In Depth Living in the late Cretaceous, Gilchristosuchus was a crocodile that in evolutionary terms may have come close to modern crocodiles, yet may not have actually been one of them. The size of Gilchristosuchus is still unknown but the one partial skull known shows signs of fusing, indicating that it was an adult specimen. … Read more
In Depth Although the name Prosqualodon references a shark, this creature was actually one of the first members of the Odontoceti, better known as the modern toothed whales. Prosqualodon actually looked like a cross between a modern dolphin and an ichthyosaur from the Mesozoic. Prosqualodon has the typical cetacean body with a horizontally aligned tail … Read more
In Depth Due to the incomplete remains not a lot is known about this dinosaur other than it is probably a basal titanosauriform. The genus name is a reference to the appearance of the tail vertebrae while the species name of R. cooneyi is in honour of J. P. Cooney who owned the land where … Read more
In Depth Heptasuchus is a genus of fairly large rauiscuhian that lived in what is now Wyoming during the mid/early late Triassic. Rauisuchians were the top predators on land and held onto this title until the appearance of large theropod dinosaurs. Out of these Heptasuchus is usually considered to be most similar to Batrachotomus from … Read more
In Depth With the holotype remains first discovered in 1989 and later placed within the genus Minmi in 1996, new studies in the twenty-first century revealed these fossils to actually belong to a new genus distinct from Minmi. This resulted in the 2015 naming of Kunbarrasaurus, a physically small genus of ankylosaur that lived in … Read more
In Depth The name Tsagantegia means ‘of Tsagen-Teg’ which can be further translated to Englishto mean ‘of White Mountain’, and this is a reference to the location where the holotype skull of Tsagantegia was first discovered. Tsagantegia is currently represented by a single skull, the features of which clearly identify Tsagantegia as an ankylosaurid dinosaur. … Read more
In Depth Sinophoneus would have been one of the most dangerous predators in the mid Permian of China, something that has earned the genus its name which means ‘Chinese murderer’. The type species of Sinophoneus was based upon the description of a partial skull, not surprising when you consider that dinocephalian therapsids like Sinophoneus are … Read more
In Depth Hipparion was one of the earlier grazing horses that was similar to Merychippus in form. Like other ‘advanced’ horses of the Miocene, Hipparion supported its body weight upon a single toe that ended with a hoof. Other toes were also still present upon either side of this toe, but they had become so … Read more
In Depth Counillonia is a genus of dicynodont therapsid that lived in Asia approximately about the time of the Late Permian to early Triassic. This would make the Counillonia genus a survivor of the Late Permian extinction, possibly the biggest mass extinction in the planets history. Counillonia is not the only dicynodont genus to have … Read more
In Depth Dryptosaurus aquilunguis first started off being known as Laelaps aquilunguis when it was first named in 1866 by Edward Drinker Cope, and under the name Laelaps it was one of the first North American dinosaurs to be named. Cope chose the name Laelaps after a dog in Greek mythology which always caught what … Read more