Were dinosaurs "warm-blooded" like present-day mammals and birds, or "cold-blooded" like present day lizards? The implications of this simple-sounding question go beyond deciding whether or not you'd snuggle up to a dinosaur on a cold winter's evening. A team of researchers, including Herman Pontzer, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, has found strong evidence that many dinosaur species were probably warm-blooded. If dinosaurs were endothermic (warm-blooded) they would have had the potential for athletic abilities rivalling those of present day birds and mammals, and possibly similar quick thinking and complicated behaviours as well. Their internal furnace would have enabled them to live in colder habitats that would kill ectotherms (cold-blooded animals), such as high mountain ranges and the polar regions, allowing them to cover the entire Mesozoic landscape.
The feathered creature called archaeopteryx, easily the world's most famous fossil remains, had been considered the first bird since Charles Darwin's day. When researchers put its celebrity bones under the microscope recently, though, they discovered that this icon of evolution might not have been a bird at all. An examination of its bone cells revealed for the first time that the 150-million-year-old creature had the slow growth rate of a dinosaur, not a bird, an international research team reported this month. Comparing it with other early fossils, the researchers concluded that the telltale physiology of modern birds likely didn't emerge until 20 million years or so after archaeopteryx flapped its broad wings across primordial lagoons.
Despite their fearsome fangs, male sabertoothed cats may have been less aggressive than many of their feline cousins, says a new study of male-female size differences in extinct big cats. The researchers report that while male American lions were considerably larger than females, male and female sabertoothed cats were indistinguishable in size. The findings suggest that sabertooths may have been less aggressive than their fellow felines, researchers say.
Deep under the sea, a fossil the size of a sand grain is nestled among a billion of its closest dead relatives. Known as foraminifera, these complex little shells of calcium carbonate can tell you the sea level, temperature, and ocean conditions of Earth millions of years ago. That is, if you know what to look for. Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Miriam Katz has spent the past two decades studying these ancient, deep-sea fossils to reconstruct the climates of Earth up to 250 million years ago. Through ice ages and greenhouse climates, Katz has been able to piece together oxygen, carbon, and faunal data to paint a portrait of how, when, and why our climate has changed so drastically over geologic history.
Which came first, the flower or the bee? Flowering plants (angiosperms) evolved to attract insects some 99.6 million to 65.5 million years ago, about the same time as the bugs that were pollinating them. But a new paper, published online Thursday in Science, proposes that one ancient fly was spreading plant pollen some 160 million years ago-way before there were any flamboyant blossoms. Extinct members of the scorpion fly family had an impressive protrusion on their heads that may have been specially adapted to harvest nectar from gymnosperms, such as ferns and pines. The authors of the paper analyzed 11 species of ancient scorpion flies. They found that among all these species the fly's head had an approximately 10-millimeter-long proboscis, which researchers propose was used as a straw for sipping nectar from these flowerless plants. The fossil specimen pictured here is a Lichnomesopsyche gloriae from the late middle Jurassic and found in northeastern China.
Remains of one of the oldest known marsupials have been recovered in Charente-Maritime by a palaeontologist team from the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (CNRS) and the University of Rennes 1. This discovery raises a new hypothesis about the dispersal route of the earliest marsupial mammals.The discovery consists of a few teeth, collected after screenwashing of 5 tons of sediment. They belong to a new tiny mammal, named Arcantiodelphys marchandi, which is one of the oldest and most primitive marsupial known in the world. It is also the oldest known representative of the modern therians in Europe.
Spanish researchers have studied the fossil record of hadrosaurs, the so-called 'duck-billed' dinosaurs, in the Iberian Peninsula for the purpose of determining that they were the last of their kind to inhabit the European continent before disappearing during the K/T extinction event that occurred 65.5 million years ago. Most notable among these fossils is the discovery of a new hadrosaur, the Arenysaurus ardevoli, found in Huesca, Spain.
