Color-changing, warm-blooded ichthyosaurs.
Earth Archives talks about a recent fossil discovery that changes the way we picture marine life in the age of dinosaurs: An incredible new specimen […]
paleontology
We really did walk with unicorns.
PhysOrg explains that they were really Elasmotheriums – 3.5-ton primordial rhinos known as “Siberian unicorns” – but they really did survive into the era of […]
The very first vertebrates came from the beach.
Science News looks back at the shallow coastal waters of eons past, when the wading was comfortably uncrowded and the first creatures with spinal cords […]
The oldest animal.
The Guardian pulls back the veil – using fossilized cholesterol, of all things – on what could be the world’s oldest animal – an oval-shaped […]
Extinct lizard had four eyes.
LiveScience introduces us to Saniwa ensidens, a now-extinct monitor lizard from Wyoming that had an eye on either side of its head and two more […]
Sitting on eggs is only for modern birds. Primeval birds did it differently.
Nature reveals the ins and outs of dinosaur-era reproductive strategies, with research showing that prehistoric birds were too heavy to incubate their own eggs: Most […]
Science Art: Momma Oryctrodromeus stays in the burrow with her babies…., by Julio Lacerda
Click to embiggen I found this on the Scientific Illustration tumblr, and though it seems to have been used in an Earth Archives article with […]
The Age of Giant Penguins. After the Age of Dinosaurs, before the Age of Giant Mammals.
So, yes, I’ve already written an OK song about giant penguins before, but this is a new and different thing. NPR is reporting on a […]
Pterodactyl treasure trove.
The Guardian takes us to Xinjiang, where paleontologists have opened a new window onto the past by unearthing an amazing trove of fossilized pterodactyl eggs: […]
Laugh at the T. rex’s tiny arms… as they shred your frail body just like they were designed to.
Science News brings a new(-ish) perspective on the atrophied forelimbs of Tyrannosaurus rex. Those little arms were perfectly built for close-quarters slashing of prey: [T]he […]
Dinosaur had four wings, yet could not fly.
National Geographic reveals the real-life parable of a dinosaur that, according to the evidence, had four wings, yet never flew: The newly named species, Serikornis […]
You could (probably) outrun a T. rex.
Newsweek, reporting on a study in PeerJ, demonstrates how one of the scariest dinosaurs of all was really kinda slow and clumsy: In a study […]
Science Art: Dinotherium, by Heinrich Harder,1916.
Click to embiggen This is a fairly speculative reconstruction of an elephant-relative we really only know from footprints (or so says Wikimedia Commons, who are […]
New tyrannosaur species had a sensitive face.
Science News gets up close and personal with Daspletosaurus horneri, a 9-meter-long prehistoric predator which hunted 75 million years ago with the help of a […]
Science Art: Dinner in the Mould of the Iguanodon, by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, 1854.
A paleontological dinner party, as drawn by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, the sculptor who also made the dining accommodations – an Iguanodon. Nowadays, we know (or […]