TINY DINO BIG SECRETS: ALNASHETRI

Alnashetri cerropoliciensis

Slip back 90 million years and wander the sun-baked floodplains of Patagonia, where the giants get all the glory—but it’s the tiny, fleet-footed oddballs that hold the real secrets.

Meet Alnashetri cerropoliciensis, a delicate little dinosaur with a big story to tell. We’re talking under two pounds soaking wet—lighter than your average house cat—but armed with clues powerful enough to untangle one of palaeontology’s most puzzling lineages: the alvarezsaurs.

These were no ordinary theropods. Picture a bird-like body, teeth reduced to tiny pegs, and arms so short they seem almost comical—until you notice the business end: a single, oversized claw built for digging. Think ant-eater, but make it a dinosaur.

For decades, alvarezsaurs have been a bit of a head-scratcher. Beautiful fossils from Asia told part of the tale, but their South American cousins? Fragmentary, elusive, maddeningly incomplete. Then along comes Alnashetri—a near-complete skeleton pulled from the fossil-rich beds of La Buitrera—and suddenly the story sharpens into focus.

And what a twist it is.

This wee creature shows us that alvarezsaurs didn’t shrink because they specialized—they were already pint-sized before evolving their quirky, ant-snuffling toolkit. Longer arms, bigger teeth—Alnashetri still carries the echoes of its less specialized ancestors. It’s evolution mid-sentence, frozen in bone.

Even better, it’s fully grown. No baby here. Just a tiny adult navigating a world of much larger predators with speed, stealth, and a very particular taste in snacks.

The real magic? This fossil acts like a Rosetta Stone for the group, giving scientists a reference point to decode those scrappy, half-told specimens tucked away in collections around the world. Suddenly, the family tree starts to make sense.

And the plot thickens.

Rather than evolving in one place and spreading outward, these curious little dinosaurs likely trace their roots back to Pangaea—before the continents tore themselves apart. As the landmasses drifted, so too did their descendants, leaving behind a scattered but connected fossil trail across the globe.

So here we have it: a tiny dinosaur rewriting a very big story. A cheeky wee dino challenging what we thought we knew!

Reference: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10194-3

TRICERATOPS: HORNED GIANT OF LATE CRETACEOUS

Imagine standing on the edge of a warm, subtropical floodplain 66 million years ago. 

The air hums with insects, dragonflies dart over shallow pools, and cicada-like calls echo through the dense stands of magnolias and cycads. 

A herd of Triceratops horridus moves slowly across the open landscape, their massive, parrot-like beaks tearing into low-growing ferns and palm fronds. Each step sinks slightly into the damp soil, leaving broad three-toed tracks. 

The ground vibrates with the low, resonant bellows they use to keep in contact with one another, a chorus of sound that carries across the plain.

You might catch glimpses of other giants sharing the same world. Herds of hadrosaurs—Edmontosaurus—graze nearby, their duck-billed snouts sweeping back and forth through the vegetation like living lawnmowers. 

Overhead, toothed seabirds wheel and cry, their calls mixing with the shrieks of distant pterosaurs. And lurking at the edges of the scene, half-hidden among the trees, the apex predator Tyrannosaurus rex waits, its presence felt more than seen, a reminder that this landscape is ruled by both plant-eaters and their formidable hunters.

Triceratops was one of the last and largest ceratopsians, measuring up to 9 meters (30 feet) long and weighing as much as 12 metric tons. Its most iconic features were the three horns—two long brow horns above the eyes and a shorter horn on the nose—backed by a broad bony frill. These structures were likely used for defense against predators like T. rex, but also for display within their own species, signaling dominance, maturity, or readiness to mate.

Its beak and shearing dental batteries made Triceratops a highly efficient plant-eater. Unlike many earlier ceratopsians, it possessed hundreds of teeth stacked in dental batteries, capable of slicing through tough, fibrous plants like cycads and palms that flourished in the Late Cretaceous.

Triceratops lived at the very end of the Cretaceous, in what is now western North America, within the region known as Laramidia, a long island continent separated from eastern North America by the Western Interior Seaway. 

Alongside Triceratops, this ecosystem hosted a staggering diversity of dinosaurs, including ankylosaurs (like Ankylosaurus magniventris), duck-billed hadrosaurs, pachycephalosaurs, and smaller predators like Dakotaraptor. Crocodilians, turtles, and mammals also thrived in the wetlands and forests.

Fossil evidence suggests that Triceratops may have lived in herds, though adults are often found alone, hinting at possible solitary behavior outside of mating or nesting seasons. Juveniles, on the other hand, may have grouped together for protection.

Triceratops was among the very last non-avian dinosaurs before the mass extinction event at the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary, 66 million years ago. Their fossils are found in the uppermost layers of the Hell Creek Formation, placing them just before the asteroid impact that ended the Mesozoic. Triceratops mark the end of an era, as it were, representing both the culmination of ceratopsian evolution and the twilight of the age of dinosaurs.

Today, Triceratops remains one of the most recognizable dinosaurs in the world and a personal fav—its horns and frill embodying the strange beauty and raw power of prehistoric life. Standing face-to-face with a Triceratops skeleton in a museum is awe-inspiring, but to truly imagine them alive, you must step back into their world: warm floodplains, buzzing insects, herds of plant-eaters, and the constant tension of predators in the shadows.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A HADROSAUR

Glorious Parasaurolophus art work by Daniel Eskridge

Morning mist curls along the banks of a wide, slow river. The air is heavy with the earthy scent of wet ferns and moss, tinged with the sweet tang of distant flowering trees. 

Sunlight filters through the canopy of towering conifers, catching the mist in golden rays that dance across the forest floor. 

In the dappled light, a herd of Edmontosaurus—duck-billed hadrosaurs—trundle slowly along the muddy bank. Their broad, flattened snouts graze the lush vegetation as they move, leaves crunching softly underfoot. 

Occasionally, one lifts its head, nostrils flaring as it senses the faint rustle of small mammals or the distant call of a Troodon hunting nearby. The low, resonant calls of the herd echo through the valley—a combination of hums, grunts, and whistling notes, a complex social language that signals alertness or contentment.

