Dinosaurs ruled the land during the Mesozoic Era, but crocodiles and their relatives unquestionably ruled the water. Prehistoric crocodiles are usually relegated to the background as supporting actors or extras in our imagined Mesozoic dramas, but the truth is that… Read More ›
When people think of “armored dinosaurs”, they generally think of two kinds of creature: the stegosaurs and the ankylosaurs. Both of these groups belong to the dinosaur sub-order Thyreophora, which means “armor-bearing” in ancient Greek. The dinosaur group Ankylosauria or… Read More ›
There are some dinosaurs that everybody thinks of when they hear the word “dinosaur”. Among these is a very large sauropod which was the reptilian analog of a giraffe. I am, of course, talking about Brachiosaurus. Brachiosaurus is one of… Read More ›
The Morrison Formation of western North America is my favorite geological / paleontological formation to study. Within these rock layers, which are dated to the late Jurassic Period from approximately 155 to 145 million years ago, are found the fossils… Read More ›
Ceratodus was a genus of prehistoric lungfish which existed on Earth for a surprisingly long time, from the middle of the Triassic Period approximately 227 million years ago to the beginning of the Eocene Epoch of the Tertiary Period about… Read More ›
Meet the Jurassic Period’s analog of the common house cat. This is Fruitachampsa callisoni, a prehistoric reptile which inhabited western North America during the late Jurassic Period. However, this was not a dinosaur. In fact, Fruitachampsa was a distant relative… Read More ›
Greetings friends. In an earlier post from 2014, I put up some photographs which I took of the two Allosaurus skeletons that are on public display in the American Museum of Natural History (or AMNH for short) in New York… Read More ›
This is Caturus, a prehistoric fish which swam in the oceans during the Mesozoic Era. Fossils of this saltwater fish have been found in North America, Europe, northern Africa, and as far as China within rocks spanning from the beginning… Read More ›
This is Baptanodon, an ichthyosaur which lived during the middle and late parts of the Jurassic Period about 165-155 million years ago. During this time, the central part of North America was covered with a body of saltwater known as… Read More ›
Introduction There are over a thousand species of dinosaurs that are known to science today. Kids, it seems, are more disposed to remember these names than adults, and I have encountered several examples of children trying to impress people by… Read More ›
DINOSAURS AND BARBARIANS 