theropod

tags: evolutionary biology, paleontology, taphonomy, plumage color, feathers, color, melanin, eumelanin, phaeomelanin, dinosaurs, theropod, paravian, avialae, fossils, Anchiornis huxleyi, ornithology, birds, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper New research reveals that recently-described 155-million-year-old Anchiornis huxleyi, a woodpecker-like dinosaur the size of a modern-day domesticated chicken, had black-and-white spangled wings and a rusty red crown. Image: Michael DiGiorgio, Yale University [larger view] Fig. 4. Reconstruction of the plumage color of…

An artist's reconstruction, released by the National Museum of Brazil, of the paleoecology inhabited by Futalognkosaurus (left). It is being menaced by Megaraptor, now known to be a tetanuran theropod. For quite some time it was thought that after the Jurassic period the massive sauropods that roamed North America were all but extinct, a radiation of ankylosaurs, ceratopsians, hadrosaurs, and other ornithischians becoming the primary herbivores in place of the massive long-necked saurischians. At least one genus did hang on until the Late Cretaceous, the titanosaur Alamosaurus sanjuanensis…

Everyone now and then I come across a post so good that I wish I had written it myself; Matt of the HMNH has posted on such piece of excellent science blogging all about dinosaur furculas. It might not sound very exciting to those unfamiliar with dinosaur anatomy, but the ignorance of fused clavicles in theropod dinosaurs until recently has had a major impact on concepts of evolution (especially involving birds). I'm sure it'll turn up in tomorrow's edition of The Boneyard over at microecos, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone nominated it for the next installment of The Open Laboratory,…

When I was first becoming acquainted with dinosaurs during the latter half of the 1980's, the standard "rule" for theropod dinosaurs was that as they grew bigger through the course of time their heads became more robust and their arms grew smaller. Just comparing the Jurassic predator Allosaurus with the Cretaceous Tyrannosaurus rex (numerous pictures of both filling the books I constantly begged my parents to purchase for me) seemed to confirm this, but there was always one very special set of fossil remains that seemed to contradict the prevailing trend. Hung up in the corner at the…