New PNSO dinosaur models along with two new Rebor dire wolf figures feature in the latest Everything Dinosaur newsletter. Joining these prehistoric animal models are two new for 2024, Schleich dinosaurs. The newsletter features, Aymen the Spinosaurus and Zabad the Edmontosaurus. In addition, the PNSO Alamosaurus model (Samuel) is highlighted.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
Aymen the Spinosaurus (PNSO)
Making the newsletter headlines is the new PNSO Aymen the Spinosaurus figure. Zabad the Edmontosaurus was also in the latest PNSO delivery. This Edmontosaurus model has been praised as it has an accurate manus (hand) complete with a hoof-like toe. Fresh stock of the popular PNSO Alamosaurus figure has also arrived. Both models are included in the newsletter promotion.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
To view the wide range of PNSO prehistoric animal figures available from Everything Dinosaur: PNSO Age of Dinosaurs.
Rebor Dire Wolf Figures
The latest Everything Dinosaur newsletter also includes details on the two Rebor dire wolf figures “Havallagata” and “Low Roar”. These magnificent models of a Pleistocene predator have just arrived at Everything Dinosaur’s warehouse.
Schleich Dinosaurs in the Everything Dinosaur Newsletter
The two most colourful figures to feature in the Everything Dinosaur newsletter are the two Schleich figures. Both the red Brachiosaurus and the new for 2024 Schleich Stegosaurus have been painted in attractive, vibrant colours.
To view the range of Schleich dinosaurs available from Everything Dinosaur: Schleich Dinosaur Models.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
A spokesperson welcomed the arrival of these new figures and commented:
“Our company newsletter helps to keep customers informed about new prehistoric animal models coming into stock.”
At Everything Dinosaur, we receive quite a lot of emails from customers and fans of prehistoric animals. Many of these emails are requests asking for more information about prehistoric animal figures. However, customers also contact us wanting help with answering a specific query about extinct creatures and life in the past. For example, we were recently asked what animals alive today are the closest relative of the eurypterids?
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
Answering a Question About Eurypterids
Eurypterids were members of the Arthropoda phylum. Specifically, they are part of the Subphylum Chelicerata (pronounced kel-iss-ser-rat-ah), which also contains the spiders, mites, scorpions and horseshoe crabs. These animals have a pair of jointed appendages that are located in front of their mouths (chelicerae – kel-iss-ser-ray). For most, they are modest feeding appendages such as seen in horseshoe crabs. In the spiders these chelicerae form venom injecting fangs. In some eurypterids such as the Pterygotidae, these appendages evolved into giant pincers designed for grabbing prey.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
Scorpiones or Xiphosurans?
Scientists remain uncertain as to whether extant scorpions or xiphosurans such as the horseshoe crab are the closest living relatives to the extinct eurypterids. Scorpions share a similar body plan, although scorpions are entirely terrestrial. Xiphosurans share the aquatic habit and also have an anatomy that is similar to the “sea scorpions” in some respects. Eurypterid feeding was probably more similar to that of xiphosurans.
The question of phylogeny remains unresolved. The lack of soft tissue preservation in “sea scorpions” and the flattened nature of most eurypterid fossils have hampered research. The absence of a clear eurypterid analogue from living chelicerates may indicate that the eurypterids occupied an ecological niche that was intermediate between xiphosurans and the Order Scorpiones.
Recently, Everything Dinosaur team members wrote a blog post summarising the findings of the latest scientific paper on Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. This paper (Myhrvold et al), outlined some drawbacks in using bone density analysis to infer an extinct animal’s habits and lifestyle. They outlined some errors and omissions in a previous study that concluded Spinosaurus and Baryonyx walkeri, were capable of submerging and hunting underwater.
