Dilophosaurus Duality

Today is the 5th November, the annual British holiday of blowing things up to celebrate things not being blown up. Seeing as it is such a flashy vibrant event, I’m turning my attention to what is perceived as one of the flashiest and showiest of the dinosaurs; a star of Jurassic Park, Dilophosaurus.

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Luckless Lobsters

Everyone knows about the great extinction at the end of the dinosaur age, but it was far from smooth sailing up until then. The Mesozoic era stretches out 180 million years, during which time many different groups of animals exploded into abundance and then died away. Even without anything so dramatic as an asteroid impact much of these were still significant catastrophes. One such time is the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (T-OAE). (more…)

Exploring Excalibosaurus

Guest Author – Jack Lovegrove
Palaeontology & Evolution MSci Graduate

Ichthyosaurs are one of those groups of prehistoric animals that always seem to play second fiddle to dinosaurs in popular science (with the notable exception of the BBC series ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’). They are usually only mentioned as a way of demonstrating convergent evolution with fish rather than as fascinating and varied animals on their own right. (more…)