Paleontologists have been working away in a Portuguese backyard to unearth the remains of what could be the largest dinosaur ever found in Europe, University of Lisbon researchers said. Fossilized fragments from the dinosaur were first discovered in 2017 by a property owner in the city of Pombal in central Portugal while doing construction work. A view during a phase of the excavation works of a partial skeleton of a sauropod dinosaur at the Monte Agudo fossil site, in Pombal, Portugal in this handout taken August 2022. Instituto Dom Luiz (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon) /Handout via REUTERS Earlier this month, Spanish and Portuguese paleontologists worked on the site to unearth what they reckon is a dinosaur that was about 25 metres (82 feet) long and lived arou...
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Paleontologists on Thursday heralded the discovery of a previously unknown small armored dinosaur in southern Argentina, a creature that likely walked upright on its back legs roaming a then-steamy landscape about 100 million years ago. The Cretaceous Period dinosaur, named Jakapil kaniukura, would have been well-protected with rows of bony disk-shaped armor along its neck and back and down to its tail, they said. It measured about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long and weighed only 9 to 15 pounds (4-7 kg), similar to an average house cat. Palaeontologists work on the excavation of bones and fossils that belonged to a newly discovered species of bipedal armoured dinosaur, Jakapil kaniukura, in Rio Negro, Argentina February 2, 2016. Sebastian Apesteguia/Handout via REUTERS Its fossilized re...
Read MoreGeologists at Lund University in Sweden have mapped 300 years of research on the prehistoric marine reptiles known as ichthyosaurs. Using a uniquely well-preserved fossil, the team has also created the scientifically most up-to-date reconstruction of an ichthyosaur currently available. Historical ichthyosaur reconstructions made during the 19th and early 20th centuries. A. Duria Antiquior (1830) by Henry De la Beche. B. “The Ichthyosaur and the Plesiosaur (period of the Lias)” in Earth before the Deluge (1863) by Louis Figuier. C. Photograph of a Tremnodontosaurus model in Crystal Palace Park made by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins. D. “Mosasaur and Ichthyosaurs” in Die Wunder der Urwelt (1912) by Heinrich Harder. E. Painting of a pod of ichthyosaurs by Heinrich Harder as part of a collect...
Read MoreNew fossil birds discovered near China’s Great Wall – one had a movable, sensitive “chin”
Approximately 80 miles from the westernmost reach of China’s Great Wall, paleontologists found relics of an even more ancient world. Over the last two decades, teams of researchers unearthed more than 100 specimens of fossil birds that lived approximately 120 million years ago, during the time of the dinosaurs. However, many of these fossils have proved difficult to identify: they’re incomplete and sometimes badly crushed. In a new paper published in the Journal of Systematics and Evolution, researchers examined six of these fossils and identified two new species. And as a fun side note, one of those new species had a movable bony appendage at the tip of its lower jaw that may have helped the bird root for food. “It was a long, painstaking process teasing out what these things were,” s...
Read MoreGround-breaking Study Confirms Time of Year When Asteroid Wiped Out Dinosaurs and 75 Percent of Life on Earth A ground-breaking study led by researchers at Florida Atlantic University and an international team of scientists conclusively confirms the time year of the catastrophic Chicxulub asteroid, responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs and 75 percent of life on Earth 66 million years ago. Springtime, the season of new beginnings, ended the 165-million-year reign of dinosaurs and changed the course of evolution on Earth. Results of the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, greatly enhances the ability to trace the first stages of damage to life on Earth. FAU’s Robert DePalma, senior author and an adjunct professor in the Department of Geosciences, Charles E. S...
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