Local paleontologists find unknown species with buffalolike horns, inspiring moniker. His illustrations of newly discovered dinosaurs have been featured many times in scientific journals such as Science, Nature and Discover and in general-interest magazines like Time. Now William L. Parsons, of Buffalo, has topped himself - and everybody in his field - with the Canadian Journal of Earth Science's publication of his rendering of the head of a previously unknown species that he and his wife, Kristen M., found in a Montana field. Since the broad, short horns on the back of the skull resembled buffalo horns, they named it Tatankacephalus cooneyorum. The first word combines tatanka, which means buffalo in the Sioux language, with cephalus - Greek for head.
Researchers have announced the discovery of a new, real-world "monster" that they are calling a "unicorn" fly that lived about 100 million years ago and is being described as a new family, genus and species of fly never before observed: George Poinar, Jr., a professor of zoology at Oregon State University named the new fly Cascoplecia insolitis, from the Latin "cascus" for old and "insolates" for strange and unusual. A single, incredibly well-preserved specimen of the tiny but scary-looking fly was preserved for eternity in Burmese amber, and it had a small horn emerging from the top of its head, topped by three eyes that would have given it the ability to see predators coming. But despite that clever defense mechanism, it was apparently an evolutionary dead end that later disappeared.
Tyrannosaurus rex and its relatives were North America's dominant predators in the late Cretaceous period, about 99 million to 65 million years ago, but a new analysis of a toothy fossil skull suggests that the early history of this group includes smaller meat-eating ancestors that date as far back as 170 million years ago. The skull belongs to the only known specimen of Proceratosaurus, which now represents the oldest known relative of T. rex and its cousins, extending the evolutionary history of tyrannosaurs back to the middle of the Jurassic period, say paleontologist Angela Milner of The Natural History Museum in London and her colleagues.
Many dinosaurs may be facing a new kind of extinction-a controversial theory suggests as many as a third of all known dinosaur species never existed in the first place. That's because young dinosaurs didn't look like Mini-Me versions of their parents, according to new analyses by paleontologists Mark Goodwin, University of California, Berkeley, and Jack Horner, of Montana State University. Instead, like birds and some other living animals, the juveniles went through dramatic physical changes during adulthood.
Europe's southern-most skeletal remains of Mammuthus primigenius were unearthed in a moor on the 37°N latitude. This is considerably south of the inhospitable habitat than one usually imagines for mammoths, and for the characteristically dry and cold climate that prevailed during the ice ages in the north of Eurasia. The remains of the ice age giants from Padul were examined in a joint scientific project of four research institutions, namely, the Quaternary Paleontology arm of the Senckenberg Research Institutes of Germany, the Universities of Madrid and Oviedo in Spain, and the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Bill and Kris Parsons, Research associates of the Buffalo Museum of Science, found much of the skull of the newly described Tatankacephalus cooneyorum resting on the surface of a hillside in 1997. Because the skull was 90% complete, it was possible to justify this fossil as a new species. The new dinosaur, a species of ankylosaur, is documented in the October issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. Ankylosaurs are the biological version of an army tank. They are protected by a plate-like armour with two sets of sharp spikes on each side of the head, and a skull so thick that even 'raptors' such as Deinonychus could leave barely more than a scratch.
The fossil remains of some of the first animals with shells, ocean-dwelling creatures that measure a few centimeters in length and date to about 520 million years ago, provide a window on evolution at this time, according to scientists. Their research indicates that these animals were larger than previously thought.
The world's smallest baby dinosaur's footprint measuring 1.27 cm by 1.06 cm has been discovered in Namhae, South Gyeongsang Province. The fossil was unearthed by the Natural Heritage Center under the Cultural Heritage Administration from a geological stratum dating back about 112-125 million years.
Imagine the gruesome sound of bones snapping as a thirsty, 30-ton dinosaur tramples a heap of fresh carcasses on his way to a rapidly shrinking lake. That's the scene revealed by a painstaking analysis of thousands of bones unearthed near Moab, Utah by geologists from Brigham Young University. So far the researchers have identified 67 individual dinosaurs representing 8 species - and they have only scratched the surface of this diverse quarry. Mysteriously, nearly all of the 4,200 bones recovered so far are fractured, as reported in the scientific journal Palaeo.
