In Depth Zuolong was a relatively small Jurassic aged theropod that has been classed within the Coelurosauria. Due to its small size it was probably a predator of small vertebrates such as lizard, primitive mammals to even smaller dinosaurs. Zuolong however may have been potential prey for even larger theropods that are also known from … Read more
In Depth Every so often a dinosaur is discovered that makes people sit up and take notice, and arguably in 2022 that dinosaur was Meraxes. This is because the Meraxes genus has a number of accolades to its name. First is that at the time of its naming in 2022, Meraxes is the most completely … Read more
In Depth Nqwebasaurus was a small theropod from probably the early Cretaceous of Southern Africa, but exactly what kind has been hard to establish. Current thinking is that Nqwebasaurus was actually a primitive ornithomimosaur, since specimens of Nqwebasaurus seem to show fewer teeth in the jaws than those of other theropods. This would follow the … Read more
In Depth Found almost complete, Heyuannia was the first oviraptorid to be discovered within the borders of mainland China, specifically Guangdong Province. Up until the description of Heyuannia, other Asian oviraptorids were all discovered in Mongolia. Going by the holotype individual, Heyuannia seems to have been a small mid-sized genus of oviraptorid. The skull of … Read more
In Depth In 1965 on July 9th the Polish paleobiologist Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska made what would become marked as one of the most fascinating dinosaur discoveries of all time. During a joint Polish-Mongolian expedition into the Gobi desert of �mn�govi Province, Mongolia, she found the partial remains of a then unknown dinosaur, including a complete pair … Read more
In Depth Palaeontology as we know it today has its foundation in nineteenth century Europe and dinosaurs first began to be named and classified in England in the first half of that century. As the first named dinosaur, Megalosaurus was the first dinosaur genus to have a taxonomic placement amongst other recognised animals, however this … Read more
In Depth Gasosaurus was named in honour of the gasoline company that found the Lower Shaximiao Formation, then known as the Dashanpu fossil quarry. Since its naming Gasosaurus has been the subject of uncertainty regarding its validity and position. There have been claims that it may the same as a slightly older genus called Kaijiangosaurus … Read more
In Depth Further Reading - A new tiny dromaeosaurid dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Jehol Group of western Liaoning and niche differentiation among the Jehol dromaeosaurids. Vertebrata PalAsiatica 55(2):129-144. - X. Xu & Z.-C. Qin - 2017.
In Depth Since its creation Halticosaurus has had a lot of fossil remains attributed to it but most of these have been reassigned to other genera. Best known of these is the creation of a new species called H. liliensterni which ended up being raised as the genus Liliensternus in 1984. Other theropod dinosaur remains … Read more
In Depth At the time of its description, Ningyuansaurus is considered to be one of the earliest known oviraptosaurs to appear on the Mesozoic landscape. So primitive is Ningyuansaurus, that the skull it proportionately longer than later oviraptosaurs, and still contains teeth, ten in the upper jaw (four premaxilla, six maxilla), and at least fourteen … Read more