Tag: Mesozoic
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PBS Eons: What Happened To The Other Mesozoic Mammals?
There's a new episode of PBS Eons. This one is about the rise of modern mammals through the Cretaceous Period. In 2003, a fossil belonging to a mammaliaform was discovered in an ancient lakebed in what's now China. It was an almost complete skeleton the size of a platypus, a find that complicated the history…
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During the Age of Dinosaurs, Some Birds Sported Toothy Grins
Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting article about birds with teeth. Before the K-Pg event at the end of the Cretaceous Period, most birds had teeth, but those species are rarely discussed. One of the first toothed bird discovered, was Hesperornis in the 1870’s. Early birds such as Archaeopteryx don’t look all that different from the small, carnivorous dinosaurs they…
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PBS Eons: When Pterosaurs Walked
PBS Eons has a new episode. This one is about pterosaurs and how they lived… when they were on the ground. If you know one thing about pterosaurs, it’s that they’re flyers. And while pterosaurs may be well-known for their domination of the skies in the Mesozoic Era, they didn’t live their entire lives…
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Volcanic Eruptions Helped Dinosaurs Dominate Planet Earth
The New York Times Trilobites column has an article about volcanic eruptions during the Triassic Period. Recently, a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes striking evidence that volcanoes helped dinosaurs spread across the globe during the Triassic Period about 234 million years ago. It has long been debated what…
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Fossil Reveals Weird, Toothed ‘Toucan’ That Lived Alongside The Dinosaurs
ScienceAlert has a story about a “buck-toothed toucan”. The animal, Falcatakely forsterae, lived about 68 million years ago during the late Cretaceous in what is now modern Madagascar. It was described in a paper in the journal Nature. At less than nine centimetres (3.5 inches) long, the delicate skull of the bird scientists have dubbed Falcatakely forsterae might…
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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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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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Roy Plotnick: The First Day of the Rest of Life
Roy Plotnick has a great post about of the last day of the Mesozoic Era (or the first day of the Cenozoic Era). It would have been a very bad day, indeed! On a day some sixty-six million years ago, life was Earth was suddenly and irreversibly altered. An enormous asteroid or comet struck the…
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SciAm: Pterosaurs Were Monsters of the Mesozoic Skies
Scientific American has an article about pterosaurs. It seems that they not the birds, which are dinosaurs, ruled the skies. Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight. They ranged in size from the size of a small plane to the size of a modern sparrow. Many had heads larger than their bodies… they…
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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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PBS Eons: The Age of Reptiles in Three Acts
PBS Eons has an episode on the Mesozoic – the Age of Reptiles. From the Great Dying until the K-Pg extinction event, reptiles ruled the earth. Great explanation of the origin or dinosaurs, pterosaurs, birds, and mammals along with other details of this important period!
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Palaeocast Episode 85: Ichthyosaurs
The Palaeocast podcast has a new episode on Ichthyosaurs. The discussion centers around a new documentary called “Attenborough and the Sea Dragon”. Ichthyosaurs are large marine reptiles that existed for most of the Mesozoic Era. The most familiar forms superficially represent dolphins, but some earlier ichthyosaurs were more eel like. They could attain huge proportions,…
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NatGeo: Why Pterosaurs Were the Weirdest Wonders on Wings
National Geographic Magazine has a interesting story in their November 2017 issue. Large and small pterosaurs are some of the strangest animals to ever live. They went extinct 65 million years ago during the end Cretaceous mass extinction event. This article has many details and great pictures which describe what and who pterosaurs were during…
