All articles tagged with #dinosaurs
Scientists have identified a massive 80-million-year-old dinosaur fossil found in Texas as a previously unknown species, expanding our understanding of dinosaur diversity and evolution.
Paleontologists have unearthed clusters of dinosaur eggs dating to about 72 million years ago, roughly the size of small melons. The discovery at a fossil site provides new insights into nesting behavior and reproduction in dinosaurs, enriching our understanding of late Cretaceous life.
A new study of 82 theropod species finds that giant predators didn’t shrink their arms because their bodies grew larger; instead, as jaws and skulls became more powerful, forelimbs became less necessary and were reduced in five independent lineages. The researchers linked arm length to skull robustness, showing a stronger correlation with powerful jaws than with body size. Skull development preceded arm reduction, meaning the bite-based hunting strategy replaced grasping by the arms. This convergent pattern across tyrannosaurids, abelisaurids, carcharodontosaurids, megalosaurids, and ceratosaurids suggests tiny arms were an evolutionary consequence of jaw power, not a byproduct of overall gigantism.
Spanish paleontologists describe MAP-9029, the most complete stegosaur skull from Europe, attributed to Dacentrurus armatus, revealing a unique supraoccipital orientation and prompting a new Neostegosauria-based framework that reshapes stegosaur evolution across continents.
New fossil-based research argues that Tyrannosaurus rex forelimbs were vestigial—short and not suited for grappling prey—likely evolving for balance or limited support rather than hunting, with the massive skull and jaws doing the heavy lifting.
Rediscovered in northern Mongolia, a 120-million-year-old tracksite in the Shinekhudag Formation preserves 31 footprints—two parallel sauropod trackways suggesting herd movement and five theropod tracks—indicating large predators converged at a drying lake edge; first noted in 1950 but lost for decades, the site could yield bones nearby and helps fill gaps in Mongolia’s early Cretaceous dinosaur record.
Scientists in Denali National Park discovered the largest dinosaur tracksite in Alaska, nicknamed “The Coliseum,” containing thousands of footprints from Late Cretaceous dinosaurs. The tracks revealed themselves only under specific sunset lighting, showing a multi-layer record of a river-based ecosystem with giant plant-eaters, predators like tyrannosaurs and raptors, and preserved plant and invertebrate fossils. The site, formed by ancient floodplains and later uplift by the Alaska Range, provides insight into prehistoric northern ecosystems and is now protected as researchers continue study.
A best-preserved European stegosaur skull (Dacentrurus armatus) from Spain provides new details on stegosaur skull anatomy and supports a new Neostegosauria concept, potentially reshaping how stegosaurs evolved and spread during the Jurassic.
A small Jurassic dinosaur, Pulaosaurus qinglong, preserved an ossified larynx indicating bird-like vocalization, implying some non-avian dinosaurs chirped and called to one another rather than roaring.
Scientists in northeastern Thailand identified a new giant sauropod, Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, estimated to be about 88 feet long and 27 tons—potentially the largest dinosaur found in Southeast Asia—dating to roughly 100–120 million years ago. Discovered by locals, with excavation completed by 2024, the species earned the nickname “the last titan” and is now featured as a life-size reconstruction at Bangkok’s Thainosaur Museum after a study published in Scientific Reports.
In Castelbouc Cave in southern France, researchers documented three-dimensional counterprint casts of sauropod footprints on the ceiling, dating to about 168 million years ago with tracks up to 1.25 meters long. The prints formed when dinosaurs walked across soft lagoon mud, later filled and preserved as rock, revealing that giant herbivores roamed coastal wetlands. Studying them required deep cave exploration and rare preservation conditions, and the team notes similar discoveries elsewhere may follow.
Researchers analyzing a remarkably preserved Edmontosaurus sacrum detected remnants of endogenous collagen and related amino acids in a 66-million-year-old fossil, providing strong evidence against the idea that original biomolecules are always destroyed over deep time and potentially enabling new insights into dinosaur evolution and biology.
Thai researchers announce Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, a ~27-ton, long-necked herbivorous dinosaur that lived 100–120 million years ago in what is now northeastern Thailand. Discovered in 2016 in Chaiyaphum and later studied with National Geographic funding, the fossils (including a front leg bone nearly six feet long) make it the largest known sauropod in Southeast Asia, and scientists say it could be the last giant of its kind to be found in the region.
Paleontologists in Torotoro National Park, Bolivia, have documented Carreras Pampa as the largest known dinosaur tracksite, preserving nearly 18,000 footprints across 1,321 trackways dating to about 70 million years ago along the shore of an ancient freshwater lake. Most prints are three-toed theropod tracks, with ghost tracks and hundreds of swim traces; no bones were found. The site offers detailed clues on dinosaur movement and behavior and was published in PLOS ONE.
The piece surveys ten historical Earth events where life faced extreme survival challenges, from oceanic anoxia in the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary and Doggerland’s submergence to the Carboniferous era’s giant insects, fungi like Prototaxites, an 18-million-year ERV-Fc pandemic, the Late Jurassic giants, the Carnian Pluvial Episode, the K-Pg asteroid impact that vaporized life within 1,500 km, to the End-Permian Great Dying, illustrating how life has endured repeated planetary crises and how modern resilience has enabled humans to persist despite present extinction fears.