The discovery of a new ancient flying reptile promises to answer questions-about the evolution of this species and others-that have been lingering since Charles Darwin's time. The new 160-million-year-old pterosaur, named Darwinopterus in honor of the famed 19th-century naturalist, has emerged as an important middle specimen between early, long-tailed pterosaurs-also known as pterodactyls-and later short-tailed ones.
El geólogo, paleoicnólogo y profesor de Geología de la Universidad de Denver y conservador del Dinosaur Tracks Museum, el galés Martin G. Lockley, visitó ayer el Museo Jurásico de Asturias (MUJA) en Colunga. El investigador galés afincado en Estados Unidos se mostró feliz de regresar de nuevo a la región y aseguró que «Asturias es para mí como mi segunda casa». García Ramos y Lockley aseguran que de este estudio y como consecuencia del tamaño de las huellas de pterosaurios encontradas en Asturias, algunas de las cuales son las mayores encontradas en el mundo, «se puede determinar por primera vez que hubo en el Jurásico Superior individuos de mayor tamaño del que se venía asumiendo hasta ahora, a través del estudio del registro óseo hallado en los yacimientos». García Ramos explicó que el estudio de las huellas va «por delante de las investigaciones que tienen como protagonista a los restos óseos de los mismos organismos».
The dinosaur named Albalophosaurus yamaguchiorum is believed to be a new species of herbivorous ornithischian that had short forelegs and walked on two hind legs. Albalo means "white mountain" named after Hakusan where the fossils were found and the "yamaguchiorum" part was named after two local residents who happen to share the same surname of Yamaguchi and who contributed to fossil research in the area.
A sleek cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex has been unearthed in Asia's Gobi desert. The discovery reveals that the fearsome "tyrant lizards," or tyrannosaurids, were much more diverse than thought. "Instead of [its] big bad boy ... relatives, this one is more like a ballerina," said study co-author Stephen Brusatte, a vertebrate paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
If you thought the flesh-ripping dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were terrifying, those fearsome creatures were just puppydogs compared to the giant teeth-gnasher that once roamed the plains of Australia. Weighing in at half a ton and measuring 16ft, Australovenator Wintonesis with its slashing claws would have been a terrifying sight to behold. Researchers have revealed the discovery of its bones as well as two other new species of dinosaurs that roamed the huge continent, when it was joined to the rest of Asia, millions of years ago. However, he might have been less impressed by the name 'Banjo' conferred on him by scientists who found his bones in the Outback.
An international team of paleontologists has discovered a new species of mammal that lived 123 million years ago in what is now the Liaoning Province in northeastern China. The newly discovered animal, Maotherium asiaticus, comes from famous fossil-rich beds of the Yixian Formation.This new remarkably well preserved fossil offers an important insight into how the mammalian middle ear evolved. The discoveries of such exquisite dinosaur-age mammals from China provide developmental biologists and paleontologists with evidence of how developmental mechanisms have impacted the morphological (body-structure) evolution of the earliest mammals and sheds light on how complex structures can arise in evolution because of changes in developmental pathways.
Scientists at Imperial College London have created detailed 3D computer models of two fossilized specimens of ancient creatures called Cryptomartus hindi and Eophrynus prestvicii that lived around 300 million years ago and are closely related to modern-day spiders. The study reveals some of the physical traits that helped them to hunt for prey and evade predators.
The raptor-like Archaeopteryx has long been viewed as the archetypal first bird, but new research reveals that it was actually a lot less "bird-like" than scientists had believed. That's because new, microscopic images of the ancient cells and blood vessels inside the bones of the winged, feathered, claw-handed creature show unexpectedly slow growth and maturation that took years, similar to that found in dinosaurs, from which birds evolved. In contrast, living birds grow rapidly and mature in a matter of weeks.
A rare horned dinosaur known as Torosaurus may not be a distinct species, after all, according to a presentation given Friday at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Bristol, England. Researchers have long recognized similarities between Torosaurus and Triceratops, the main triceratops skeleton distinctions being that Torosaurus is larger and has an expanded frill at the rear of the skull.
