Dinosaurs

Here are some amazing things that me and my friends have been talking about lately. They all concern fascinating discoveries or insights into unusual aspects of tetrapod behaviour.

Flock to this: A new analysis of anatomical features shows birds evolved gradually from dinosaurs

I'm still not sure whether I blog about Mesozoic archosaurs - specifically dinosaurs and pterosaurs - too often, or too infrequently. As I always say, the problem as I see it is that dinosaurs and pterosaurs have so much presence in the blogosphere that writing about them always feels like jumping on a bandwagon.

After the Chicxulub meteorite, more than half the plant species in temperate North America perished along with the dinosaurs, and the composition of post-impact vegetation changed markedly. Christopher Intagliata reports

 

I'm an unashamed fan of cryptozoology - this being (for the two of you that don't know) the field of study that revolves around those creatures thought to exist by some, but which remain unrecognised by mainstream science in general.

The 60-metric-ton herbivore may tell future researchers more about how gargantuan sauropods lived and evolved

Some artists find a synthesis of style and subject that causes their work to resonate deeply within us. We experience new memories and ideas while we look at their images.

I've just returned from LonCon3, the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention, held at the enormous ExCel Exhibition Centre in east London. Yeah, I know, sci-fi isn't exactly a normal part of the Tet Zoo remit but, on this occasion, there really is overlap since I was there for a set of special Speculative Biology talks [...]

Some time round about 165 million years ago, the group of small, feathered dinosaurs that we call birds evolved from within the theropod radiation (theropods are the so-called `predatory dinosaurs': the great group that includes animals like Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor as well as the birds).

A survey of the tanagers reveals that birds do not have to choose between colorful plumage and a melodious song. Karen Hopkin reports 

 

The coupling of the space rock that crashed into Earth with a period of low diversity among herbivorous dinosaurs may have set the stage for the massive die-off 65-million years ago

The event you've all been waiting for is here: Simbirskiasaurus and Pervushovisaurus have been resurrected, and we're all wondering what the hell's going on with their absurd, complex nostrils.