The Triassic Period was one of the key episodes in the evolutionary history of life. It marks the transition from the Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic Era, preceded by the Permian/Triassic mass extinction – the greatest […]
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Category: dinosaurs
Triassic beasts and where to find them
Located amid the scenic Southern Alps, on the Swiss-Italian border, is Monte San Giorgio, a mountain that rose up like many across Central Europe as a result of continental collision between Africa and Europe during […]
The daily lives of fossil reptiles
The Mesozoic and Cenozoic deposits of Southern England have long been a rich source of fossil reptiles. Past finds of great historical importance include some of the earliest known examples of dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs and pterosaurs. […]
Saltwick Bay, North Yorkshire
Saltwick Bay is located along the Yorkshire Coast, between Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay, and can be accessed from the Cleveland Way, which passes the spectacular Whitby Abbey. The geology of the area is predominantly […]
‘Finders, keepers’: the lost world of some Isle of Wight geological heroes
There is a growing misconception that most of the earliest important fossil discoveries were made by a select few famous geologists – established names, who were supposed to have ‘found’ everything in their collections. In […]
One way to ‘collect’ a massive specimen: simple photogrammetry in the field using a mobile phone
Inspired by the recent excellent series of articles by Trevor Watts discussing the types of Mid-Jurassic dinosaur footprints to be found along the Whitby coast (Deposits, Issues 46, 47, 48 and 49), when recently working […]
A pale white dot
“There’s nothing new under the sun” goes a famous saying and these words are very apt when trying to understand Earth’s climate trends. Thanks to numerous discoveries made about Earth’s ancient past, we now know […]
The tongue-twisting horror – or beauty – of the names of organisms: a Linnaean heritage
Sometimes, your name is a tell-tale sign of who you are, or your heritage if you wish. Not too long ago, the surname Andersson logically enough meant “the son of Anders” in my native frozen […]
Discovering dinosaurs in Britain –the significance of the British dinosaur record
Palaeontology and Britain In its simplest form, palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life, through examination of fossils. Palaeontology is, however, not just dinosaurs. Dinosaurs constitute a miniscule portion of what palaeontology is. After all, […]
The Musée-Parc des Dinosaures (Dinosaur Museum-Park) in Mèze, France
Just a few kilometres inland from the Mediterranean Sea in the south of France, and not too far from Montpellier, is an extraordinary theme park. Driving along the D613 from Mèze towards Pezenas, a life […]
The Other Mass Extinctions
The extinctions at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) boundary make up what is probably the most famous geological event in popular culture. This is the point when the great reptiles that characterise the Mesozoic went extinct. Alongside […]
A new look for Utahraptor
One hundred and twenty eight million years ago, a killer stalked eastern Utah. Known as Utahraptor, this distant relative of Velociraptor of Jurassic Park fame was also equipped with a sickle-claw on its hind feet. […]
The first description of dinosaur fossils by Al-Andalusī in the twelfth century
Western sources refer to a few scholars who were the pioneers in describing huge fossilised animals that are now known to be the remains of the long extinct dinosaurs. Around 1677, the British scholar, Robert […]
A dinosaur track investigation
My “Fossil Grandpa” took me to visit this neat site when I was in Texas last summer (2013). We drove to a small rural community, where it seemed there wasn’t anything to find. However, my […]
Nebraska, USA: wonderful fossils, natural history museums and public art depicting fossils
Nebraska is known by vertebrate palaeontologists as the place in North America where there is a very complete Cenozoic geologic record of mammalian evolution over the last thirty-five million years or so. All you have […]
The histology of a sauropod rib bone found in the Wessex formation, Hanover point, Isle of Wight.
In September 2015, I went to Compton Bay on the Isle of Wight to hunt for dinosaur bones. It was equinox tides all week, so an ideal time to get out on the furthest rocks […]
A Ute arrow straightener made of Jurassic dinosaur bone
I am currently studying an arrow straightening tool left behind by the Ute Indians of the Northern Colorado Plateau long ago. The artefact is made of an unusual material – a Jurassic dinosaur bone. As […]
Dinosaurs footprints on the Isle of Skye, Scotland
If you think of dinosaur hunting, you probably imagine trekking through a parched landscape, reaching the crest of a low hill and catching the first glimpse of a complete skeleton lying half exposed in the […]
Dinosaur quarries of Hastings
For over two hundred years, dinosaur bones and other fossils have been found along the beach to the east of Hastings, between Rock-a-Nore and Pett, but by far the most spectacular specimens were collected from […]
Dinosaur mines of the Kem Kem
The great transgressions that occurred in the mid part of the Cretaceous have had a profound influence on the geology of many parts of the world. In North America, the seas flooded the central part […]
Sands of Gobi Desert yield new species of nut-cracking dinosaur
Plants or meat – that’s about all that fossils ever tell palaeontologists about a dinosaur’s diet. However, the skull characteristics of a new species of parrot-beaked dinosaur and its associated gizzard stones indicate that the […]
Shedding light on an isolated skull: a newly described elasmosaur skeleton from the Late Cretaceous of Morocco
The bodiless plesiosaur In 2011, a plesiosaur specimen, consisting of an isolated and crushed skull, was described. The collected skull sadly lacked any postcranial remains, but was identified as an elasmosaurid plesiosaur and considered to […]
Fleshing-out a dinosaur-eating snake
In the March 2010 issue of the open-access journal, PLoS Biology, palaeontologist Jeff Wilson and colleagues give an account of a truly unique and amazing fossil discovery. In their article entitled Predation upon Hatchling Dinosaurs […]
Meat-eating dinosaur from Argentina had bird-like breathing system
Mendoza, Argentina. The remains of a new ten-meter-long predatory dinosaur discovered along the banks of Argentina’s Rio Colorado are helping to unravel how birds evolved their unusual breathing system. In September 2008, palaeontologists, led by […]
An introduction to aetosaurs
The Triassic Period was one of the key episodes in the evolutionary history of life. It marks the transition from the Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic Era, preceded by the Permian/Triassic mass extinction – the greatest […]
Dinosaur Farm museum on Dinosaur Island
The Isle of Wight has long been regarded as a world famous fossil locality. It is now called Dinosaur Island, with no less than 29 different species having been found along the southern coast. Indeed, […]
Dinosaurs in Scotland
The existence of dinosaurs in Scotland is not something that is generally well known. Yet, there are at least three different families represented from fossil bones and a number of different footprint types from the […]
Triassic Fossils of West Texas
I found my first Triassic fossil when I was about 15 years old on a backpacking trip in Tule Canyon, Briscoe County in Texas. After setting up camp, I walked over to a small, red-coloured […]
A brief flight with Pterosaurs
Planet Earth was a busy place 225mya. The super-continent, Pangaea, in the Northern Hemisphere started rifting, creating the beginnings of the North Atlantic Ocean. Dinosaurs began their campaign for global dominance of Mesozoic terrestrial ecosystems […]
Recent fossil finds in the Hastings area
Scheenstia head Fig. 1. Scheenstia head. Bulverhythe, Bexhill. Scale bar = 25cm. This specimen was found in blue-grey clay on the beach at Bulverhythe, near Bexhill, by a local fossil collector in May 2008 (Fig. […]