In Depth Eomaia was a ground breaking discovery as this little mammal is the oldest known placental mammal in the fossil record. Placental mammals are those that have young that develop inside their mother’s womb and are connected to their mother’s body via a placenta until they are ready to be born. Earlier Mammaliaformes such … Read more
In Depth Named after the Andes Mountains, Andesaurus was a titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from South America, but one known from only incomplete remains. This makes it hard to be certain about such things as a total size or even a preferred diet beyond just general plants. The vertebrae of Andesaurus though suggest that the genus … Read more
In Depth Palorchestes was a large and probably heavy diprotodont, a kind of large quadrupedal herbivore that as a group had a distribution exclusive to ancient Australia. With this appearance in mind, it seems odd that this creature should be given a name that means ‘ancient leaper’, but this is easily enough explained by the … Read more
In Depth Glishades is a genus of hadrosauroid dinosaur that lived in North America during the late Cretaceous. Since a paper was published suggesting that Glishades is actually an indeterminate juvenile (Campione et al, 2012), the genus has become widely regarded as a nomen dubium. Further Reading - Glishades ericksoni, a new hadrosauroid (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) … Read more
In Depth As with other Australian sauropods such as Wintonotitan and Diamantinasaurus, the skull and most of the vertebrae are unknown. What can be learned from the available material is that Austrosaurus had a fairly level back between its shoulders and hips with what appears to be only twenty centimetres height difference between the two. … Read more
In Depth Astrapotherium is noted for having high nostrils, something that has led to the idea that a great amount of soft tissue was present upon this part of the head. The exact kind of tissue however is still unknown, with speculation that it could have been some kind of short trunk or prehensile lip, … Read more
In Depth It is hard to currently establish a size estimate for Arcusaurus because at the time of writing the genus is only represented by the partial remains of two juveniles. Not only does this make it impossible to run a tape measure along a known complete specimen, but as juvenile they would have grown … Read more
In Depth about Dunkleosteus In modern popular culture, Dunkleosteus is by far the best known and most often represented of the early placoderm carnivores. However Dunkleosteus actually sat within the Dinichthys genus for a long time as the species Dinichthys terrelli. It was not until the large numbers of Dinichthys remains were re-studied that it was realised that a large number of the Dinichthys fossils actually represented different … Read more
In Depth As a lamniform shark, Squalicorax probably would have resembled a modern Great White shark. Aside from swimming the northern oceans between North America, Europe and North Africa, an articulated skeleton of Squalicorax, S. falcatus, has been recovered from the US state of Kansas. This indicates that Squalicorax was also swimming in the Western … Read more
In Depth Although Nakalipithecus is so far only known from a jaw bone, Nakalipithecus has been a major contribution to our understanding of hominid evolution specifically regarding hominines, including the ancestors of humans. For some time there have been two competing theories regarding the ancient origins of our own direct ancestors, concerning either an African … Read more