In Depth Sinosauropteryx was the first confirmed feathered but non-avian dinosaur discovered. What this means is that while Sinosauropteryx had protofeathers, it was still more like theropod dinosaurs than birds. Sinosauropteryx is often described as being very small at sixty-eight centimetres long however this measurement was just for the holotype specimen which was a juvenile. … Read more
In Depth Although Alexeyisaurus was described from partial remains, it seems that further material was actually present at the site of its discovery. Still, the material recovered is enough to suggest that Alexeyisaurus is one of the earliest known elasmosaurid plesiosaurs, the group of plesiosaurs that had proportionately much longer necks than the more ‘standard’ … Read more
In Depth Bashuchelys is a genus of turtle that lived in China during the mid Jurassic. Fossil remains once named as Chengyuchelys zigongensis have now been used to establish a second species of Bashuchelys, B. zigongensis. Further Reading - Middle Jurassic turtles from the Sichuan Basin, China: a review - Haiyan Tong, Igor Danilov, Yong … Read more
In Depth Zuniceratops is very important to the fossil record as it is the first ceratopsian known to have brow horns and also the oldest species recovered from North America. This lends weight to the theory that the horned ceratopsians evolved in North America as opposed to Asia. The frill on Zuniceratops was fenestrated, meaning … Read more
In Depth Although not as large as the North American Utahraptor, Austroraptor is still the largest dromaeosaurid currently known from South America. However to mark Austroraptor down for just this reason would be doing the genus a grave injustice as Austroraptor displays many features that make it unique among the other members of its group. … Read more
In Depth Liaoningvenator was a small troodontid dinosaur that lived in China during the early Cretaceous. In fact with a reconstructed length of about sixty-nine centimetres for the holotype individual, Liaoningvenator is amongst the smallest troodontid dinosaurs known. Liaoningvenator also had very long legs, and combined with the light build and size of this dinosaur, … Read more
In Depth The story of Ornithodesmus can be a confusing one as for a long time the genus was credited with being a pterosaur, whereas we now know this was a mistake. It all began in 1887 when Harry Govier Seeley described a set of six sacral vertebrae that he thought belonged to a bird. … Read more
In Depth Arenysaurus was a late Cretaceous hadrosaurid dinosaur, and of extra significance since it was a lambeosaurine. This means that Arenysaurus had a hollow crest on its head, and lived in a time when lambeosaurine hadrosaurs had been largely replaced by saurolophine hadrosaurs in other parts of the world like in North America. Further … Read more
In Depth While palaeontologists are certain that Dracopelta was an ankylosaur, no one knows for certain if the genus was a nodosaurid or an actual ankylosaurid (an actual member of the Ankylosauridae). Nodosaurid is perhaps the most likely answer given that we know that out of these two groups nodosaurids appeared first. Ankylosaurids by contrast … Read more
In Depth Jinzhousaurus is a genus of hadrosauroid dinosaur that lived in China during the early Cretaceous. With an estimated length of about seven meters, Jinzhousaurus was a medium to large sized hadrosauroid dinosaur, and is noted for having a skull that grew out to a substantial width at the back, while a small crest … Read more