When pondering the demise of a famous dinosaur such as 'Sue,' the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex whose fossilized remains are a star attraction of the Field Museum in Chicago, it is hard to avoid the image of clashing Cretaceous titans engaged in bloody, mortal combat. But a new study, provides evidence that Sue, perhaps the most famous dinosaur in the world, was felled in more mundane fashion by a lowly parasite that still afflicts modern birds. The study pins the demise of Sue and other tyrannosaurs with similar scars on an avian parasitic infection called trichomonosis, caused by a single-celled parasite that causes similar pathologies on the mandibles of modern birds, raptors in particular.
Fossils of a newly discovered species of dinosaur (a 10-meter-long, elephant-weight predator) were discovered in 1996 along the banks of Argentina's Rio Colorado, and are now being reported after a long period of careful study. This dinosaur dates to about 85 million years (which falls within the Cretaceous period). Perhaps the most interesting feature of Aerosteon riocoloradensis is that it demonstrates the evolution of a bird-like respiratory system in an animal that is definitely not bird-like in most other ways. Indeed, the authors of this paper imply that this dinosaur's respiratory system represents an early phase in the evolution of the bird's respiratory system.
Ever since the first skeleton of Archaeopteryx was discovered in 1861, the feathered dinosaur has been considered the oldest bird. During the last several decades, however, scientists have found that many "bird" features, such as feathers, first appeared among theropod dinosaurs. What defines a bird rather than a non-avian feathered dinosaur has become a much more complex issue. There is no better example of this than the recently-described Anchiornis huxleyi.
When the ancestors of living cetaceans-whales, dolphins and porpoises-first dipped their toes into water, a series of evolutionary changes were sparked that ultimately nestled these swimming mammals into the larger hoofed animal group. But what happened first, a change from a plant-based diet to a carnivorous diet, or the loss of their ability to walk?
A University of Oregon research team has found that evolution can never go backwards, because the paths to the genes once present in our ancestors are forever blocked. The team used computational reconstruction of ancestral gene sequences, DNA synthesis, protein engineering and X-ray crystallography to resurrect and manipulate the gene for a key hormone receptor as it existed in our earliest vertebrate ancestors more than 400 million years ago.
A 9-foot dinosaur from northeastern China had evolved all the hallmark anatomical features of Tyrannosaurus rex at least 125 million years ago. Raptorex shows that tyrannosaur design evolved at "punk size," said Sereno, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, "basically our bodyweight.
One of the world's most famous asteroid craters, the Chicxulub crater, has been the subject of research for about twenty years. The asteroid impact that formed it probably put an end to the dinosaurs and helped mammals to flourish. Together with an Anglo-American team, an ETH Zurich researcher has studied the most recent deposits that filled the crater. The results provide accurate dating of the limestones and a valuable basis for archaeologists to research the Maya.
Biologists at the University of California, Riverside report new evidence for evolutionary change recorded in both the fossil record and the genomes (or genetic blueprints) of living organisms, providing fresh support for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The researchers were able to correlate the progressive loss of enamel in the fossil record with a simultaneous molecular decay of a gene, called the enamelin gene, that is involved in enamel formation in mammals.
Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) have traced the evolution of the four-chambered human heart to a common genetic factor linked to the development of hearts in turtles and other reptiles. The researchshows how a specific protein that turns on genes is involved in heart formation in turtles, lizards and humans.
Just like modern-day starlings, some ancient birds had glossy black feathers with a metallic, glimmering sheen, scientists report in a new study. The discovery is based on 40-million-year-old fossils of an unidentified bird species that were stored at the Senckenburg Museum in Frankfurt, Germany for up to 30 years. The fossils represent the first evidence of ancient iridescence in feathers.
Five hundred million years ago, strange, mouthless marine creatures called Ediacarans may have soaked up dissolved nutrients exclusively through their skin. Today, only single-celled organisms, such as bacteria, obtain all their food through their membranes, and some larger creatures, including sponges and corals, get a fraction of their sustenance via this process.
The world's first known tree-dwelling vertebrate has just been identified, according to a new study. The tiny, agile animal lived 30 million years before the first dinosaurs and was a distant relative of mammals, including humans. More than 15 near-complete skeletons of the 260-million-year-old animal, named Suminia getmanovi, reveal that it was built for an arboreal lifestyle.
