dinosaurs

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Tire-Sized Footprints Found on Scottish Coast

They were left by sauropods some 170M years ago

(Newser) - Some imprints are so big, they look like tidal pools. Perhaps that's why the footprints were able to hide in plain sight for years before observant paleontologists spotted the tell-tale signs of dinosaur toes. They're now celebrating the discovery of some 50 rare footprints left by long-necked sauropods... More »

Study Reveals Why Some Dinosaurs Had Horns

Hint: It's the same reason peacocks have such impressive tail feathers

(Newser) - The horns and frills of dinosaurs like Triceratops and Styracosaurus weren't for defending against predators, regulating body temperature, or even attaching fearsome battle helmets , according to a study published this week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B . Rather researchers found the defining features of ceratopsian dinosaurs were actually... More »

Sahara Desert Reveals 'Holy Grail' of Dino Discoveries

African dinosaur suggests link to Europe in late Cretaceous Period

(Newser) - Researcher Matt Lamanna calls it "the Holy Grail" of dinosaur discoveries. After decades of digging had left a 44-million-year gap in the fossil record for dinos in Africa, Lamanna says his jaw "hit the floor" when he saw photos of skull fragments, a lower jaw, neck and back... More »

Found in China: Dino With a 'Rainbow Glimmer'

Jurassic Period's 'Caihong juji' had shimmering feathers like those found on hummingbirds

(Newser) - Scientists are now saying there may have been "a more colorful Jurassic World than we previously imagined," thanks to the recent discovery of a fossil in China's Hebei province. Reuters reports that a closer look at the "exquisitely preserved," almost completely intact fossil of a... More »

Vandals Smash 115M-Year-Old Dinosaur Footprint

Print was in one of the only known polar dinosaur sites

(Newser) - Some 115 million years ago in what is now South Australia, a theropod dinosaur left a footprint that remained through the ages until this month, when somebody deliberately smashed it. Officials say they were "disheartened" to discover the vandalism at the famous Flat Rocks site in Victoria state. "... More »

Rarest of Rare Discoveries: a Swimming Dinosaur

It's believed to be only the 2nd swimming dinosaur ever found

(Newser) - The dinosaur was the size of a turkey and had a neck like a swan, teeth like a crocodile, forelimbs similar to a penguin's flippers, and clawed feet ideal for use on land. It's such a strange assortment of features that researchers who identified the new species from... More »

Tiny T. Rex Arms We Laugh At May Have Been 'Vicious'

Scientist thinks they may have been used for powerful slashing

(Newser) - It's a physical mismatch that's long puzzled paleontologists: Tyrannosaurus rex, terror of the Cretaceous Period, empowered with a giant head and ferocious jaws, yet also stuck with tiny, seemingly useless arms. Per National Geographic , scientists' speculation on the arms has included using them to hang onto prey, as... More »

Trump Plans Have Dinosaur-Lovers Distressed

Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante is home to countless fossils—and 62 billion tons of coal

(Newser) - Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante contains an estimated 62 billion tons of coal. But it also has one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur fossils in the world, with more than two-dozen new species having been discovered in the 21 years since President Clinton designated it a national monument. So when... More »

Scientists Find Surprise in 75M-Year-Old Dino Poop

'Herbivores' might have eaten shellfish, say researchers

(Newser) - One of the most common herbivores of the dinosaur era might have been, well, not an herbivore. Fossilized poop likely to have come from a duck-billed dinosaur that roamed southern Utah some 75 million years ago contains ancient shellfish, shaking what researchers thought they knew about hadrosaurs and other egg-laying... More »

67M-Year-Old Dinosaur Eggs Upend a Long-Held Assumption

It turns out all dinosaur eggs weren't white

(Newser) - Feathers, wishbones, colored eggs. If they're things you associate as only found in birds, you're wrong, says paleontologist Mark Norell. It turns out dinosaurs evolved all three, though we've only just recently learned about that last item. The discovery of fossil egg-shells in China has upended the... More »

