Tag: Jurassic
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Brontosaurus : reinstating a prehistoric icon
The NHM in London has an article about the reinstatement of Brontosaurus as a valid species name. Both animals we discovered in the American west in the 1970, during a period of time referred to as the “Bone Wars” or the “Great Dinosaur Rush”. Apatosaurus ajax was named by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1877 from…
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Fossil Friday #3: More Whitby Ammonites
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #3. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! For this week, we are going to…
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Fossil Friday #2: Whitby Ammonites
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #2. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! The following pictures are from Whitby, which…
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Palaeocast Episode 108: Plesiosaurs
Palaeocast has a new episode about Plesiosaurs. The discussion touches on the history of plesiosaurs and some of the opalized fossils from Coober Pedy in South Australia. Plesiosaurs are some of the most easily recognisable animals in the fossil record. Simply uttering the words ‘Loch Ness Monster’ can conjure a reasonably accurate image of what…
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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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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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New Jurassic World Short Shows Just How Screwed the Humans Are Now
Gizmodo has a piece about the new Jurassic World short “Battle at Big Rock”. Check it out! The Jurassic Park/World franchise has long flirted with the idea that humanity’s hubris in reviving dino-kind would inevitably lead to said dinosaurs wreaking havoc on the whole world, not just a remote island park and/or research facility. Now, in the…
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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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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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SciNews: Paleontologists Identify Oldest Known Ancestor of Mackerel Sharks
SciNews has an article about the ancestor of Mackerel sharks. The article is from earlier this month, but posting it seems appropriate with Shark Week occurring this week. An ancestor of the Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias) has been found. Palearocarcharias stromeri was a small benthic shark, which lived about 165 million years ago, during…
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SciNews: New Bird-Like Dinosaur Unearthed in Wyoming
SciNews has an article about the discovery of a new bird-like dinosaur in Wyoming. The animal, Hesperornithoides miessleri, lived about 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic period. It has been nicknamed Lori and was about the size of a chicken. Its contemporaries were giant dinosaurs like Stegaoaurus, Diplodocus, and Allosaurus. The description appeared in…
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Smithsonian: Discovery of Raptor-Like Dinosaur Adds a New Wrinkle to the Origin of Birds
Smithsonian has a story about the discovery of a small dinosaur that sheds light on the origin of birds. While excavating a Supersaurus nicknamed “Jimbo”, Wyoming Dinosaur Center paleontologist spotted some small bones amongst the enormous bones. Named Hesperornithoides miessleri, the animal lived about 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic. The specimen is referred…
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Mammals and their relatives thrived, diversified during so-called ‘Age of Dinosaurs’
Phys.org has an article about Mammals during the “Age of Dinosaurs”. In a paper in Trends & Evolution, a review paper summarizes the latest fossil evidence of the state of Mammals and their relatives during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. It seems that Mammals were flourishing and experienced a couple ecological radiations during this time.…
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Newly Discovered Bat-Like Dinosaur Reveals the Intricacies of Prehistoric Flight
The Smithsonian has a story about a new “bat-like” dinosaur from China. This animal lived about 160 million years ago in the middle Jurassic. It’s called Ambopteryx longibrachium and it’s seems to be related to Yi qi, which was described back in 2015. The description of Ambopteryx appeared recently in the jounal Nature. About 160…
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Intriguing German Fossil Could Be an Entirely New Species of Archaeopteryx
Gizmodo has a story about a new study which proposes a new species of Archaeopteryx. The 8th specimen, discovered in 2009, is described as Archaeopterxy albersdoerferi, separate from the other two Archaeopteryx species – Archaeopteryx lithographica or Archaeopteryx siemensii. The study was published in Historical Biology. Archaeopteryx is one of the most intriguing dinosaurs in…
