In Depth In 1914 the palaeontologist Charles Whitney Gilmore described a new species of Stegosaurus which he named S. longispinus. The name was chosen as a reflection of the unusually large tail spines that were much longer than those seen in other Stegosaurus fossils. For many years however the validity of S. longispinus was called … Read more
In Depth Lohuecotitan is a genus of titanosaur that lived in Spain during the late Cretaceous. Further Reading - A new titanosaur (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous of Lo Hueco (Cuenca, Spain). - Cretaceous Research. - V. D�ez D�az, P. Mocho, A. P�ramo, F. Escaso, F. Marcos-Fern�ndez, J. L. Sanz & F. Ortega - … Read more
In Depth Cryptoclidid plesiosaurs (those typified by Cryptoclidus) seem to have become very rare towards the end of the Cretaceous with Kaiwhekea being one of the few known members of this family present this late in the Mesozoic. Like with so many of the late surviving plesiosaurs, Kaiwhekea seems to have survived this long by … Read more
In Depth Described as a compsognathid dinosaur in 2016, the holotype Beipiaognathus has since been accused of being a fake. The theory is that the holotype is actually parts of many different creatures that an unscrupulous fossil dealer has stuck together in order to sell the fossil for more money. Unfortunately this is an often … Read more
In Depth Europasaurus was a macronarian sauropod which means it was similar in form to such dinosaurs as Camarasaurus and Brachiosaurus. However Europasaurus itself was much smaller than either of these two genera, in fact it is one of the smallest dinosaurs of its kind. The small size of Europasaurus has been interpreted as a … Read more
In Depth Achelousaurus may represent something of a transition as even though it has two distinct horns that rise from the top of its neck frill like in Einiosaurus, it has a large nasal boss as seen in Pachyrhinosaurus. This is why Achelousaurus has been considered a transitional form that links these two ceratopsian dinosaurs … Read more
In Depth Arkharavia is currently regarded to be a dubious genus of sauropod dinosaur because the lack of additional remains means that it will be very difficult to infer further fossils to the genus. In addition to this, vertebrae added to Arkharavia may actually have come from a hadrosaurid dinosaur, which means that only the … Read more
In Depth Yi is certainly one of the more bizarre dinosaurs that were named in 2015. In fact this is reflected in the full type species name of Yi qi which translates to English as ‘strange wing’. This is a reference to how the hands of Yi not only had elongated fingers, but how there … Read more
In Depth Sinosauropteryx was the first confirmed feathered but non-avian dinosaur discovered. What this means is that while Sinosauropteryx had protofeathers, it was still more like theropod dinosaurs than birds. Sinosauropteryx is often described as being very small at sixty-eight centimetres long however this measurement was just for the holotype specimen which was a juvenile. … Read more
In Depth Although Alexeyisaurus was described from partial remains, it seems that further material was actually present at the site of its discovery. Still, the material recovered is enough to suggest that Alexeyisaurus is one of the earliest known elasmosaurid plesiosaurs, the group of plesiosaurs that had proportionately much longer necks than the more ‘standard’ … Read more