Around the herd, the world teems with life. Tiny lizards dart among fallen logs. Feathered dinosaurs like Caudipteryx flit through the branches, their wings rustling against the leaves. In the sky, pterosaurs wheel silently, shadowing the riverbanks, while fish occasionally leap from the water, disturbing the mirrored surface. 

A Tyrannosaurus stalks at a distance, its presence felt more than seen, tension rippling through the herd as they lift their heads in unison, scanning the forest edge. Yet for now, they continue to feed, grazing on conifers, ferns, and flowering plants, their broad dental batteries efficiently shearing tough plant material.

As the sun climbs higher, the herd’s rhythm shifts. Juveniles cluster together near the center of the group, protected by adults forming a loose perimeter. Mothers communicate constantly with low-frequency hums that travel through the ground, letting their young know it is safe to graze. Each hadrosaur maintains a personal space, yet the herd moves as a fluid unit, coordinated by sight, sound, and subtle gestures. 

Occasionally, two adults nuzzle briefly or bump heads—a gentle reinforcement of social bonds within the herd.

By midday, the river becomes a focal point. Hadrosaurs wade into shallow water, stirring the mud with their broad feet, creating a chorus of splashes and grunts. The water’s surface reflects the glittering canopy above, disturbed only by the occasional leap of fish or the landing of a pterosaur. 

Here, the herd drinks, cools down, and reorients itself to the sun’s angle. Younglings playfully chase each other through the shallows, their calls mingling with the rhythmic lapping of water. Predators lurk nearby, and the herd’s vigilance never wavers—any unusual sound or movement triggers a wave of alert postures, heads lifting in unison, tails flicking nervously.

As afternoon wanes, the herd moves toward forested areas, seeking shade. The scent of resin from conifers mingles with the damp earth, masking the smell of predators. The larger adults lead, while subadults and juveniles follow, practicing the complex patterns of herd movement they will rely on for survival. 

The subtle vibrational signals—footsteps, tail swishes, body shifts—help coordinate the group over distances that the eyes alone cannot manage. Within these social structures, older hadrosaurs seem to guide the young, showing where the most nutritious plants grow and signaling which areas are safe.

By evening, the forest becomes alive with nocturnal creatures. Crickets and insects add a constant hum to the air, while small mammals rustle in the underbrush. The herd settles in a sheltered clearing, forming protective clusters. 

Some adults lower themselves to rest, heads tucked under broad forelimbs, while juveniles huddle close, still vocalizing softly, practicing the calls they will use to communicate when they reach adulthood. 

The sounds of the night—rustling leaves, distant predator calls, and the gentle low-frequency hums of the hadrosaurs—create a layered, symphonic soundscape of life at the end of a Cretaceous day.

The world of hadrosaurs was far from solitary—their forests, riverbanks, and floodplains teemed with life, forming a complex and interconnected ecosystem. While the herd grazed, the air vibrated with the calls of feathered dinosaurs like Microraptor flitting between branches, occasionally diving to snatch insects from the foliage. Small mammals—ancestors of shrews and multituberculates—scuttled across the forest floor, their tiny claws stirring the moss and fallen leaves.

Predators lurked at every edge. Tyrannosaurus and Albertosaurus prowled open plains and forest margins, stalking both hadrosaurs and smaller herbivores. Juvenile hadrosaurs, particularly vulnerable, relied on the protective circle of adults, whose heads, tails, and bodies created a living barrier. Even crocodilians patrolled the rivers, their eyes breaking the water’s surface as they waited for an unwary hadrosaur to drink or bathe.

But the landscape was not only danger and vigilance. Insects buzzed among flowering angiosperms, pollinating as they fed, while dragonfly-like odonates skimmed over ponds and streams. Frogs croaked from the damp undergrowth, adding a pulsing rhythm to the daily soundscape. Trees, ferns, and cycads provided more than food; their dense canopies offered shelter from predators and sun, while fallen logs and leaf litter created microhabitats for countless invertebrates.

Seasonal changes added another layer of complexity. During rainy months, riverbanks became muddy feeding grounds, leaving tracks that we find and study today. 

In drier periods, herds migrated across plains and valleys, guided by the scent of water and fresh vegetation. The interplay of predators, prey, plants, and smaller animals created a dynamic, constantly shifting stage where survival depended on vigilance, cooperation, and adaptability.

Through fossil evidence—trackways, bone beds, and stomach content analysis—we can reconstruct this rich tapestry. Imagining the sensory richness: the smell of resin and damp soil, the low hum of a herd communicating, the distant roar of predators, and the flash of feathered wings overhead, gives life to a world that has been silent for 66 million years. 

In that world, hadrosaurs were central actors in a vibrant, thriving ecosystem. Hadrosaurs were not solitary wanderers but highly social beings, capable of complex communication, coordinated group behavior, and protective care of their young. 

The hadrosaurs you see in this post are Parasaurolophus — one of the last of the duckbills to roam the Earth and their great crests were the original trumpets. We now know that their bizarre head adornments help them produce a low B-Flat or Bb. This is the same B-Flat you hear wind ensembles tune to with the help of their tuba, horn or clarinet players.

I imagine them signaling to the troops with their trumpeting sound carried on the winds similar to the bugle-horn call of an elephant.

Imagining a day in their life—from morning grazing along rivers to evening rest in the forest—reveals the richness of their world, teeming with interactions and sensory experiences that echo across millions of years.

For those that love paleo art, check out the work of Daniel Eskridge (shared with permission here) to see more of his work and purchase some to bring into your world by visiting:https://daniel-eskridge.pixels.com/

TRACKING DINOSAURS: FOOTPRINTS IN STONE

Dinosaur Track, Tumbler Ridge

Imagine kneeling beside a three-toed depression in a slab of sandstone, your fingers tracing the edges of a print left by a creature that thundered across the Earth over 100 million years ago. 

Dinosaur tracks—known scientifically as ichnites—are time capsules, snapshots of behavior frozen in stone. 

