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Hidden under Greenland’s thick ice sheet, scientists found what they thought was the scar of an asteroid impact perhaps just thousands of years old, fresh enough that humans were already on the scene. But after several years of additional research, two separate teams of scientists have determined its age to be far older: 58 million … Read more
A newly discovered fossilized stegosaur found in China is the most ancient ever found in Asia, and could be the oldest in the world. Treading the Earth some 170 million years ago, during the Middle Jurassic Bajocian age, the beastie was also small for a stegosaur, measuring just 2.8 meters (just over 9 feet) from … Read more
Sauropods, a group that includes diplodocus, were assumed to walk like elephants, but a new way to analyse footprints shows their gait was most similar to a hippopotamus Life 2 March 2022 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre Giant long-necked dinosaurs walked with a gait that was different from that of any living animal, according to a new … Read more
How does an animal as big as a semitruck move around? That’s a question scientists have long asked about sauropods, the largest known dinosaurs, which may have weighed as much as 70 tons. Did they walk like a giraffe, picking up their two left and right legs in a dignified march? Or like an elephant, … Read more
After analysing the teeth and thigh bones of 38 T. rex fossils, some researchers propose reclassifying them as three different species, but others are unconvinced Life 1 March 2022 By Colin Barras Sue, the Tyrannosaurus skeleton at the Field Museum in Chicago EQRoy / Alamy The “tyrant lizard king” – Tyrannosaurus rex – might have … Read more
A dinosaur bone unearthed in eastern Russia shows evidence of an injury the plant-eater sustained when it fell awkwardly Life 2 March 2022 By Carissa Wong An artist’s reconstruction of Amurosaurus Andrey Atuchin A four-legged duck-billed dinosaur that lived 68 million years ago – in what is now eastern Russia – probably broke its wrist … Read more
On a spring day 66 million years ago, as flowers bloomed and baby birds hatched in what is now North Dakota, a ball of fire streaked across the sky and wiped out nearly three-quarters of life on Earth. So says a new high-resolution study of fossilized fish bones, which pinpoints the season of the Cretaceous-Paleogene … Read more
About 95 million years ago in what is now Australia, a massive crocodile relative clamped down with its powerful jaws on the small body of a dinosaur and gulped nearly all of it down in one mighty swallow. The crocodilian died soon after, and as it fossilized, so did the partly-digested and near-complete dinosaur … Read more
The first evidence of a respiratory infection in a dinosaur suggests that a 15-year-old diplodocid suffered from coughing, sneezing and fever before dying Earth 10 February 2022 By Matthew Sparkes An artist’s impression of Dolly the dinosaur Woodruff et al. (2022) and Corbin Rainbolt The fossil record has revealed dinosaurs with broken bones, osteoarthritis and … Read more
The gigantic and slow sauropod dinosaurs like Diplodocus had small two-legged ancestors – and one, Thecodontosaurus, was quick and nimble 19 January 2022 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre Thecodontosaurus antiquus Stocktrek Images, Inc. / Alamy An early ancestor of large, long-necked, four-legged dinosaurs like Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus was a quick, nimble biped that probably used its forelimbs … Read more