An international team led by the Mongolian Academy of Sciences and Okayama University of Science has rediscovered and studied a long-lost dinosaur tracksite in northern Mongolia, dating to about 120 million years ago (Early Cretaceous). This is the oldest confirmed dinosaur tracksite in Mongolia and the first from this time period in the region. The…
Scientists have discovered a new species of long-necked dinosaur, Bicharracosaurus dionidei, in Patagonia, Argentina. This sauropod—estimated to be about 20 meters long—lived around 155 million years ago during the Late Jurassic period on the southern supercontinent Gondwana. The fossil includes over 30 vertebrae along with ribs and part of the pelvis, indicating it was an…
Virginia Tech undergraduate Simba Srivastava, a senior majoring in geosciences, has identified a new species of carnivorous dinosaur from the late Triassic period, more than three times older than Tyrannosaurus rex. The findings were published in Papers in Palaeontology and provide new insight into dinosaur evolution before the Jurassic era. The fossil, a badly crushed…
Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and the Korean Dinosaur Research Center have discovered a new species of juvenile dinosaur in South Korea, named Doolysaurus huhmini after a famous Korean cartoon character, Dooly the Little Dinosaur. The fossil, found on Aphae Island in 2023, marks the first new dinosaur species identified in Korea…
Researchers studying bird-like dinosaurs called oviraptors found that they likely hatched their eggs less efficiently than modern birds. Using a life-sized model of an oviraptor and reconstructed nests, the team ran heat-transfer experiments to understand how these dinosaurs incubated their eggs. The results published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution suggest that oviraptors did not…
A new study published in Nature reports the discovery of a nearly complete 90-million-year-old skeleton of Alnashetri cerropoliciensis, a tiny, bird-like dinosaur that helps resolve long-standing questions about a mysterious group called alvarezsaurs. The research was co-led by University of Minnesota scientist Peter Makovicky and Argentine paleontologist Sebastián Apesteguía. Alvarezsaurs are known for their small…
A new peer-reviewed study reports the rediscovery and reanalysis of 250-million-year-old marine amphibian fossils from the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia, revealing an unexpectedly diverse and globally connected community of early sea-going tetrapods at the dawn of the Age of Dinosaurs. Fossils collected in the 1960s–70s and long thought lost were recently located in international…
A new study published in Science reports the discovery of Spinosaurus mirabilis, the first clearly documented new species of Spinosaurus identified in more than a century. Unearthed in a remote region of Niger’s central Sahara by a team led by paleontologist Paul Sereno, the fossils include distinctive jaw fragments and a large, blade-like “scimitar” crest…
Researchers have identified a new, extremely small dinosaur species, Foskeia pelendonum, based on fossils from at least five individuals discovered in Spain. Despite its tiny size, Foskeia is evolutionarily important: detailed anatomical and histological studies show it was not a juvenile of a larger species but a fully grown, sexually mature adult with a highly…
A new peer-reviewed study led by researchers at University College London finds that baby and very young sauropod dinosaurs were a crucial food source for predators in the Late Jurassic, around 150 million years ago. Using exceptionally detailed fossil evidence from the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry in Colorado, the team reconstructed one of the most…