Paleontogly

The rapid rise of marine planktonic algae 659-645?million years ago (Cryogenian period), between the Sturtian and Marinoan ‘snowball Earth’ glaciations, created food webs with more efficient nutrient and energy transfers, driving ecosystems towards larger and increasingly complex organisms, according to new research. Cryogenian Earth. Image credit: NASA. The study, published …

In a paper published recently in the journal Palaeodiversity, U.S. paleontologists described a new species of angiosperm flower, Tropidogyne pentaptera, found in seven pieces of 99-million-year-old (mid-Cretaceous) amber excavated from a mine in Myanmar (also known as Burma). Tropidogyne pentaptera, holotype. Scale bars -1 mm. Image credit: George O. Poinar, …

Chilesaurus diegosuarezi, a peculiar dinosaur that roamed the Earth some 145 million years ago and looked like a raptor but was in fact a plant-eater, fills in a large gap between herbivorous dinosaurs and theropods, the group that includes Tyrannosaurus rex. Chilesaurus diegosuarezi was up to 3 meters long; the …

An international team of paleontologists has identified a new teleosaur and named it after Ian ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister, frontman of the band Motörhead. A paleoartist’s reconstruction of Lemmysuchus obtusidens. The reconstruction contains details relating to Motörhead, with the pattern on the head based on the band’s Snaggletooth logo. Image credit: Mark …

Dinosaurs that roamed what is now China some 160 million years ago had two ‘flying’ neighbors — strange creatures with long limbs, long hand, foot fingers, and wing-like membranes for tree-to-tree gliding. Named Maiopatagium furculiferum and Vilevolodon diplomylos, these prehistoric animals are the earliest known gliders in the long history …

Paleontologists from the Museo Egidio Feruglio in Argentina have discovered and described a new supermassive titanosaur species. At about 122 feet (37 m) long and weighing about 69 tons in life, Patagotitan mayorum is the largest animal ever to walk the planet and one of the most complete titanosaurs. Life …

Paleontologists have announced the discovery of two new troodontid dinosaur species, Latenivenatrix mcmasterae and Stenonychosaurus inequalis, based on remains found in Alberta, Canada. Life reconstruction of Latenivenatrix mcmasterae. Image credit: Julius Csotonyi. In 2014, University of Alberta paleontology student Aaron J. van der Reest discovered an intact troodontid pelvis in …

An international team of paleontologists has identified from an almost complete skeleton found in China a massive oviraptorid dinosaur with a toothless beak and a distinct cassowary-like crest atop its head. The living scene of Corythoraptor jacobsi. Image credit: Zhao Chuang. Named Corythoraptor jacobsi, the new discovered dinosaur belongs to …

An analysis of the fossilized skin of Borealopelta markmitchelli, the most well-preserved of the armored dinosaurs ever unearthed, has revealed that the ancient creature had a reddish-brown coloration and camouflage in the form of countershading, and that despite being the size of a tank, it was still hunted by carnivorous …

A team of paleontologists from the Philip J Currie Dinosaur Museum, the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum has added another species of bird-like feathered dinosaur to the prehistoric catalog, and this one was found in Canada. Albertavenator curriei. Image credit: Oliver Demuth. Albertavenator curriei, as the paleontologists …