An Extensively Studied Theropod
Named and described in 1915 (Stromer), Spinosaurus aegyptiacus has been the subject of intense research over the last decade. It was perhaps the longest theropod dinosaur of all. Some palaeontologists have estimated that S. aegyptiacus was up to fifteen metres long. Its mode of hunting and behaviour has come under detailed scrutiny since a detailed description, based on new fossil material was published in 2014.
This paper proposed that Spinosaurus was a semi-aquatic, obligate theropod.
Palaeontologists continued to debate whether Spinosaurus aegyptiacus and its near relatives were underwater predators, or shoreline stalkers. The 2014 research paper proposed that although Spinosaurus was a capable swimmer it was not a fully aquatic, underwater predator.
However, in 2020 a paper published in the journal Nature described Spinosaurus caudal vertebrae. These bones suggested that S. aegyptiacus had a broad tail. This could be used to propel itself through the water.
The picture (above) shows the Papo limited-edition Spinosaurus aegyptiacus figure. This model depicts Spinosaurus as a quadruped and emphasises the broad, deep tail.
However, in 2022 a scientific paper was published in the journal “eLife” that challenged the aquatic lifestyle. Palaeontologists led by scientists from the University of Chicago argued that Spinosaurus and Baryonyx walkeri would have been unstable when surface swimming. They also concluded that these dinosaurs would be too buoyant to dive and remain fully submerged.
Also, in 2022 another assessment using a statistical analysis of bone density proposed that Spinosaurus could dive and stay submerged (Fabbri et al). The heavy bones acted like ballast. This anatomical adaptation is seen in extant birds such as penguins and also in some mammals like manatees. These researchers also argued that some other spinosaurids, such as Suchomimus lacked these dense bones and were probably waders.
The new study (Myhrvold et al), criticised the complex statistical methodology (pFDA) used in the bone density study. The team concluded that the study undertaken by Fabbri et al had measurement errors and was flawed. It was not possible to infer an aquatic habit for spinosaurids based on this data.
The researchers demonstrated that it is important to use consistent and objective criteria to decide which species to include and exclude, as well as how to classify their behaviour. The findings also demonstrate the importance of taking measurement errors and individual variations into account when assessing bone density.
The debate over the lifestyle and habits of spinosaurids is likely to continue. We look forward to the next instalment in this long-running debate.
Evidence of a Devonian fossil forest has been found in the high sandstone cliffs located near Minehead in Devon. Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Cardiff have discovered the oldest fossilised trees ever found in the UK. The fossil remains of the trees, known as Calamophyton represent the oldest known fossil forest on Earth.
Fossilised tree stumps near the town of Gilboa (New York, USA) and a quarry at nearby Cairo, New York are thought to be 380 and 385 million years old respectively. The Gilboa site is dominated by remains of Wattieza trees. These trees are related to the Calamophyton trees identified at the Devon site. They are both members of the Pseudosporochnales Order and are distantly related to modern ferns.
Devonian Fossil Forest
The Devonian fossil forest is thought to be around four million years older than the tree fossils discovered in New York. The forest is approximately 390 million years old (Eifelian faunal stage of the Middle Devonian).
The fossils were found near the town of Minehead. The site is located on the south bank of the Bristol Channel, near a Butlin’s holiday camp. The fossilised trees, known as Calamophyton, at first glance resemble palm trees, but they are not related to modern angiosperms. Rather than solid wood, their trunks were thin and hollow in the centre. They also lacked leaves, and their branches were covered in hundreds of twig-like structures.
Evidence of Arthropods Found
The trees were much shorter than extant trees. The largest specimens were between two and four metres high. As the trees grew, they shed their branches. The floor of the forest was covered in a dense mat of decaying vegetation. This was home to an array of invertebrates and arthropod tracks have been discovered at this site.
A Devonian Ecosystem
It had been thought that these sandstone cliffs were largely devoid of fossils. This remarkable discovery demonstrates how early trees helped to stabilise riverbanks and coastlines hundreds of millions of years ago. It was during the Devonian that the first extensive terrestrial forests formed.
