When most of us think of dinosaurs, we envision large, lumbering beasts, but these giants shared their ecosystems with much smaller dinosaurs, the smaller skeletons of which were generally less likely to be preserved. The fossilized egg shells of these small dinosaurs can shed light on this lost ecological diversity.
 

A new study led by researchers from the University of Bristol has shown that not all saber-tooths were fearsome predators.

Sturgeon, a long-lived, bottom-dwelling fish, are often described as "living fossils," owing to the fact that their form has remained relatively constant, despite hundreds of millions of years of evolution.

Morphological landmarks used in morphometric analysis of chasmosaurine parietals.

By analyzing the fossilized jaw mechanics of reptiles who lived in the Severn Channel region of the UK 200-million-years ago, researchers from the University of Bristol have shown that they weren't picky about the types of insects they ate—enjoying both crunchy and less crunchy varieties.

North America had the T. rex, South America had the Giganotosaurus and Africa the Spinosaurus—now evidence shows Australia had gigantic predatory dinosaurs.

In 2011, Chilean scientists discovered a mysterious fossil in Antarctica that looked like a deflated football. For nearly a decade, the specimen sat unlabeled and unstudied in the collections of Chile’s National Museum of Natural History, with scientists identifying it only by its sci-fi movie-inspired nickname – “The Thing.”

Four members of this newly described plant-eater were found together in what may be Australia’s first known dinosaur herd.

Scientific illustrator Julius Csotonyi’s dramatic images of dinosaurs resonate in troubled times.

An international research team has been stunned to discover that some species of ancient crocodiles walked on their two hind legs like dinosaurs and measured over three meters in length.

20 new lion genomes give fresh perspectives on relationships between extinct and living populations of the king of beasts.

Fossilized remains of a new species of dinosaur that lived 90 million years ago have been discovered in Patagonia, Argentine paleontologists announced on Thursday.

Three-dimensional virtual reconstruction of the braincase of the ankylosaur Bissektipelta archibaldi. Bones are semi-transparent and the internal contents of the endocranial cavity are seen. 

 the growth of Tyrannosaurus rex has received repeated attention through quantitative analyses of relative maturity and chronological age. 

Archaeologists found the bones of about 60 mammoths at an airport construction site at Mexico city

A dinosaur with impressive armored plates across its back became mummified around 110 million years ago after enjoying one last meal before dying.

The giant extinct invertebrate Arthropleura resembled some modern millipedes, but could grow to be more than one-and-a-half feet wide, and may sometimes have been more than six feet long.

A 246 million-year-old extinct marine reptile that died with its unborn offspring still in its womb has been identified as a new species. 

A new genus and species of jeholornithiform avialan that lived during the Cretaceous period has been identified from a nearly-complete specimen found in China.

A fossil of a species of prehistoric reptile, previously found in China and Brazil, has been discovered in the UK for the first time, a university said.

For these Jurassic predators, cannibalism was 'definitely on the table' in desperate times, researchers say.

We think of crocodiles as fearsome predators, but it wasn’t always so. During the dinosaur era, many crocodile-like reptiles were peaceful plant-eaters. The strategy evolved on at least three separate occasions and seems to have been both common and successful.

New simulations from Imperial College London have revealed the asteroid that doomed the dinosaurs struck Earth at the 'deadliest possible' angle.

hen a team of biologists melted some Siberian permafrost to look for microbes, an ancient survivor waved hello.

On University of Tennessee microbiologist Tatiana Vishnivetskaya’s petri dish sat a small pile of nematodes — half-millimeter long roundworms 

Dinosaur fossils aren't minerals under state law, a divided Montana Supreme Court said in a ruling Wednesday that has implications in an ongoing legal battle over the ownership of millions of dollars of fossils unearthed on an eastern Montana ranch.

Scientists from the University of Bristol and the University of Zurich have shown that the Titanichthys - a giant armoured fish that lived in the seas and oceans of the late Devonian period 380-million-years ago—fed in a similar manner to modern day basking sharks.

