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
In Depth Though only known from fragmentary fossil remains, Patagosuchus is noted for having a diverse heterodont dentition. What this means is that Patagosuchus had many different kinds of teeth, and would have been able to adapt differing feeding strategies. Patagosuchus is also classed as a peirosaurid crocodylomorph, and these are usually small meat eaters … Read more
In Depth Streptospondylus could have become the first dinosaur to be scientifically recognised. Starting in 1770 vertebrae and limb remains were steadily recovered and over the course of the following years many fossils for separate locations were collected before being sent to the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France in 1800. These fossils were … Read more
In Depth Fossils of Bonapartesaurus were first assigned to the genus Willinakaqe. However a few years after naming Willinakaqe, Palaeontologists came to the conclusion that that genus was based upon the collection of several different kinds of hadrosaur. This included the Paratype material of Willinakaqe which became the genus Bonapartesaurus. Bonapartesaurus was a medium sized … Read more