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Dinosaur Fun

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 09:10:41 +0000

What are the funniest dinosaur jokes? Why shouldn't you keep a dinosaur as a pet? And which dinosaurs went extinct almost as soon as ...

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Prehistoric Mammal of the Day - Ganlea

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:31:29 +0000

Like many "missing links," Ganlea has been somewhat oversold by the popular media: this tiny tree dweller has been touted as evidence that anthropoids (the family of primates that includes monkeys, apes and humans) originated in Asia rather than Africa. Ganlea may even have been overhyped by its discoverers as a way of stealing the thunder from another prehistoric primate, the much earlier Darwinius from western Europe, which has been proposed as the earliest direct ancestor of humans. In fact, if the team behind Ganlea is to be believed, Darwinius was actually more closely related to lemurs than to modern humans, leaving Ganlea as the true torch-bearer of the Eocene epoch. To date, the evidence is insufficient to make such a grandiose claim, and most experts don't place Ganlea at the root of the anthropoid family tree.

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How Fast Could Dinosaurs Run?

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:18:28 +0000

Could Tyrannosaurus Rex run fast enough to catch a modern-day human? Were ornithomimids really as speedy as ostriches? Here's what we know (and don't know) about how fast dinosaurs could run.

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Pterosaur of the Day - Dorygnathus

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 07:00:08 +0000

With its long tail and narrow wings, Dorygnathus ("spear jaw") was a prime example of what paleontologists call a "rhamphorhynchoid" pterosaur. Rhamphorhynchoids have been found almost exclusively in early Jurassic western Europe, although it's not clear if this is because they were confined to this geographical location or if conditions happened to be exceptionally well-suited for fossil preservation.

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Prehistoric Mammal of the Day - Fruitafossor

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:30:25 +0000

Thanks to the discovery of a near-complete skeleton in the Fruita region of Colorado, we know more about Fruitafossor ("Fruita digger") than we do about most early mammals of the Mesozoic Era. Judging by this animal's teeth, pointed snout and long front claws, it's clear that Fruitafossor made its living by digging for insects, most likely termites (since ants had yet to evolve by the late Jurassic period), and it may also have burrowed beneath the ground to escape predation by theropod dinosaurs. To date, Fruitafossor is the earliest digging mammal yet identified, appearing in the fossil record a whopping 100 million years before similarly adapted creatures.

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Dinosaur of the Day - Puertasaurus

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:23:21 +0000

Although Argentinosaurus is the best-attested giant titanosaur of late Cretaceous South America, it was far from the only genus--and it may well have been eclipsed in size by Puertasaurus, the huge vertebrae of which hint at a plant-eater that measured over 100 feet long from head to tail and weighed as much as 100 tons. (Another South American titanosaur in this size class was Futalognkosaurus, and an Indian genus, Bruhathkayosaurus...

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10 Reasons Dinosaurs Make Bad Pets

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:16:44 +0000

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to raise a newly hatched Stegosaurus, or adopt a full-grown Velociraptor from your local animal shelter? Well, be careful, because there's a big downside to keeping a dinosaur as a pet.

Dinosaur of the Day - Psittacosaurus

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:23:40 +0000

As you may have guessed from its name--Greek for "parrot lizard"--what set Psittacosaurus apart from other dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period was its very un-dinosaur-like head. Also, although it's often depicted in a four-legged posture, paleontologists believe that some species of Psittacosaurus (there are at least 10 known varieties) walked or ran on two legs. This dinosaur seems to have led a relatively quiet life, although the horns on its face--probably a sexually selected characteristic--indicate that the males engaged in combat with each other for the right to mate with females.

By the way, you wouldn't know it from its small, unprepossessing appearance, but Psittacosaurus is technically classified as a ceratopsian--the family of horned, frilled dinosaurs that also included Triceratops, Protoceratops, and Styracosaurus. In fact, Psittacosaurus was one of the most "basal" ceratopsians, predated only by late Jurassic forebears like the extremely primitive Chaoyangsaurus.

Read more about dinosaurs like Psittacosaurus: Ceratopsians - The Horned, Frilled Dinosaurs

Illustration of Psittacosaurus: Pavel Riha

Pterosaur of the Day - Dimorphodon

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:22:36 +0000

Dimorphodon is one of those pterosaurs that looks like it was assembled incorrectly out of the box: for one thing, ts head was unusually big, looking like it might have been transplanted from a larger, terrestrial theropod dinosaur. Of more interest to paleontologists, though, this late Jurassic pterosaur had two types of teeth in its jaws, longer ones in front (presumably for snagging fish) and shorter ones in back (presumably for grinding them up)--hence its name, Greek for "two shapes of tooth."

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Prehistoric Mammal of the Day - Eusmilus

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:27:32 +0000

Even though it's technically classified as a "false" saber-toothed cat, Eusmilus possessed truly gigantic canines, which were almost as long as its entire skull (when they weren't in use, this cat kept its killer teeth cozy and warm in specially adapted pouches on its lower jaw). Eusmilus' jaw muscles were comparatively weak--with its huge canines, this prehistoric cat didn't need to inflict a powerful bite--and it was strangely lacking in supplementary teeth, with a relatively paltry two dozen or so. Proving that saber-toothed cats preyed on each other as well as on other mammals, a skull of Nimravus has been identified bearing two Eusmilus-sized bite marks!

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