Paleo discoveries of 2017.

BarrytheOnyx wrote:

Rhedosaurus wrote:

That one mummified nodosaur has been named Borealopelta markmitchelli. It also used camouflage to help hide from predators.

It's interesting that even armored dinosaurs used camouflage.

I always love it when new discoveries shed light on what colour dinosaurs would have had when they were alive, ten years ago we didn't know that Microraptor's feathers were an iridescent black, and now we know that Ankylosaurs needed camouflage to avoid large theropods. We tended to think of them as the "invulnerable" herbivores, but I think that honour might go to Triceratops if this evolutionary trait is any indication.

Don't forget the titanosaurs, although even that's up for debate since even an Alamosaurus fossil had T. rex teeth found nearby. I'd like to think that only the nodosaurs used camouflage while the advanced ankylosaurs didn't. Or at least full grown ones since they had more solid armor and that war hammer for a tail. Even more so those that lived in China and Mongolia since they didn't have quite as much trees as North America did.

Iguanodontid footprints that date from the Early Cretaceous found in Alberta, Canada.

That one titanosaur has been named as Patagotitan mayorum.

Depending on what website you read, it's between 112-120 ft long and roughly 70 tons. Though I believe that Alamosaurus weighed just as much despite being a bit smaller at 90+ ft long.

Chilesaurus diegosuarezi, the 'Frankenstein dinosaur' is the missing link between theropods and ornithischians

2 T. rex teeth found south of Bismarck, North Dakota.

A new species of oviraptoriod shows that it, and perhaps other theropods, roosted like birds.

A rare 105 mya raptor footprint revealed at Dinosaur Ridge. It's just the 2nd raptor track in the USA and the 12th ever found in the world.

A 26 ft long titanosaur has been named Shingopana songwensis. It lived 100 mya in Africa.

132 million-year-old fossilized sea animal that was found in Germany has been described as a pleisosaur. Lagenanectes richterae.

A construction crew in Thornton, Colorado discovered a Triceratops skeleton while working on a new police station.

Rhedosaurus wrote:

A construction crew in Thornton, Colorado discovered a Triceratops skeleton while working on a new police station.

heh. Triceracop XDDDDD

A new small theropod dinosaur from China, Serikornis sungei, had it's arms and legs as wings, but it couldn't fly.

New species of armored dinosaur, most likely a nodosaur, found in North Montana in the Judith River Formation and is 79 million years old.

A T. rex tooth was found with that one recently found Triceratops fossil in Colorado.

A new brachiosaur from Early Cretaceous era (138 million years old) Spain has been described and named Soriatitan. At just 43-46 ft long, it's a small one though.

Update on that one Triceratops that was found in Colorado.

It's not only very complete, but it also has a complete skull as well.

In China, eggs that were from the oviraptoriod Heyuannia, proved that some dinosaurs laid eggs that had color. In this case, it's blue.

That one Triceratops fossil in Colorado has been all excavated. Only 15% of the skeleton was found, but they did dig up 80% of the skull. It's also the most complete Cretaceous period dinosaur fossil ever found in Colorado.

Rhedosaurus wrote:

That one Triceratops fossil in Colorado has been all excavated. Only 15% of the skeleton was found, but they did dig up 80% of the skull. It's also the most complete Cretaceous period dinosaur fossil ever found in Colorado.

With Colorado being rich with Jurassic fossils, one could have imagined that there would have been a wealth of late Cretaceous fossils waiting to be found. Still, good work to all the paleontologists involved in the dig!

BarrytheOnyx wrote:

Rhedosaurus wrote:

That one Triceratops fossil in Colorado has been all excavated. Only 15% of the skeleton was found, but they did dig up 80% of the skull. It's also the most complete Cretaceous period dinosaur fossil ever found in Colorado.

With Colorado being rich with Jurassic fossils, one could have imagined that there would have been a wealth of late Cretaceous fossils waiting to be found. Still, good work to all the paleontologists involved in the dig!

I also remember that a T. rex leg was found in Denver by a dog quite some time ago. So we have found Cretaceous dinosaurs in that state before this Triceratops was found.

