Dinosaur bones have told scientists a lot about how the ancient animals lived, hunted, and died, but reproduction has remained largely a mystery. A new fossil from China provides such an incredibly well-preserved look at the dinosaur’s hindquarters that it shows the orifice that was likely used for expelling waste as well as for mating. …
The only complete dinosaur skeleton ever discovered had been sitting in storage for 160 years before it got the attention it deserved. Over the past three years, researchers have pieced together the skeleton and learned a lot about its history. The animal, a Scelidosaurus, was closely related to ankylosaurs. Over the centuries, researchers have found …
Scientists have discovered evidence of two ancient aquatic reptiles locked in a death struggle as one tried to eat the other. The larger of the two, an ichthyosaur, apparently choked on its prey, leading both animals to die, sink, and become fossilized. The researchers say while such behavior is rarely found in the fossil record, …
Researchers have confirmed the identity of three species of massive ancient crocodiles with fossils from across North America. The creatures could grow to be as long as a bus, and had teeth so large they looked like bananas. These three species of so-called “terror crocodiles” were the largest predators of their day. Modern crocodiles are …
Scientists have drawn a much more accurate picture of what the Dilophosaurus was like, and it’s a far cry from its depiction in Jurassic Park. The creatures had crests on their heads, but they weren’t nearly as small as shown in the movies — the real ones stood up to 20 feet in length. The …
Researchers have discovered footprints of an ancient species from the crocodile family that walked upright on two legs. These creatures may have looked a bit like dinosaurs, but they weren’t. The tracks date back 110 million years, and since we don’t see these animals around today we can only guess when and why they were …
The asteroid that killed the dinosaur struck the Earth at the worst possible angle for the species living here at the time. Advanced modeling reveals that the rock likely struck at an angle of between 60 and 75 degrees, maximizing the amount of hot gas released into the atmosphere. The impact resulted in the death …
Raptors were likely not pack hunters as depicted in movies like Jurassic Park, a new study suggests. Evidence to support the notion that raptors hunted in groups is thin, and modern dinosaur relatives aren’t known for hunting in packs. It’s likely, the researchers argue, that raptors fended for themselves. Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories. …
Scientists say they’ve found the tiniest dinosaur ever, and it was encased in amber. The fossil, found in Myanmar, is so small that it’s comparable to the smallest bird species alive today. The researchers believe that despite its size, it was a carnivore that feasted primarily on bugs. Visit BGR’s homepage for more stories. A …
Finding dinosaur footprints can be exciting for any scientist. Finding them in a unique place just adds to the fun, but when a set of fossilized footprints was spotted on the ceiling of a cave in Australia, it sparked a decades-long mystery that was only just recently solved. As HeritageDaily reports, the fossilized footprints were …