Dr. Oliver Rauhut, paleontologist at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, and his collegue Dr. David Hone surmise that giant carnivores like Tyrannosaurus preyed mainly on juvenile dinosaurs. "Unlike their adult and well-armed relatives these young animals hardly posed any risk to the predators," says Rauhut. "And their tender bones would have added important minerals to a theropod's diet. Now we hope for more fossils to be found that add new evidence to our hypothesis."
Global calamities like the one that doomed most dinosaurs forever alter the varieties of life found on Earth, but new research shows that it doesn't take a catastrophe to end entire lineages. An analysis of 200 million years of history for marine clams found that vulnerability to extinction runs in evolutionary families, even when the losses result form ongoing, background rates of extinction.
From Dec 2009 to Aug 2010 "Fossils in our Backyard" focuses on discoveries made by staff and volunteers from the Discovery Site since its opening, including important fossils from the Chinle, Moenave, and Kayenta formations (Upper Triassic to Lower Jurassic - 225 to 193 million years ago). According to St. George City Paleontologist and Discovery Site Curator, Andrew R.C. Milner, "the exhibit has been designed as a look at life prior to, during and immediately following the existence of Lake Dixie." The exhibit also has examples of paleontology finds from other parts of Utah, northern Arizona and eastern Nevada.
An international team of scientists has discovered an extinct rodent species, based on fossil tooth remains found in Alborache, Valencia. Eomyops noeliae, from the Eomyidae family, represents the oldest find within this genus in the world.
The discovery of a gruesome feeding frenzy that played out 73 million years ago in northwestern Alberta may also lead to the discovery of new dinosaur species there. University of Alberta student Tetsuto Miyashita and Frederico Fanti, a paleontology graduate student from Italy, made the discovery near Grande Prairie, 450 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
A new analysis of the remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) that roamed Earth 68 million years ago has confirmed traces of protein from blood and bone, tendons, or cartilage. The findings, scheduled for publication in the Sept. 4 issue of the Journal of Proteome Research, is the latest addition to an ongoing controversy over which biochemical remnants can be detected in the dinosaur.
Emmanuel Gheerbrant, paleontologist at the Paris Museum (1), discovered one of the oldest modern ungulates related to the elephant order. The beginnings of the radiation (diversification) of the modern mammals (placental orders) remain poorly known because of fossil gaps, and especially in some key Southern continents such as Africa.
Evidence buried in the chromosomes of animals and plants strongly suggests only one group -- mammals -- have seen their genomes shrink after the dinosaurs' extinction. What's more, that trend continues today, say Indiana University Bloomington scientists in the first issue of a new journal, Genome Biology and Evolution.
The researchers focused on 35 early tetrapods that lived between 385 and 275 million years ago. As a proxy for body size and shape, they examined the dimensions of a number of bones in a region of the skull known as the palate. By tracing changes in the length and width of interlocking bones in this part of the skull, the researchers hoped to get a more fine-grained picture of skeleton evolution as a whole.
46th International Trade Fair For Minerals, Fossils, Precious Stones And Jewellery
Dal 30 Ottobre al 1 Novembre 2009 non perdete il MUNCHENMINERALIENTAGE a Monaco in Germania. Più di 1000 espositori provenienti da 56 Paesi."Upper Jurassic Fossil Park" dove saranno esposti i fossili ORIGINALI dei piu' famosi Archaeopteryx. OCCASIONE UNICA PER VEDERE GLI ARCHAEOPTERYX RIUNITI SOTTO LO STESSO TETTO. In piu', direttamente dal WYOMING, ci saranno NOVE teschi autentici di dinosauri. "India's Hidden Treasure". Lo speciale sui minerali mettera' in mostra gli splendidi gioielli dei Maharajas ed l'eccezionale "Emperor of India", il piu' bel cristallo di acquamarina al mondo
Il Museo Cantonale di Storia Naturale riprende la campagna di scavi paleontologici sul Monte San Giorgio, patrimonio mondiale dell'UNESCO dal 2003. Sotto la direzione di Rudolf Stockar, geologo e paleontologo del Museo e responsabile della ricerca scientifica sul Monte, riapre il sito di scavo inaugurato nel 2006 in località Cassina, situato a 900 m di quota a metà strada tra Meride e la vetta. Saranno esplorati strati di roccia risalenti a 238 milioni di anni fa. Agli scavi partecipano gli studenti dell'Università dell'Insubria impegnati nello stage di formazione e orientamento diretto dal Museo ticinese. A causa della vulnerabilità della superficie di scavo, della sicurezza del cantiere e della delicatezza del lavoro svolto dagli studiosi, i cantieri sono chiusi al pubblico.
