dinosaurs

Fossil findings shed light on a little-known group of Cretaceous-era beasts—and indicate that the combination of a large head and diminutive arms was no evolutionary fluke.

Endothermy was widespread among both avian and non-avian dinosaurs, a study suggests, so the metabolic strategy is unlikely to account for birds’ survival through the mass extinction event that wiped out their dinosaur cousins.

Researchers determined the season during which the meteor struck by studying the bones of fish excavated from a contentious field site.

A new analysis of fossil footprints suggests that the 2-meter-tall, 4- to 5-meter-long carnivores that left them could run nearly 45 kilometers per hour, bolstering the evidence that at least some dinosaurs were speedy, agile hunters.

A report of preserved fragments of nuclei and chromatin in a fossilized femur of a 125-million-year-old Caudipteryx dinosaur elicits skepticism.

A roughly 99-million-year-old piece of amber from northern Myanmar contains the skull of what appears to represent the smallest known dinosaur of the Mesozoic era.

Footprints in southern Africa’s Karoo Basin show mammals and dinosaurs navigating a “land of fire,” as researchers describe the volcanic landscape.

Carbon cycle modeling and paleotemperature records argue that an asteroid impact—not volcanic fumes—was the main driver of the dinosaur die-off.

As dinosaurs got smaller, their metabolism increased, paving the way for bird evolution.

These ancient insects ate dinosaur feathers during the Cretaceous period.

The site, Corral Bluffs in Colorado, also reveals how plants evolved and how ecosystems rebounded after the asteroid impact.

The answer has broad implications for paleontology research—and maybe for museum collections, too.

A study fails to detect ancient proteins among the microbes, adding to the debate about whether peptides can survive tens of millions of years underground.

Paleontologists find a fossil of a dinosaur, Ambopteryx longibrachium, with membranous wings, in China.

Fossils of two dinosaur skeletons found in New Mexico are from a species new to science that lived 92 million years ago.

A robot model of a winged but flightless dinosaur suggests the dinosaur may have flapped its wings while moving on the ground.

Fossils reveal the quick death of plants and animals from a massive surge of water after the impact 66 million years ago, which is thought to have spelled the demise of dinosaurs.

The world’s largest T. rex found to date likely weighed nearly 20,000 pounds during its life.

Galagadon’s tiny teeth look like the spaceships in its namesake video game from the early 1980s.