In Depth Due to the incomplete remains not a lot is known about this dinosaur other than it is probably a basal titanosauriform. The genus name is a reference to the appearance of the tail vertebrae while the species name of R. cooneyi is in honour of J. P. Cooney who owned the land where … Read more
In Depth Heptasuchus is a genus of fairly large rauiscuhian that lived in what is now Wyoming during the mid/early late Triassic. Rauisuchians were the top predators on land and held onto this title until the appearance of large theropod dinosaurs. Out of these Heptasuchus is usually considered to be most similar to Batrachotomus from … Read more
In Depth The name Tsagantegia means ‘of Tsagen-Teg’ which can be further translated to Englishto mean ‘of White Mountain’, and this is a reference to the location where the holotype skull of Tsagantegia was first discovered. Tsagantegia is currently represented by a single skull, the features of which clearly identify Tsagantegia as an ankylosaurid dinosaur. … Read more
In Depth Dryptosaurus aquilunguis first started off being known as Laelaps aquilunguis when it was first named in 1866 by Edward Drinker Cope, and under the name Laelaps it was one of the first North American dinosaurs to be named. Cope chose the name Laelaps after a dog in Greek mythology which always caught what … Read more
In Depth Ctenochasmatid pterosaurs are usually confirmed by their special dentition which allows them to filter sediment and water as they hunt for invertebrates. However this was not possible for Beipiaopterus because the skull was unknown. Instead the remainder of the body had to be examined for identifying features and the conclusion to this was … Read more
In Depth First discovered in the Canadian Province of Alberta by Irene Vanderloh in 1974 and named by Hans-Dieter Sues in 1978, Saurornitholestes was a small dromaeosaur that is thought to have been similar to the Asian Velociraptor in form. In 2006 a second species called Saurornitholestes robustus was named by Robert Sullivan. The ‘robustus’ … Read more
In Depth Liopleurodon was an apex predator of the Jurassic seas. With a skull, and jaws taking up one fifth of the total length of the animal it had a powerful bite. The twenty centimetre teeth buried deep into the jaws further reinforce this idea. Liopleurodon had a typical pliosaur limb arrangement and although not … Read more
In Depth While only known from teeth, Uatchitodon is still a very interesting genus as at the time of writing it is the earliest known venomous reptile. The teeth of Uatchitodon are recurved and serrated, perfect for slicing through flesh, but grooves in the teeth seem to be for the transference of salivary venom from … Read more
In Depth The history of Galeamopus goes all the way back to 1902 when the first fossils were discovered in the US state of Wyoming. In 1906 the fossils were assigned to the Diplodocus genus, but in 1924 they were given their own species D. hayi, upon the basis that they were clearly different to … Read more
In Depth Yuzhoupliosaurus was an interesting find as it was the first rhomaleosaurid pliosaur to be discovered outside of Europe. Rhomaleosaurids like Yuzhoupliosaurus were long necked pliosaurs that looked somewhere between the plesiosaurs like Plesiosaurus, and the shorter necked, large skulled forms like Simolestes and Liopleurodon. Yuzhoupliosaurus itself would have likely been a predator of … Read more