Per festeggiare il centenario della prima esibizione dello scheletro completo di Diplodocus carnegiei il Museo Geologico Giovanni Capellini dell'Università di Bologna ospiterà presso le sue rinnovate sale la mostra "I dinosauri italiani". Una grande esposizione che si pone l'obiettivo di riunire i più importanti e spettacolari fossili di vertebrati rinvenuti nel nostro paese e di far conoscere ai visitatori di tutte le età l'importanza e la storia dei giacimenti italiani e delle persone che li studiano.
n.d.r.: A Bologna sarà esposta la Paleoart di Loana Riboli, Davide Bonadonna e Fabio Pastori, che i nostri lettori conoscono dalla Vetrina dei Paleoartisti. In bocca al ... dinosauro a tutti!
Inaugurata al Museo Giurassico delle Asturie la mostra temporanea
The University of Wyoming's geology museum in Laramie, with one of the best paleontology and geology collections in a small university town in the American West, closed last month -- a casualty of the budget cuts rippling through many academic institutions. The resulting outcry has yielded enough private donations to open the museum on a parttime basis starting in August -- but without its director.
ScienceDaily - Paleontologists have made the most important discovery to date at the Arlington Archosaur Site, a prolific fossil site in North Arlington, Texas. The disassembled skull of a crocodile with two and a half inch long teeth that lived nearly 100 million years ago has been unearthed.
ScienceDaily - On the heels of his discovery in Montana of the first trace fossil of a dinosaur burrow, Emory University paleontologist Anthony Martin has found evidence of more dinosaur burrows - this time on the other side of the world, in Victoria, Australia. The find, to be published this month in Cretaceous Research, suggests that burrowing behaviors were shared by dinosaurs of different species, in different hemispheres, and spanned millions of years during the Cretaceous Period, when some dinosaurs lived in polar environments.
ScienceDaily (July 7, 2009) - Researchers from the Teruel-Dinópolis Joint Palaeontology Foundation have compared an Allosauroidea tooth found in deposits in Riodeva, Teruel, with other similar samples. The palaeontologists have concluded that this is the largest tooth of a carnivorous dinosaur to have been found to date in Spain.
ScienceDaily (July 2, 2009) - Scientists have performed the first DNA-based reconstruction of the giant extinct moa bird, using prehistoric feathers recovered from caves and rock shelters in New Zealand.
ScienceDaily (July 1, 2009) - According to new research published online in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B (Biological Sciences) on July 1, 2009, a new fossil primate from Myanmar (previously known as Burma) suggests that the common ancestor of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from primates in Asia, not Africa as many researchers believe.
ScienceDaily (June 22, 2009) - The largest animals ever to have walked the face of the earth may not have been as big as previously thought, reveals a paper published June 21 in the Zoological Society of London's Journal of Zoology
ScienceDaily (June 23, 2009) - Researchers at the University of Florida and the University of Winnipeg have developed the first detailed images of a primitive primate brain, unexpectedly revealing that cousins of our earliest ancestors relied on smell more than sight.
ScienceDaily (June 26, 2009) - How did piranhas - the legendary freshwater fish with the razor bite - get their telltale teeth? Researchers from Argentina, the United States and Venezuela have uncovered the jawbone of a striking transitional fossil that sheds light on this question. Named Megapiranha paranensis, this previously unknown fossil fish bridges the evolutionary gap between flesh-eating piranhas and their plant-eating cousins.
