In Depth Langobardisaurus was a small prolacertid reptile that was very lightly built. The rear legs can be clearly seen to be much longer than the fore legs, and while a quadrupedal pose may have been more usual when resting, a bipedal stance would have been easily possible when running or rearing up searching for … Read more
In Depth Leptoceratops is similar in form to the earlier ceratopsian dinosaurs that would evolve into the larger members of the group such as Chasmosaurus and Anchiceratops. However Leptoceratops lived much later than these ancestral forms as indicated by its entry into the fossil record at a time which would have seen Leptoceratops living in … Read more
In Depth Barbaridactylus is a genus of pterosaur that lived in North Africa during the late Cretaceous. Barbaridactylus has been identified as a nyctosauird pterosaur, a kind usually associated with coastal areas and hunting for fish. Further Reading - Late Maastrichtian pterosaurs from North Africa and mass extinction of Pterosauria at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. - … Read more
In Depth Bonitasaura is a genus of what seems to have been fairly small titanosaurs that lived in Argentina during the Late Cretaceous. The holotype individual seems to have been a subadult, which means that while it was sexually mature, it still would not have been fully grown. During this phase of its life though, … Read more
In Depth Equijubus seems to have been a primitive hadrosauroid from the early Cretaceous of China, though some have considered the genus to be more simply an iguanodont. Despite this, the skull of Equijubus lacks a palpebral bone, meaning that the eye did not have a bony projection jutting above it. Further Reading - The … Read more
In Depth Eoplesiosaurus was so named for its earlier appearance in the Jurassic that the far more famous Plesiosaurus. Eoplesiosaurus was still small when compared to the plesiosaurs that appeared later in the Jurassic, though it is noted as having a proportionately long neck when compared to some other genera. Further Reading - High Diversity, … Read more
In Depth Tetrapodophis is an interesting snake to say the least since it was the first snake genus known to still have all four legs to be named. For the most part these legs are on the border of being vestigial, yet still defined and functional enough to serve a gripping purpose. Tetrapodophis is also … Read more
In Depth Because of a current lack of fossils for this genus, the only thing that can be said with any certainty is that Kerberosaurus was a saurolophine hadrosaurid, the group of hadrosaurs noted to have solid head crests like those of Saurolophus. The skull remains of Kerberosaurus were discovered in a bone bed of … Read more
In Depth Tethysaurus is a primitive (basal) mosasaur that is considered to be related to Russelosaurus from North America and Yaguarasaurus from South America. Like these other two mosasaurs, Tethysaurus has a mixture of both primitive and advanced features that make it a primitive relative to other later mosasaur groups, although not as primitive as … Read more
In Depth At the time of the description in 2017, Zuul was the best preserved ankylosaurine ankylosaur ever found in North America. Not only was the skull and post cranial skeleton mostly complete, many of the armoured plates that adorned its back were still present. The type species name, Z. crurivastator, is Latin and basically … Read more