Unlike bones, which tell us what dinosaurs looked like, footprints reveal how they moved, how fast they walked, whether they traveled alone or in herds, and even how they interacted with their environment.

Footprints are classified by shape rather than by exact species, since tracks are trace fossils—evidence of activity, not anatomy. Paleontologists group them into “ichnogenera,” names based on their form.

• Theropods, the meat-eating dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus, left narrow, three-toed prints (tridactyl) with claw marks. Their tracks often show long, slender toes and a V-shaped outline.
• Ornithopods, the plant-eaters like Iguanodon, also made three-toed prints, but theirs are broader with blunt toes—built for walking on both two and four legs.
• Sauropods, the long-necked giants, left large round or oval footprints—massive impressions of their column-like feet, often paired with crescent-shaped handprints nearby.
• Ankylosaurs and stegosaurs left shorter, wider tracks, with toe impressions that resemble stubby, armored stumps.

Theropod Track

You can see spectacular dinosaur tracks across the world and close to home in western Canada. 

The Peace Region of British Columbia boasts the Tumbler Ridge Global Geopark, where hundreds of Cretaceous-era footprints adorn ancient riverbeds. 

In Alberta, the Dinosaur Provincial Park and the Willow Creek tracksites near Lethbridge preserve both sauropod and theropod prints. 

Farther south, classic trackways appear in Utah’s St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site and Colorado’s Picketwire Canyonlands, where sauropods once waded through ancient mudflats.

If you spot a fossil track, look closely at its size, toe count, and depth. 

Is it long and narrow, hinting at a swift predator, or broad and round, evidence of a lumbering herbivore? 

These shapes tell stories—of migration, of pursuit, of entire ecosystems now long vanished—each print a footprint not just in rock, but in time itself.

Definitely take a photo if you are able and if within cell range, drop a GPS pin to mark the spot to share with local experts when you get home.

Sometimes, you can find something amazing but it takes a while for others to believe you. This happened up in Tumbler Ridge when the first dino tracks were found.

Flatbed Creek Dino Tracks

In the summer of 2000, two curious boys exploring a creek bed near Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, made a discovery that would put their small northern town on the paleontological map. 

While splashing along Flatbed Creek, Mark Turner and Daniel Helm noticed a series of large, three-toed impressions pressed deep into the sandstone—too regular to be random. 

They had stumbled upon the fossilized footprints of dinosaurs that had walked there some 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous. 

Their find sparked scientific interest that led to the establishment of the Tumbler Ridge Museum and later the Tumbler Ridge Global Geopark. 

Since then, paleontologists have uncovered thousands of tracks in the area—from nimble theropods to massive sauropods—etched into the ancient riverbeds and preserving a vivid record of dinosaurs on the move in what was once a lush coastal plain. 

WHEN GORGON REIGNED SUPREME

Step back into the deep Paleozoic—an era that began some 540 million years ago with oceans bustling with trilobites, early fish, and soft-bodied wonders, while the continents themselves hosted little more than humble mats of mosses and fungi. Life’s great drama was still mostly underwater.

Fast-forward 240 million years, and the evolutionary landscape had transformed dramatically. 

Vertebrates had conquered the land, ecosystems had diversified, and Earth’s surface teemed with reptilian innovators, amphibians the size of crocodiles, and the early ancestors of mammals. Among these emerging terrestrial titans strode the Gorgonopsians, or “Gorgons”—ferocious sabre-toothed therapsids that dominated the Middle to Late Permian, from about 265 to 252 million years ago.

These were no sluggish proto-reptiles. Gorgons were highly specialized predators, boasting elongated canine teeth worthy of any future saber-toothed cat, powerful jaws, and sleek, muscular bodies built for pursuit. Their anatomy blended the primitive and the prophetic: reptile-like postures paired with early mammalian traits such as differentiated teeth and strong jaw musculature. 

Their clawed limbs, keen forward-facing eyes, and cutting-edge predatory adaptations placed them firmly at the top of the Permian food chain. In a world long before dinosaurs, they were the undisputed apex hunters.

My own fascination with these remarkable creatures was ignited by Gorgons, Peter Ward’s wonderfully wry and insightful dive into the ancient landscapes of South Africa. Ward’s vivid tales of fieldwork in the blistering, bone-dry vastness of the Karoo Basin—ancestral home of the Gorgons—captured both the hardships and the sheer exhilaration of unearthing deep time. 

His descriptions of sunburn and scientific revelations in that arid world made me laugh more than once. It is a highly enjoyable read.

The Great Karoo itself is a geological and paleontological marvel. This enormous, semi-arid expanse formed within a vast inland basin roughly 320 million years ago, at a time when the part of Gondwana destined to become Africa lay draped across the South Pole. 

Layer upon layer of sedimentary rock accumulated as glaciers advanced and retreated, rivers meandered, lakes dried, and ecosystems rose and fell. Today, those layers read like a grand evolutionary chronicle, preserving a world populated by beaked herbivores, hulking amphibians, and the charismatic, toothy Gorgonopsians.

This was a pivotal chapter in Earth’s history—just before the catastrophic Permian-Triassic extinction swept away nearly 90% of life. Yet in the twilight of the Permian, before that great dying, the Karoo thrived with innovation and ecological complexity. It was a world where the early steps toward warm-bloodedness were being taken, where synapsids (our own deep ancestors) were experimenting with new forms, and where the Gorgons reigned supreme.

STEGOSAURUS: PLATED GIANT OF THE JURASSIC

Few dinosaurs are as instantly recognizable as Stegosaurus, with its double row of towering bony plates and spiked tail. 

This herbivore, whose name means “roofed lizard,” roamed western North America about 155–150 million years ago during the Late Jurassic. 

Fossils of Stegosaurus have been found primarily in the Morrison Formation, a magnificent rock unit famous for preserving one of the most diverse dinosaur ecosystems ever discovered.

Stegosaurus could reach up to 9 meters (30 feet) in length but had a disproportionately small head with a brain roughly the size of a walnut. 

Despite this, it thrived as a low-browser, feeding on ferns, cycads, and other ground-level plants using its beak-like mouth and peg-shaped teeth. Its most iconic features were the dermal plates, some nearly a meter tall, running down its back. 

