This was originally posted here. Mass extinctions are insanely catastrophic, but important, events that punctuate the history of life on Earth. The Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary, around 145 million years ago, was originally thought of to represent a mass extinction, but has subsequently been ‘down-graded’ to a minor extinction event based on new discoveries. However, compared to …[Read More]
Ecology
New species of ‘river dolphin’ reveals their ancient marine origins
A new species of extinct dolphin closely related to modern Amazonian ‘river dolphins’, but which dwelled in ancient oceans, is helping to solve the mystery of how and when dolphins adapted for life away from the sea. Freshwater dolphins are endangered, largely due to human activity. In modern ecosystems, only five or six species remain, …[Read More]
They might be giants, but how could they live with each other?
Sauropod dinosaurs are the biggest animals to have ever walked on land. They are instantly recognised by their long, sweeping necks and whiplashed tails, and nearly always portrayed moving in herds, being stalked by hungry predators. In recent years, a huge amount of taxonomic effort from scientists has vastly increased the number of known species …[Read More]
How fast was the demise of the dinosaurs?
It’s dark. It’s always dark these days. Lights in the sky burn your eyes, so you keep your face to ground in the hopes that they’ll go away. But they don’t. The air is heavy. Heavy with poisons that make it difficult to breathe. Heavy with foreboding dread. You, my unfortunate friend, are going through …[Read More]
IPC Day 2 – The evolution of giants
This is a slightly delayed summary of the sauropod symposium on day 2 of IPC4, following sessions the previous day on vertebrate taphonomy and diversity and extinction in the fossil record. This is also the final of these little summaries, and for that I apologise – my laptop is a bit kaput atm, and needs …[Read More]
IPC4 Day 1 – Death is the road to awe
Following on from the previous post, the afternoon symposium was all about the applications and implications of vertebrate taphonomy. Matt Carrano kicked things off with a great talk on how microfossil bonebeds help to guide our understanding of terrestrial palaeoecosystems. Using sites from the well-known but poorly understood Cloverly Formation, he provided a key insight …[Read More]
IPC4 Day 1 – Using the past to inform the present
Welcome to the fourth International Palaeontology Congress! 900 palaeontologists have piled into the land of steak, sun, and malbec in Mendoza, Argentina, for the biggest palaeontology conference that draws from all parts of the field. What I want to do with these posts is just provide snapshot summaries of the talks I’ve been at to …[Read More]
Grim reaper or gentle giants?
Therizinosaurs were some of the true freaks of the dinosaur world. I mean that in the nicest possible way for something that looked like the sick offspring of a giant chicken and Freddie Kruger. Perhaps the weirdest things about them were these long, scythe-like claws, that although may have seemed deadly, probably weren’t unless you …[Read More]
Your bite or mine?
It rises from the dark waters like some behemoth from the deep, and lets out a blood-curdling roar. It’s feeding time. One of the most iconic scenes from Jurassic Park III is where the long-snouted, sail-backed giant theropod dinosaur Spinosaurus emerges from underwater to try, yet again, to eat our beleaguered rabble of misfortunates. It’s …[Read More]
Another clue to the origins of dinosaurs
Often the early evolution and radiation of the first dinosaurs is an overlooked part of their tale, in favour of the more dramatic but arguably no less important tales of their later radiations and extinctions. It is actually a fairly poorly understood part of their evolution too, with the timing, and actual mechanism that drove …[Read More]