All about dinosaurs, fossils and prehistoric animals by Everything Dinosaur team members.
11 10, 2008

Dinosaur Hat from Everything Dinosaur

By |2022-12-09T11:07:47+00:00October 11th, 2008|Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page, Press Releases|0 Comments

A Dinosaur Hat from Everything Dinosaur

Dressing up can be so much fun but for young dinosaur fans, dinosaur dressing up costumes and a dinosaur hat are almost as rare as fossils of Tyrannosaurus rex.  However, the good people at Everything Dinosaur have gone some way to helping to grant the wishes of all those budding palaeontologists eager to impersonate their favourite animals from the past.

Dinosaur Hat

The company has introduced a cute and cuddly dinosaur hat, what is more this unusual headgear is actually modelled on a real dinosaur, a fierce meat-eater called Spinosaurus.

Spinosaurus lived during the Cretaceous and was notable for having a large sail down its back, when creating a fun dinosaur hat the team at Everything Dinosaur used a Spinosaurus for their inspiration and “Spino” – the name the team members have given to their millinery creation came into being.

“Spino” – A cute Dinosaur Hat modelled on a Baby Spinosaurus

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

To view the clothing and other dinosaur themed items available from Everything Dinosaur: Visit Everything Dinosaur.

We are not entirely sure what baby spinosaurs looked like, but they probably had relative long limbs and disproportionately large heads when compared to adults (a concept scientist call distal growth).  Talking of big heads, the flexible elasticated band on Spino enables this cute hat to fit over most heads – even “big heads” as demonstrated below.

Spino and “Friend”

“Spino” – dinosaur hat.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The picture above shows an Everything Dinosaur team member wearing the Spinosaurus hat, a very colourful dinosaur hat.

10 10, 2008

The Key to the Sauropods Success – Don’t Chew your Food

By |2023-02-25T20:41:21+00:00October 10th, 2008|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

Long-necked Dinosaurs Successful because they did not Chew their Food

The largest land animals ever to exist, the long-necked dinosaurs (sauropods), owed their success to the ability to grow big very quickly and to do this they needed to process their food efficiently.  A new European study into the likely feeding behaviours and growth rates of sauropods, the scientific name for the long-necked dinosaurs, concludes that during the Mesozoic, size really did matter.

Sauropod Dinosaurs

A team of scientists believe that these animals grew huge to discourage predators, simply becoming to big for carnivorous dinosaurs to hunt effectively.  The paper, to be published in the journal Science this week examines the growth rates of sauropods and postulates that these monstrous leviathans were warm-blooded.  They would have needed high metabolic rates to sustain their rapid growth.  Gigantism certainly has its advantages, for example African elephants have virtually no natural predators once they reach a certain size.  Some of the Everything Dinosaur team members have worked in Kenya and they recall stories of a female elephant being attacked and killed by lions but this was an extremely rare occurrence and one that occurred in exceptional circumstances.

The pride concerned was very big, consisting of approximately 20 lionesses and some other semi-mature animals.   There had been a prolonged period of drought which had limited the game available and the elephant attacked and killed was an immature animal believed to be about 15 years old.  The attack occurred at night when this young female elephant got separated from the herd after visiting one of the few remaining water holes in the area.

Pack Hunters

It is probable that some carnivorous dinosaurs may have hunted in packs and large numbers of giganotosaurs or allosaurs would have been formidable adversaries quite capable of tackling an adult sauropod had they attacked as a group.  From the few trackways that have been preserved showing sauropods moving in a herd, it seems that the smaller more vulnerable animals were to be found in the middle whilst the larger adults walked towards the outside of the group provided some protection for the younger animals.

Certainly, some of these herbivorous sauropods grew into giants.  Although scientists still debate the maximum size and weights of these animals estimates of 80 to 100 tonnes are not uncommon and some of the lighter diplodocids could reach lengths in excess of 33 metres or more.

A scale model of a Brachiosaurus

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

To view a scale model of a Brachiosaurus and other dinosaur models: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal Models.

How these gentle herbivores were able to grow so large when they had only a few peg-like teeth in their jaws (most species of sauropod), remains a mystery, but commenting on the article sauropod expert Paul Upchurch from the University College London said:

“most palaeontologists agree that feeding is the key to understanding sauropod gigantism”.