The Devonian lasted between 419 million and 359 million years ago. During this geological period the first complex terrestrial ecosystems evolved. By the end of the Devonian, the first seed-bearing plants (pteridosperms) appeared and the earliest land animals, mostly arthropods, were well-established.
Fundamentally Changing Life on Earth
Commenting on the significance of the fossil forest discovery, one of the paper’s co-authors, Professor Neil Davies (Cambridge University), stated:
“The Devonian period fundamentally changed life on Earth. It also changed how water and land interacted with each other, since trees and other plants helped stabilise sediment through their root systems, but little is known about the very earliest forests.”
The Devonian fossil forest identified by the researchers was found in the Hangman Sandstone Formation, along the north Devon and west Somerset coasts. During the Devonian period, this region was not attached to the rest of England, but instead lay further south, connected to parts of Germany and Belgium, where similar Devonian fossils have been found.
Studying the Ecology of the Earliest Forests on Earth
Co-author Dr Christopher Berry (Cardiff University) commented:
“When I first saw pictures of the tree trunks I immediately knew what they were, based on 30 years of studying this type of tree worldwide. It was amazing to see them so near to home. But the most revealing insight comes from seeing, for the first time, these trees in the positions where they grew. It is our first opportunity to look directly at the ecology of this earliest type of forest, to interpret the environment in which Calamophyton trees were growing, and to evaluate their impact on the sedimentary system.”
During the Devonian, this location was a semi-arid plain, criss-crossed by small river channels spilling out from mountains to the northwest. The fieldwork was undertaken along the highest sea-cliffs in England, some of which are only accessible by boat. The sandstone formation is in fact rich with plant fossil material. The researchers identified fossilised plants and plant debris, fossilised tree logs, traces of roots and sedimentary structures, preserved within the sandstone.
A Weird Forest
Professor Davies explained:
“This was a pretty weird forest – not like any forest you would see today. There wasn’t any undergrowth to speak of and grass hadn’t yet appeared, but there were lots of twigs dropped by these densely-packed trees, which had a big effect on the landscape.”
This was the first time in the history of our planet that large plants could grow together on land. The sheer abundance of debris shed by the Calamophyton trees built up within layers of sediment. The sediment affected the way that the rivers flowed across the landscape, the first time that the course of rivers could be affected in this way.
Professor Davies added:
“The evidence contained in these fossils preserves a key stage in Earth’s development, when rivers started to operate in a fundamentally different way than they had before, becoming the great erosive force they are today. People sometimes think that British rocks have been looked at enough, but this shows that revisiting them can yield important new discoveries.”
Everything Dinosaur acknowledges the assistance of a media release from the University of Cambridge in the compilation of this article.
The scientific paper: “Earth’s earliest forest: fossilized trees and vegetation-induced sedimentary structures from the Middle Devonian (Eifelian) Hangman Sandstone Formation, Somerset and Devon, SW England” by Neil S. Davies, William J. McMahon and Christopher M. Berry published in Journal of the Geological Society.
The spinosaurids represent an extremely unusual type of theropod. Their mode of hunting and lifestyle remains controversial. Over recent years more fossil material associated with perhaps the most derived spinosaurid Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, has been studied. In addition, new lines of enquiry have been explored in a bid to better understand these bizarre carnivorous dinosaurs. Some scientists have argued that Spinosaurus was a fully aquatic, underwater pursuit predator. Others have argued that this dinosaur stayed in the shallows or waded into the water to catch fish in a similar manner to extant bears.
Spinosaurus aegyptiacus Bone Density Study
Numerous lines of enquiry have been explored in a bid to resolve these questions. A recently published study (Fabbri et al) sought to resolve this matter. They applied a statistical method and explored spinosaurid bone density. Animals like manatees have especially dense bones that enable them to stay submerged. These researchers examined spinosaurid bone density in comparison to the bone densities of extant animals which are adapted to an aquatic life. They concluded that Spinosaurus and its close relative Baryonyx (B. walkeri) were capable of submerging themselves underwater to hunt.
