In Depth First discovered in New Zealand in 1874, Taniwhasaurus was named after the Taniwha, kaitiaki of the sea that in Māori legend are protective beings associated with specific locations. As a mosasaur Taniwhasaurus was very similar to the famous Tylosaurus, so much so in fact that one Tylosaurus species, T. haumuriensis is now considered … Read more
In Depth Originally named in 1997 as Titanosaurus colberti by Jain and Bandyopadhyay, a new study by Wilson and Upchurch in 2003 saw the fossils renamed as a new genus, Isisaurus. Isisaurus was named after the Indian Statistical Institute and should not be confused with the goddess Isis from Ancient Egyptian mythology. Isisaurus was a … Read more
In Depth Australia would have had a lot of dinosaurs roaming around during the Mesozoic but the harsh conditions of the land mean that when dinosaur remains are discovered they are often very fragmentory and of a single bone. Thus Rapator is currently only known from a single small bone, kind of like other Australian … Read more
How big was Titanoboa and why did it grow so large? When initially described in 2009, Titanoboa was estimated to have been about 12.8 meters long. This meant that in at least terms of length, Titanoboa was larger than the previous record holder for largest ever snake, Gigantophis, by a comfortable margin. Later modelling … Read more