Their function remains debated—some have proposed they were used for display, species recognition, or thermoregulation.

At the end of its tail, Stegosaurus bore four long spikes, known as the thagomizer. 

Evidence from fossilized injuries on predator bones suggests these were formidable weapons, capable of piercing the flesh of even the largest carnivores.

Stegosaurus did not live in isolation. It shared its world with a cast of iconic dinosaurs and other ancient animals:

• Sauropods such as Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, and Brachiosaurus dominated the floodplains, their long necks sweeping across the tree canopy.
• Predators like Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus stalked the ecosystem, preying on herbivores. The spikes of Stegosaurus would have been a key defense against these hunters.
• Ornithopods, including Camptosaurus and Dryosaurus, grazed alongside Stegosaurus, representing smaller, quicker plant-eaters.
• Early mammals, small and shrew-like, scurried through the underbrush, while flying pterosaurs soared overhead.
• Freshwater systems hosted fish, turtles, and crocodile relatives, rounding out the ecosystem.

Interesting Facts

• The brain-to-body ratio of Stegosaurus is one of the smallest of any dinosaur, fueling the myth that it had a “second brain” in its hips—an idea no longer supported by science.
• Tracks attributed to stegosaurs suggest they may have moved in small groups, possibly for protection.
• Despite its fearsome appearance, Stegosaurus was strictly an herbivore. Its teeth were too weak to chew tough vegetation, meaning it likely swallowed food in large chunks.
• And, being one of my best loved dinosaurs, I chose Stegosaurus as one of my logos for the Fossil Huntress. This gentle giant is one of my all time favourites!

Stegosaurus lived tens of millions of years before the rise of dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex, and remains one of the most beloved prehistoric creatures. 

Its strange mix of delicate feeding adaptations and heavy defensive weaponry highlights the balance of survival in the Jurassic ecosystem.

For those that love paleo art, check out the work of Daniel Eskridge (shared with permission here) to see more of his work and purchase some to bring into your world by visiting:https://daniel-eskridge.pixels.com/

HUNTERS OF PANTHALASSAN SEAS: SHONISAURUS

Shonisaurus sikanni / Sikanni Chief River

More than 200 million years ago, when the supercontinent Pangaea was still knitting the world together, a leviathan moved through the warm Panthalassan seas that covered what is now northeastern British Columbia. 

Shonisaurus sikanniensis was colossal. At an estimated 21 metres (about 70 feet) in length, it rivals or exceeds the largest whales alive today. 

This was no scaly sea dragon but an ichthyosaur: a dolphin-shaped marine reptile with immense paddle-like limbs, a long, tapering snout, and eyes built for the dim light of deep water. 

Its vertebrae alone are the size of dinner plates. When it swam, it would have moved with powerful sweeps of its crescent tail, master of a Late Triassic ocean teeming with ammonites and early marine reptiles.

The type specimen of Shonisaurus sikanniensis was discovered along the banks of the Sikanni Chief River and painstakingly excavated over three ambitious field seasons led by Dr. Betsy Nicholls of the Royal Tyrrell Museum. 

A Rolex Laureate and one of Canada’s most respected vertebrate palaeontologists, Dr. Nicholls undertook what remains one of the most formidable fossil excavations ever attempted in this country. 

The animal lay entombed in limestone, and freeing it required extraordinary logistics, teamwork, and resolve over many field seasons.  

That immense skeleton — the largest marine reptile ever described — reshaped our understanding of just how big ichthyosaurs could become.

Many dedicated researchers have contributed to expanding the story of Shonisaurus and its kin. Scholars such as Dean Lomax and Sven Sachs, among others, continue to refine our understanding of ichthyosaur anatomy, growth patterns, and evolutionary relationships. 

Recent work on giant ichthyosaurs from the Triassic of Europe and North America suggests that extreme body size evolved rapidly after the end-Permian mass extinction. New discoveries of enormous jaw fragments and vertebrae hint that multiple lineages independently pushed the limits of marine reptile gigantism. 

These animals were likely deep-diving specialists, feeding on abundant soft-bodied cephalopods and fish, filling ecological roles that whales would not occupy for another 150 million years.

The Sikanni Chief River flows through the traditional territory of the Kaska Dena, whose stewardship of these lands spans countless generations. Any scientific work in this region exists within that broader and much older human story, and it is important to acknowledge the enduring relationship between the land, the river, and the people who know it best.

Today, the bones of Shonisaurus sikanniensis rest in Alberta, but its story stretches far beyond a museum gallery. It is a tale of deep time, bold fieldwork, collaboration across continents, and the simple human wonder that arises when we uncover something vast and ancient from stone. 

From the warm Triassic seas to the careful hands of modern researchers, the story of Shonisaurus reminds us that our planet has always been capable of producing giants — and that with patience, teamwork, and curiosity, we can bring their stories joyfully back into the light.

MEET THE NIGER RIVER'S TOP PREDATOR: SUCHOMINUS

Here is a fellow to strike terror into your heart. 

Meet Suchomimus tenerensis, a large, long-snouted spinosaurid theropod who prowled what is now Niger during the Early Cretaceous, roughly 125 million years ago. 

If you imagine a T. rex that fell headfirst into a river ecosystem and decided fish were the future, you’re getting close. 

This was no blunt-faced bone-crusher. Suchomimus had a narrow, crocodile-like snout lined with over a hundred slender, conical teeth perfectly suited for gripping slippery prey.

The fossils come primarily from the Elrhaz Formation in the Ténéré Desert of the Sahara. Today, it is an expanse of sand and heat shimmer. In the Early Cretaceous, it was a lush floodplain threaded with rivers, swamps, and seasonal lakes. Think mangroves, ferns, and conifers rather than dunes. It was discovered in the 1990s by a team led by Paul Sereno, and its name fittingly means “crocodile mimic.”

Suchomimus shared this watery paradise with a lively cast of characters. The sail-backed Ouranosaurus browsed on vegetation nearby. 

