Extinct Species, features and articles | Educational Science

Jul 31, 2014

Fox-Sized Relative of Triceratops Discovered in Venezuela

The fossil of a new two-legged, fox-sized dinosaur relative of both Stegosaurus and Triceratops, which dates back about 200 million years, has been discovered in Venezuela. The find suggests that dinosaurs advanced quickly across the globe after a mass extinction claimed at least half of all species on Earth, researchers...

Jun 30, 2014

Stolen 'Nest of Dinosaurs' Returned to Mongolia

More than 18 dinosaur skeletons illegally taken from Mongolia were formally returned to their homeland last week, U.S. authorities announced. The fossilized bones were handed over to Mongolian officials in a repatriation ceremony held July 10 in New York. Today, we return a veritable nest of dinosaurs, Manhattan U.S. Attorney...

May 31, 2014

Newfound Dinosaur Sported 'Wings' on its Head

Move over Triceratops: There's a new horned dinosaur in town, and its cranial ornamentation is even more impressive than the three-horned dinosaur the world has come to know and love. A study of the recently discovered species, Mercuriceratops gemini, provides more details on this flashy dinosaur, which possessed not only...

Apr 30, 2014

Dino, Heal Thyself: Giant Beast Shrugged Off Bone Trauma

A giant carnivorous dinosaur apparently possessed an enormous power to heal its broken bones, thanks to new findings revealed by powerful X-rays, researchers say. The new findings suggest this ancient predator could shrug off massive trauma, revealing the dinosaur healed well like reptiles do than more poorly like birds do,...

Feb 28, 2014

Utah Man Indicted in Dino Footprint Theft

A 35-year-old Utah man has been indicted in the theft of a three-toed dinosaur footprint from a track site in Moab. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that a grand jury indicted Jared F. Ehlers on charges of prying the footprint from the ground. If convicted, Ehlers could face up to...

Nov 30, 2015

Thunder-Thighed Dinosaurs Arose Quickly from Predecessors

Dinosaurs took less than 5 million years to evolve from their reptile predecessors, the early dinosauromorphs, a new study finds. The finding revamps the time line between the dinosaurs and early dinosauromorphs. Until now, researchers thought that it took at least 10 million to 15 million years for the early...

Jul 31, 2015

10 extinct giants that once roamed North America

Until the end of the last ice age, American cheetahs, enormous armadillo-like creatures and giant sloths called North America home. But it's long puzzled scientists why these animals and other megafauna — creatures heavier than 100 pounds (45 kilograms) — went extinct about 10,000 years ago. Rapid warming periods called...

Aug 31, 2016

Cute Insect-Murdering Mammal Had Roots in Dinosaur Age

Hundreds of years ago, hungry barn owls gobbled down small mammals called Nesophontes and regurgitated pellets of their remains. That mammal is now extinct, but a genetic analysis of the owl pellets reveals how it evolved from some of the earliest mammals approximately 70 million years ago. Nesophontes was a...

Dec 31, 2015

122-Foot Titanosaur: Staggeringly Big Dino Barely Fits into Museum

An incredibly long-necked dinosaur, with leg bones the size of couches, is so massive that is has invaded not one, but two rooms at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. The enormous titanosaur — an herbivorous beast that weighed 70 tons (64 metric tons) when...

Jul 31, 2017

Ginormous, 70-Ton Titanosaur Is the Largest Dinosaur on Record

About 100 million years ago, when flowering plants had diversified into an array of blossoms, the largest known land animal — a massive, long-necked titanosaur — stomped around, searching for plants it could eat to fuel its enormous body. The newly identified titanosaur was so immense — 69 tons (62...

Feb 28, 2017

Photos: Dinosaur Tracks Reveal Australia's 'Jurassic Park'

Jurassic Park (Image credit: Damian Kelly)In an effort to save their culture's history, the Goolarabooloo people of Australia called in a group of paleontologists to examine thousands of dinosaur footprints. The Goolarabooloo view the fossilized, three-toed track marks as evidence of a journey taken by one of people's creation beings....

Sep 30, 2018

Adorable Newborn Sea Monster from the Dinosaur Age Discovered in Kansas

About 85 million years ago, when a vast sea covered Kansas, a wee, little sea monster died almost immediately after it was born. Despite its short life, this newborn, which head to tail, was as long as André the Giant was tall (well, it was tiny compared to its parents)...

Sep 30, 2018

Dinosaur-Era Super-Piranha Terrorized Jurassic Seas

A piranha-like fish with a mouth full of pointy teeth (some even jutting down from the roof of its mouth) once swam the Jurassic seas, ripping flesh or even fins from the bodies of other aquatic creatures. That was 152 million years ago, a new study of a fossil of...

May 31, 2018

T. Rex Couldn't Stick Out Its Tongue

T. rex may have been a highly successful predator, but it would have been terrible at licking stamps, lollipops or popsicles, thanks to a tongue that was likely fixed to the bottom of its mouth. A new study calls into question artists’ renditions of T. rex and other dinosaurs that...

Mar 31, 2018

'Alice in Wonderland' Dodo Was Murdered in Cold Blood

Dodos went extinct more than 300 years ago, but scientists are only now opening up a cold case after learning that one of the birds — the prized dodo specimen that likely inspired author Lewis Carroll to create a dodo character in the 1865 book Alice in Wonderland — was...