In Depth Jamna is a genus of passeriform bird that lived in Eastern Europe during the Oligocene. Further Reading - A new passerine bird from the early Oligocene of Poland. - Journal of Ornithology 152 (4): 1045–1053. - Zbigniew M. Bocheński, Teresa Tomek, Małgorzata Bujoczek & Krzysztof Wertz - 2011.
In Depth Further Reading – Preliminary report on a recently discovered Pleistocene cave deposit near Cumberland, Maryland. – J. W. Gidley – 1913. – Phylogenetic systematics of the North American fossil Caninae (Carnivora, Canidae) – Richard H. Tedford, Xiaoming Wang, Beryl E. Taylor – 2009.
In Depth Langobardisaurus was a small prolacertid reptile that was very lightly built. The rear legs can be clearly seen to be much longer than the fore legs, and while a quadrupedal pose may have been more usual when resting, a bipedal stance would have been easily possible when running or rearing up searching for … Read more
In Depth Leptoceratops is similar in form to the earlier ceratopsian dinosaurs that would evolve into the larger members of the group such as Chasmosaurus and Anchiceratops. However Leptoceratops lived much later than these ancestral forms as indicated by its entry into the fossil record at a time which would have seen Leptoceratops living in … Read more
In Depth Barbaridactylus is a genus of pterosaur that lived in North Africa during the late Cretaceous. Barbaridactylus has been identified as a nyctosauird pterosaur, a kind usually associated with coastal areas and hunting for fish. Further Reading - Late Maastrichtian pterosaurs from North Africa and mass extinction of Pterosauria at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. - … Read more
In Depth Castoroides is another example of how back in the Pleistocene animals were just bigger than they were today. Also known as the ‘giant beaver’, Castoroides is not just the largest beaver that we currently know about, but it is the largest rodent known to have ever lived on the North American continent. At … Read more
In Depth Bonitasaura is a genus of what seems to have been fairly small titanosaurs that lived in Argentina during the Late Cretaceous. The holotype individual seems to have been a subadult, which means that while it was sexually mature, it still would not have been fully grown. During this phase of its life though, … Read more
In Depth Pholiderpeton was a genus of semi aquatic reptiliomorph that lived in England during the Carboniferous period. However, in recent time there has been speculation that Pholiderpeton and another well-known genus named Eogyrinus may actually represent the same genus of animal. If this is true then the first genus to be named would take … Read more
In Depth Although not very well known, Turkanapithecus appears to be similar to other prehistoric primates like Proconsul and Afropithecus. Turkanapithecus is named after the Turkana Lake region of Kenya, with the type species name meaning ‘from Kalakol’ after the Kalakol river where it was found. Further Reading – A second new Miocene hominoid from … Read more
In Depth Kimbetopsalis is a genus of multituberculatan mammal that lived in the USA not long after the asteroid impact that marked the KT extinction that ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Kimbetopsalis has been identified as a member of the Multituberculata due to the large number of cusps that are clearly visible upon the … Read more