In Depth Pelagosaurus is a genus of thalattosuchian, more colloquially known as a ‘marine crocodile’ that lived in the waters around Western Europe during the early Jurassic. Exactly what kind of thalattosuchian Pelagosaurus is depends upon who you ask, with one group describing the genus as a primitive metriorhynchid, while others state that it is … Read more
In Depth While Carnotaurus had the standard theropod morphology of a bipedal animal with large head and small arms, it still possessed a number of features that made it quite unique among the large theropods. One such feature is the arms, which are not just small like you would expect, but are positively tiny. Further … Read more
In Depth The type fossil material was originally assigned to the sauropod genus Bothriospondylus. However, not only is Bothriospondylus considered a dubious genus of sauropod because of the lack of identifiable features upon the type material, but the type material came from England, a long way from Madagascar. For this reason the palaeontologist Jose Bonaparte … Read more
In Depth Although many pterosaurs sported elaborate head crests, Nyctosaurus took things to a new extreme. Rising up to over half a meter high, a proportionately massive ‘L’ shaped crest is known to have been present on Nyctosaurus. This crest was once thought to have been the support for a skin sail, but today it … Read more
In Depth Soriatitan is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived in Spain during the early Cretaceous. Although only known from partial remains, Soriatitan has been identified as a brachiosaurid sauropod, with features seen in both European and North American brachiosaurid dinosaurs. Further Reading - A new Brachiosauridae Sauropod dinosaur from the lower Cretaceous of … Read more
In Depth Eopteranodon gets its name from how its jaws and crest look like those on the more famous pterosaur Pteranodon that existed later in the Cretaceous of North America. Eopteranodon however was not only much smaller than Pteranodon but it is actually of a different pterosaur family. Further Reading Further reading- New pterodactyloid pterosaur … Read more
In Depth Taveirosaurus is a tooth taxon of ornithischian dinosaur that lived in Portugal during the late Cretaceous. A tooth taxon is an animal that has only been described by teeth, and in the case of Taveirosaurus there have been many attempts to define what type of ornithiscian dinosaur that it was, almost always with … Read more
In Depth Noripterus appears to have been a scaled down version of the pterosaur Dsungaripterus complete with a more gracile build. However the discovery of a leg bone that was attributed to the new genus Phobetor in 1982 now casts doubts upon this. When studied again, along with further material attributed to Phobetor in 2009, … Read more
In Depth Pseudolagosuchus is a genus of dinosauromorph that live in South America during the Triassic. There has been past speculation that Pseudolagosuchus may actually be a synonym of Lewisuchus. Further Reading - Un nuevo Lagosuchidae (Thecodontia-Pseudosuchia) de la fauna de Los Cha�ares (Edad Reptil Cha�arense, Triasico Medio), La Rioja, Argentina [A new Lagosuchidae (Thecodontia-Pseudosuchia) … Read more
In Depth To date Ekrixinatosaurus is without doubt one of the largest abelisaurid theropods that we currently know about, and even at the lower estimate of ten meters long, Ekrixinatosaurus was still bigger than the far more famous Carnotaurus which at the time of writing seems to have had a maximum size of nine meters … Read more