Paleo in the News

Scientists discover what was on the menu of the first dinosaurs

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Fri, 12/16/2022 - 13:26
The earliest dinosaurs included carnivorous, omnivorous and herbivorous species, according to a team of palaeobiologists.
Categories: Fossils

Climate change played key role in dinosaur success story

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Fri, 12/16/2022 - 10:29
Climate change, rather than competition, played a key role in the ascendancy of dinosaurs through the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic periods.
Categories: Fossils

Dinosaur teeth reveal what they didn't eat

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Fri, 12/09/2022 - 08:47
Scratches on dinosaur teeth could reveal what they really ate. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) has now been used to infer the feeding habits of large theropods, including Allosaurus and T. rex. By taking 3D images of individual teeth and analyzing the pattern of marks scratched into them, researchers could reason which dinosaurs may have frequently crunched on hard bone and which may have regularly eaten softer foods and prey. This technique opens up a new avenue of research for paleontology, helping us to better understand not only dinosaurs themselves but also the environment and communities in which they lived.
Categories: Fossils

Dinosaurs were on the up before asteroid downfall

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Wed, 12/07/2022 - 13:22
Dinosaurs dominated the world right up until a deadly asteroid hit the earth, leading to their mass extinction, some 66 million years ago, a landmark study reveals. Fresh insights into dinosaurs' ecosystems -- the habitats and food types that supported their lives -- suggests that their environments were robust and thriving, right up until that fateful day, at the end of the Cretaceous period.
Categories: Fossils

Ankylosaurs battled each other as much as they fought off T. rex

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Tue, 12/06/2022 - 19:49
Scientists have found new evidence for how armored dinosaurs used their iconic tail clubs. The exceptional fossil of the ankylosaur Zuul crurivastator has spikes along its flanks that were broken and re-healed while the dinosaur was alive -- injuries that the scientists think were caused from a strike by another Zuul's massive tail club. This suggests ankylosaurs had complex behavior, possibly battling for social and territorial dominance or even engaging in a 'rutting' season for mates.
Categories: Fossils

Fossil overturns more than a century of knowledge about the origin of modern birds

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Wed, 11/30/2022 - 10:45
Fossilized fragments of a skeleton, hidden within a rock the size of a grapefruit, have helped upend one of the longest-standing assumptions about the origins of modern birds.
Categories: Fossils

Oldest Pterodactylus fossil found in Germany

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Tue, 11/29/2022 - 10:27
The oldest Pterodactylus specimen was found near Painten, Germany. The fossil is about one million years older than other Pterodactylus specimens. The specimen is a complete, well-preserved skeleton of a small-sized individual. With a 5-cm-long skull, it represents a rare 'sub-adult' individual.
Categories: Fossils

Prehistoric predator? Artificial intelligence says no

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Tue, 11/15/2022 - 10:37
Artificial intelligence has revealed that prehistoric footprints thought to be made by a vicious dinosaur predator were in fact from a timid herbivore.
Categories: Fossils

New Scottish fossil sheds light on the origins of lizards

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Wed, 10/26/2022 - 10:43
A fossil discovery from Scotland has provided new information on the early evolution of lizards, during the time of the dinosaurs.
Categories: Fossils

Fossil bird's skull reconstruction reveals a brain made for smelling and eyes made for daylight

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Mon, 10/24/2022 - 14:36
Piecing together the crushed skull of a fossil bird that lived alongside the dinosaurs helped researchers extrapolate what its brain would have looked like: big olfactory bulbs would have meant that this bird, the earliest known animal to eat fruit, had a better sense of smell than most modern birds. And the bones around its eye sockets revealed that it would have been better at seeing by day than at night.
Categories: Fossils

Ostrich-like dinosaurs from Mississippi are among the world's largest at over 800 kilograms

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Wed, 10/19/2022 - 16:22
Ostrich-like dinosaurs called ornithomimosaurs grew to enormous sizes in ancient eastern North America, according to a new study.
Categories: Fossils

Dinosaur 'mummies' might not be as unusual as we think

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Wed, 10/12/2022 - 15:34
A process of desiccation and deflation explains why dinosaur 'mummies' aren't as exceptional as we might expect, according to a study.
Categories: Fossils

Shaking the dinosaur family tree: How did 'bird-hipped' dinosaurs evolve?

Science Daily - Dinosaurs - Thu, 09/22/2022 - 09:31
Researchers have conducted a new analysis of the origins of 'bird-hipped' dinosaurs -- the group which includes iconic species such as Triceratops -- and found that they likely evolved from a group of animals known as silesaurs, which were first identified two decades ago.
Categories: Fossils

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