Sauropod Fossil Study

The large bodies and long necks effectively gave these animals an efficient feeding platform, allowing them to strip the vegetation from an area with little movement of their vast bulk, indeed it is thought that different species of sauropod fed on different types of plant matter to limit competition between species.  Brachiosaurs for example with their necks held high could browse on the tree tops, stripping away branches and leaves with their peg-like teeth literally combing the food into their mouths.  In comparison, other sauropods that shared the same habitat such as Apatosaurus probably fed on the understorey of vegetation.

Martin Sander, a palaeontologist at the University of Bonn (Germany), a co-author of the study, explained that a long-neck made sense if you needed to reach lots of food and a large gut would be required to process all the tough plant matter to extract nutrients.  The absence of any large numbers of teeth made sense to the scientists when they considered the physical requirement of keeping a heavy head full of teeth aloft so that the animal could feed.

“You can only have this long neck if you don’t chew your food, otherwise your head would be full of teeth and too heavy to support,” he said.

Processing Bulky Plant Matter

To help process the bulky plant matter scientists believe that sauropods swallowed stones (called gastroliths), these remained in the stomach or perhaps in a gizzard-like organ and the muscular contractions of the dinosaur’s digestive tract helped grind up and break down the tough plant material.  Microbes in the gut would also help break down food, particularly the tough cellulose plant tissues.  Such a big powerful gut would process food quite efficiently and this would have helped these animals grow quickly, perhaps fast enough to prevent them falling prey to Theropods.

Microscopic analysis of the internal structure of sauropod bones show growth rings and a study of these rings can give scientists an indication of just how fast these animals may have grown.  A 10 kilogramme hatch-ling for example may have taken something less than 30 years to grow into a 100 tonne specimen – a truly astonishing rate of growth.  This would equate to human baby growing to the weight of an African elephant by the time they started school.

“This tells us that they must have been warm-blooded and had a high metabolic rate compared to cold-blooded creatures,” said the University of Bonn’s Sander.

Recently published studies involving comparisons between growth rates of hadrosaurs and tyrannosaurids also indicate that the plant-eating ornithopods also adopted a strategy of growing quickly to prevent being eaten.  The hadrosaur studied was the lambeosaurine Hypacrosaurus, from Upper Cretaceous strata of North America.

To read more about hadrosaur growth rates: Duck-billed Dinosaurs grew up fast to avoid being eaten by Tyrannosaurs.

9 10, 2008

Jellyfish Ancient Predators of the Palaeozoic

By |2022-12-09T10:57:53+00:00October 9th, 2008|Educational Activities, Main Page, Palaeontological articles|0 Comments

Jellyfish – An example of a “Living Fossil”

Most of us are familiar with jellyfish and have occasionally encountered them as washed up animals as we walk along a shoreline.  Others may have had the unfortunate experience of bumping into one whilst swimming and getting stung.  Depending on the species these stings can be very painful, but apart from the occasional thought about how curious these animals look, few of us rarely consider these animals or indeed recognise them as living fossils, unchanged for over 600 million years.

Jellyfish

Jellyfish belong to a phylum called Cnidaria (pronounced nigh-dare-ee-a).  This phylum consists of a huge range of animals, almost all of them associated with marine environments.  Cnidarians have a central mouth, surrounded by tentacles which possess stinging cells (called nematocysts).  The tentacles are used to catch and disable prey which is then drawn into the central mouth and consumed.  Within the fossil record, by far the most important type of Cnidarians represented are the corals.  These animals may live in colonies or have a solitary habit.  All corals secrete a hard, exoskeleton made up of calcium carbonate and the extant species today are known as scleratinian corals.  These scleratinian corals (solitary or can be linked together sharing a colonial skeleton), evolved relatively recently appearing at around the beginning of the Mesozoic, after the great Permian extinction event.  Older coral fossils found in the Palaeozoic fossil record are either rugose corals (solitary or colonial) or tabulate corals (always found in colonies).  These types of corals both went extinct at the end of the Permian but fossil corals are known to date right back to Ordovician aged sediments.

The Phylum Cnidaria

The phylum Cnidaria also has soft-bodied representatives, these are the sea anemones and jellyfish, scientists believe that these type of animals are even older than the first corals.  Being soft-bodied, jellyfish and sea anemones are very poorly represented in the fossil record, in fact these fossils are extremely rare and the number of fossil specimens found to date does not represent the diversity or indeed the abundance of these animals throughout the Phanerozoic eon (or indeed the Cryptozoic eon).

