropod dinosaur skull right on top of a nest of eggs that were believed to belong to a plant-eating dinosaur. Instead of being the nest robbers that they were originally…
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NBC5: Smell Sue the T. Rex’s Breath at New Field Museum Exhibit
NBC5 has a segment on some new features in SUE exhibit at the Field Museum. You can feel her skin, hear her rumble, even smell her breath… it’s a whole day in the life of a T-rex! What did Sue the T. Rex’s breath smell like back in the day (i.e. the late Cretaceous Period)?…
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The Brain Scoop: Recommended Reading: 2019!
The Brain Scoop has an episode which highlights some good books. So, if you are looking to read something interesting and science related, these are some really good suggestions! Hi! I’m on the road filming PREHISTORIC ROAD TRIP, a 3-part series that will premiere nationally on PBS in 2020! We’ll get back to our…
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SciNews: New Duck-Billed Dinosaur Unveiled: Kamuysaurus japonicus
Science News has an article about a newly described dinosaur from Japan. It’s a duck-billed dinosaur that lived 72 million years ago during the Cretaceous period. Named Kamuysaurus japonicus, it belongs to a family Hadrosauridae. All the details can be found in a paper in the journal Scientific Reports. The specimen was analyzed by paleontologists from…
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Smithsonian: How to Discover Dinosaurs
Over on Smithsonian.com, Hans-Dieter Sues has an article about finding dinosaurs. The article answers many of the what, where, and how kind. People always ask, “How do you know where to dig?” Well, first we have to find a dinosaur skeleton before we can dig it up. To collect dinosaurs requires careful planning. Unless they…
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PBS Eons: The Raptor That Made Us Rethink Dinosaurs
PBS Eons has a new episode about Deinonychus and that endless question… Were dinosaurs warm or cold blooded? In 1964, a paleontologist named John Ostrom unearthed some fascinating fossils from the mudstone of Montana. Its discovery set the stage for what’s known today as the Dinosaur Renaissance, a total re-thinking of what we thought…
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Jurassic dig uncovering hundreds of dinosaurs in Wyoming
Buckrail has a post about a massive dinosaur dig in north-central Wyoming. Called “Mission Jurassic”, the effort has become a collaboration between paleontologists across the US and the UK. The site itself is huge and may hold hundreds of dinosaurs, including four mighty sauropods that have already been identified. Geologists have long known about…
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SciNews: Elevated Levels of Oxygen Gave Rise to North American Dinosaurs, Scientists Say
SciNews has a post about the rise of the dinosaurs during the Triassic. It seems that oxygen rose over 25% in 3 million years. That change might have led to the expansion of dinosaurs around 215 million years ago. The paper was presented at the 2019 Goldschmidt Conference in Barcelona, Spain. A team of researchers…
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ESCONI Flashback Friday #16: Karen’s Komments
As part of the run up to ESCONI’s 70th Anniversary, here is Flashback Friday post #16. If you have pictures or stories to contribute, please send them over to esconi.info@gmail.com. Thanks! Karen Nordquist’s monthly column in “The Earth Science News” started as “DINO News” in January 1998 and continued under that name until December 1999. …
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NHM: The oldest stegosaur ever has been discovered in Morocco
The Natural History Museum in London has a post about a newly described Stegosaur. This animal lived about 168 million years ago, during the middle Jurassic, in what is now the Middle Atlas mountains of Morocco. It’s the first stegosaur found in North Africa and is called Adratiklit boulahfa. The paper describing it appeared in…
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Scientific American: Ancient Mongolian Nests Show Dinosaurs Protected Their Eggs
Scientific American has an article about fossil dinosaur eggs. A new find, which consisted of about 15 nests and more than 50 eggs, was found in what is now the Gobi Desert. It dates to the late Cretaceous, about 80 million years ago and shows evidence of gregarious behavior. All the details appeared in a…
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PBS Eons: Was This Dinosaur a Cannibal?
PBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about the Ceolophysis finds at the Ghost Ranch an the implications for dinosaur behavior. Paleontologists have spent the better part of two decades debating whether Coelophysis ate its own kind. It turns out, the evidence that scientists have had to study in order to answer…
