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Jade Simon, a professor at Laramie County Community College, was a critical part of a paleontologist team that discovered a new species of meat-eating dinosaur that’s best described as a giant 170-pound chicken from hell. A new prehistoric avian dinosaur, similar to this one, has been discovered. A Wyoming paleontologist helped verify it. (Cowboy State Daily Illustration) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When paleontologists found a drumstick from what can best be described as a 68-million-year-old chicken from hell, they needed expert on prehistoric hell chickens to confirm it as a new species. And they found her in Wyoming at Laramie County Community College....

Extinct marine lizard the size of an orca with sharp teeth and a strong jaw was a top predator during the dinosaur age. Paleontologists in Morocco have discovered the fossilized remains of a huge, never-before-seen species of marine lizard with "dagger-like" teeth. The reptile was around 26 feet (8 meters) long — about the same length as an orca — and hunted in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of what is now Africa at the end of the dinosaur age, about 66 million years ago, according to a study published March 1 in the journal Cretaceous Research. The creature...

A team of international scientists have discovered 240-million-year-old fossils from the Triassic period in China that one scientist described as a "long and snake-like, mythical Chinese dragon." The 16-foot-long aquatic reptile, called Dinocephalosaurus orientalis, has 32 separate neck vertebrae – an extremely long neck, according to the National Museums of Scotland, which announced the news on Friday. The new fossil has a snake-like appearance and flippers and was found in the Guizhou Province of southern China. Dinocephalosaurus orientalis was first identified in 2003 when its skull was found, but this more complete fossil discovery has "allowed scientists to depict the...

Psychedelic mushrooms sprung up some 67 million years ago, more than 65 million years before humans ever existed, according to the most extensive genomic study examining these types of fungi. Scientists, who published their work this week in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, found that of the more than 50 species in the Psilocybe genus, 35 had a novel gene arrangement that coded for psilocybin, the hallucinogen that gives Psilocybe mushrooms their psychedelic quality. Previous studies had identified a single, different genetic pathway to the production of psilocybin, but the new work opens up the possibility of...

BUENOS AIRES (AFP) – Scientists have found fossil remains of an omnivorous dinosaur in Argentina -- a missing link to the carnivores, a researcher said Monday. "It is an omnivore -- in other words it ate everything (plants and meat) -- which is the missing link between carnivorous dinosaurs and giant four-footed herbivores," said Oscar Alcober, also director of the Natural Sciences Museum in San Juan, 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) west of Buenos Aires. "This is a very important piece of the puzzle on the origin of dinosaurs," said Alcober. Alcober and Ricardo Martinez, chief of the museum's paleontology division,...

NEW YORK -- Scientists are learning more about what appears to be one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs known, a two-legged beast whose bones were found several years ago in the fossil-rich Patagonia region of Argentina. One expert called the discovery the first substantial evidence of group living by large meat-eaters other than tyrannosaurs like T. rex. The creature, which apparently measured more than 40 feet long, is called Mapusaurus roseae. The discovery of Mapusaurus included bones from at least seven of the beasts, suggesting the previously unknown animal may have lived and hunted in groups. That hunting strategy might...

AP - In an undated photo provided by Professor Rodolfo Coria, a dog sits by a replica of the head of a Mapusaurus roseae at the Carmen Funes Museum in Plaza Huincul, Argentina. The dinosaur was discovered in the Patagonia region of Argentina and appears to be one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs known. (AP Photo/HO/Prof. Rodolfo Coria) Scientists are learning more about what appears to be one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs known, a two-legged beast whose bones were found several years ago in the fossil-rich Patagonia region of Argentina. One expert called the discovery the first substantial...

BUENOS AIRES (AFP) - Argentine paleontologists have discovered the largely intact skeleton of a young titanosaurus that lived 71 million years ago. "What's extraordinary about this is that the remains were articulated, as if the animal had fallen or lain down and remained that way. There were no signs that it was preyed on," local media reported geologist and paleontologist Bernardo Gonzalez Riga as saying. Scientists discovered the remains of a foot "with all its toes and claws in an exceptional state of preservation," as well as the complete rear bones, tail, "and part of the pelvis," Gonzalez said. Such...

BUENOS AIRES -- Remains of a new species of dinosaur, christened 'bonitasaura', were discovered in southern Argentina after scientists were led to them by a 98-year-old woman, who said that she was aware of the bones since her childhood. Scientists were taken to the bones of the nine-meter (30 foot) giant, by Filomena Avila, also called Dona Tica, after convincing her that they were not fossil thieves. "Dona Tica believed we were fossil traffickers and, at first, she lied to us, saying that there are not any bones here," said Sebastian Apesteguia, leader of the paleontologists who made the discovery....

A federal grand jury in Utah has indicted four people for attempting to illegally sell $1 million worth of paleontological resources, including to buyers in China. The stolen goods include 150,000 pounds of paleontological resources, including dinosaur bones, removed from federal and state lands in southeastern Utah, in violation of the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act (PRPA). Vint Wade, 65, and Donna Wade, 67, of Moab; Steven Willing, 67, of Los Angeles, California; and Jordan Willing, 40 of Ashland, Oregon, have been charged with causing $3 million in damages by stealing more than $1 million in paleontological resources, which included dinosaur...

