So I don’t normally blog whenever a new dinosaur pops out the pages, but a new one, Acheroraptor temertyorum received quite a welcome back to the living world with this exquisite illustration by Danielle Dufault. I’ve asked for her permission to post on here, and it’ll appear on the front cover of Naturwissenschaften (December issue, probably), so defo worth checking out a hard copy!
Acheroraptor, in all its glory (click for larger, or email Danielle!)
Dinosaurs! What image sprang to your mind then? There’s a reasonable chance, I’d hazard, that your brain just conjured an image of ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex, a nimble and intelligent Velociraptor mongoliensis, or any one of the other meat-eating theropods, notoriously infamous thanks to a certain eccentric millionaire with a passion for splicing genes. These two species of dinosaur are pretty well known to both pop culture and science, and have many fantastic skeletons to represent their iconic names. But not all of our dinosaury friends are so lucky. Theropods (the mostly meat-eating ones, including modern birds) often shed teeth during feeding, or through ‘playing’ with each other or even possible displays of dominance during periods of courtship (much like an average night at most clubs). Either way, it means that many of the fossil remnants from the Mesozoic era we have of extinct theropods are actually just teeth!
What I guess people think of when they think of dinosaurs. Source.