Skeleton high on a London museum wall — mostly ignored for a century — spurs a study finding that the creatures swam in seas from England to Russia to the Arctic, Baylor University researcher says

When people first arrived in what is now Queensland, they would have found the land inhabited by massive animals including goannas six metres long and kangaroos twice as tall as a human.

Elephants ranged over Schöningen in Lower Saxony 300,000 years ago. In recent years, remains of at least ten elephants have been found at the Palaeolithic sites situated on the edges of the former opencast lignite mine. 

A dinosaur relative of T. rex and Velociraptor with an unusually long neck, and which may have transitioned from predator to plant-eater as it reached adulthood, has been unearthed in Victoria.

Galeaspids are an endemic clade of jawless stem-gnathostomes known as ostracoderms. Their existence illuminates how specific characteristics developed in jawed vertebrates. Sinogaleaspids are of particular interest among the galeaspids but their monophyly is controversial because little is known about Sinogaleaspis xikengensis. 

Researchers in Argentina have uncovered the fossilised remains of a lethal ‘megaraptor’ species more agile than the T-rex.

In the age of giant reptiles, sauropods were the biggest of all. Long-tailed, long-necked species like Diplodocus and Apatosaurus were the largest dinosaurs. From tip to tail, some sauropods were up to 40 metres long.

Scientists have discovered the remains of two ancient fish that sported fanged teeth on their lower jaws and a huge, single saber tooth on the top. 

Scientists worldwide have long debated our ability to identify male and female dinosaurs. Now, research led by Queen Mary University of London has shown that despite previous claims of success, it's very difficult to spot differences between the sexes.

An ancient squid-like creature with 10 arms covered in hooks had just crushed the skull of its prey in a vicious attack when disaster struck, killing both predator and prey, according to a Jurassic period fossil of the duo found on the southern coast of England.

A new study by an international team from the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas and Hokkaido University and Okayama University of Science in Japan further explores the proliferation of the most commonly occurring duck-billed dinosaur of the ancient Arctic as the genus Edmontosaurus. The findings also reinforce that the hadrosaurs—known as the "caribou of the Cretaceous"—had a huge geographical distribution of approximately 60 degrees of latitude, spanning the North American West from Alaska to Colorado.

A new University of Wisconsin Oshkosh analysis of raptor teeth published in the peer-reviewed journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology shows that Velociraptors and their kin likely did not hunt in big, coordinated packs like dogs.

Ankylosauria from Mexico and Their Phylogenetic Significance

n 1983, fossil hunter William Walker uncovered a giant claw in a brick pit in Surrey. A team of palaeontologists from the Museum began to investigate the site and had soon dug up one of the most complete meat-eating dinosaurs ever found in the UK.

A cat-sized mammal dubbed "crazy beast" lived on Madagascar among some of the last dinosaurs to walk the Earth, scientists have revealed.

An exuberant dinosaur with a parrot-like beak, bony frills, a huge horn on its nose and a 'star-like' skull has been named in honour of British rock musician David Bowie.

US palaeontologists have given the dinosaur genus the name Stellasaurus, meaning 'star lizard', based on a fossilised skull found in Montana. 

The creature roamed the badlands of Montana 75 million years ago and belonged to the ceratopsians – plant-eaters that included the iconic Triceratops 

Spinosaurous just got a little weirder. A new discovery shows large extensions of the tail vertebrae making this animals tail perfectly suited for the water!   

Brontosaurus was a large sauropod, a group of typically large dinosaurs with long necks and long tails. It lived during the Late Jurassic Period, from about 156 to 145 million years ago.

100 million years ago, ferocious predators, including flying reptiles and crocodile-like hunters, made the Sahara the most dangerous place on Earth.

About 75 million years ago, southern Alberta was a lush and warm coastal floodplain rich in plant and animal life, similar to Louisiana’s environment today. New isotopic evidence suggests large herbivores in this system co-existed in the same habitats, contrary to earlier hypotheses that some stuck to coasts and others to inland forests.

