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BANGKOK – A new species of crocodile that lived 100 million years ago has been identified from a fossil found in Thailand, researchers said Thursday. Komsorn Lauprasert, a scientist at Mahasarakham University, said the species had longer legs than modern-day crocodiles and probably fed on fish, based on the characteristics of its teeth.

Crocodiles can no longer be referred to as "living fossils", according to scientists.Members of the crocodilian family have previously been thought to have changed little since prehistoric times. However, new fossil analyses suggests that modern crocodilians actually evolved from a very diverse group. Recently discovered ancient ancestors include small cat-like specimens, giant "supercrocs" and a pug-nosed vegetarian species. Body structureModern crocodilians are adapted to aquatic environments with long snouts, strong tails and powerful jaws. Yet contrary to popular belief, scientists now suggest that the basic body structure of crocodiles, alligators and ghariels evolved from a diverse group of prehistoric reptiles...

By reconstructing the brains of extinct birds, researchers could shed light on when birds evolved into creatures of flight. Overwhelming evidence suggests birds evolved from dinosaurs some 150 million years ago, but one of the missing pieces to the evolutionary puzzle is how such birds took to the air. Scientists in Scotland are focusing on changes in the size of a part of the rear of the brain. This part of the cerebellum, known as the flocculus, is responsible for integrating visual and balance signals during flight, allowing birds to judge the position of other objects in midflight. [3-D Image...

Careful dating of new dinosaur fossils and volcanic ash around them by researchers from UC Davis and UC Berkeley casts doubt on the idea that dinosaurs appeared and opportunistically replaced other animals. Instead -- at least in one South American valley -- they seem to have existed side by side and gone through similar periods of extinction. Geologists from Argentina and the United States announced earlier this month the discovery of a new dinosaur that roamed what is now South America 230 million years ago, at the beginning of the age of the dinosaurs. The newly discovered Eodramaeus, or "dawn...

A new TV series featuring dinosaur detectives from The University of Manchester looking at how dinosaurs once lived, looked and functioned begins in the UK this week. Presented by University of Manchester palaeontologist Dr Phil Manning, the series will be aired on the National Geographic Channel, starting in the UK on Thursday February 3rd, before being transmitted to many countries around the world. It is the first ever series on dinosaurs commissioned by National Geographic, as previously documentaries have only aired as one or two-hour specials. Jurassic CSI will for the first time provide a detailed forensic look at dinosaurs...

University of Alberta researchers determined that a fossilized dinosaur bone found in New Mexico confounds the long established paradigm that the age of dinosaurs ended between 65.5 and 66 million years ago. The U of A team, led by Larry Heaman from the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, determined the femur bone of a hadrosaur as being only 64.8 million years old. That means this particular plant eater was alive about 700,000 years after the mass extinction event many paleontologists believe wiped all non-avian dinosaurs off the face of earth, forever. Heaman and colleagues used a new direct-dating method...

LONDON – A new dinosaur named Brontomerus mcintoshi, or "thunder-thighs" after its enormously powerful thigh muscles, has been discovered in Utah, USA. The new species is described in a paper recently published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica by an international team of scientists from the U.K. and the U.S. A member of the long-necked sauropod group of dinosaurs which includes Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus, Brontomerus may have used its powerful thighs as a weapon to kick predators, or to help travel over rough, hilly terrain. Brontomerus lived about 110 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous Period, and probably had...

ScienceDaily (Mar. 1, 2011) — Fossilized bones discovered in Texas from a flying reptile that died 89 million years ago may be the earliest occurrence of the prehistoric creature known as Pteranodon. Previously, Pteranodon bones have been found in Kansas, South Dakota and Wyoming in the Niobrara and Pierre geological formations. This likely Pteranodon specimen is the first of its kind found in Texas, according to paleontologist Timothy S. Myers at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who identified the reptile. The specimen was discovered north of Dallas by an amateur fossil hunter who found various bones belonging to the left...

A skull belonging to one of the largest "sea monsters" ever unearthed is being unveiled to the public. The beast, which is called a pliosaur, has been described as the most fearsome predator the Earth has seen. The fossil was found in Dorset, but it has taken 18 months to remove the skull from its rocky casing, revealing the monster in remarkable detail. Scientists suspect the creature, which is on show at the Dorset County Museum, may be a new species or even genus. ~~~snip~~~ "It was probably the most fearsome predator that ever lived. Standing in front of the...

New Haven, Conn.—A team of scientists has discovered the youngest dinosaur preserved in the fossil record before the catastrophic meteor impact 65 million years ago. The finding indicates that dinosaurs did not go extinct prior to the impact and provides further evidence as to whether the impact was in fact the cause of their extinction. Researchers from Yale University discovered the fossilized horn of a ceratopsian – likely a Triceratops, which are common to the area – in the Hell Creek formation in Montana last year. They found the fossil buried just five inches below the K-T boundary, the geological...