Jellyfish Fossils

There are some strange, preserved ripples and hollowed out round depressions found in very finely grained, sandstone, Cambrian sediments from around the world.  These are believed to be the fossilised remains of jellyfish.  It is thought that many of the fossils of these animals that we have were formed when mass strandings of jellyfish occurred after a storm.  Having been washed up onto a Cambrian or Ordovician shoreline, the carcases of these animals would not have been eaten by scavengers as there was no significant life on the land during these geological periods.  Some of them may have  been quickly buried and under exceptional conditions, preserved as impressions in the rocks.

It is thought that primitive life such as bacteria and cyanobacteria first evolved as far back as 3.5 billion years ago, but complex multi-celled animals appeared much later, sometime between 700 and 620 million years ago.  Multi-celled animals are termed metazoans (pronounced met-ah-zo-ans) and their appearance in the fossil record marks the ending of the Cryptozoic (hidden life also known as the Precambrian) and the start of the Phanerozoic eon (visible life).

Studying Early Life

Certainly, the fossil evidence for the first metazoans is extremely poor.  All the first complex creatures were entirely soft-bodied but their fossils are evidence of complex multi-celled organisms living in late Precambrian times.  The Ediacaran Hills in the Flinders range of mountains in South Australia was one of the first places studied.  This is why the fossils of such organisms are often referred to as “Ediacarans”.  This was a world dominated by jelly and from fossils found in places as diverse as Siberia and Namibia, scientists are able to calculate that even 620 million years ago, primitive life was abundant and diverse.  The jelly structures of the Ediacarans may have been more robust than those found in jellyfish, after all, jellyfish consist of 95% water, this may explain why Ediacaran animals may have been more readily fossilised than jellyfish.  However, certainly by the Cambrian, jellyfish were very much established and as carnivores would have been perhaps one of the most feared predators around during the early Palaeozoic.

An Illustration of a Jellyfish

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The picture above is of a typical jellyfish with a bell-like structure and trailing tentacles.  Jellyfish are often termed Medusa, a reference to Greek mythology and the Gorgon Medousa who had snakes instead of hair.

To view replicas of fossil animals: Fossil Replica, Dinosaur Models, Prehistoric Animal Models.

Animals as diverse as jellyfish and corals are grouped in the Cnidaria phylum as all these organisms share a central mouth surrounded by stinging tentacles (termed nematocysts).  Scientists believe that corals, sea anemones and jellyfish are all descended from a common ancestor, that had these features.  There are many thousands of species of jellyfish found today.  They live in polar seas as well as the tropics and can be found right through the water column with nektonic forms (animals that live above the sea floor), being found in shallow seas and at extreme depths.  It is thought that there have been hundreds of thousands of species of jellyfish, but only a few specimens have been preserved in the fossil record.  Jellyfish have no definite head structure, no internal organs as such and most have only the most primitive senses.  Jellyfish are very much dependent on sea currents to move them, most species drift with the prevailing current, although a number of Classes can pulse their bells to help them move vertically through the water column.

Cambrian Animals

Although regarded as extremely simple animals when compared to the Chordates for example, during the Late Precambrian and into the Cambrian these types of animals may have been amongst the top predators around at the time.  Jellyfish predating on other organisms may have been a causal factor in the speeding up of evolution (known as the Cambrian explosion), as predator/prey relationships developed.  Our ancestors, those simple animals with a notochord would have fallen victim to the stinging tentacles of the jellyfish.  Perhaps they began to evolve improved senses, a significant head end to house these new senses and stronger groups of paired muscles around a central nervous strip to help them escape from their jellyfish foes.

The next time you see a jellyfish washed up on a beach as you walk along a shoreline, you might well give it a second glance.  It represents a type of animal that has been around for something like 600 million years and its evolution may well have contributed to the evolution of the earliest Chordates and the speeding up of evolution as predator/prey relationships developed.  Jellyfish can certainly be described as “living fossils”.

8 10, 2008

Fossil Replica Set From Everything Dinosaur

By |2023-02-25T20:44:15+00:00October 8th, 2008|Educational Activities, Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page|0 Comments

Prehistoric Animal Fossil Replica Set

When members of the Everything Dinosaur team visit schools we get bombarded with questions from students and teachers about dinosaurs and we recommend our prehistoric animal fossil replica set to them.  These animals are certainly the super stars of palaeontology.  However, when we are carrying out experiments or teaching exercises with school children we like to introduce other prehistoric animals and their fossils to help pupils gain a more rounded picture regarding the evolution of life on Earth.