Herbivorous dinosaurs may have eaten crustaceans

I remember when the suggestion was made that Triceratops might have been a partial scavenger, I thought it was total bollocks, maintaining that an ecosystem would fall apart if the herbivores turned out to be omnivorous. But now we have coprolite evidence that indicates Hadrosaurs may have supplemented their diet with crustaceans, now I have to wonder if other Ornithiscicians did the same thing.

BarrytheOnyx wrote:

Herbivorous dinosaurs may have eaten crustaceans

I remember when the suggestion was made that Triceratops might have been a partial scavenger, I thought it was total bollocks, maintaining that an ecosystem would fall apart if the herbivores turned out to be omnivorous. But now we have coprolite evidence that indicates Hadrosaurs may have supplemented their diet with crustaceans, now I have to wonder if other Ornithiscicians did the same thing.

I still say that we need more hard evidence to support the notion of Triceratops being a part-time scavenger. One of the things that irks me is that how paleontology is seemingly overwhelmed by speculation and not nearly enough hard data. Yes, I know that speculation has always been part of paleontology, but it seems like it's overshadowed the science recently.

Rhedosaurus wrote:

I still say that we need more hard evidence to support the notion of Triceratops being a part-time scavenger. One of the things that irks me is that how paleontology is seemingly overwhelmed by speculation and not nearly enough hard data. Yes, I know that speculation has always been part of paleontology, but it seems like it's overshadowed the science recently.

True, the reliance on sensationalist announcements, even with evidence to back it up, gets under my skin big time. Plus a fossil like this probably represented a very small proportion of what went into a hadrosaur's diet. I still think we need hard evidence of a similar nature to confirm the same thing for Triceratops, which I'm still not buying because of the ecological damage that would cause if a known prey animal scavenged en masse.

BarrytheOnyx wrote:

Rhedosaurus wrote:

I still say that we need more hard evidence to support the notion of Triceratops being a part-time scavenger. One of the things that irks me is that how paleontology is seemingly overwhelmed by speculation and not nearly enough hard data. Yes, I know that speculation has always been part of paleontology, but it seems like it's overshadowed the science recently.

True, the reliance on sensationalist announcements, even with evidence to back it up, gets under my skin big time. Plus a fossil like this probably represented a very small proportion of what went into a hadrosaur's diet. I still think we need hard evidence of a similar nature to confirm the same thing for Triceratops, which I'm still not buying because of the ecological damage that would cause if a known prey animal scavenged en masse.

I can Trike scavenging now and then under really desperate situations but not nearly as much like some people would like to think.

What really bugs me is how many people still believe Horner's discredited notion of T. rex being a pure scavenger/a part time hunter that could only kill off weaklings-old, sick, wounded, etc and how most in the media still peddle that crap. Never mind that we already found solid proof that T. rex did hunt live and healthy prey, but we also have semi-healed bite marks on hadrosaurs and Triceratops fossils.

It looks like the asteroid/meteorite that killed off the non-avian dinosaurs helped speed up the evolution of the avian dinosaurs, aka birds.

Burianosaurus augusta is a newly described basal ornithopod from the Czech Republic It's named after Czech palaeoartist, Zdeněk Burian.

Maybe it's just me, but I think it's a bit...rushed to describe a dinosaur based on just one left femur.

150mya skull and jaws that have been at the London Museum Of Natural History since 1875 have finally described as that to that of an ancestor to crocodiles.

Fossilized Chasmosaurus skull extracted by helicopter and was shipped to Ottawa and then the  Canadian Museum of Nature.

Apparently, they think they can learn about the evolution of Chasmosaurus via this skull.

700 megalosaur footprints found in Portugal.

A nearly complete skeleton of Teratophoneus, a close relative of T. rex, has been airlifted to the Natural History Museum of Utah.

Brantner Elementary School students named the Thornton Triceratops, Tiny.

Not only is this the most complete Cretaceous fossil found in Colorado, but it's also the largest Cretaceous dinosaur found in Colorado.