Blog Archive
Episode 22: Matheronodon, a new dinosaur with a different kind of bite!
Matheronodon is certainly a dinosaur worthy of a bigger bite. With proportionally giant teeth strikingly different from the standard-issue ornithopod dinosaur, it is certainly one of the most important dino discoveries out of Europe this year. Better yet, the original scientific paper by Pascal Godefroit and colleagues is free to read in the journal Scientific Reports! If you’d like to learn more …
Filed under: Cretaceous, Dinosaurs, Fossils, France, Ornithischia, dinosaur, feeding, jaws, ornithopod
Episode 21: New History of Ancient DNA
The quest to recover ancient genetic material from extinct animals had its blockbuster moment when Jurassic Park came out. But where did the idea come from and who is trying to figure out if the science fiction of Jurassic Park can be science reality? We talk to Dr. Elizabeth Jones, a science historian at University College London, about her work digging through the murky early history of ancient …
Filed under: Elizabeth Jones, Genetics, Genome, Jurassic Park, Neanderthal, Pop Culture, Wooly Mammoth, biochemistry
Episode 20: Digging the Dawn of Dinosaurs – Paleontology at Ghost Ranch
Hi all. Adam Pritchard here. I’ve been thinking about telling the story of my field experience in the Triassic-aged Chinle Formation of northern New Mexico for many years. The Hayden Quarry fossil site at Ghost Ranch has produced the best-preserved and most diverse record of American dinosaurs from the Triassic of North America, plus some of the strangest reptiles that ever lived. I’ve been proud …
Filed under: Diapsids, Ecology, Fieldwork, Mesozoic, Paleontology, Triassic, dinosaur, evolution
A Food Chain in a Fossil: A snake skeleton with its prey still inside!
The relationship between predator and prey is a primal one, and one that fires the curiosity of many fossil fans. We love paintings of Tyrannosaurus battling Triceratops or saber-toothed cats leaping onto the backs of ground sloths. And we can be pretty sure that those interactions happened based on TRACE FOSSILS, like tooth marks in Triceratops bones that match closely with tyrannosaur teeth. How …
Filed under: Germany, Messel, ecosystem, food chain, insect, invertebrate, lizard, predator, snake
A Tale of Two Crocs: Predators of Cretaceous Spain
I tried to google “crocodiles are living fossils,” to see just how commonly that expression was used in popular articles. There were indeed a few articles that referenced this idea, suggesting that croc fossils from 80 million years ago would look identical the skeletons they have today. However, most were news stories reporting various discoveries in the fossil history of crocodiles and their rel …
Filed under: Cretaceous, Ecology, Europe, Spain, competition, crocodile, dinosaur, ecosystem
Episode 16: Hunting Antarctic Dinosaurs
Erik Gorscak and Pat O’Connor, two paleontologists from Ohio University, are about to set out on an expedition to Antarctica to hunt for fossils from the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. They are part of a larger team called the Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project (AP3), an international collaboration of fossil hunters and geologists who are about to spend almost two months at the bottom of the p …
Filed under: Antarctica, Cenozoic, Cretaceous, Fossils, Geology, Gondwana, K-Pg Extinction, Mesozoic, NSF, National Science Foundation, Paleontology, Polar Programs, extinction