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Scientists May Have Wildly Underestimated the Giant Dinosaurs of the Ancient World
LiveScience has an interesting story about sauropod dinosaurs. It seems that their leafy meals were probably a whole lot more hearty, wholesome, and nutrient packed than previously thought. This research appeared in the journal Palaeontology. The conventional wisdom about the big plant-eating dinosaurs, like Brachiosaurus and Argentinosaurus, is that they had to eat huge…
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Report: ESCONI Paleontology Meeting: Saturday, June 16th, 2018 – Jurassic Treasures Revealed
At June’s Paleo meeting, four ESCONI members (Marie Angkuw, Jann Bergsten, Rhonda Gates, and Deborah Lovely) delivered a lively and fascinating slide presentation of their February collecting trip to the Jurassic Coast of Lyme Regis, England. Numerous pictures of the local beaches and town accompanied their storytelling, which highlighted not only the variety in landscape…
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Reminder: ESCONI Paleontology Meeting: Saturday, June 16th, 2018 – Jurassic Treasures Revealed
Jurassic Treasures Revealed Collecting along the Black Ven of Lyme Regis and beneath the cliffs of neighboring Charmouth, England Enjoy a slide presentation as four ESCONI members share their recent fossil collecting experiences and discoveries along southern England’s Jurassic Coast. If a trip to this part of the world is on your bucket list, learn some tips on what…
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ESCONI Paleontology Meeting: Saturday, June 16th, 2018 – Jurassic Treasures Revealed
Jurassic Treasures Revealed Collecting along the Black Ven of Lyme Regis and beneath the cliffs of neighboring Charmouth, England Enjoy a slide presentation as four ESCONI members share their recent fossil collecting experiences and discoveries along southern England’s Jurassic Coast. If a trip to this part of the world is on your bucket list, learn some tips on what…
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Palaeocast Episode 87: Archaeopteryx
Palaeocast episode 87 is about Archaeopteryx. Archaeopteryx lived about 150 million years ago, during the Jurassic Period, in what is now southern Germany. Including the first feather, discovered in 1860 or 1861, there are now twelve specimens. All have been found in the limestone deposits near Solnhofen, Germany. The iconic “Berlin” specimen shown above was…
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Meet the giant dinosaur that roamed southern Africa 200 million years ago
Lara Sciscio, University of Cape Town Globally at around 200 million years ago, in what’s known as the Early Jurassic, small and agile two-legged carnivorous dinosaurs called theropods roamed the ancient landscapes. In southern Africa, we know of their existence from their rare body fossils but also, importantly, from their fossil footprints. Now our team’s…
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Lyme Regis Presentation Announcement for Paleo Group meeting, April 15th, 2017
ESCONI Presentation – Saturday, April 15, 2017Paleontology Study Group Meeting – 7:30 PM College of Dupage – Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B In the Footsteps of Mary Anning: Collecting England’s Jurassic Coast.This past February, five ESCONI Women took to the beaches of Lyme Regis and Charmouth of famed Dorset County where Mary Anning made…
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Reminder October 2016 General Meeting: Roy Plotnick “Jurassic Pork: What Could a Jewish Time Traveler Eat?”
Octobers’s General Meeting will feature a presentation by Roy Plotnick. The presentation is entitled “Jurassic Pork: What Could a Jewish Time Traveler Eat?” Roy has spoken to us many times in the past. All of his presentations are very interesting and this one sounds just a provocative as all of the previous ones! It all…
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October 2016 General Meeting: Roy Plotnick “Jurassic Pork: What Could a Jewish Time Traveler Eat?”
Octobers’s General Meeting will feature a presentation by Roy Plotnick. The presentation is entitled “Jurassic Pork: What Could a Jewish Time Traveler Eat?” Roy has spoken to us many times in the past. All of his presentations are very interesting and this one sounds just a provocative as all of the previous ones! It all…
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Jurassic World: High Heels Edition (Parody)
There have been quite a few criticisms about Jurassic World. Here’s a parody that exploits one for a few laughs. Good for a hot summer afternoon…
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Jurassic World, Opens June 12th, 2015
Jurassic World opens on June 12th 2015. Yeah, they could have done the science better. And, where are the feathers? But, it should be interesting. Remember, if nothing else, the original movie did increase interest in dinosaurs and science. This one has a new story with new animals, here’s the trailer.
