Archaeology News Online

It is a classic chase scene in modern cinematic history. The image of a rampant Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) chasing Jeff Goldblum as he sits injured in the back of a 4x4 vehicle in Stephen Spielberg’s original film adaptation of Jurassic Park. But could a T. rex actually move that fast, or even run at all? Illustration shows a Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur hunting an Ornithomimus dinosaur. The T. rex was among the largest  carnivorous dinosaurs, but was not a swift runner [Credit: © Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Corbis] New research from the University of Manchester says the sheer size and weight of T. rex means it couldn’t move at high speed, as its leg-bones would have buckled under its own weight load. The research, published by journal PeerJ , looks extensively into the gait and biomechanics of the world’s most famous Dinosaur and, using the latest high performance computing technology from N8 High Performance Computing (HPC), has created a new simulation model to test its fi...

Scientists from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and the Philip J Currie Dinosaur Museum have identified and named a new species of dinosaur in honour of renowned Canadian palaeontologist Dr. Philip J. Currie. Albertavenator curriei, meaning "Currie's Alberta hunter." It stalked Alberta, Canada, about 71 million years ago in what is now the famous Red Deer River Valley. The find recognizes Currie for his decades of work on predatory dinosaurs of Alberta. Research on the new species is published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences . Life recreation of Albertavenator curriei [Credit: © Oliver Demuth] Palaeontologists initially thought that the bones of Albertavenator belonged to its close relative Troodon, which lived around 76 million years ago -- five million years before Albertavenator. Both dinosaurs walked on two legs, were covered in feathers, and were about the size of a person. New comparisons of bones forming the top of the head reveal that Albertavenator had a...

Following a discovery in 2015 in Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park, Greg Funston puzzled for two years over a mysterious bone trying to identify the species of animal—as well as the part of the body—the bone belonged to. Three Pteranodon Longicepts fly over a misty prehistoric seascape, with two diplodocus dinosaurs  near the shore [Credit: Seeker] "It confused us for a long time, because it's such an unusual bone," said Funston, a UAlberta PhD student in paleontology. "There are a lot of features to it, but none of them are like anything we've ever seen before." Funston initially thought the bone might belong to either a theropod dinosaur or a prehistoric bird. After exhaustive comparison to other known species and insight from pterosaur expert and UAlberta alumna Liz Martin-Silverstone, the team knew the bone was part of the pelvis that belonged to the pterosaur species, an ancient non-dinosaurian reptile species typically associated with flight. They...

Last year, a team of forensic dentists got authorization to perform a 3-D scan of the prized Tyrannosaurus rex skull at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, in an effort to try to explain some strange holes in the jawbone. Researchers demonstrate their scanning technique, with a user holding a monopod-mounted Kinect  at close range from a T. Rex skull [Credit: Anshuman J. Das et al.] Upon discovering that their high-resolution dental scanners couldn't handle a jaw as big as a tyrannosaur's, they contacted the Camera Culture group at MIT's Media Lab, which had recently made headlines with a prototype system for producing high-resolution 3-D scans. The prototype wasn't ready for a job that big, however, so Camera Culture researchers used $150 in hardware and some free software to rig up a system that has since produced a 3-D scan of the entire five-foot-long T. rex skull, which a team of researchers -- including dentists, anthropologists, veterinarians, and pal...

When dinosaurs ruled the land, plesiosaurs ruled the oceans. Famous for their incredibly long necks - some of which were up to 7 metres long - plesiosaurs have remained an evolutionary mystery for hundreds of years. Pernille V. Troelsen, a PhD student at Liverpool John Moores University, UK is simulating plesiosaur locomotion with a 3D model to understand how they could swim with such long necks. Plesiosaurs reconstruction [Credit: Frank DeNota, NSF] "A steady neck would be more hydrodynamic than a bent neck, and due to the pressure on a bent neck, plesiosaurs would probably only bend them when moving at slow speeds or when floating,' says Ms Troelsen. She reveals that not only increasing the bend in a plesiosaurs neck would have a big effect on the production of 'hydrodynamic drag', but the location of the bending may also play a large role. She adds that plesiosaurs would likely have had a more patient hunting style similar to today's crocodiles and snakes. ...

It is a classic chase scene in modern cinematic history. The image of a rampant Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) chasing Jeff Goldblum as he sits injured in the back of a 4x4 vehicle in Stephen Spielberg’s original film adaptation of Jurassic Park. But could a T. rex actually move that fast, or even run at all? Illustration shows a Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur hunting an Ornithomimus dinosaur. The T. rex was among the largest  carnivorous dinosaurs, but was not a swift runner [Credit: © Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Corbis] New research from the University of Manchester says the sheer size and weight of T. rex means it couldn’t move at high speed, as its leg-bones would have buckled under its own weight load. The research, published by journal PeerJ , looks extensively into the gait and biomechanics of the world’s most famous Dinosaur and, using the latest high performance computing technology from N8 High Performance Computing (HPC), has created a new simulation model to test its fi...

Scientists from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and the Philip J Currie Dinosaur Museum have identified and named a new species of dinosaur in honour of renowned Canadian palaeontologist Dr. Philip J. Currie. Albertavenator curriei, meaning "Currie's Alberta hunter." It stalked Alberta, Canada, about 71 million years ago in what is now the famous Red Deer River Valley. The find recognizes Currie for his decades of work on predatory dinosaurs of Alberta. Research on the new species is published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences . Life recreation of Albertavenator curriei [Credit: © Oliver Demuth] Palaeontologists initially thought that the bones of Albertavenator belonged to its close relative Troodon, which lived around 76 million years ago -- five million years before Albertavenator. Both dinosaurs walked on two legs, were covered in feathers, and were about the size of a person. New comparisons of bones forming the top of the head reveal that Albertavenator had a...

Following a discovery in 2015 in Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park, Greg Funston puzzled for two years over a mysterious bone trying to identify the species of animal—as well as the part of the body—the bone belonged to. Three Pteranodon Longicepts fly over a misty prehistoric seascape, with two diplodocus dinosaurs  near the shore [Credit: Seeker] "It confused us for a long time, because it's such an unusual bone," said Funston, a UAlberta PhD student in paleontology. "There are a lot of features to it, but none of them are like anything we've ever seen before." Funston initially thought the bone might belong to either a theropod dinosaur or a prehistoric bird. After exhaustive comparison to other known species and insight from pterosaur expert and UAlberta alumna Liz Martin-Silverstone, the team knew the bone was part of the pelvis that belonged to the pterosaur species, an ancient non-dinosaurian reptile species typically associated with flight. They...