In Depth Falcarius is a transitory species of therizinosaur that marks the change from meat eating to plant eating behaviour. Falcarius is considered by some to have eaten both making it an omnivore, although the leaf shaped teeth seem to be more suited to a herbivorous diet. Further Reading – A primitive therizinosauroid dinosaur from … Read more
In Depth The holotype tooth of this genus was originally described by the German palaeontologist Werner Janensch in 1920 as belonging to the genus Labrosaurus. The first reassignment came about when Labrosaurus was declared to be a synonym of Allosaurus, but the teeth in question were not seen to be similar to those known for … Read more
In Depth Nedcolbertia is a genus of theropod dinosaur known to have lived in the Western portion of the United States during the early Cretaceous. Nedcolbertia is known from the partial remains of at least three individuals, though much of these remains were damaged by erosion before their discovery. Still, enough is known about Nedcolbertia … Read more
In Depth Perhaps the most unusual feature of Yongjinglong is the scapula, the part that is equivalent to your own shoulder blade. Although the holotype individual has been estimated to have been about fifteen to eighteen meters long, the shoulder blade was unusually large in proportion at two meters long in itself. In addition to … Read more
In Depth The holotype remains of Chindesaurus were first discovered in 1985 and at first thought to represent a kind of unknown sauropodomorph dinosaur. It was later however that it was realised that Chindesaurus actually represented a kind of primitive theropod dinosaur. Exactly what kind of early theropod dinosaur has been a little bit harder … Read more
Classification history and complications When Tarbosaurus fossils were first discovered many of them were actually assigned as new species to the existing tyrannosauroid genera Tyrannosaurus (T. bataar) and Gorgosaurus (G. lancinator & G. novojilovi), as well as the new genus and species, Tarbosaurus efremovi. This classification continued until 1965 when Anatoly Konstantinovich Rozhdestvensky realised that … Read more
In Depth Wulong is a genus of microraptorine dromaeosaurid dinosaur that lived in China during the early Cretaceous. The holotype individual of Wulong is of a juvenile, so a full adult size for this dinosaur is unknown at the time of writing. Other microraptorine dinosaurs however are usually smaller than other dromaeosaurid dinosaurs, and like … Read more
In Depth Another Asian tyrannosaur that was named early in 2016, Timurlengia has been named from isolated fossil remains cantered around a braincase that was first discovered in 2004. The braincase lay in storage at the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences until 2014 when Stephen Brusatte, a palaeontologist noted for his work … Read more
In Depth The fossil remains of Becklespinax first began their taxonomic life as a second species of Altispinax called A. altipinax. However Altispinax was previously only described from teeth and there was no firm proof that the second species remains of three vertebrae actually belonged to the type specimen teeth. Later Gregory S. Paul, noting … Read more
In Depth An interesting fact about Ornitholestes is that since it was first discovered in July of 1900, it was the first theropod dinosaur to be discovered in the twentieth century. Since this time, Ornitholestes has been regularly depicted in books, art and even dinosaur documentaries such as the BBC series Walking With Dinosaurs. However, … Read more