Baseball Bat-Sized Horns

A tubby dinosaur sporting two horns each the length of a baseball bat roamed Mexico 72 million years ago.
That’s what paleontologists have discovered since digging up the remains of the plant-eating dinosaur, Coahuilaceratops magnacuerna, in Coahuila, Mexico.

This newly unearthed dinosaur had the longest horns of any ceratopsids – longer even than the famous Triceratops.

It would have been about the size of a rhinoceros with horns about 3 to 4 feet (1 metre) long.

As one of the largest herbivores in this area, the Coahuilaceratops probably didn’t have to worry about attack from other predator dinosaurs. It could have enjoyed the lush vegetation of Mexico as it was 97 to 65 million years ago – very different to the desert terrain of today.

Would You Like Stones With That?

Paleontologists have discovered a giant sea creature from the dinosaur era with 289 stones in its gut. How did they get there? The plesiosaur swallowed them.

Ouch, that must hurt! Not for a Dolichorhynchops plesiosaur apparently.

It seems as though the stones served some sort of digestive purpose, helping to grind up bits of shell or bony material within the gut, according to scientists.

Stomach stones, technically known as "gastroliths," are fairly common, but, even the scientists agree, 289 is an exceptionally large number! Some dinosaurs like sauropods also swallowed gastroliths.
Plesiosaurs were NOT dinosaurs, even though they looked a bit like underwater dinosaurs. Plesiosaur behaviour was more comparable to that of modern day sea turtles and seals, but the prehistoric animals weren't at all related to turtles and seals.

Spinosaurus Vs Tyrannosaurus

It’s been touted as one of the great battles of history. The epic fights that must have occurred between the giant meat-eaters, Spinosaurus and T-Rex. Who would have won is a question scientists have been asking for decades.

But what if they didn’t actually fight? A recent French study suggests these two deadly dinosaurs may have lived quite separate lives that kept them apart from each other.

Evidence from the study shows Spinosaurs could have actually spent a lot of their time in the water, thus avoiding clashes with Tyrannosaurs which lived on the land.

Earlier fossilized skeletons of Spinosaurs showed they had long snouts like crocodiles and that they ate fish.

But this new study also shows that the Spinosaurs teeth were smooth and cone-shaped like a crocodiles too. It also studied the amount of oxygen in their teeth because animals that live in water have different proportions of oxygen than those that live on land. The researchers found the oxygen in the Spinosaurs teeth resembles crocodiles and turtles more than land animals like Tyrannosaurs.

So the Spinosaurus probably spent part of their days in lakes and rivers feeding on fish leaving the terrible T-Rex to roam the land feasting on other dinosaurs to its heart content.

Death By Footprint!

Imagine dying after falling into a footprint! Only in the prehistoric world could this happen.

An unusual fossil find shows a group of tiny feathered dinosaurs died after falling into the deep muddy footprints of a much-larger Sauropod dinosaur.

Skeletons of 18 small two-legged dinosaurs were discovered stacked on top of each other in the 160-million-year-old sediments of an ancient marsh in China.

Apparently the unlucky victims of the footprint death were less than 1 metre tall and 1 to 3 metres long so they would have been too short to push against the bottom of the muddy pit and their arms would have been covered with mud-slicked feathers and too small to pull them out of the hole.

Just shows how dangerous it is to follow in someone else’s footprint!

A Prehistoric Night Owl

Just like today’s owl or kiwi, Archaeopteryx may have been a bird that came alive at night.

Scientists have just found they can predict whether birds feed during the day, night or twilight depending on the shape of their eye sockets.

This gives them new insight into the lifestyles of prehistoric birds. An early study of an Archaeopteryx fossil shows it had deep eye sockets like an owl or kiwi which would make this dino-bird nocturnal.

Drawings of Archaeopteryx flying through daytime skies may have to be revised thanks to this new information.

Dinosaurs Do The Rock Dance

Scientists have found what they are calling a “dinosaur dance floor” on the Arizona-Utah border in the US.
They have discovered such an amazing collection of dinosaur footprints – more than 1,000 – that geologists reckon it looks like a giant dino dance floor.

The 190-million-year-old footprints are around what used to be a watering-hole within the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument and are made by at least four different types of dinosaur. Scientists say this looks like a place that attracted a crowd – much like a crowded dance floor.

The dinosaur prints were locked into sandstone after being covered by shifting dunes. They became exposed through erosion and will eventually disappear through erosion, too.

A Brontosaurus Anyone?

Can’t you just imagine this in your back garden? Wouldn’t mum love it?
This house-sized reptile weighing two-and-a-half-tonne is looking for a new home. Obviously your average kid’s bedroom is not quite suitable.

It’s a case of out with the old and in with the new at Europe’s biggest dinosaur park where this old long-necked faithful has stood tall since it opened.
Plans to bring in a new model Spinosaurus means this 20ft Brachiosaurus is being put out to pasture. With 220 monster attractions, from giant flying predators to flesh-eating lizards, something has to go before Spinosaurus can move into the hugely popular Dan-yr-Ogof National Showcave Centre for Wales.

''I think that it would be a father's ultimate surprise gift for a dinosaur-mad son,'' says Ashford Price, the boss of Showcave. ''I could easily imagine it ending up in someone's back garden - if they have the space.

''But it could also go to a school somewhere in England or Wales or perhaps become a giant mascot for a rugby or cricket team.

''If anyone can offer Bronto a new home they should get in touch. The only problem is that it is a bit too big to post, so they will have to sort out how they get it home themselves.''