“Giant pliosaurids

The great size of certain Late Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous pliosaurids has made them famous, perhaps especially so in the UK and Australia where giant animals are particularly well represented.

Sauropods were among the most diverse lineages of dinosaurs, with an ample geographic distribution throughout the Mesozoic. This evolutionary success is largely attributed to neck elongation and its impact on feeding efficiency. However, how neck elongation influenced exactly on feeding strategies is subject of debate.

New discoveries have raised the possibility of exploring dino genetics, but controversy surrounds the results

Pterosaurs were the largest animals ever to fly. They soared the skies for 160 million years—much longer than any species of modern bird. Despite their aeronautic excellence, these ancient flyers have largely been overlooked in the pursuit of bioinspired flight technologies. 

Observations of temporal overlap of niche occupation among Late Cretaceous marine amniotes suggest that the rise and diversification of mosasauroid squamates might have been influenced by competition with or disappearance of some plesiosaur taxa. 

A specimen of the ceratopsian Protoceratops andrewsi (AMNH 6418) similarly had possible impressions that were destroyed. It was collected at the famous Bayn Dzak (“Flaming Cliffs”) locality by the 2nd Central Asiatic Expedition in 1923. 

Dinosaur bones are precious, especially when they come filled with Gemstones.

The oldest known fossils of dinosaur embryos have been examined in "unprecedented" detail to reveal how their skulls developed, according to a new study published Thursday.

Birds do it, bees do it, even ancient long-legged flies did it…

At least this pair did — until they were suffocated in a glob of tree resin around 40 million years ago.

Marine crocodiles of Germany

In our new paper we describe the fragmentary remains of two large individuals (SMNS 80149, PSHME PH1) of marine crocodiles (Thalattosuchia) from the early Kimmeridgian of Southern Germany. Germany is (next to e.g. the UK, France, or Argentina) one of the hotspots for fossils of these extinct crocodile relatives. Most of the well-preserved thalattosuchian skeletons found here are from the Toarcian black shales of Holzmaden, Dotternhausen, and Mistelgau as well as the late Upper Jurassic limestones of the Altmühl valley, Wattendorf, and Nusplingen. 

A new carcharodontosaurid taxon, Lajasvenator ascheriae gen. et sp. nov. is described. The new taxon is based on two specimens: MLL-PV-Pv-005 is a partial skeleton represented by a portion of the snout, partially articulated presacral vertebral series, four articulated caudal vertebra and fragments of the pelvic girdle; MLL-PV-Pv-007 includes the anterior ends of both dentaries, a quadratojugal, and fragments of cervical vertebrae, ribs and a possible tarsal bone. Lajasvenator is unique in having anterior projections on cervical prezygapophyses, lip-like crests on the lateral surfaces of cervical postzygapophyses, and bilobed anterior processes on cervical ribs. 

You wait ages for a pterosaur and then four come along at once.

Hot on the heels of a recent paper discovering three new species of pterosaur, University of Portsmouth palaeobiologists have identified another new species—the first of its kind to be found on African soil.

Experts say new evidence from Cretaceous period ‘shows us what carbon dioxide can do’

This underwater cave in Madagascar is home to what is thought to be the country's largest fossil graveyard.

Scientists have formally given an ancient reptile a name, over 80 years since its fossils were found in Tanzania.

Mandasuchus tanyauchen was a carnivorous reptile that lived around 245 million years ago and grew up to three metres in length. Mandasuchus was not a dinosaur - it was on the evolutionary branch of the reptile family tree that ultimately led to modern-day crocodiles. 

Small-bodied enantiornithine (robust, cranially forked pygostyle, distal condyles of tibiotarsus contacting medially, J-shaped metatarsal I, metatarsal IV mediolaterally reduced relative to metatarsals III and IV, metatarsal IV trochlea reduced to single condyle; Supplementary Note 1) with the following autapomorphies: pubis delicate and strongly curved so that the caudal margin is concave throughout; distal end of ischium dorsally curved.

A new feathered dinosaur that lived in New Mexico 67 million years ago is one of the last known surviving raptor species, according to a new publication in the journal Scientific Reports.

