EARTH Magazine - dinosaurs

Age changes you: Torosaurus actually just old Triceratops

Erin Wayman — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:37:31

For more than a hundred years, scientists have misclassified the horned dinosaur Torosaurus, researchers say: It's really just the adult version of Triceratops.

Do impacts trigger extinctions? Impact theory still controversial

David B. Williams — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:52:50

In 1980, a controversial paper proposed that a giant asteroid had struck Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period, killing the dinosaurs and every other large land vertebrate. Years later, impacts have been proposed as the cause of every other known mass extinction. What impact has Impact Theory had on understanding these events?

Tetrapod tracks reset timing of four-legged evolution

Ian Randall — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:16:15

A new discovery of fossilized footprints of tetrapods — the earliest known vertebrates with four limbs instead of fins — is changing what scientists thought about the timing of the transition from swimming to walking vertebrates.

Dinosaurs' active lifestyles suggest they were warm-blooded

Brian Fisher Johnson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:00:25

Whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or cold-blooded has been a long-standing question, but new research on the biomechanics of two-legged dinosaurs adds more weight to the case for warm-bloodedness.

Are birds dinosaurs? New evidence muddies the picture

Carolyn Gramling — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:14:20

Paleontological finds provide evidence both for and against dinosaurian ancestry — and many evolutionary puzzles remain: How did hands become wings? Did any dinosaurs have feathers? How did birds’ unusual, highly flight-specific respiratory systems evolve? Each new dinosaur discovery seems to muddy the picture further.

Mini-T. rex fossil found in China

Carolyn Gramling — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:34:55

Tyrannosaurus rex was one of the most efficient predators to ever walk on Earth, apparently uniquely designed to swiftly run down and kill prey. But scientists have discovered a fossil that closely resembles the powerful predator — a smaller, "mini-me" version of the T. rex that lived 60 million years earlier.

Art and dinosaurs

Carolyn Gramling — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:32:12

Meet ART Evolved, where lifelong dinosaur enthusiasts share two things: a fascination with dinosaurs — usually going back to early childhood — and an inclination to daydream about how to visually resurrect these and other ancient creatures, complete with skin colors, feathers and movements.

Deciphering mass extinctions

Brian Fisher Johnson — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:23:12

When it comes to mass extinction events, what seems like a simple tale — for example: dinosaurs die, mammals take over — is much more complicated. But extinctions aren't random, either: Written in the rocks are certain "rules" these events seem to follow.

Soft tissue preserved in 80-million-year-old dino fossil

Brian Fisher Johnson — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:05:03

The discovery of collagen in the fossilized bones of a hadrosaur adds new evidence that soft tissues can be recovered from fossils that are tens of millions of years old.

Dinosaurs of a feather may not have evolved together

Brian Fisher Johnson — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:31:34

Newly discovered Tianyulong confuciusi, a small bird-hipped dinosaur, may have had "protofeathers" on its spine and tail. The discovery may mean rethinking the evolution of feathers and flight: Scientists previously thought birds, and modern feathers, evolved from the lizard-hipped branch of the dinosaur tree.

Odd crests helped dinos communicate

Alexandra Ossola — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:29:04

The lambeosaur was a puzzle of a dinosaur: an odd-looking duck-billed creature with a curious hollow crest on its head. The crest concealed complex nasal airways whose function has been a mystery — until now.

It's a Dirty Job, But Someone's Gotta Do It

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:37:29

Those who study coprolites — fossilized feces — get names like Doyenne of Doo-Doo, Professor Poop or Doctor of Dung. They give talks loaded with puns and double-entendres. They don’t get taken seriously by their colleagues. But coprolites add biological information not available from any other source.