Not all fossils are dinosaur fossils for example, quite a difficult concept to get over to a dinosaur mad five-year old.  Some of the most important types of fossil are not huge when compared to the immense fossilised bones of a Tyrannosaurus rex, but they can be very important to scientists.  Certain types of fossil such as ammonites and trilobites are extremely important as they help scientists date the ages of strata relative to one another.

The use of fossils to help date the relative ages of different rock formations is called biostratigraphy.  It was the English engineer William Smith, known as the “Father of Geology” who along with the French scientists Georges Cuvier and Alexandre Brongniart observed that successive layers of sediment contained fossils that were characteristic of certain periods of ancient history.  The discovery of the relationship between fossils and certain geological periods opened up the prospect of using fossils to establish a relative sequence of rock deposition through time.

The types of fossil used to help date rocks in this way are called “zone fossils”.  Despite all the attention dinosaur fossils receive and the vast amount of museum gallery space allocated to them, dinosaur fossils along with most other types of vertebrate fossils are very poor zonal fossils.  Ideally, for a family or genus of animals to become useful zone fossils they should be rapidly evolving, be distinctive in appearance, wide ranging and abundant in the ecosystem.  If you live in a shallow sea, and have a hard exoskeleton or shell then this is even better as there is a greater chance of some members of your species being preserved as fossils buried in marine sediments.

Dinosaur fossils in contrast, are rare, often found as incomplete remains and not from marine environments (only in very unusual cases – Scelidosaurus springs to mind).  They are unsuitable as zone fossils.  Not so the ammonite and trilobite which make ideal zone fossils and have helped to date rock strata in relation to other rock formations all over the world.

The importance of fossils of animals such as belemnites, ammonites and trilobites cannot be underestimated.  What is more, most young palaeontologists start their fossil collection with the find of a fossil of an invertebrate, a brachiopod for instance, or perhaps their very own ammonite.

In recognition of the importance of invertebrates in the fossil record, Everything Dinosaur has introduced a set of replica models to illustrate these animals.

Everything Dinosaur Replica Fossil Set

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The set consists of two different types of ammonite, a belemnite (close relative of ammonites) a typical trilobite and a model of a Medusa jellyfish as a representative of soft-bodied animals in prehistory.

Model of an Ammonite

The Bullyland ammonite model next to a polished section of an ammonite fossil.

The Bullyland ammonite model is often used in museum displays to depict the living animal next to fossil material. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Each model comes with a fact sheet written by Everything Dinosaur team members, these robust and sturdy models with their detailed hand-painted designs represent other animals from the past.

To view dinosaur toys, dinosaur models and other fossil replicas: Replica Fossils and Dinosaur Models.

Whether it is for a school project, home study or just to add to a model collection, these accurate prehistoric animal models certainly hit the mark and can provide a stimulus for further study.

7 10, 2008

The Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs (Front Cover)

By |2023-02-25T20:47:21+00:00October 7th, 2008|Dinosaur Fans, Everything Dinosaur Products|0 Comments

Dinosaur Books for Children

One of our favourite dinosaur books at the moment is this colourful encyclopedia of dinosaurs.  This fun to read book is aimed at young dinosaur fans but makes a useful, handy reference source for adults too.

Dinosaur Encyclopedia – Dinosaur Book for Kids

Books about dinosaurs.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Young dinosaur fans will really love this dinosaur book as it is packed full of facts about dinosaurs and prehistoric animals and it contains over three hundred illustrations.

To view Everything Dinosaur’s range of educational dinosaur books, posters and other dinosaur and prehistoric animal themed items: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal Models.

6 10, 2008

New Species of Pachyrhinosaurus named in honour of Discoverer

By |2023-02-25T20:39:30+00:00October 6th, 2008|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Main Page|0 Comments

New Species of Pachyrhinosaurus named in honour of Discoverer

The Ceratopsidae were perhaps the last large group of dinosaurs to evolve.  Some of these horned dinosaurs are extremely well known, for example, Triceratops is one of the most popular of all dinosaurs and thanks to the many bone beds discovered, scientists have many fossils of animals such as Centrosaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus to study.