A team led by UC Riverside geologists has discovered the first ancestor on the family tree that contains most familiar animals today, including humans.

If you like teeth, underwater predators, and strange things, then this news is for you: Shark fans can celebrate the discovery of two new rare species of six-gilled sawsharks found in the western Indian Ocean near Madagascar and Zanzibar.

New research finds soot from global fires ignited by an asteroid impact could have blocked sunlight long enough to drive the mass extinction that killed most life on Earth, including the dinosaurs, 66 million years ago.

A topic of considerable interest to paleontologists is how dinosaur-dominated ecosystems were structured, how dinosaurs and co-occurring animals were distributed across the landscape, how they interacted with one another, and how these systems compared to ecosystems today. 

A fantastic fossil found in Belgium is offering new insights into the ancient birds that gave rise to the ones still around today.

An ancient Elpistostege fish fossil found in Miguasha, Canada has revealed new insights into how the human hand evolved from fish fins.

Finding out the sex of a dinosaur might seem a little pointless, but it could teach us a lot about how these ancient animals lived.

Around 25,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers used the bones from 60 mammoths to build a large circular structure in Russia.

Grapefruit-sized tracks are first evidence that iconic dinosaurs roamed Scotland

The little bird-like dinosaur Oculudentavis khaungraae probably dined on insects in a Cretaceous rainforest.

Dr. Femke Holwerda has joined the Royal Tyrrell Museum research team as the Dr. Elizabeth Nicholls Postdoctoral Fellow. In this role, Dr. Holwerda will research the diet of mosasaurs from the Bearpaw Formation.

BEER STEIN-SHAPED DISTANT RELATIVE OF MODERN CLAMS CAPTURED SNAPSHOTS OF HOT DAYS IN THE LATE CRETACEOUS

The horse had arthritis when it died. It is possible, too, that it had bone cancer in one ankle.

That can happen to any horse once it gets to be a certain age. This one is nearly 16,000 years old.

The lower Permian (Cisuralian) was a time of major diversification for herbivorous tetrapods. Although tetrapod herbivores first appeared in the late Carboniferous (diadectomorphs and edaphosaurid synapsids), these groups increased in richness in the Permian and were joined by a novel array of herbivorous reptile groups (Sues & Reisz, 1998). 

A new species of quail-sized fossil bird from 44 million year old sediments in Utah fills in a gap in the fossil record of the early extinct relatives of chickens and turkeys, and it shows strong links with other extinct species from Namibia in Southern Africa and Uzbekistan in Central Asia.

An international research group led by Prof. Wang Bo from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) has found a new genus, including two new aneuretopsychid species from early Late Cretaceous (99 million years ago) Burmese amber, which reveals new anatomically significant details of the elongate mouthpart elements.

Tiny skull belonged to the earliest relative of weasels ever found in North America

The team from the West Australian Museum had only been on the ground for five minutes when they made their first fossil discovery.

It was a tooth from a Carcharocles megalodon, a giant predatory shark that roamed the ocean until its extinction about 3.5 million years ago.

The exhibit, which opens this summer, will feature models and fossils of ancient creatures.

This study is lead by Dr. Alida Bailleul (Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Dr. Mary Schweitzer (North Carolina State University, NC Museum of Natural Sciences, Lund University and Museum of the Rockies).

The tiny forefoot of a lizard of the genus Anolis was trapped in amber about 15 to 20 million years ago. Every detail of this rare fossil is visible under the microscope. But the seemingly very good condition is deceptive:

An ancient worm that lived 518 million years ago has been identified as the first animal to evolve the loss of a body part no longer needed.

A marsupial lion that, in its heyday, would have had some animals "shaking in their boots", has been confirmed as a new genus.

The bones are currently preserved inside an 18,000-pound sandstone block discovered in 2001 by a graduate student conducting field work in Arches National Park. On Wednesday the block was relocated from the Thanksgiving Point Museum of Ancient Life to the Utah Geological Survey’s Research Center in Salt Lake City.