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A group of scientists, led by paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs, an Emeritus Professor President of the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at the Southern Methodist University Campus in Dallas, Texas, have made a significant discovery. The scientists found matching dinosaur footprints on two separate continents, South America and Africa. In Brazil and Cameroon, over 260 footprints were uncovered. These footprints show where dinosaurs once roamed freely on the two continents millions of years ago before South America and Africa drifted apart. Jacobs explained that the footprints were not only similar in age but also in their geological...

In a new study published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers pieced together the chemical identity of the asteroid that fueled the planet’s fifth mass extinction event. Sixty-six million years ago, the story of life on Earth took a dramatic turn when an asteroid collided with what’s now the Yucatán Peninsula in Chicxulub, Mexico. The aftereffects of the collision resulted in the extinction of an estimated 75% of animal species, including most dinosaurs except for birds. But practically nothing of the asteroid itself remains. In a new study published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers pieced together the chemical identity...

With 60 razor-sharp teeth and jaws so powerful they could crush a car, the King of the Dinosaurs would already have been a terrifying sight.But if that wasn't enough, the T. Rex may have been 70 per cent heavier than previously thought – weighing up to 15 tonnes – according to a study...The palaeontologists found that the largest known T. Rex fossils probably fall in the 99th percentile – representing the top 1 per cent of body size – but finding one would require excavating fossils for another 1,000 years...Meanwhile, a separate study suggests that the T. Rex may also...

In 2011, archaeologists uncovered one of the most — if not the most — pristine dinosaur fossils yet: a near-whole ankylosaur, complete with its jagged spikes, most of its limbs, armor coating, and some of its guts and stomach contents. The most amazing detail, though? Its uncannily preserved face and skin.It took Mark Mitchell, a technician at Royal Tyrell Museum, an absurd 7,000 hours and nearly six years to meticulously exhume the fossil by delicately chipping away at the surrounding stone. For his efforts, he had the newly discovered specie of nodosaur — a type of ankylosaur — named after...

...Bone fragments in a piece of fossilized excrement at a new museum in northern Arizona — aptly called the Poozeum — are among the tinier bits of evidence that indicate T. rex wasn't much of a chewer, but rather swallowed whole chunks of prey.The sample is one of more than 7,000 on display at the museum that opened in May in Williams, a town known for its Wild West shows along Route 66, wildlife attractions and a railway to Grand Canyon National Park...Inside, display cases filled with coprolites — fossilized feces from animals that lived millions of years ago —...

Lokiceratops rangiformis made its home in parts of what's now northern Montana and is thought to have the largest frill horns ever seen among its kind to date. A reconstruction of Lokiceratops surprised by a crocodilian in the 78-million-year-old swamps of northern Montana, USA. Illustration: Andrey Atuchin/Museum of Evolution in Maribo, Denmark. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Scientists have discovered a new, very cool-looking dinosaur. The intricately horned beast is a relative of the famous Triceratops and has been named Lokiceratops rangiformis. It’s thought to have roamed around the western half of North America over 78 million years ago, back when the continent was...

A large fossil discovery has significantly advanced our understanding of dinosaur history in Wales, a region previously believed to be devoid of these prehistoric giants...The research team, led by former Bristol MSc student in Palaeobiology, Owain Evans, uncovered that early Welsh dinosaurs lived over 200 million years ago on a tropical lowland adjacent to the sea. Dinosaur trackways found in Barry and other nearby sites indicate that these prehistoric creatures roamed the warm lowlands.The discovery site, Lavernock Point, is located near Cardiff and Penarth. This area, characterized by cliffs of dark-colored shales and limestones, documents ancient shallow seas. At various...

June 10 (UPI) -- Three young boys out for a hike in North Dakota noticed something sticking out from the ground and were shocked to find out they had discovered a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil. Jessin and Liam Fisher, ages 10 and 7, were out hiking onNorth Dakota Bureau of Land Management land in the badlands, near Marmarth, with their cousin, Kaiden Madsen, 9, and their dad, Sam Fisher, when the family spotted an unusual object sticking out of the ground. They contacted Tyler Lyson, Sam Fisher's high school classmate and now the Curator of Paleontology for the Denver Museum of...

The studied Psittacosaurus under natural (upper half) and UV light (lower half). (Zixiao Yang, Author provided) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Strong but light, beautiful and precisely structured, feathers are the most complex skin appendage that ever evolved in vertebrates. Despite the fact humans have been playing with feathers since prehistory, there's still a lot we don't understand about them. Our new study found that some of the first animals with feathers also had scaly skin like reptiles. Following the debut of the first feathered dinosaur, Sinosauropteryx prima, in 1996, a surge of discoveries has painted an ever more interesting picture of feather evolution....

Welcome to the party, Koleken inakayali, we'll clap for you. La Colonia Formation continues to deliver the new dinosaur goods. Image credit: © Gabriel Díaz Yantén Behold, the tiny arms of a new species of abelisaurid dinosaur, Koleken inakayali. Retrieved from La Colonia Formation in Patagonia, it dates back 70 million years and has an impressively miniature set of arms. Think T. rex’s were mini? You ain’t seen nothing yet. The new tiny-armed species looks similar to the iconic “meat bull” Carnotaurus, made famous from Jurassic World and that love scene in Prehistoric Planet. Koleken is different, however, both in...