However, a new species of Pachyrhinosaurus has just been named in honour of the teacher who was the first to find fossil bones representing this new species of centrosaurine.  Al Lakusta, a local science teacher often took his class out into the countryside of Alberta as part of his teaching programme, helping to enrich lessons in class with practical illustrations from the many geologically important sites in northwest Alberta.

Pipestone Creek, was one such location visited by Mr Lakusta and his classes but on one occasion he ventured further up the creek bed than previously and discovered parts of an exposed dinosaur bone bed, that proved to be a new species.

The new species of Pachyrhinosaurus has been named Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai. It is a great honour to have a dinosaur named after you, few people have been awarded this accolade and those that have been are usually awarded this posthumously.  The now retired teacher, a resident of Grande Prairie, Alberta will be remembered in palaeontological circles, not only as the new species has been named after him but the quality of the bonebed he discovered will provide scientists with resources to work with for many years to come.

It seems that approximately 72.5 million years ago a disaster overcame part of a herd of these giant, horned dinosaurs and they were buried.  Many of the fossils represent complete specimens, 27 individual dinosaurs have been identified so far.  The bone bed represents adults and juveniles and such a resource will help palaeontologists understand better the ontogeny of this species as well as clarify differences between the sexes.

These dinosaurs also had large bony structures above their nose and eyes, which lends them their name: Pachyrhinosaurus (thick-nosed lizard).

These structures probably supported horns of keratin, said researcher Philip Currie, Canada research chair of dinosaur palaeobiology at the University of Alberta, who was involved in the excavations and is one of the most prominent scientists working on the Alberta finds.

The new species of Pachyrhinosaurus is closely related to Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis, which is known from younger rocks near Drumheller and Lethbridge in southern Alberta, Currie said.  This is only the second species of Pachyrhinosaur to be described to date.  The new found species is a smaller animal with many differences in the ornamental spikes and bumps on the skull.

The adults of both species have massive bosses, or protuberances, of bone in the positions where other horned dinosaurs (like Centrosaurus and Triceratops) have horns.

However, juveniles of the new species resemble juveniles of Centrosaurus in having horns rather than bosses.

An Illustration of Pachyrhinosaurus

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

“The density of the Pipestone Creek bone-bed is exceptional and surpasses many of Alberta’s other Ceratopsian bonebed sites,” Currie said. “The preservation of the material is outstanding and was easy to collect.  The number of bones, from all age groups, made complex investigations possible regarding behaviour and growth patterns.”

With this new species, researchers will now have more data to give a better understanding of the ancient life and ecosystems in north-western Alberta in the Cretaceous period, Phil Currie added.

It has been estimated that this new species of Pachyrhinosaurus grew to a size of around 5-6 metres and it is hoped that the extensive remains of many individuals in what was probably a herd structure, may provide new insights into these animal’s social structure and herding behaviour.  The pachyrhinosaurs are quite common fossils in the Drumheller area, indeed a group of life-size models of this dinosaur used to adorn the front entrance to the Royal Tyrrell museum in Drumheller.

PNSO Pachyrhinosaurus dinosaur model.

PNSO Brian the Pachyrhinosaurus dinosaur model.

PNSO recently introduced a highly-detailed Pachyrhinosaurus model, to view the range of PNSO models and figures: PNSO Prehistoric Animal Models.

5 10, 2008

A Review of the Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs

By |2023-02-25T20:49:43+00:00October 5th, 2008|Book Reviews, Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page|0 Comments

The Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs, a hard-back book, an earlier Dougal Dixon collaboration was a must have book for many dinosaur fans both young and old.  This large volume has been updated and the format changed to produce a superb illustrated guide to Dinosauria in an inexpensive guide book.

This new encyclopedia provides detailed information on 270 different types of dinosaur and takes the reader through the Mesozoic in chronological order, starting with the first dinosaurs that appeared in the Triassic and ends of with the last types of dinosaurs.  The animals are illustrated with watercolour pictures and show the very latest in scientific thinking.

Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs

Dinosaur discoveries from all over the world are reported upon and interestingly for such an inexpensive book, a large amount of detail on each animal is included.  Pleasing to note that faunal stages are included within the main time periods, introducing readers to more of the vocabulary used by real palaeontologists.

