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Channel: Phys.org news tagged with:late cretaceous
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Weird fossil sheds light on dinosaurs' lost continent

Palaeontologists in Utah on Wednesday said they had found the fossil of a strange horned dinosaur which roamed an island continent known as Laramidia.

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Mosasaur fossil proves the early lizards had tails like sharks

(Phys.org) —A trio of researchers studying a mosasaur fossil found in Jordan report in their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, that the late cretaceous period reptile clearly had a...

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Late Cretaceous Period was likely ice-free

For years, scientists have thought that a continental ice sheet formed during the Late Cretaceous Period more than 90 million years ago when the climate was much warmer than it is today. Now, a...

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New hadrosauroid dinosaur from the Early Late Cretaceous of Shanxi Province,...

The origin of hadrosaurid dinosaurs is far from clear, mainly due to the paucity of their early Late Cretaceous close relatives. Compared to numerous Early Cretaceous basal hadrosauroids, which are...

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Newly discovered predatory dinosaur 'king of gore' reveals the origins of T. rex

A remarkable new species of tyrannosaur has been unearthed in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM), southern Utah. The huge carnivore inhabited Laramidia, a landmass formed on the...

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Mesozoic turtle reconstructed

During the Mesozoic Era, between 252m and 66m years ago, the seas were ruled by a vast and intriguing array of reptiles. The most common ones were crocodiles (adapted to swimming in oceans),...

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First enantiornithine bird found from the Upper Cretaceous of Southern China

Most known Enantiornithes from China are from the Jehol Group (131–120 million years ago), which has yielded numerous and exquisitely preserved Lower Cretaceous birds, and all known Enantiornithes are...

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Ancient seabird discovery suggests Paleogene bird diversification

Bones of a previously unknown species prove to be one of the oldest seabirds.

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Dinosaur skull may reveal T. rex's smaller cousin from the north

A 70 million year old fossil found in the Late Cretaceous sediments of Alaska reveals a new small tyrannosaur, according to a paper published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 12, 2014 by...

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Newly found dinosaur is long-nosed cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex

Scientists have discovered a new species of long-snouted tyrannosaur, nicknamed Pinocchio rex, which stalked the Earth more than 66 million years ago.

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New horned dinosaur reveals unique wing-shaped headgear

Scientists have named a new species of horned dinosaur (ceratopsian) based on fossils collected from Montana in the United States and Alberta, Canada. Mercuriceratops (mer-cure-E-sare-ah-tops) gemini...

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New species of fossilised wood found in Winton

Palaeontologists have discovered a new species of fossilised wood in Winton, providing insight into dinosaur landscapes in central-western Queensland.

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Toothless 'dragon' pterosaurs dominated the Late Cretaceous skies

A new study provides an exciting insight into the Late Cretaceous and the diversity and distribution of the toothless 'dragon' pterosaurs from the Azhdarchidae family. The research was published in the...

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New hadrosaur noses into spotlight

Call it the Jimmy Durante of dinosaurs – a newly discovered hadrosaur with a truly distinctive nasal profile. The new dinosaur, named Rhinorex condrupus by paleontologists from North Carolina State...

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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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