Antarctic Notable Quotable from the Director of the British Antarctic Survey, Dame Jane Elizabeth Francis, broadcast on BBC 29 November 2019. Interviewer Martha Kearney asked: “Now your own work on ancient climates shows such a different world in Antarctica. Well we go back 100 million years to the age of the dinosaurs as you showed […]
South polar dinosaur feathers found, claim scientists, as reported by ScienceDaily 12 November 2019 and National Geographic 18 November 2019, and Gondwana Research, published online 11 November 2019; doi: 10.1016/j.gr.2019.10.004. An international group of scientists has studied 10 tiny fossil feathers found in the Koonwarra fossil formation in Victoria Australia. The specimens examined by the […]
Dinosaur tooth story reported in The Star Calgary 11 October 2019, Science Daily 17 October 2019, and The Anatomical Record 9 September 2019 doi: 10.1002/ar.24241. Palaeontologists have found a nearly complete skeleton of a small dinosaur named Saurornitholestes langstoni in the Dinosaur Provincial Park Formation in Alberta Canada. The dinosaur is described as “feathered carnivorous […]
‘Herd’ of opal dinosaurs found, according to reports in UNE News 30 May 2019 and National Geographic 3 June 2019, and Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology published online: 3 June 2019 doi: 10.1080/02724634.2019.1564757. A team of scientists led by Phil Bell of University of New England, (UNE) Armidale, Australia, have found “remains from a herd of […]
Fossil ‘meteorite impact dino graveyard’, according to reports in BBC News, National Geographic and ScienceDaily 29 March 2019, CNN and Science News 1 April 2019, and PNAS published online 1 April 2019, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1817407116. Palaeontologists in North Dakota USA have found a fossil graveyard they claim was formed as a result of the impact of […]
Biggest T. rex found, according to reports in ScienceDaily 22 March 2019 and National Geographic 26 March 2019 and The Anatomical Record, 21 March 2019; doi: 10.1002/ar.24118. Palaeontologists at the University of Alberta have found the largest Tyrannosaurus rex known. The 65% complete skeleton includes the skull and hips along with some ribs, leg and […]
Oldest long-necked dinos found, according to Live Science 21 November 2018, and Biology Letters 21 November 2018 doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0633. Palaeontologists in southern Brazil have found three “exceptionally well preserved” specimens of a previously unknown sauropodomorph – the group of long necked dinosaurs that includes giants such as Brontosaurus. At 3.5 metres (11ft) long the new […]
Colourful dinosaur eggs found, claim scientists in a study reported in Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 31 October 2018, and Nature 31 October 2018, doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0646-5. Many birds’ eggs are coloured or have speckled patterns of pigment, while reptiles lay plain white eggs. It has always been assumed that dinosaurs, being reptiles, would have produced […]
Did dinosaurs stop to smell the flowers? According to articles in ScienceDaily 7 August 2018 and Historical Biology, doi: 10.1080/08912963.2018.1502288 published online 25 July 2018, they could have. Many flowers attract pollinators by producing fragrances. George Poinar, an entomologist at Oregon State University and his son Greg, a perfume collector, have examined fossil flowers found […]
Chinese dragon “in wrong place at wrong time” according to an article in Science Daily 1 August 2018, about a discovery also reported in National Geographic 24 July 2018, BBC News 25 July 2018 and Nature Communications, 24 July 2018 doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-05128-1. Palaeontologists have found the fossil of a sauropod dinosaur in the Ningxia Autonomous […]