Front Cover – The Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs

Picture credit: Manning Partnership

For each main dinosaur family, a number of genera are described and illustrated.  Readers are informed of fossil finds and their location, how the dinosaur was classified, the meaning of the name and who named the animal.  Plus there are lots of interesting and less well known facts on each type of dinosaur illustrated, certainly enough to inform and entertain the most knowledgeable of dinosaur buffs.

To view the range of dinosaur and prehistoric animal themed items available from Everything Dinosaur’s website: Everything Dinosaur.

The water colour illustrations are beautiful and a number of prehistoric scenes are included to give the reader a deeper insight into dinosaur based ecosystems.  The book is compact, about the size of a small telephone directory (160 pages long) and soft-backed making it much lighter and practical then its larger and heavier predecessor.

All in all a top quality dinosaur encyclopedia with an excellent range of dinosaurs featured and lots and lots of up to date information on recent dinosaur discoveries.  A great example of a dinosaur book for children.

4 10, 2008

Dinosaurs linked to Birds new evidence “breathes life” into an old Debate

By |2023-02-25T20:46:17+00:00October 4th, 2008|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Main Page, Palaeontological articles|0 Comments

New Argentinian Discovery indicates close link between Theropods and Birds

A group of American and Argentinian scientists have published their research into a new meat-eating dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Argentina, the findings demonstrate the close link  between theropods and birds.  This new animal named as Aerosteon riocoloradensis which means “air bones from the Rio Colorado” measured around 10 metres long and was perhaps the weight of an Indian elephant.

Compared to other predatory dinosaurs discovered in Argentina such as Mapusaurus and Giganotosaurus carolinii, this dinosaur was smaller and from the fossil evidence discovered to date in no way a contender for the biggest carnivorous dinosaur yet found, but in its own way this discovery may be much more significant.

Theropods and Birds

For Aerosteon, pronounced Air-ahh-ste-on, seems to provide further evidence of the strong relationship between theropod dinosaurs and birds.  This large animal seems to have had a breathing apparatus similar to modern birds and many of the bones are pneumatised with many air sacs, helping to lighten the skeleton without losing too much skeleton strength.

The study of this 85 million-year-old fossil (Santonian faunal stage), first unearthed 12 years ago indicates that this breathing system and light bones cements further the commonly held view that bipedal, theropod dinosaurs and birds are closely related.

University of Chicago

Paul Sereno, of the University of Chicago has worked on a number of new dinosaur discoveries from South America in recent years and writing in a scientific journal Dr Sereno commented on the evidence supporting the theory that this new dinosaur had air sacs that worked like bellows, forcing air into the relatively stiff lungs in a similar process seen in modern birds.

“This dinosaur, unlike any other, provides more direct evidence of the bellows involved in bird breathing,” commented Ricardo Martinez of the Universidad National de San Juan, one of Argentina’s leading centres for palaeontological research.

The skull replica being proudly shown off by Dr Sereno, shows the characteristic antorbital fenestra and the laterotemporal fenestra  seen either side of the eye-socket, adaptations to lighten the skull without reducing the skull’s strength.  Like many other theropod dinosaurs, the scientists behind the research into Aerosteon have suggested that this animal may have been covered with simple proto-feathers, another indication of how closely related to birds some dinosaurs might be.

Birds Evolved from Theropod Dinosaurs

Most palaeontologists now believer that birds evolved from small, feathered theropods and the earliest birds such as Archaeopteryx share a number of anatomical features with dinosaurs such as Compsognathus.  The joint American/Argentinian team believe that this particular dinosaur developed bellow-like lungs to help it keep stable whilst pursuing prey, it may also have helped control body temperature.  For a large dinosaur, maintaining a steady body temperature was a lot easier than for the smaller animals with very different surface area to body mass ratios.

If meat-eaters were warm blooded and insulated with feathers then losing body heat could have been a problem at times.  Perhaps the air sacs in the bones helped cool the blood and then over time they became adapted to assist with efficient breathing.  With such big leg muscles for example, being able to oxidise muscles efficiently would have been a significant advantage.

Mammalian Lungs

The mammalian lungs (including our our breathing apparatus) does have a significant drawback, the lungs have only one entrance/exit point for the air.  We mix up the exhaled air with new air being breathed in.  As we breathe out, we never get rid of all the used air inside us, every time we inhale we just mix fresh air with oxygen extracted air we are going to breathe out.  This is not a very efficient process and as a result this contributes to the physical limitations of our bodies.  All mammals suffer from this anatomical drawback.

