Extinct Species, features and articles | Educational Science

Jun 30, 2009

Before Dinosaurs, the First Tree-Climber Revealed

Long before dinosaurs dominated the Earth, ancient relatives to mammals climbed forests to feed on leaves and live high above predators that prowled the land. The elongated fingers, opposable thumb, long curved claws and grasping tail of a small, huge-eyed plant-eating animal known as Suminia getmanovi demonstrate that this is...

May 31, 2009

Nut-Cracking Dinosaur Like a Giant Parrot

A newly described dinosaur hopefully suffered no nut allergies. Fossil remains suggest the parrot-beaked beast that lived 110 million years ago was a sophisticated nutcracker, researchers said this week. The dinosaur, now named Psittacosaurus gobiensis, was a ceratopsian, a group of bird-hipped dinosaurs, such as Triceratops, that are thought to...

May 31, 2009

Huge Dinosaur Tooth Found in Spain

An allosaurid tooth as long as a tall man's finger has been found in Spain, a researcher said, making it the largest tooth of a carnivorous dinosaur ever found in that country. Allosauridae, a family of dinosaurs that includes Allosaurus, were predatory, bipedal theropod dinosaurs that lived in the late...

Mar 31, 2009

Dinosaurs Lived in the Arctic

You know the scenario: 65 million years ago, a big meteor crash sets off volcanoes galore, dust and smoke fill the air, dinosaurs go belly up. One theory holds that cold, brought on by the Sun's concealment, is what did them in, but a team of paleontologists led by Pascal...

Feb 28, 2009

Feathers Tied to Origin of Dinosaurs

Feathers and other feather-like stuff are known in several so-called saurischian dinosaurs, including tyrannosaurs and maniraptors — the ancestors to modern birds. Now, feather-like structures have been found for the first time in dinosaurs other than saurischians. The finding upends paleontological thinking about feathers, suggesting they might go back to...

Feb 28, 2009

Long-Necked Dinos Hung Their Heads

Imagine having a 29-foot neck. You might want to hang your head. So it was with some sauropods in the Late Jurassic, about 150 million years ago. Though paleontologists have long thought the creatures used their necks for tree-top foraging, a new study claims doing so would have been impractical....

Dec 31, 2008

Dinosaur Wore Primitive Down Coat

The evolution of the flashy down coat has been traced back to 125 million-year-old dinosaur fossils. The feathers were worn by Beipiaosaurus, which is a therizinosaur, small-headed theropods with long necks and giant claws. Most of the dinosaurs' bodies were covered with short and slender feathers that, based on the...

Oct 31, 2010

Dino Demise Led to Evolutionary Explosion of Huge Mammals

Mammals around the world exploded in size after the major extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago, filling environmental niches left vacant by the loss of dinosaurs, according to a new study published today (Nov. 25) in the journal Science. The maximum size of mammals...

Dec 31, 2009

Feathered Dinosaurs Leapt from Trees, Not the Ground

Whether birds first evolved flight as ground dwellers or took to the skies from trees has been a longstanding debate. A new study of an ancient four-legged creature called Microraptor gui, poised on the boundary between dinosaurs and birds, suggests that the arboreal, or tree-living, idea may be correct. Microraptor...

Dec 31, 2009

New Tyrannosaur Species Discovered

T. rex's family tree just got one member larger. Scientists unearthed bones from a new dinosaur species, including an adult specimen and bones from a teenager that lived some 75 million years ago. Called Bistahieversor sealeyi, the dinosaur lived about 10 million years before Tyrannosaurus rex appeared on the scene....

Aug 31, 2011

'Switchblade' Claw Reveals How Dino Fought and Killed

Battle damage linked to the fearsome curving talon of a newly discovered dinosaur relative of Velociraptor is shedding light on how it was used as a weapon, scientists find. This research also adds to the mysterious complexity seen in the lost continent where this fossil was found, researchers added. The...

Jul 31, 2011

Tiny Dinosaurs Left Footprints On Ancient South Pole

Several groups of dinosaurs that were roaming the South Pole more than 100 million years ago left three-toed prints in the wet, sandy soil. As they became compacted into cliffs, the prints waited patiently for Anthony Martin of Emory University to stumble across them in what is now Victoria, Australia....

Jul 31, 2011

Can We Make Jurassic Park Yet?

Find an ancient mosquito trapped in amber. Draw dinosaur blood from its belly. Extract DNA from that blood and insert it into a crocodile embryo. Hatch the egg. Feed the dino. Start an amusement park. Don't open the gates. That series of steps might have sounded pretty fanciful back in...

Jun 30, 2011

New Guide: When to Move Species Struggling with Climate Change

As climate changes make native habitats unlivable to plants and animals, these species have two choices: Leave or go extinct. Now, researchers are offering guidance on when conservationists should undertake the last-ditch strategy of transplanting struggling species to new habitats. Rats, fire ants, Asian carp, kudzu vines — humans have...

Mar 31, 2011

New Recordings of 'Extinct' Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

Every morning, Michael Collins heads to the Pearl River bayou near his Louisiana home to bird-watch for a couple of hours before work. He gets around the swamp by kayak, hauling cameras, tape recorders, and tree climbing ropes through the swamp, and searches, day after day, for the holy grail...