The stocky, heavily armored Nigersaurus grazed low-growing plants with its astonishing vacuum-cleaner jaw. Small, nimble theropods darted through the undergrowth. And lurking in the water were giant crocodyliforms like Sarcosuchus imperator, the so-called “SuperCroc,” who could grow over 11 metres long. Imagine the tension at the riverbank. You go fishing and something bigger than your canoe is watching you fish.

Diet-wise, Suchomimus was likely a specialized piscivore, meaning fish were firmly on the menu. Its long jaws, studded with conical teeth and a subtle rosette at the tip, were built for snapping shut on struggling prey. The teeth lack the serrations you see in typical meat-slicing theropods, suggesting it wasn’t primarily designed for tearing chunks from large dinosaurs. 

That said, it was still a 10–11 metre predator with powerful forelimbs and a thumb claw that could make an impression. Fish may have been the specialty, but opportunism is practically a dinosaur hobby. Small terrestrial prey would not have been safe if they wandered too close.

Hunting probably involved a patient, semi-aquatic strategy. Its long snout allowed it to dip into shallow water with minimal disturbance, and the conical teeth helped trap wriggling fish. 

Some spinosaurids show evidence of sensory pits in their snouts, similar to modern crocodilians, suggesting they could detect movement in water. While direct evidence for this in Suchomimus is still debated, the resemblance is striking enough to make you wonder whether it had a similar trick up its sleeve. Or, more accurately, up its snout.

Unlike its later and more extreme cousin Spinosaurus, Suchomimus does not appear to have had a towering sail. Instead, it sported a low ridge of elongated neural spines along its back, perhaps forming a modest hump or ridge. Stylish, but not showy. Think understated riverbank chic.

One of the fun quirks of Suchomimus is its place in the spinosaurid family tree. It sits in the Baryonychinae, closely related to Baryonyx from England. Yes, England. So while one cousin stalked Early Cretaceous river systems in what is now West Africa, another was doing much the same in Surrey. Spinosaurids, it seems, were cosmopolitan anglers.

And then there are those arms. Strong, well-developed forelimbs with large claws, including a prominent thumb claw, suggest it could grapple with prey or perhaps haul itself along muddy banks. It was not the tiny-armed stereotype of later theropods. 

If Suchomimus reached out to grab something, it likely succeeded.

In the fossil record, Suchomimus helps us understand the early evolution of spinosaurids before they became even more specialized. It represents a moment when dinosaurs were experimenting with ecological niches beyond the classic terrestrial predator role. River margins were not just crocodile territory. They were contested real estate.

So picture it: 125 million years ago, on a warm Cretaceous floodplain in what is now the Sahara, a long-snouted predator stands at the water’s edge. 

Fish scatter beneath the surface. A distant Ouranosaurus snorts. Somewhere, a SuperCroc slides silently into the river. 

And Suchomimus waits, patient and perfectly adapted, the elegant angler of the dinosaur world.

Not every theropod needed to rule the land. Some were quite happy ruling the river.

HIGH-NOSED ON THE CRETACEOUS PLAINS: THE RISE OF ALTIRHINUS

This Early Cretaceous herbivore—living about 113 to 100 million years ago during the Albian—roamed what is now Mongolia. 

Its name means “high nose,” and once you see the skull, you understand why. 

The nasal bones rise into a tall, arched crest, giving Altirhinus a profile that looks like it’s perpetually catching a good breeze across the ancient floodplains.

Altirhinus kurzanovi is what happens when evolution decides to experiment with architecture.

Altirhinus belongs to the iguanodontians, a group of ornithopod dinosaurs that sit evolutionarily between the earlier, more lightly built Jurassic forms and the later, highly specialized duck-billed hadrosaurs. 

It still carried the classic iguanodontian thumb spike—likely useful for defense or perhaps a bit of pointed persuasion during intraspecies disagreements—but it also shows early hints of the sophisticated chewing system that would later make hadrosaurs the undisputed salad bar champions of the Late Cretaceous.

In the fossil record, Altirhinus appears in the Khuren Dukh Formation of southeastern Mongolia. The sediments there were laid down in river channels and floodplains—lush, seasonally wet environments ideal for large plant-eaters. Several well-preserved skeletons have been recovered, including remarkably complete skull material that lets paleontologists appreciate that lofty nasal arch in detail. The crest was probably soft-tissue enhanced in life and may have functioned in display, species recognition, or vocal resonance. It’s hard not to imagine a low, booming call rolling across the Cretaceous wetlands.

If you'd like to see the bones found from Altirhinus, you will want to head to Mongolia. Most of the fossils found to date are housed in Mongolian institutions and have been studied internationally, particularly following expeditions in the 1990s that helped clarify its anatomy and evolutionary position. 

Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, which now feels stark and wind-scoured, continues to yield beautifully preserved dinosaur remains—proof that deserts can be excellent librarians of deep time.

Altirhinus did not live alone. Its ecosystem included predatory theropods such as dromaeosaurids—swift, feathered carnivores with a talent for coordinated hunting—and larger theropods that would have regarded a juvenile Altirhinus as an opportunity rather than a neighbor. 

Early ceratopsians, ankylosaurs armored like ambulatory fortresses, and other ornithopods shared the same landscapes. It was a dynamic, competitive world of herds, hunters, and seasonal change.

What makes Altirhinus particularly interesting is its timing. It lived during a pivotal evolutionary interval when ornithopods were refining their skulls and dental batteries. 

Its elevated nasal region and increasingly complex chewing apparatus foreshadow the full-blown hadrosaur condition that would dominate later in the Cretaceous. In that sense, Altirhinus is both a character in its own right and a transitional figure in a much larger story.

So while Tyrannosaurus tends to steal the spotlight, spare a thought for Altirhinus—the high-nosed grazer of Cretaceous Mongolia. 

It may not have had the teeth of a super-predator, but it carried itself with a certain cranial confidence, grazing its way through history and quietly shaping the future of duck-billed dinosaurs.

Image credit: The gorgeous illustration you see here is by the supremely talented Daniel Eskridge, licensed for use. Appreciate you, Daniel. 

