In Depth Triadobatrachus is one of the earliest frogs to appear in the fossil record. So primitive is Triadobatrachus that this frog has substantially more vertebrae, fourteen in total when compared to a range of four to nine vertebrae in modern frogs. A short tail was also retained in adulthood. Triadobatrachus has been found in … Read more
In Depth Liaodactylus is a genus of pterosaur that lived in Asia during the late Jurassic. Liaodactylus is noted for having numerous small teeth in comb-like structures that meshed together when the jaws closed. This would have allowed Liaodactylus to feed by filtering out small invertebrates from water and soft sediment. Further Reading - Earliest … Read more
In Depth Also known as the ‘Ginsu shark’, Cretoxyrhina was one of the biggest sharks of its time, considerably bigger even than its contemporary Squalicorax. Cretoxyrhina was near the top of the food chain, and it had a diet that included almost anything that was in front of it, including mosasaurs. There is also strong … Read more
In Depth Vegasaurus is a genus of elasmosaurid plesiosaur that lived in the waters around what we now know as Antarctica during the late Cretaceous. It should be remembered at this stage that during the late Cretaceous Antarctica was closer to the equator than it is today, and the climate and water temperature would have … Read more
In Depth Emeus was originally named as a species of Dinornis, D. crassus, by Richard Owen in 1846, but ten years later the ornithologist Ludwig Reichenbach elevated this species to its own genus. Almost this exact sequence of events happened with another moa genus named Anomalopteryx. Also known as the Eastern Moa, Emeus was very much like its larger relative Dinornis, however, while Dinornis is … 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
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 where … 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