A fossil discovered in Montana has given new momentum to the hypothesis that dinosaurs were thriving right up until a devastating meteor hit Earth 65 million years ago, causing their extinction. Scientists from Yale University have found what is believed to be the youngest dinosaur fossil ever found, thought to be from just before the mass extinction took place. The discovery, described in a study published in the online edition of the journal Biology Letters, contradicts the theory that the dinosaurs slowly went extinct before the cosmic impact. The fossil -- a 45-centimetre horn believed to be from a triceratops...

A new paper published in Naturwissenschaft reveals a fossil from 120 million years ago that proves that some lizards were not laying eggs but rather giving birth to live young. The fossil was discovered by Susan Evans, a professor from the University College London Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, in the Jehol region of Northeast China. This area has revealed hundreds of dinosaur, amphibian, reptile, fish, bird, mammal, invertebrate and plant fossils. The lizard in this case has been identified as Yabeinosaurus which scientists believe to be similar to the gecko. Evans did not pay much attention to the...

A 200 million year old reptilian fossil was discovered by Alaskan scientists along the shores of Tongass National Forest. It was the low tide that made the discovery possible as a rare marine creature called Thalattosaurs was submerged in water and rocks. The last Thalattosaurs to survive was after the Triassic period, roughly 200 million years ago. An almost complete skeleton was recovered along with an outline of the body embedded onto surrounding rocks. The creature is usually between 3 to 10 feet long with padded limbs and flat tails. The snout turns downward and contains both pointy teeth for...

An enormous jawbone found in Kazakhstan is further evidence that giant birds roamed - or flew above - the Earth at the same time as the dinosaurs. Writing in Biology Letters, researchers say the new species, Samrukia nessovi, had a skull some 30cm long. If flightless, the bird would have been 2-3m tall; if it flew, it may have had a wingspan of 4m. The find is only the second bird of such a size in the Cretaceous geologic period, and the first in Asia. The only other evidence of a bird of such a size during the period was...

Dog-sized dinosaurs that lived near the South Pole, sometimes in the dark for months at a time, had bone tissue very similar to dinosaurs that lived everywhere on the planet, according to a doctoral candidate at Montana State University. That surprising fact falsifies a 13-year-old study and may help explain why dinosaurs were able to dominate the planet for 160 million years, said Holly Woodward, MSU graduate student in the Department of Earth Sciences and co-author of a paper published Aug. 3 in the journal PLoS ONE. "If we were trying to find evidence of dinosaurs doing something much different...

Dino-Era Feathers Found Encased in Amber James Owen for National Geographic NewsMarch 11, 2008 Seven dino-era feathers found perfectly preserved in amber in western France highlight a crucial stage in feather evolution, scientists report. The hundred-million-year-old plumage has features of both feather-like fibers found with some two-legged dinosaurs known as theropods and of modern bird feathers, the researchers said. This means the fossils could fill a key gap in the puzzle of how dinosaurs gave rise to birds, according to a team led by Vincent Perrichot of the Museum für Naturkunde-Berlin in Germany. The find provides a clear example "of...

Dinosaur Breath The largest flying creature alive today is the Andean condor Vultur gryphus. At maximum size it weighs about 22 pounds and has a wingspread of about 10 feet. But 65 million years ago in the late cretaceous period, the last age of dinosaurs, there was another larger flying animal, the giant pterosaur Quetzalcotalus. It had a wingspread of over 40 feet, the size of a small airplane. Other pterosaurs were also quite large. The pteranodons of the late jurassic period, the classic flying dinosaurs of magazine illustrations, had a maximum wingspan of about 33 feet. This presents a...

Fluffy structures trapped in thumbnail-sized bits of ancient amber may represent some of the earliest evolutionary experiments leading to feathers, according to a new study. These filaments of "dinofuzz" are so well preserved that they even provide hints of color, the researchers say. The oldest bird, Archaeopteryx, lived in what is now Germany about 150 million years ago, and the oldest known feathered dinosaur, Anchiornis huxleyi, lived in northeastern China between 151 million and 161 million years ago. Both creatures had modern-style feathers, each of which had a central shaft; barbs, which made up the feather's vane; and substructures called...

Dinosaur fossils don't come much more impressive than this. With 98 per cent of its skeleton preserved, this young predatory theropod from southern Germany may be the most complete dinosaur ever found. Oliver Rauhut, curator of the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology in Munich, announced the find yesterday. Although Chinese bird and dinosaur fossils are famed for delicate details such as their feathers, they don't match this 72-centimetre-long theropod in terms of clarity and completeness of preservation. The young dinosaur has been dated at 135 million years old, putting it in the early Cretaceous, but it has yet...

Oviraptor tails were also extremely muscular, and, according to fossil impressions, had a fan of feathers at the end. In Persons’ view, oviraptors could very well have used their muscular, flexible tails to wave their feathers in order to impress potential mates, just as peacocks use their magnificent jewel-toned feathers in courtship displays today.