FOSSIL DIG AT DINOSAUR PROVINCIAL PARK

Dinosaur Provincial Park Fossil Dig

Ohh yes — Dinosaur Provincial Park is one of those places where time just… refuses to mind its manners. 

It sprawls across the badlands of southeastern Alberta, a sunburned maze of hoodoos, gullies, bentonite clays, and wide, silent coulees where the Late Cretaceous still feels startlingly close. 

If you know your dinosaurs — and I know you do — this is one of Earth’s most important bonebeds, rivaled only by the Gobi Desert and a few select pockets of Montana and Patagonia.

Roughly 75–77 million years ago, this region lay at the edge of a warm coastal plain along the interior Western Interior Seaway. 

Think slow, looping rivers; cypress and fern marshes; balmy summers; and a very high probability of running into hadrosaurs (Corythosaurus, Lambeosaurus, Parasaurolophus), horned dinosaurs (Centrosaurus, Styracosaurus), tyrannosaurs, ankylosaurs, troodontids, turtles, champsosaurs, crocodilians, and freshwater fish. 

Floods, storms, and meandering river channels buried carcasses in mud and silt, and nature did the rest — compacting and lithifying them into the Oldman and Dinosaur Park formations we know today.

How They Dig

Excavating in the park is old-school science at its most tactile. Crews begin by scouting — sometimes guided by erosion, sometimes by bone fragments that weather out of the hillsides. Once they’ve identified promising exposures, they get down on hands and knees with rock hammers, awls, brushes, and dental picks.

The key is going slow. These sediments are soft but unpredictable; a single Centrosaurus femur can shear if you rush. Bones are consolidated with glue-like hardeners as they’re exposed. For larger finds, crews build plaster jackets — soaked burlap dipped in plaster, wrapped around the fossil and supporting matrix like an orthopedic cast — then transport the slab out of the coulees by hand, ATV, helicopter, or small cart. 

The jackets then head to prep labs in Drumheller or museums worldwide for meticulous cleaning under microscopes.

What They Find

The park is a jackpot for both skeletal and taphonomic diversity. Here you'll find:

• Bonebeds — catastrophic mass-death deposits, especially of Centrosaurus, interpreted as herd drownings during river floods or tropical storms.
• Articulated skeletons and partial individuals — gorgeous, curled-up hadrosaurs or ankylosaurs preserved in river channel sands.
• Microfossil sites — turtle shell, crocodile scutes, fish scales, tiny dinosaur teeth, and delicate vertebrae that tell the story of small-bodied fauna and paleoecology.
• Plant impressions — the background greenery of the Cretaceous world, from conifers to broad-leaved angiosperms.

It’s not uncommon for field seasons here to recover multiple new individuals, and historically the park has yielded more than 50 dinosaur species and thousands of catalogued specimens — a staggering contribution to paleontology.

The Visitor Experience

• What’s beautifully unique is that Dinosaur Provincial Park is both a research landscape and a public one. You can:
• Walk the badlands trails and stumble across weathering bone fragments (strictly look, no collecting).
• Join guided interpretive tours that take you into active restricted dig zones — a rare privilege, since most world-class bonebeds are off-limits.
• Visit the field stations where staff show plaster jackets, exposed bones, and explain how digs work.
• See fossils in situ at special display sites, where the bones are left exactly where they were found and protected under viewing shelters. It’s like peeking through a window into deep time.

The Royal Tyrrell Museum also runs programs out of the park — including multi-day paleontology experiences where visitors learn to prospect, excavate, and identify fossils under expert supervision. For many, that’s the closest they’ll ever come to being a field paleontologist.

Aside from being visually stunning (cinematographers love the badlands light), the park preserves one of the most detailed snapshots of Late Cretaceous continental ecosystems in the world. 

Because the formations are stacked and time-resolved, researchers can read shifts in faunal communities, climate patterns, environments, and extinction pressures across a few million years — essentially watching ecosystems change in slow motion.

Can Folk Visit?

• Absolutely. It’s open to the public (with seasonal restrictions), but with a few courtesies:
• Stay on trails in open areas — the sediments are fragile and erosion is an active process.
• No fossil collecting — everything stays on the landscape for science.
• Book ahead for guided digs — they fill fast, especially in summer.
• Prepare for heat — badlands are oven-like in July and August.

It’s a place that manages to feel both ancient and alive. The silence carries, the rocks crumble under hand, and sometimes — if you’re lucky — a chip of bone glints from a slope where a Centrosaurus weathered out just last winter.

NESSIE: THE OPALIZED PLIOSAUR OF THE EARLY CRETACEOUS

Nessie the Opalized Marine Reptile

At the Opal Museum in Queensland glitters one of the more improbable fossils ever pulled from the ancient seabed — an opalized pliosaur affectionately nicknamed “Nessie.” 

Beneath its shimmering surface lies the story of a powerful marine reptile that ruled the Early Cretaceous oceans roughly 110 million years ago, at a time when much of inland Australia was drowned beneath a warm, shallow epicontinental sea.

The lovely remains you see here are from one of those amazing marine reptiles, a pliosaur, who swam in those ancient seas. So what exactly is a pliosaur?

Pliosaurs are a subgroup within the Plesiosauria, the great marine reptiles (not dinosaurs!) of the Mesozoic. 

While long-necked plesiosaurs favored dainty heads and elongated cervical vertebrae for sweeping, panoramic strikes at small fish and cephalopods, pliosaurs evolved in the opposite direction:

• Skulls short and massive
• Necks abbreviated
• Jaws deep and muscular
• Teeth robust and conical

These were the ambush predators, built less like swans and more like crocodilian torpedoes, with four powerful flippers and a muscular body plan that let them sprint through the water column to surprise prey.

Though not an ichthyosaur — those fast, fish-shaped reptiles that converged spectacularly toward the form of modern dolphins — pliosaurs shared the same ecosystems. 

Ichthyosaurs hunted squid and fish in speed-based chases, while pliosaurs handled bigger, tougher fare: other marine reptiles, ammonites, and the occasional large fish unlucky enough to cross their path.

