In Depth Avimimus acquired its name from its bird like characteristics that have led to some controversy as to how much like a bird it really was. Like in modern birds the hand bones were fused together, and the presence of pronounced quill knobs on the lower arm bones confirms that Avimimus did at least … Read more
In Depth A possible close relative of Gasparinisaura, Anabisetia was a fairly small ornithopod dinosaur that roamed around what would become South America during the early stages of the late Cretaceous. Anabisetia is known mostly from the partial post cranial remains of four specimens and a single partial brain case and lower jaw. The lack … Read more
In Depth Youngina is a genus of diapsid reptile that lived in what is now South Africa during the late Permian. The skull is roughly triangular with a snout that is about half the total length of the skull. The teeth are conical and well developed, and may have been used for killing larger invertebrates … Read more
In Depth With remains that were found in Campanian age rocks Terminonatator was possibly one of the last elasmosaurid plesiosaurs to swim in the ocean. This is a far cry away from the Jurassic heyday of the plesiosaurs when they were one of the most common types of marine reptile in the ocean. In the … Read more
In Depth A close relative to Vulcanodon, Tazoudasaurus was quite a bit larger than its more famous cousin, though still small when compared to many of the sauropods of the late Jurassic. Also, although known only from partial remains, Tazoudasaurus is still represented by the most complete early Jurassic sauropod remains known. V-shaped wear patterns … Read more
In Depth The genus Agnosphitys seems to be destined to cause a lot of confusion in the future. To start there is no universal agreement upon the classification of Agnosphitys with some considering it to be an archosaur, a dinosauromorph to even a distinct saurischian dinosaur. To further add to the controversy, there has even … Read more
In Depth Istiodactylus had actually been known to science since 1913 except it was known as Ornithodesmus until it was realised that some of the remains associated to it belonged to a theropod dinosaur. With this realisation the known pterosaur remains were renamed Istiodactylus. Istiodactylus had quite a unique beak that was rounded at the … Read more
In Depth Phaedrolosaurus is a problematic genus of dinosaur because at the time of writing the only fossil specimen for this genus is a single tooth. Partial post cranial remains that were once attributed to the genus upon the basis that they were found near the tooth have since been removed and used to establish … Read more
In Depth Although the name Anodontosaurus means ‘toothless lizard’, the teeth were only lost when the holotype skull of Anodontosaurus became compressed during fossilisation. Anodontosaurus was once synonymised with the genus Euoplocephalus, but a re-description of Dyoplosaurus in 2009 by Arbour et al. (also once synonymised with Euoplocephalus) led to the original Anodontosaurus fossils being … Read more
In Depth Ajnabia is a genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur that lived during the late Maastrichtian period towards the end of the Cretaceous period. Ajnabia made headlines in the paleontological world when it was described as this represented the first time that hadrosaurid dinosaur fossils had been found in Africa. Hadrosaurid dinosaurs were for a long … Read more