Science Daily - Dinosaurs

The Arctic landscape during the Cretaceous Period may have been dominated by the dinosaurs, but the rivers and streams held something more familiar. Alaska's fresh waters 73 million years ago were teeming with the ancient relatives of today's salmon, pike and other northern fish. A new article has named three new species of fish from that time period, including a salmonid, dubbed Sivulliusalmo alaskensis.

Tyrannosaurus rex evolved in North America, but its direct ancestor came from Asia, crossing a land bridge connecting the continents more than 70 million years ago, according to a new study.

A new study is reshaping how scientists date dinosaur fossils in Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park (DPP). Using advanced drone-assisted 3D mapping, researchers have uncovered significant variations in a key geological marker, challenging long-standing methods of determining the ages of dinosaur fossils.

A new study links fossilized flying reptile tracks to animals that made them. Fossilized footprints reveal a 160-million-year-old invasion as pterosaurs came down from the trees and onto the ground. Tracks of giant ground-stalkers, comb-jawed coastal waders, and specialized shell crushers, shed light on how pterosaurs lived, moved, and evolved.

Footprints of armored dinosaurs with tail clubs have been identified, following discoveries made in the Canadian Rockies. The 100-million-year-old fossilized footprints were found at sites at both Tumbler Ridge, BC, and northwestern Alberta.

The idea that dinosaurs were already in decline before an asteroid wiped most of them out 66 million years ago may be explained by a worsening fossil record from that time rather than a genuine dwindling of dinosaur species, suggests a new study.

Jurassic dinosaurs milled about ancient Scottish lagoons, leaving up to 131 footprints at a newly discovered stomping ground on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, according to a new study.

More mammals were living on the ground several million years before the mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs, new research has revealed.

Feathers, essential for thermoregulation, flight, and communication in birds, originate from simple appendages known as proto-feathers, which were present in certain dinosaurs.By studying embryonic development of the chicken, researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have uncovered a key role of a molecular signalling pathway (the Shh pathway) in their formation. This research provides new insights into the morphogenetic mechanisms that led to feather diversification throughout evolution.

A researcher has confirmed a boulder at a regional school contains one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur footprints per square meter ever documented in Australia.

Researchers examined dozens of bird species in museum collections looking for differences in the feathers and bodies between birds that can fly and birds that can't. They found that when birds evolve from a flying ancestor to a new flightless form, the birds' bodies, including the ratio of their wings and tails, change before the feathers do. Insights from this research could help scientists trying to determine whether a fossil bird, or a feathered dinosaur that isn't part of the bird family, was able to fly.

The remains of the earliest dinosaurs may lie undiscovered in the Amazon and other equatorial regions of South America and Africa, suggests a new study.

The fossilized neck bone of a flying reptile unearthed in Canada shows tell-tale signs of being bitten by a crocodile-like creature 76 million years ago, according to a new study.

A newly described dinosaur whose fossils were recently uncovered is challenging the existing narrative, with evidence that the reptiles were present in the northern hemisphere millions of years earlier than previously known.

While volcanism caused a temporary cold period, the effects had already worn off thousands of years before the meteorite, the ultimate cause of the dinosaur extinction event, impacted.

Research has revealed that several groups of meat-eating dinosaur stalked the Bexhill-on-Sea region of coastal East Sussex 135 million years ago.

Researchers have been able to identify undigested food remains, plants and prey in the fossilized feces of dinosaurs. These analyses of hundreds of samples provide clues about the role dinosaurs played in the ecosystem around 200 million years ago.

Scientists have presented results on the acoustic characteristics of a physical model of the Parasaurolophus' crest. They created a physical setup made of tubes to represent a mathematical model that will allow researchers to discover what was happening acoustically inside the crest. The physical model, inspired by resonance chambers, was suspended by cotton threads and excited by a small speaker, and a microphone was used to collect frequency data.

Wings may be the obvious choice when studying the connection between dinosaurs and birds, but a pair of paleontologists prefer drumsticks. That part of the leg, they say, is where fibular reduction among some dinosaurs tens of millions of years ago helped make it possible for peacocks to strut, penguins to waddle, and turkeys to trot.

A 'one of a kind' fossil discovery could transform our understanding of how the unique brains and intelligence of modern birds evolved, one of the most enduring mysteries of vertebrate evolution.