In order to understand the relationships between different types of dinosaurs, paleontologists organize individual dinosaur species into groups of related species. For example, Tyrannosaurus rex was part of a family of dinosaurs known as Tyrannosauridae, which itself was part of an even larger group ...
During 1935 the palaeontologist Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald visited a Chinese apothecary shop in Hong Kong and discovered an unusually large molar, a tooth similar to the large flat ones that you have towards the back of your mouth. Fossils like this are...
It has become fashionable to identify Archaeopteryx as the first true bird, but it's important to remember that this 150-million-year-old creature also possessed some distinctly dinosaur-like features, and may have been incapable of flight. See10 Facts About Archaeopteryx 05 of 52 Argentavis Arge...
As I said then, ‘comments from fossilologists welcome’, and a kindfollowerFOSSIL LADY(aka Kathi) reponded:Those don’t look like plant fossils to me, they remind me of stromatolites, a sponge like creature that first dominated the earth billions of years ago. Some varieties still survive...
Paul Sereno, Eodromaeus was very similar in appearance and behavior to other "basal" South American dinosaurs likeEoraptorandHerrerasaurus. This small theropod's near-complete skeleton was cobbled together from two specimens found in Argentina's Valle de la Luna, a rich source of Triassic fossils...
Laser scanning can also help to identify composite fakes – fossils that have been cobbled together from different specimens – by revealing differences in fossil mineralogy. Clap your eyes on the first ‘images’ of thunder Boom clap: acoustically imaged profiles of thunder The cool blue arcs of...
Granite is a coarse-grained, light-colored igneous rock composed mainly of feldspars and quartz; it also contains minor amounts of mica and amphibole minerals (see the accompanying chart titled Generalized Composition Ranges of Common Igneous Rocks). Once students know how to identify the minerals...
After students have learned to identify gneiss and many other rock types, presenting specimens of gneiss that do not exhibit banding can be a challenging way to have students: A) consider possibilities that are not obvious, and, B) realize that a single rock specimen may not adequately represen...
Its teeth and jaws were well-suited to feeding on tough vegetation. Very few parasaurolophus fossils have been found so far. ‘Joe the Dinosaur’ is a famous juvenile parasaurolophus fossil. You can see it in person at theRaymond M. Alf Museum of Palaeontology. ...
It took a long time for Dearcmhara to emerge from the watery depths: over 50 years, ever since its "type fossil" was discovered in 1959 and promptly relegated to obscurity. Then, in 2014, an analysis of its extremely sparse remains (only four bones) allowed researchers to identify it as...