Birds, in contrast, are much more efficient breathers.  Instead of just one entrance/exit point in the lungs they have openings at both ends, plus a series of air sacs in front and behind the lungs.  It is these air sacs, not the lungs that inflate and deflate with each breathe.  Acting like bellows they pump the air through the lungs and out a different tube than it went in.  This is a one-way system with old, stale air never mixing with fresh oxygen rich air and as a result is a very effective system.  For their size, birds have disproportionately large hearts, these provide the pumps to enable the whole system to function.

It can be speculated that many bipedal, active meat-eating dinosaurs had breathing systems similar to modern birds, with perhaps, extra large and efficient hearts to pump blood around the body.  Soft tissue is rarely preserved in dinosaurs and clearly, much more research is required in this area, but the new study on Aerosteon provides some fresh insight.

Everything Dinosaur stocks a wide range of theropod dinosaur models, to visit the models section of the company’s award-winning website: Dinosaur Models.

3 10, 2008

Archaeopteryx takes to the stage

By |2022-12-09T08:37:46+00:00October 3rd, 2008|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page|0 Comments

Archaeopteryx takes to the Stage

The discovery of the earliest true bird known to science, Archaeopteryx is perhaps one of the most important developments in palaeontology.  Most scientists believe that birds evolved from small theropod dinosaurs and the few fossils found of this Late Jurassic creature provide evidence of the link between dinosaurs and birds.  With the famous “London” Archaeopteryx fossil being found in 1861, scientists had an example of an animal that seemed to be a transitional link between reptiles and birds; a sort of “missing link” in evolution. The timing of the find of a nearly complete fossil skeleton of this ancient bird could not have been better, as just two years earlier Darwin had published “The Origin of Species” and this fossil seemed to provide evidence for his theories.

Archaeopteryx

The “London” fossil is so called as it was purchased by Sir Richard Owen and eventually it was put on display at what was to become the Natural History museum.  The price paid for this small piece of lithographic limestone, less than one square metre in size was £600.00 a huge sum of money in those days.

The remains of Archaeopteryx are one of the most important examples of Mesozoic life preserved in the fossil record, only a total of 9 actual fossils have been ascribed to this species but those fossils that we do possess have enabled scientists to examine a link in the evolution of dinosaurs into birds.

A Model of Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx Model.

Picture Credit: Everything Dinosaur

To see dinosaur models and replicas of prehistoric animals: Dinosaur Toys and Models.

Such an important fossil has never been far from the limelight in all the time this bird has been known to science and recently an unusual enquiry reminded staff at Everything Dinosaur, just how significant these discoveries were.

Archaeopteryx Takes to the Stage

We were contacted this week by a theatre company who wanted to purchase an Archaeopteryx model to feature in a stage play.  Models of Archaeopteryx are rare, but fortunately not as rare as the actual fossils and we were able to help out.

Shortly, Archaeopteryx will make their stage debut, this ancient bird is in the spotlight once again.

2 10, 2008

How to Pronounce Coelophysis

By |2023-02-25T17:07:27+00:00October 2nd, 2008|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal Drawings, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

Pronouncing “Hollow Form” The Agile Coelophysis

The Late Triassic theropod whose fossils have been famously found at the Ghost Ranch quarry (New Mexico, United States) causes one or two problems for young dinosaur fans when it comes to pronunciation.  Coelophysis is pronounced “See-low-fy-sis”, it might be spelt with a “C” but in reality, the “C sound” is soft and “See-low-fy-sis” is how this dinosaur should be pronounced.

One of the most successful dinosaurs of the Late Triassic, the brain of this dinosaur was larger than its reptilian ancestors and it had keen senses, making this three metre long theropod a formidable hunter.  As for its diet, it would have been capable of catching and eating a range of small animals including insects, small reptiles, amphibians and fish.  It was very probably a generalist carnivore eating a wide range of prey items.

An Illustration of Coelophysis (C. bauri)

Coelophysis of the Late Triassic.

Coelophysis of the Late Triassic.

Picture credit: Mike Fredericks

Coelophysis

The name means “Hollow Form”, a reference to this dinosaur’s hollow and light limb bones.  Note the needle-like teeth in the long, narrow jaws.

Everything Dinosaur stocks a large range of prehistoric animal models including Safari Ltd which includes a replica of Coelophysis: Safari Ltd. Wild Safari Prehistoric World.

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