When Dinosaurs Were Killed, Earth Went Dark for 2 Years

New study shows climate effects of asteroid impact

(Newser) - When a 6-mile-wide asteroid crashed into the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago, it caused a devastating wave of earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis that killed untold number of animals and ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Then things got really bad. In a study published Monday in PNAS , scientists... More »

'Frankenstein' Dinosaur Transforms Evolutionary Tree

Chilesaurus bridges two major dino groups, scientists say

(Newser) - Like the theropod dinosaur T. rex, Chilesaurus stood upright, with strong hind legs and shorter front limbs. But its flat teeth were more closely related to ornithischians like triceratops and stegosaurus. That's just one thing that irked scientists when Chilesaurus was named a theropod following its discovery in Chile... More »

Meet What May Have Been the Largest Land Animal Ever

'Patagotitan mayorum' dino may have been as long as 7 elephants

(Newser) - One hundred million years ago, a sauropod that stretched more than 120 feet and weighed some 70 tons existed—perhaps the largest creature to ever roam the Earth. Over the past few years, researchers have excavated fossils from six young-adult dinosaurs from a Patagonian quarry, and New Scientist puts stats... More »

T. Rex Just Got a Lot Less Scary

New research shows beast could only travel up to 12mph

(Newser) - Jurassic Park had us all fooled: Outstripping a Tyrannosaurus rex in a Jeep would've been easy-peasy because, well, T. rex couldn't run. After much debate about how fast T. rex moved—previous estimates suggested up to 45 miles per hour—scientists at the University of Manchester used advanced... More »

This Crocodile Once Terrorized the Dinosaurs

Its head was the size of a washing machine; its teeth the size of bananas

(Newser) - Meet Razanandrongobe sakalavae, the giant dinosaur-killing crocodile that roamed what is now Madagascar 165 million years ago. Razana, as it's known for short, was first discovered a decade ago, but due to limited fossilized remains, little was known about the creature until recently. Thanks to research published Tuesday in... More »

This Baby Bird Fell in Amber 99M Years Ago

'Belone' hatched among dinosaurs

(Newser) - A study involving a 99-million-year-old piece of Burmese amber is making waves thanks to the cute little creature caught inside. According to Popular Science , a well-preserved baby bird trapped in the sap just a few days or weeks after hatching may be the key to unlocking secrets of the... More »

In Scales vs. Feathers Dino Debate, Some New Evidence

T. rex skin fossil suggests the carnivore was scaled

(Newser) - Just when you were getting used to the idea of dinosaurs being covered in downy feathers , new evidence suggests that this theory may not apply to one of natural history’s most famous carnivores. Science reports that though cousins of the Tyrannosaurus rex likely sported feathers, a new study examining... More »

Asteroid That Wiped Out Dinosaurs Hit in Exact Wrong Place

An impact in deep ocean would have been much less catastrophic

(Newser) - Humans might never have appeared on Earth had an asteroid 66 million years ago hit a spot other than the one it did, a new BBC documentary suggests. The asteroid that felled the dinosaurs hit a shallow sea near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, sending a dense cloud of sulfur into... More »

All Hail Zuul, Dino 'Destroyer of Shins'

Newly discovered dinosaur named after 'Ghostbusters' baddie

(Newser) - If dinosaurs are only as cool as their names*, then it's going to be hard to out-cool the newly discovered Zuul crurivastator. "Zuul" obviously comes from the Ghostbusters baddie , who Reuters describes as a "big, horned, vaguely dog-like monster with glowing red eyes." The skull of... More »

In Australia's 'Jurassic Park,' World's Largest Dino Prints

21 different types of tracks found Down Under—some 6 feet long

(Newser) - Twenty-one is the lucky number for paleontologists in Australia: That's the "globally unparalleled" number of different varieties of dinosaur prints they appear to have found in a "magical place" they call the country's own "Jurassic Park," per Phys.org . In a study published in... More »

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