In Depth The first Brachylophosaurus remains were discovered in Alberta in 1936, but were not named until 1953 when Charles Sternberg made the description. A second species of Brachylophosaurus was named as B. goodwini by Jack Horner in 1988; however the wider consensus today is that these individuals are actually further individuals of the genus … Read more
In Depth Remarkably when Troodon was first ‘discovered’ it was only known from a tooth, and it was the description of this tooth that gave rise to the genus. Although naming a creature after only discovering its teeth is hard to imagine today, it was a common place practice in the nineteenth century, and … Read more
In Depth Although known only from a partial jaw, Chthonophis may represent one of the earliest appearances of an Amphisbaenia lizard. Also known as worm lizards, amphisbaenians are lizards that have lost limbs giving them a superficial resemblance to snakes, although even a basic study of them will reveal several clear differences. Further Reading - … Read more
In Depth Although the name Gondwanatitan implies that this dinosaur was ‘titanic’, it was actually quite modest in size, especially when you compare it to other South American giants like Argentinosaurus. Instead the name is a play on the classification of Gondwanatitan which is considered to be one of the titanosaurs, a special group of … Read more
In Depth This tyrannosaur is one of the earliest known and the fact that it hails from Western Europe means that the origins of the tyrannosaurs need to be carefully considered. Given that the largest and last of the group are known mostly from North America, and the smallest and earliest are known from Asia, … Read more
In Depth In 1959 a fossil hunter named Brian Shawcross found a few portions of what was once an ichthyosaur some 175-182 million years before. Shawcross donated this find to the Hunterian museum in Glasgow, Scotland, but for over fifty years the fossils were just listed as those of an ichthyosaur. Then in 2015 a … Read more
In Depth Palaeochersis is a genus of turtle that lived in South America during the late Triassic. Further Reading - Late Triassic turtles from South America. - Science 268:855-858. - G. W. Rougier, M. S. de la Fuente & A. B. Arcucci - 1995. - Anatomy and relationships of Palaeochersis talampayensis, a Late Triassic turtle … Read more
In Depth Further Reading - A new tiny dromaeosaurid dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Jehol Group of western Liaoning and niche differentiation among the Jehol dromaeosaurids. Vertebrata PalAsiatica 55(2):129-144. - X. Xu & Z.-C. Qin - 2017.
In Depth Classification and naming history of Rhomaleosaurus The first remains of Rhomaleosaurus were originally named by Alexander Carte and W. H. Bailey as a species of Plesiosaurus, P. cramptoni, which was in honour of Sir Philip Crampton, an anatomist who brought the remains to wider public attention. In 1874 Harry Govier Seeley found the … Read more
In Depth Haplocanthosaurus was a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the late Jurassic period. The name Haplocanthosaurus was actually the second choice of name for this dinosaur as the palaeontologist who first described it, John Bell Hatcher, originally chose the name Haplocanthus. However, after this Hatcher became aware of a … Read more