Taxonomy term

dinosaur

Massive trove of dinosaur tracks cataloged in Australia

In a remote region of Western Australia, paleontologists have documented the world’s most diverse assemblage of dinosaur tracks. The scientists found preserved in Early Cretaceous rocks thousands of tracks, 150 of which can be assigned to at least 11, and possibly as many as 21, different known track types representing theropods, sauropods, ornithopods and armored thyreophorans.

18 Jul 2017

Travels in Geology: A tale of two rivers: Grand Junction, Colorado

Lying at the junction of the Colorado and Gunnison rivers, the town straddles two iconic landscapes: the classic slickrock sandstone of the American Southwest and the Rocky Mountains’ snow-capped peaks.
05 Jul 2017

Rearranging the dinosaur family tree

Dinosaurs have long been grouped into two major clades — Ornithischia and Saurischia — largely based on the shapes of their hips. But new phylogenetic research is shaking up the dinosaur family tree, suggesting the traditional two-branch system needs reorganizing.

20 Jun 2017

Horned dinosaur find a first for eastern North America

Fossils of horned dinosaurs called ceratopsids, the group that includes Triceratops, are usually found in either western North America or Asia. But the discovery of a single ceratopsid tooth in Mississippi, reported in a new study in PeerJ, hints that this group spread into new territory at the tail end of the Mesozoic Era — just prior to going extinct.

23 May 2017

Tiny dinosaur-era marsupial packed a big bite

Newly described fossils from one of the earliest-known marsupials are shedding light on the evolution of mammals during the Mesozoic and revealing an animal with an impressive bite, perhaps strong enough to take down a dinosaur.

19 Apr 2017

Scientists crack the secret of dinosaurs' incubation time

Paleontologists have long thought that the eggs of dinosaurs — like those of their living bird relatives — probably hatched after short incubation times, up to a few weeks at most. But surprising results from a new study suggest that nonavian dinosaurs spent anywhere from three to six months inside an egg, incubation times similar to reptiles like crocodiles and alligators.

18 Apr 2017

Discovered: One of the last-surviving Asian dinosaurs

Paleontologists have discovered a new species of oviraptorosaur, a group of strange bird-like dinosaurs without teeth. The species, Tongtianlong limosus, has been described based on a specimen preserved in mudstone dating to the end of the Cretaceous. The find adds to a growing list of newly unearthed and similarly aged oviraptorosaur species, suggesting the group flourished during the last few million years of the Age of Dinosaurs before all nonavian dinosaurs were killed off in the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.

21 Feb 2017

Saving Mongolia's dinosaurs and inspiring the next generation of paleontologists

Paleontologist Bolortsetseg Minjin and her team are bringing dinosaurs home to the children of rural Mongolia any way they can: via fossil repatriation, workshops, new permanent museums and even a roving museum.

15 Feb 2017

The Dinosaur Garden of the Gobi: Motivating future paleontologists

In June 2016, the tourism board of Dalanzadgad, a small city in the Mongolian Gobi, opened a new dinosaur theme park on the outskirts of town. It was paid for with a government grant awarded before the 2016 economic downturn. The night we arrived in town, our Gobi team was given a tour by two of the project’s biggest advocates.

15 Feb 2017

Rare Late Cretaceous dino skin found fossilized

About 66 million years ago, a dinosaur lay down on a muddy riverbank in what is now Spain, leaving behind the impression of its scaly skin. A team studying sandstone formations near the village of Vallcebre in the Pyrenees recently uncovered the unique artifact, made even more extraordinary by the timing of when it was left: right before the end-Cretaceous extinction that wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs.

10 Feb 2017

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