The dinosaurs roaming the streets of London are legends of civil disobedience and common sense, and true champions of the people: From a report out at MyLondon last week: A trend has been spreading in London of ULEZ opponents using inflatable dinosaur suits to block the view of mobile camera vans. It has proved a light-hearted way of protesting the £12.50 a day clean air zone. If you haven’t heard, the ULEZ system is an “eye-in-the-sky” surveillance network that identifies, tracks, and fines drivers of vehicles that aren’t compliant with current emissions standards—unless these are Ministry of Defense vehicles, or...

When Mike Poben, an opal buyer and and fossil fanatic, bought a bucket of opal from an Australian mine, he was surprised to find to find what looked like an ancient tooth in the pile. Later, he also found a fossilized jaw piece — one that was shiny and glistening with opal. After showing the two opalized specimens to paleontologists in 2014, Poben learned that they were part of a previously unknown dog-size dinosaur species, a new study finds. This dino lived about 100 million years ago in Australia, back when the landscape was lush and dotted with lakes. The...

VIDEOS AT LINK............. Some of you may remember Pontiac. Years from now, some of us may remember Dodge. What happened to the former is on the verge of happening to the latter, some 45 years later. And for the same reason. In 1979, Pontiac announced the last call – for a big-engined Trans-Am. No more 400s – the 6.6 liter V8s that set apart the late-’70s TA as something unlike anything else you could buy at the time, including the Corvette – which had nothing bigger to offer than a 5.7 liter 350 cubic incher. The word got out quickly....

* The Tyrannosaurus might have had lips, a new study suggests * Researchers compared skulls and studied teeth for the study * Some scientists aren't convinced about this theory FILE – Stan, one of the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex fossil discovered, is on display, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, at Christie’s in New York. The teeth on T. rex and other big theropods were likely covered by scaly lips, concludes a study published Thursday, March 30, 2023, in the journal Science. The dinosaur’s teeth didn’t stick out when its mouth was closed, and even in a wide open bite,...

Reconstruction of the earliest ichthyosaur and the 250-million-year-old ecosystem found on Spitsbergen. Credit: Illustration by Esther van Hulsen For nearly 190 years, scientists have searched for the origins of ancient sea-going reptiles from the Age of Dinosaurs. Now a team of Swedish and Norwegian paleontologists has discovered remains of the earliest known ichthyosaur or ‘fish-lizard’ on the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen. Ichthyosaurs were an extinct group of marine reptiles whose fossils have been recovered worldwide. They were amongst the first land-living animals to adapt to life in the open sea, and evolved a ‘fish-like’ body shape similar to...

Around 120 million years ago, four-winged dinosaurs roughly the size of crows called Microraptors stalked the ancient woodlands of what is now China.While researchers have studied several Microraptor specimens, there's still a lot we don't know about these feathered bird-like creatures – including what and how they ate.Now an incredibly rare fossil has revealed the preserved final meal of one individual: and unexpectedly, it was a mammal...The first Microraptor fossil was found in Liaoning, China, in 2000. There are three known species, which lived in the early Cretacious period, and the fossil in question belongs to Microraptor zhaoianus...The Microraptors were...

Discovered in what’s now western Romania, the Transylvanosaurus platycephalus (flatheaded reptile from Transylvania) was 2 meters (6 feet) long — a relatively small size for a dinosaur, according to a new study. Its skull bones were unearthed in 2007 in a riverbed of the Haţeg Basin. In the Cretaceous Period, this region of Romania was a tropical archipelago. Dinosaurs living there were smaller than their relatives elsewhere; paleontologists think these dinosaurs were an example of what biologists call “island rule,” where large animals isolated on islands become dwarfed or stunted in their growth over time and small animals become larger....

Two environmental activists glued themselves to an exhibition of a dinosaur skeleton at Berlin's Natural History Museum on Sunday to protest against the German government's climate policies. In Berlin, two women wearing orange vests stuck themselves to metal poles supporting a dinosaur skeleton that was over 60 million years old, holding a banner that read: 'What if the government doesn't have it under control?' They did not touch or do any damage to the skeleton itself.

Bird wings clearly share ancestry with dinosaur "hands" or forelimbs. A school kid can see it in the bones. But paleontologists have long struggled to explain the so-called digit dilemma. Here's the problem: The most primitive dinosaurs in the famous theropod group (that later included Tyrannosaurus rex) had five "fingers." Later theropods had three, just like the birds that evolved from them. But which digits? The theropod and bird digits failed to match up if you number the digits from 1 to 5 starting with the thumb. Theropods looked like they had digits 1, 2 and 3, while birds have...

Scientists have uncovered the remains of one of the largest pterosaurs on record, researchers announced in a study published Tuesday in the scientific journal Cretaceous Research. The fossils are from the largest-ever pterosaur found in South America, and one of the largest flying vertebrates in the world, according to researchers. The discovery of two separate animals was made in an outcrop in Argentina's Mendoza province and published in April. The Thanatosdrakon amaru is a new azhdarchid, a member of the pterosaur family of large, flying predators, predominantly from the Late Cretaceous Period. The name is a combination of Thanatos, the...