However, newly published research has challenged these conclusions. Scientists from the University of Chicago along with collaborators from the Royal Tyrrell Museum (Canada) and other co-authors have outlined some of the pitfalls in using statistical measurements of bone density to infer a lifestyle. The team identified inconsistencies and they proposed that it was difficult to draw conclusions when taxa are represented by limited data.
The picture above shows the recently introduced PNSO Spinosaurus model. The replica contains a number of anatomical traits identified in contemporary scientific papers. For example, the PNSO Spinosaurus has a broad tail. However, it is depicted as a terrestrial, bipedal animal and not a semi-aquatic quadruped.
Writing in the open-access journal “PLOS One” the scientists argue that the previous research was not robust enough to conclude that S. aegyptiacus and Baryonyx walkeri were fully submerged “subaqueous foragers.” Their findings not only invalidate the conclusions of the earlier bone density analysis, but also have important implications for future quantitative uses of bone compactness and discriminant analysis in palaeontology.
The dense bones found in the relatively short hindlimbs, may have been an adaptation to support the animal’s great weight as it moved on land. The research team, which included Paul Sereno (University of Chicago), propose that Spinosaurus aegyptiacus probably could not dive. Instead, it may have waded in water around two metres deep, without floating. This permitted it to ambush fish with its huge claws and elongated jaws.
The scientific paper: “Diving dinosaurs? Caveats on the use of bone compactness and pFDA for inferring lifestyle” by Nathan P. Myhrvold, Stephanie L. Baumgart, Daniel Vidal, Frank E. Fish, Donald M. Henderson, Evan T. Saitta and Paul C. Sereno published in PLOS One.
The two, new for 2024 Rebor dire wolf models are now in stock at Everything Dinosaur. The Rebor dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) low roar plain deluxe pack has arrived along with the grey coloured “Havallagata” variant.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
Rebor Dire Wolf Models
Each fabulous figure measures a little over eighteen centimetres in length. The shoulder height is around nine centimetres. The Rebor dire wolf figures are supplied with an Everything Dinosaur dire wolf fact sheet. The fact sheet highlights the taxonomy of these enigmatic Pleistocene carnivores. They are not closely related to the extant grey wolf (Canis lupus).
A scientific paper published in 2021 (Perri et al) demonstrated that the genome of the dire wolf was markedly different from the genome of extant canids. It is postulated that the dire wolf evolved in the Americas isolated from other canids. The lineage that led to the dire wolf diverged from the common ancestor of wolves and coyotes more than 5.5 million years ago.
To view the range of Rebor models and figures in stock at Everything Dinosaur: Rebor Figures and Models.
Supplied with Three Interchangeable Heads
The Rebor Dire Wolf models are supplied with three interchangeable heads. The models can be displayed with mouth closed, showing their teeth or with the mouth fully open.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur confirmed that the dire wolf fact sheet included a scale drawing of this prehistoric animal.
Two new for 2024 PNSO dinosaur models have arrived at Everything Dinosaur’s warehouse. Aymen the Spinosaurus and Zabad the Edmontosaurus models are now in stock. Team members have been busy contacting all those customers who asked to be informed about the figures.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
PNSO Dinosaur Models – Edmontosaurus and Spinosaurus
The PNSO Edmontosaurus sports a colourful crest and has been beautifully painted. Edmontosaurus species were generally larger than previously perceived. For example, fully-grown Edmontosaurus annectens were longer than an adult Tyrannosaurus rex. The PNSO Edmontosaurus figure is a somewhat more modest size. However, it does measure over thirty-two centimetres long.
The Aymen the Spinosaurus figure is even larger. It measures an impressive thirty-two and half centimetres and it stands fourteen centimetres high. It has a declared scale of 1:35.
