In Depth Further Reading - Description of Dinornis crassus - Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1846: 46 - Richard Owen - 1846. - Avium systema naturale - Expedition der vollst�ndigsten Naturgeschichte - Ludwig Reichenbach - 1852. - Nuclear DNA sequences detect species limits in ancient moa - Nature 425 (6954): 175–178 - Leon … Read more
In Depth Rugosuchus is a genus of crocodile the lived in China during the early half of the Late Cretaceous. Further Reading - Cranial anatomy of a new crocodyliform (Archosauria: Crocodylomorpha) from the Lower Cretaceous of Song-Liao Plain, northeastern China. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 38:1653-1663. - X.-C. Wu, Z.-W. Cheng & A. P. Russell … Read more
In Depth Erlianomys is a genus of myodont rodent that lived in Mongolia during the Eocene. Further Reading - Erlianomys combinatus, a primitive myodont rodent from the Eocene Arshanto Formation, Nuhetingboerhe, Nei Mongol, China. - Vertebrata PalAsiatica 48 (2): 133–144. - Q. Li & J. Meng - 2010.
In Depth When the skull of Torvoneustes was originally described it was thought to belong to a species of Metriorhynchus, M. superciliosus. However the later discovery of post cranial remains led to the conclusion that the skull remains did not belong to that species of Metriorhynchus, and they were re-described as a new species of … Read more
In Depth Discovery and species 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 often found in Traditional Chinese medicine … Read more
In Depth Superficially Qinglongopterus has been found to be very similar to Rhamphorhynchus, the pterosaur that is the type genus of the Rhamphorhynchidae and to which Qinglongopterus is thought to be the most closely related. This however hints that both Qinglongopterus and Rhamphorhynchus represented their evolutionary limit as they are separated by many millions of … Read more
In Depth Nurhachius is perhaps most closely related to Istiodactylus even though the two are geographically separated by several thousand miles. However Nurhachius has a different skull which is lower with a slightly curved lower jaw. Nurhachius is named after the first khan of the Qing dynasty, who once ruled from the area where Nurhachius … Read more
In Depth Sapeornis is named from a combination of SAPE and the Ancient Greek ‘ornis’ which means bird. SAPE is actually an acronym for the Society of Avian Palaeontology and Evolution. Also in 2002 another genus of bird named Omnivoropteryx was created by Stephen Czerkas and Qiang Ji. Omnivoropteryx was established as being separate to … Read more
In Depth Along with Microraptor, the discovery of Yanornis was born out of the Archaeoraptor scandal. Named after the Yan Dynasty, Yanornis features several features that are common to modern birds including the absence of the prefrontal bone, a bone that separates the lacrimal bone in front of the eye from the frontal bone that … Read more
In Depth Just thirty years before its description, the concept of dinosaurs evolving into birds was still a very controversial theory that did not have universally wide acceptance in academic circles. However, since the opening of fossil beds in China, new discoveries have slowly but steadily been made, each one adding more and more weight … Read more