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110-million-year-old crustacean holds essential piece to evolutionary puzzle

University of Alberta PhD student Javier Luque has found the oldest crown-group true higher crab ever discovered, deep in the tropics of Colombia. The discovery of Telamonocarcinus antiquus pushes back...

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Large theropod teeth found from the Upper Cretaceous of Jiangxi, Southern China

Large carnivorous dinosaurs, are common in the Late Cretaceous of Asia, but only some fragment teeth have been recovered from southern China. In a paper published in the latest issue of Vertebrata...

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Tail as old as time—researchers trace ankylosaur's tail evolution

How did the ankylosaur get its tail club? According to research from North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences that traces the evolution of the ankylosaur's...

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Cold snap: Climate cooling and sea-level changes caused crocodilian retreat

Fluctuating sea levels and global cooling caused a significant decline in the number of crocodylian species over millions of years, according to new research.

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76-million-year-old extinct species of pig-snouted turtle unearthed in Utah

In the 250-million-year evolutionary history of turtles, scientists have seen nothing like the pig nose of a new species of extinct turtle discovered in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by a...

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Unique feeding mechanism among marine reptiles from the age of dinosaurs

Among the many groups of marine reptiles from the Age of Dinosaurs, elasmosaurs are famous for their necks, which can have up to 76 vertebrae and make up more than half the total length of the animal....

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Rare fossil of a horned dinosaur found from 'lost continent'

A rare fossil from eastern North America of a dog-sized horned dinosaur has been identified by Dr Nick Longrich. The fossil provides evidence of an east-west divide in North American dinosaur evolution.

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How I found a small, weird-looking horned dinosaur from eastern USA

Most of what we know about North American dinosaurs comes from the western half of the continent, while those of the east are something of a mystery. So little is known, in fact, that even a scrap of...

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Discovery of new fossil species reveals unique binocular vision of the first...

An international research partnership is revealing the first mosasaur fossil of its kind to be discovered in Japan. Not only does the 72-million-year-old marine reptile fossil fill a biogeographical...

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Fossils reveal ancient shrublands in fiery landscape

New fossil evidence shows that Australia's fire-prone shrubland open vegetation originated at least 70 million years ago – 40-50 million years earlier than previously thought.

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Mammoth dinosaur cast goes on display in NY

A cast of one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered, a mammoth 122-foot (37.2 meter) titanosaur went on display for the first time in New York on Thursday.

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Research team identifies rare dinosaur from Appalachia

An international team of researchers has identified and named a new species of dinosaur that is the most complete, primitive duck-billed dinosaur to ever be discovered in the eastern United States.

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Scientists discover butterfly-like fossil insect in the deep Mesozoic

Large butterfly-like insects known as Kalligrammatid lacewings, which fluttered through Eurasian fern- and cycad-filled woodland during the Mesozoic Era, have been extinct for more than 120 million...

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Fossil find reveals just how big carnivorous dinosaur may have grown

An unidentified fossilised bone in a museum has revealed the size of a fearsome abelisaur and may have solved a hundred-year old puzzle.

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Slower evolution and climate change drove ichthyosaurs to extinction

Ichthyosaurs - shark-like marine reptiles from the time of dinosaurs - were driven to extinction by intense climate change and their own failure to evolve quickly enough, according to new research by...

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Scientists cite evidence that mosasaurs were warm-blooded

Mosasaurs – an extinct group of aquatic reptiles that thrived during the Late Cretaceous period – possibly were "endotherms," or warm-blooded creatures, a paper co-written by a University of Alabama...

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The success of the plant-eating dinosaurs

There has been a long debate about why dinosaurs were so successful. Say dinosaur, and most people think of the great flesh-eaters such as Tyrannosaurus rex, but the most successful dinosaurs were of...

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Following dinosaur footsteps in Bolivia's fossil mecca

It's not easy following in the footsteps of the largest animals ever to roam Earth.

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A rare small specimen discovered from the age of flying giants

A rare small-bodied pterosaur, a flying reptile from the Late Cretaceous period approximately 77 million years ago, is the first of its kind to have been discovered on the west coast of North America.

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Unique skin impressions of the last European dinosaurs discovered in Barcelona

Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in collaboration with the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP), have discovered in Vallcebre (Barcelona) a fossil bearing...

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Biggest map of dinosaur tree yet suggests they emerged 20 million years...

(Phys.org)—A team of researchers from the U.K. and the U.S. has mapped the biggest dinosaur tree yet, and in so doing, has found that the creatures may have evolved 20 million years earlier than most...

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Scientists redefine horned dinosaur relationships by naming two new...

Scientists have named two new clades, or tribes, of horned dinosaurs (ceratopsians) based on fossils collected from the United States and Alberta, Canada. The new tribes are Nasutoceratopsini and...

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New prehistoric bird species discovered

A team of geologists at the University of Rochester has discovered a new species of bird in the Canadian Arctic. At approximately 90 million years old, the bird fossils are among the oldest avian...

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Nearly pristine ankylosaur fossil found in Montana

(Phys.org)—A team of researchers with the Royal Ontario Museum and the University of Toronto, both in Canada, has unearthed what is being described as one of the most complete ankylosaur fossilized...

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Japan's largest complete dinosaur skeleton discovered

The complete skeleton of an 8-meter-long dinosaur has been unearthed from marine deposits dating back 72 million years at Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, making it the largest dinosaur skeleton...

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T. rex was not feathery, study says

Tyrannosaurus rex had scales, not feathers, said a study Wednesday which rescues the giant lizard's reputation as a fearsome killer with a rough-and-tough hide.

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Unraveling the mysteries of Nipponosaurus

Nipponosaurus sachalinensis—a controversial hadrosaurid dinosaur whose fossilized skeleton was unearthed in southern Sakhalin in 1934—is found to be a valid taxon and a juvenile that had not reached...

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Amateur collectors in Japan discover country's first and oldest fossil diving...

During a walk near a reservoir in a small Japanese town, amateur collectors made the discovery of their lives - the first and oldest fossil bird ever identified in their country.

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Non-avian dinosaur found to have laid blue eggs

(Phys.org)—A team of researchers from Germany and the U.S. has found that a non-avian dinosaur living in what is now China laid colored eggs. In their paper published on the peer-reviewed site PeerJ,...

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Big herbivorous dinosaurs ate crustaceans as a side dish

Some big plant-eating dinosaurs roaming present-day Utah some 75 million years ago were slurping up crustaceans on the side, a behavior that may have been tied to reproductive activities, says a new...

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