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
In Depth Sinocoelurus is a dubious genus given that it is only based upon the description of teeth, making this a tooth taxon. The only thing that can be said about Sinocoelurus with any confidence is that given the size of the teeth, the holotype individual would have been a small theropod. Further Reading - … Read more
In Depth Adinophis is a genus of madtstoiid snake that lived in Madagascar during the Ceretaceous. Relatives genera of Adinophis include Wonambi, Menarana, Sanajeh, Yurlunggur, Madtsoia and Gigantophis. Further Reading - New snakes from the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Maevarano Formation, Mahajanga Basin, Madagascar. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 34(5):1080-1093. - A. C. Pritchard, J. A. McCartney, … Read more
In Depth Not a lot is known about Eshanosaurus, yet it has still managed to be a controversial dinosaur. Thought to be one hundred and ninety-six million years old, the partial dentary of Eshanosaurus (currently the only part known) goes as far back as the Hettangian stage of the Jurassic. The describers of the dentary … Read more
In Depth The nasal horn of Einiosaurus is quite unusual in that it curves forward to point towards the ground, something which is reflected in the species name E. procurvicornis which translates to English as ‘forward curving horn’. In young Einiosaurus this horn is thought to have started out small, but as the individual grew … Read more