The Early Cretaceous seas hosted a diverse guild of reptiles:

• Ichthyosaurs (fish-shaped pursuit predators)
• Long-necked plesiosaurs (precision feeders)
• Pliosaurs (apex ambush predators)
• Crocodyliforms (semi-aquatic opportunists)
• Ammonites & belemnites (cephalopods forming the backbone of the food web)

Nessie sits among a lineage that includes broad-skulled bruisers like Kronosaurus queenslandicus, a fellow Australian celebrity whose skull approached 3 meters in length and whose bite force was probably among the strongest of any Mesozoic reptile.

Pliosaurs didn’t so much swim as fly underwater. Their four hydrofoil flippers generated lift in alternating strokes, allowing bursts of speed followed by graceful pursuit. Streamlined bodies meant low drag, essential for surprise attacks in open water.

Dentition tells the tale:

• Deep-rooted conical teeth resist torsional stress
• Interlocking jaws grip slippery prey
• Short snout adds leverage for skull-crushing force

Ammonites — including opalized forms from the same Australian basins — bear puncture marks suggestive of pliosaur predation. Large fish and other marine reptiles likely rounded out the menu.

Like ichthyosaurs and most plesiosaurs studied from articulated skeletons, pliosaurs were viviparous — they gave birth to live young at sea. No nests, no frantic beach crawls, and no hatchling gauntlet. Babies were miniature versions of adults, already hydrodynamic and hungry.

How do we know this? Well, a few ways. We have fossilized pregnant plesiosaur specimens with embryos and there is always the biomechanical absurdity of hauling such a creature onto land to lay eggs. So, wee ones at sea it is!

Why Opal? Why Here?

Opalization is an Australian specialty, the result of silica-rich groundwater percolating through Cretaceous sediments and replacing bone over geologic time. Fossils from Lightning Ridge and Coober Pedy preserve everything from ammonites to plesiosaurs as shockingly colourful silica pseudomorphs — Earth chemistry as jeweler.

Nessie’s preservation is thus a double marvel for its biological rarity (pliosaur skeletons are uncommon) and mineralogical rarity (precious opal replacement is even rarer)

Pliosaurs survived well into the Late Cretaceous before vanishing in a wave of marine turnover alongside ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, and ammonites. Their departure marks a reshuffling of oceanic power dynamics — a story of climate, sea levels, and evolutionary competition.

TOXODON: SOUTH AMERICA'S MOST MAGNIFICENT ODDBALL

Toxodon was a hulking, hippo-sized grazing mammal that once roamed the ancient grasslands, wetlands, and scrub of South America. 

The creature first entered the scientific spotlight thanks to Charles Darwin, who stumbled upon its bones during the HMS Beagle expedition. 

On November 26, 1834, while travelling in Uruguay, Darwin heard rumours of “giant’s bones” on a nearby farm. 

Curious, he rode over, investigated the cache, and purchased the skull of a strange beast for eighteen pence — a bargain for a fossil that would later puzzle the greatest minds of the 19th century.

In his journals, Darwin mused: “Toxodon is perhaps one of the strangest animals ever discovered.” And frankly, he wasn’t wrong. 

Once the skeleton was fully reconstructed, it appeared to pull anatomical traits from every corner of the mammalian tree. It was as large and barrel-bodied as a rhinoceros, yet equipped with chisel-shaped incisors reminiscent of oversized rodents — hence its name, meaning “arched tooth.” 

Its high-set eyes and nostrils suggested an animal comfortable in water, much like a hippo or manatee. Darwin marvelled at this evolutionary mash-up: “How wonderfully are the different orders… blended together in the structure of the Toxodon!”

For over a century, the lineage of Toxodon remained a scientific enigma. Traditional morphology bounced it somewhere among ungulates, rodents, and even sirenians. Then, in 2015, ancient DNA changed the game. 

A groundbreaking genomic study revealed that Toxodon — along with the equally bizarre Macrauchenia — belonged to a lineage known as the South American native ungulates, or SANUs. 

These animals were the evolutionary result of South America’s long isolation after the breakup of Gondwana. And here’s the kicker: SANUs are now understood to be distantly related to modern perissodactyls, the group that includes horses, tapirs, and rhinoceroses. 

So Darwin’s instincts weren’t far off — the resemblance to rhinos wasn’t just superficial whimsy.

Toxodon and its relatives (family Toxodontidae) appear in the Late Miocene, roughly 9 million years ago, and flourish throughout the Pliocene and Pleistocene of South America. 

Their fossils have been uncovered across Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, with especially rich deposits in the Pampean region where Darwin first collected his specimens.

These creatures were part of a wider radiation of endemic South American mammals — a remarkable fauna that included giant ground sloths, glyptodonts, terror birds, and litopterns. For tens of millions of years, South America functioned almost like a massive evolutionary island, producing lineages found nowhere else on Earth.

Toxodon itself survived until the tail end of the last Ice Age, vanishing about 12,000 years ago, around the time humans arrived on the continent and climate systems shifted dramatically. Its demise mirrors the fate of many Pleistocene megafaunal giants.

Toxodon stands as a fascinating case study in convergent evolution and the challenges of reconstructing deep-time relationships. Its stocky limbs, massive grinding teeth, and robust skull mark it as a grazer well-suited to tough vegetation, while its semi-aquatic adaptations hint at a lifestyle spent wallowing in wetlands and rivers. 

It was, in many ways, a South American answer to the hippo — yet biologically and evolutionarily, it belonged to an entirely different branch of the mammalian tree.

Darwin might have described it as a beautiful blend of mismatched traits, but with DNA in hand, we now see Toxodon not as a puzzle piece forced to fit the wrong box — but as the last great representative of an ancient, isolated ungulate lineage that flourished for millions of years in a continent of evolutionary mischief.

THE BULL CANYON TRACKSITE OF EASTERN UTAH

Darrin Mottler's Human to Theropod Comparison

The wind always arrives first.

It sweeps across the red cliffs of eastern Utah, brushing your shoulders like a quiet invitation as you step out onto the stone. 

The La Sal Mountains rise blue and snow-dusted on the horizon—silent, ancient witnesses. 