A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur praised the two new PNSO dinosaur models and stated:
“These two dinosaur models are great! We know that model collectors have been keen to get their hands on these two superb Cretaceous dinosaur figures.”
A new mosasaur taxon from the Late Cretaceous of Morocco has been scientifically described. Khinjaria acuta was as long as an Orca (Orcinus orca). It had a robust skull, strong jaws and dagger-like teeth. The researchers contrast today’s marine ecosystems with few apex predators, with the Late Cretaceous marine environment. Writing in the journal “Cretaceous Research” the researchers portray an ancient marine ecosystem teeming with predators.
Khinjaria acuta
The study is based on a skull and parts of the postcranial skeleton collected from a phosphate mine southeast of Casablanca (Morocco). Researchers from the University of Bath, the Marrakech Museum of Natural History, the Museum National d’ Histoire Naturelle (NMNH) in Paris (France), Southern Methodist University in Texas (USA), and the University of the Basque Country (Bilbao) were involved.
Measuring around eight metres in length, Khinjaria used its long, dagger-like teeth to seize prey. It was part of an extraordinarily diverse fauna of predators that inhabited the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Morocco during the Maastrichtian faunal stage of the Late Cretaceous.
The Sheer Diversity of Top Predators in the Marine Ecosystem
One of the authors of the scientific paper, Dr Nick Longrich (University of Bath), stated:
“What’s remarkable here is the sheer diversity of top predators. We have multiple species growing larger than a great white shark, and they’re top predators, but they all have different teeth, suggesting they’re hunting in different ways.”
Dr Longrich added:
“Some mosasaurs had teeth to pierce prey, others to cut, tear, or crush. Now we have Khinjaria, with a short face full of huge, dagger-shaped teeth. This is one of the most diverse marine faunas seen anywhere, at any time in history, and it existed just before the marine reptiles and the dinosaurs went extinct.”
A Diversity of Moroccan Marine Reptiles
Fossil discoveries have highlighted the astonishing diversity of large marine reptiles in the environment. Their different dentition suggests that many were not directly competing, that niche partitioning was occurring. For example, the researchers conducted a phylogenetic analysis and placed Khinjaria in a mosasaur clade which they named the Selmasaurini. Also placed in this clade was the Moroccan plioplatecarpine mosasaur Gavialimimus almaghribensis. This mosasaur was a specialised fish hunter.
Mosasaurs, plesiosaurs and giant sea turtles disappeared, along with entire families of fish at the end of the Cretaceous. This led to the evolution of modern marine ecosystems with whales and seals as apex predators along with teleost fish such as swordfish and tuna.
Dr Longrich commented:
“There seems to have been a huge change in the ecosystem structure in the past 66 million years. This incredible diversity of top predators in the Late Cretaceous is unusual, and we don’t see that in modern marine communities.”
An Ecosystem Different from a Modern Marine Ecosystem
Modern marine food chains have just a few large apex predators, animals like orcas, white sharks, and leopard seals. The Late Cretaceous had many more types of marine predators.
Dr Longrich continued:
“Modern ecosystems have predators like baleen whales and dolphins that eat small prey, and not many things eating large prey. The Cretaceous has a huge number of marine reptile species that take large prey. Whether there’s something about marine reptiles that caused the ecosystem to be different, or the prey, or perhaps the environment, we don’t know. But this was an incredibly dangerous time to be a fish, a sea turtle, or even a marine reptile.”
Professor Nathalie Bardet, (Natural History Museum of Paris), explained:
“The Phosphates of Morocco deposit in a shallow and warm epicontinental sea, under a system of upwellings; these zones are caused by currents of deep, cold, nutrient-rich waters rising towards the surface, providing food for large numbers of sea creatures and, as a result, supporting a lot of predators. This is probably one of the explanations for this extraordinary paleobiodiversity observed in Morocco at the end of the Cretaceous.”.