An international team of palaeontologists led by scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing, have uncovered the articulated remains of a bizarre, beaked, herbivorous Theropod that may shed some light on the bird/dinosaur digit mystery. In total two skeletons were found, including evidence of gastroliths (stomach stones) it is these stones that provide evidence of a tough, fibrous diet for this little, biped. The remains were found in Jurassic strata (Oxfordian faunal stage), dating this dinosaur to the mid to late Jurassic approximately 156 million years ago. The dinosaur has been named Limusaurus (means mud lizard), the binomial name is Limusaurus inextricabilis.
ScienceDaily (June 10, 2009) - In the famed Sharktooth Hill Bone Bed near Bakersfield, Calif., shark teeth as big as a hand and weighing a pound each, intermixed with copious bones from extinct seals and whales, seem to tell of a 15-million-year-old killing ground.
ScienceDaily (June 9, 2009) - Researchers at Oregon State University have made a fundamental new discovery about how birds breathe and have a lung capacity that allows for flight - and the finding means it's unlikely that birds descended from any known theropod dinosaurs
ScienceDaily (June 8, 2009) - The examination of the fossil remains of rodents and insectivores from deposits in the cave of El Mirón, Cantabria, has made it possible to determine the climatic conditions of this region between the late Pleistocene and the present day. In total, researchers have pinpointed seven periods of climatic change, with glacial cold dominating during some of them, and heat in others.
ScienceDaily (June 1, 2009) - Ancestors of tapirs and ancient cousins of rhinos living above the Arctic Circle 53 million years ago endured six months of darkness each year in a far milder climate than today that featured lush, swampy forests, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Paola, naturalista e paleontologa, curatrice della didattica al Museo di Besano per ben 6 anni e poi al Museo Cantonale di Storia Naturale di Lugano, in Svizzera, con specifiche competenze nel Triassico del Monte San Giorgio e nel Cretaceo del Libano.
Il 5 e 6 Dicembre 2009 al SALONE DEL CIRCOLO "LA CITTA' SI NOTA"Vicolo del Medio Evo 7 (di fianco a Piazza Duomo). Filmati e Fotografie degli scavi in Montana, USA - Esposizione di opere dei Paleoartisti Davide Bonadonna, Loana Riboli e Fabio Manucci - Alle 12:00, alle 15:00 ed alle 17:00 interventi del presidente Alessandro Carpana e relazioni paleontologiche di Simone Maganuco, Federico Fanti e Andrea Cau
Grande festa per il Bologna Mineral Show, la più conosciuta e frequentata mostra mercato italiana, dedicata a mineralogia, malacologia, gemmologia, geologia, entomologia e paleontologia, quest'anno al quarto decennio di successo. Saranno esposti i più suggestivi ritrovamenti di oro dei principali musei italiani. Non mancheranno anche ambra, meteoriti, pietre preziose, perle, conchiglie, coralli. L'edizione 2009 della mostra mercato di mineralogia, malacologia, gemmologia, geologia, entomologia e paleontologia, festeggia la sua quarantesima edizione nella nuova sede di Castenaso, in provincia di Bologna.
Dal 31 gennaio al 14 febbraio a Tucson, Arizona, si terrà il piu' grande show del mondo di Fossili e Minerali, l'Arizona Mineral & Fossil Show - Entrata e Parcheggio Gratuiti
Ecco le 4 migliori locations: The Mineral & Fossil Marketplace , 1333 N. Oracle Rd., Tucson, AZ The Innsuites Hotel, 475 N. Granada, Tucson, AZ. 200 Dealers, Fossil Hall, Meteorite Dealers, Minerals, Gems & Jewelry. Artists Gallery and Art in Stone display. Ramada Limited, 665 N. Freeway, Tucson, AZ Quality Inn-Benson Hwy., 1025 E. Benson Hwy. Tucson, AZ. (NUOVO)
Mostra "I DINOSAURI ITALIANI"
Inaugurata al Museo Giurassico delle Asturie la mostra temporanea
Continua la collaborazione tra gli autori di Fossili Veraci e la rivista statunitense 
Parotodus benedeni
Bizarre Jurassic Ceratosaur Points Finger at Dinosaur Avian Link
Discovery Raises New Doubts About Dinosaur-bird Links
High Arctic Mammals Wintered In Darkness 53 Million Years Ago
