In Depth One of the most common European sauropods of the Jurassic, Cetiosaurus is actually one of the most primitive. In more advanced sauropods the vertebrae are hollow as a weight saving feature, however Cetiosaurus has solid vertebrae which hint at its basal position in the evolution of sauropods. These solid vertebrae are similar to … Read more
In Depth Officially named and described in 2015 from a single skull, Regaliceratops has already gone down as a particularly interesting ceratopsian dinosaur. The larger ceratopsians of the late cretaceous are usually divided into centrosaurines and chasmosauines, the former having large nasal horns and reduced frills, while the latter usually have reduced nasal horns and … Read more
In Depth Barbatodon is a genus of mammal that lived in Europe during the late Cretaceous. Further Reading - Pr�cisions sur les affinit�s des Multitubercul�s (Mammalia) du Cr�tac� Sup�rieur de Roumanie [Precise details on the affinities of the multituberculates (Mammalia) from the Upper Cretaceous of Romania]. - Comptes Rendus de l’Acad�mie des Sciences � Paris, … Read more
In Depth Toyotamaphimeia was originally described as a prehistoric species of the Tomistoma genus, better known as the false gharial. Today the false gharial is known to attain lengths of up to five meters in the wild, with isolated skulls suggesting a theoretical limit of somewhere between five and a half and six meters long. … Read more
In Depth The maximum adult size of Dryosaurus is difficult to estimate as all of the known specimens seem to represent animals that were still growing. What is known is that Dryosaurus was a bipedal dinosaur of the bird hipped group. It had a light build with long legs, long neck and a stiff tail, … Read more
In Depth Although not very well known, Jaxartosaurus possesses a hollow helmet shaped crest on top of its skull similar to the better known Corythosaurus. Because this crest is hollow, Jaxartosaurus had been confidently assigned to the Lambeosaurinae group of hadrosaurs which are typified by their hollow crests. The crest of Jaxartosaurus like its lambeosaurine … Read more
In Depth Ulemosaurus is very much like the therapsid Moschops, not only in the type of creature that it was, but also in the fact that its skull was also up to ten centimetres thick. Its possible that like in the related Moschops, this bone thickness allowed for head butting or head pushing contests. Although … Read more
In Depth Fossils of this titanosaur were found near lake Rukwa in the Rukwa Valley of Tanzania, so the eventual name of Rukwatitan was really just a foregone conclusion. At about nine meters long, the holotype appears to indicate that Rukwatitan was a fairly small genus of titanosaur. One area of note is that the … Read more
In Depth When first described the prehistoric whale Livyatan was actually named Leviathan after the biblical sea monster. Unfortunately however Leviathan had already been used to name a mastodon now known as Mammut (Leviathan is actually a synonym to this genus, but still cannot be used). As such the Hebrew word for Leviathan, Livyatan, is … Read more
In Depth Laosaurus is today considered to be a dubious genus of dinosaur. Though previously considered to be a hypsilophodont (relative of Hypsilophodon), most of the fossil remains once attributed to Laosaurus have ended up being considered to be other genera such as Orodromeus, Dryosaurus and Othnielosaurus. What few fossils that are still assigned to … Read more