The phosphate mines of Morocco have provided a wealth of marine fossil material. The specimens collected include the “saw-toothed” mosasaur Xenodens, Stelladens which had teeth with additional cutting edges and Thalassotitan whose teeth were conical in shape and massive.
Everything Dinosaur acknowledges the assistance of a media release from the University of Bath in the compilation of this article.
The scientific paper: “A bizarre new plioplatecarpine mosasaurid from the Maastrichtian of Morocco” by Nicholas R. Longrich, Michael J. Polcyn, Nour-Eddine Jalil, Xabier Pereda-Suberbiola and Nathalie Bardet published in Cretaceous Research.
The new for 2024 Schleich red Brachiosaurus model has arrived at Everything Dinosaur. It arrived along with the new Schleich Stegosaurus figure. Both dinosaur models are now on-line and available to purchase.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
The New for 2024 Schleich Red Brachiosaurus Figures
The red Brachiosaurus model is a new version of an earlier Schleich Brachiosaurus. The red tones are most impressive. This new sauropod figure measures twenty-seven centimetres in length (approximately). The carefully sculpted head is around nineteen centimetres off the ground. The Schleich red Brachiosaurus model is supplied with an Everything Dinosaur Brachiosaurus fact sheet.
The Schleich Stegosaurus is a new sculpt. The Stegosaurus is approximately twenty centimetres long. Those impressive, red plates over the hips of this dinosaur are around ten centimetres off the ground.
At Everything Dinosaur, we receive lots of emails from fans of prehistoric animals. Many of these emails contain questions. For example, we received an enquiry earlier this week asking what other types of prehistoric fish lived alongside placoderms? That is an excellent question! We are no experts on the evolutionary development of fishes, but since the questioner wanted to know about brackish and freshwater environments in the Devonian, we thought we would try to help.
Defining Placoderms
The Devonian covers approximately sixty million years. It is often referred to as the “Age of Fishes”, due to the radiation of several fish types including the Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fishes), the placoderms and sharks (cartilaginous fish otherwise referred to as chondrichthyians).
(Class Placodermi) represents an extremely diverse and varied group of jawed fishes that evolved during the Silurian, thrived in the Devonian but seem to have died out during the end-Devonian mass extinction. They were the first fish to evolve a pair of pelvic fins. Several Orders have been described all united by the defining characteristic of the Placodermi, their heads and thorax being covered by a series of articulated, armoured plates.
Perhaps the best-known placoderm is Dunkleosteus (D. terrelli). It was a member of the Arthodira and is thought to represent the earliest vertebrate “superpredator”.
Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur
The picture (above) shows the Schleich Dunkleosteus figure.
Non-marine Vertebrate Fauna of the Emsian Faunal Stage
The query requested information regarding non-marine fish from the Early Devonian. We decided to examine the fossil record of freshwater and estuarine fish from the Emsian faunal stage of the Early Devonian. This would cover the period of Earth’s history from 407.5 million years ago to around 393 million years ago.
Although it is thought that vertebrates evolved in marine environments, by the Early Devonian many different types of fish had adapted to brackish or freshwater. Placoderms are known from non-marine palaeoenvironments of the Early Devonian. In addition, heterostracans are also associated with non-marine palaeoenvironments.
Heterostracans (Heterostraci) are an extinct subclass of the Agnatha (jawless fishes). There is some fossil evidence to indicate that jawless fish of the Pteraspidiformes Order, most notably pteraspids and drepanaspids lived in brackish and freshwater environments. These types of fish may have been preyed upon by the jawed placoderms. A scientific paper exploring potential predator/prey relationships was published in 2019 (Randle and Sansom).
Picture credit: Julio Lacerda/The University of Manchester
During the Silurian and Early Devonian, possible predators of pteraspids and drepanaspids could have been jawed vertebrates as well as eurypterids.
We replied to the customer and emailed them some information in response to their query. We also included links to two blog posts that examined the Placodermi and potential Early Devonian food webs in more detail.
The customer emailed later to thank us for the information.