While we don't like to talk ill of the dead, new physiological analysis has found that the king of the dinosaurs was not so smart after all. It upends previous research that last year likened the brain and neuronal composition of the Tyrannosaurus rex to that of a primate. It's been a rough year or two for the long extinct dinosaur. First, we questioned their teeth, finding that those iconic chompers could very much have been smaller and hidden behind lips, and now an international team of paleontologists, behavioral scientists and neurologists have concluded that the T. rex wasn't smarter...

Jade Simon, a professor at Laramie County Community College, was a critical part of a paleontologist team that discovered a new species of meat-eating dinosaur that’s best described as a giant 170-pound chicken from hell. A new prehistoric avian dinosaur, similar to this one, has been discovered. A Wyoming paleontologist helped verify it. (Cowboy State Daily Illustration) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When paleontologists found a drumstick from what can best be described as a 68-million-year-old chicken from hell, they needed expert on prehistoric hell chickens to confirm it as a new species. And they found her in Wyoming at Laramie County Community College....

Extinct marine lizard the size of an orca with sharp teeth and a strong jaw was a top predator during the dinosaur age. Paleontologists in Morocco have discovered the fossilized remains of a huge, never-before-seen species of marine lizard with "dagger-like" teeth. The reptile was around 26 feet (8 meters) long — about the same length as an orca — and hunted in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of what is now Africa at the end of the dinosaur age, about 66 million years ago, according to a study published March 1 in the journal Cretaceous Research. The creature...

A team of international scientists have discovered 240-million-year-old fossils from the Triassic period in China that one scientist described as a "long and snake-like, mythical Chinese dragon." The 16-foot-long aquatic reptile, called Dinocephalosaurus orientalis, has 32 separate neck vertebrae – an extremely long neck, according to the National Museums of Scotland, which announced the news on Friday. The new fossil has a snake-like appearance and flippers and was found in the Guizhou Province of southern China. Dinocephalosaurus orientalis was first identified in 2003 when its skull was found, but this more complete fossil discovery has "allowed scientists to depict the...

Psychedelic mushrooms sprung up some 67 million years ago, more than 65 million years before humans ever existed, according to the most extensive genomic study examining these types of fungi. Scientists, who published their work this week in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, found that of the more than 50 species in the Psilocybe genus, 35 had a novel gene arrangement that coded for psilocybin, the hallucinogen that gives Psilocybe mushrooms their psychedelic quality. Previous studies had identified a single, different genetic pathway to the production of psilocybin, but the new work opens up the possibility of...

BUENOS AIRES (AFP) – Scientists have found fossil remains of an omnivorous dinosaur in Argentina -- a missing link to the carnivores, a researcher said Monday. "It is an omnivore -- in other words it ate everything (plants and meat) -- which is the missing link between carnivorous dinosaurs and giant four-footed herbivores," said Oscar Alcober, also director of the Natural Sciences Museum in San Juan, 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) west of Buenos Aires. "This is a very important piece of the puzzle on the origin of dinosaurs," said Alcober. Alcober and Ricardo Martinez, chief of the museum's paleontology division,...

NEW YORK -- Scientists are learning more about what appears to be one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs known, a two-legged beast whose bones were found several years ago in the fossil-rich Patagonia region of Argentina. One expert called the discovery the first substantial evidence of group living by large meat-eaters other than tyrannosaurs like T. rex. The creature, which apparently measured more than 40 feet long, is called Mapusaurus roseae. The discovery of Mapusaurus included bones from at least seven of the beasts, suggesting the previously unknown animal may have lived and hunted in groups. That hunting strategy might...

AP - In an undated photo provided by Professor Rodolfo Coria, a dog sits by a replica of the head of a Mapusaurus roseae at the Carmen Funes Museum in Plaza Huincul, Argentina. The dinosaur was discovered in the Patagonia region of Argentina and appears to be one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs known. (AP Photo/HO/Prof. Rodolfo Coria) Scientists are learning more about what appears to be one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs known, a two-legged beast whose bones were found several years ago in the fossil-rich Patagonia region of Argentina. One expert called the discovery the first substantial...

BUENOS AIRES (AFP) - Argentine paleontologists have discovered the largely intact skeleton of a young titanosaurus that lived 71 million years ago. "What's extraordinary about this is that the remains were articulated, as if the animal had fallen or lain down and remained that way. There were no signs that it was preyed on," local media reported geologist and paleontologist Bernardo Gonzalez Riga as saying. Scientists discovered the remains of a foot "with all its toes and claws in an exceptional state of preservation," as well as the complete rear bones, tail, "and part of the pelvis," Gonzalez said. Such...

BUENOS AIRES -- Remains of a new species of dinosaur, christened 'bonitasaura', were discovered in southern Argentina after scientists were led to them by a 98-year-old woman, who said that she was aware of the bones since her childhood. Scientists were taken to the bones of the nine-meter (30 foot) giant, by Filomena Avila, also called Dona Tica, after convincing her that they were not fossil thieves. "Dona Tica believed we were fossil traffickers and, at first, she lied to us, saying that there are not any bones here," said Sebastian Apesteguia, leader of the paleontologists who made the discovery....