At your feet, the sandstone is warm, sun-baked, and patterned with bowls and dimples that look, at first, like the aftermath of a rainstorm.

But then you kneel.

You place your hand inside one of the indentations—fingers spreading to follow the outline—and suddenly time collapses. 

Your palm disappears into a footprint three times the size of your own, pressed into this rock nearly 190 million years ago by a three-toed dinosaur striding across a muddy lakeshore. 

The warmth of the desert stone meets your fingers and presses against the cool, deep sensation of time.

This is Bull Canyon Tracksite, one of Utah’s most awe-inspiring windows into the Jurassic.

Bull Canyon lies on the western flank of the La Sal Mountains, within a rugged plateau of red Wingate and Navajo sandstone. The site preserves an astonishing spread of footprints left by Early Jurassic theropods—light, agile, meat-eating dinosaurs with talons and hollow bones, the forerunners of modern birds.

Dinosaur Track, Bull Canyon, Utah

The tracks rest within the Glen Canyon Group formations, sediments laid down along the shifting margins of a prehistoric playa lake system. 

Here, mudflats dried and cracked under the sun, then were wetted again by brief storms—an ideal condition for holding tracks long enough to be buried by the next layer of sand.

Among the most distinctive ichnotaxa present are:

• Grallator – small, delicate three-toed prints often linked to slender theropods.
• Eubrontes – larger, deeper, more robust prints associated with big-bodied carnivores like Dilophosaurus.
• Occasional ornithischian tracks, including possible Anomoepus prints, representing small herbivorous dinosaurs moving across the same shoreline.

Dinosaur Track, Bull Canyon, Utah

Standing before them, the sandstone seems alive with movement. Each footprint shows a frozen splash of action: the slip of a claw, the twist of a heel, the moment a predator shifted its weight.

Every print reveals insights. Some trackways show animals striding with long, confident steps—suggesting a loping, ground-covering gait. Others are tight and compact, indicating slower or more cautious movement.

Parallel trackways record two or more animals moving in the same direction at the same time—possible group travel, or predators trailing prey.

A few prints deform the underlying sediment, proof that the ground was saturated with water. Others preserve delicate claw tips, showing firmer, drying mud. These shifts map out rapid climate cycles in Early Jurassic Utah.

It’s a moment-by-moment account of life—written in the most ephemeral of materials. 

So why does eastern Utah have so many dinosaur tracks? The region around Moab and the La Sal foothills is a world-class dinosaur track corridor with many elements at play.

• Jurassic climate: alternating wet and dry periods created perfect track-preservation conditions.
• Basins & playas: low-lying flats captured footprints from multiple dinosaur species.
• Rapid burial: shifting dunes and lake sediments quickly sealed impressions.
• Erosion today: modern uplift and weathering have brought these ancient surfaces back to light.

Bull Canyon is one of the most accessible of the sites, offering broad paleosurface exposures ideal for study and public viewing. If you visit at sunrise, the low light throws shadows into the footprints. The tracks seem to deepen, their edges turning crisp like the outline of a freshly pressed print. 

Photo Credit: All photos shown here are by the deeply awesome Darrin Mottler, who generously shared them with me and introduced me to the site. Appreciate you, Darrin!

ROCK BUFFET: THE CURIOUS CASE OF GASTROLITHS

Gastrolith from Traskasaura sandrae

There’s a fine line between “swallowed by accident” and “intentional meal plan,” and few fossils illustrate that better than the humble gastrolith—literally, a “stomach stone.”

Our story begins, fittingly, in the belly of a marine reptile from Vancouver Island’s Trent River—a local who took the phrase “gut of stone” rather literally. 

This polished pebble once tumbled through Cretaceous surf some 80 million years ago, only to end up as part of a Mesozoic digestive strategy. 

Today, it sits fossilised and gleaming in the Courtenay Museum, a geological souvenir from an age when eating rocks was not just tolerated but recommended. 

This lovely was found in the belly of a new genus and species of elasmosaur named Traskasaura sandrae, in honour of the Trask family — Mike, Pat and Heather Trask.

Gastroliths—smooth stones swallowed on purpose—were the original “multi-tools” of digestion. They turn up in the fossil record of marine reptiles like plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, in dinosaurs from Camarasaurus to Caudipteryx, and even in modern birds and crocodiles. 

Think of them as internal food processors—helping grind up shellfish, bones, and whatever else made the Mesozoic menu.

Why rocks? Well, if you’re a giant aquatic reptile with flippers instead of forks, chewing isn’t really an option. Instead, you gulp your prey whole, toss in a few stones, and let physics do the work. 

Inside the muscular gizzard, those gastroliths tumble around, mashing up food like a prehistoric smoothie blender. They also may have served as ballast, helping the reptile fine-tune buoyancy—a sort of stone-age scuba weight belt.

Of course, scientists have debated which role was more important: digestion or diving? Were these animals after smoother sailing or smoother meals? The jury’s still out, but the answer might be “both”—because why not have a rock that multitasks?

The Trent River specimen, like others from Vancouver Island’s fossil beds, is particularly well-rounded—literally. Its polished surface hints at long tumbling in surf before being swallowed, and longer wear inside a reptilian stomach before being fossilised. 

Imagine being a small stone, minding your own business in the shallows, when suddenly—gulp!—you’re swept into the digestive adventures of a marine predator. Millions of years later, you emerge as a museum piece. Talk about a career arc.

Modern birds still use gastroliths, so next time you watch a chicken pecking gravel, remember—it’s not just weird farmyard behaviour. It’s a direct evolutionary link to ancient seagoing reptiles. The same survival trick that helped plesiosaurs patrol the Cretaceous seas now helps your backyard hen break down corn.

So, the next time you’re strolling along the Trent River and spot a rounded pebble, take a closer look. Could it be a river stone? Sure. But it could also be the relic of a reptilian digestive system, polished by waves, stomach acid, and time itself. Because in the fossil record, even the smallest stone can tell a story—and in this case, it’s a story of rocks, reptiles, and the enduring appeal of an all-you-can-eat buffet… with a little extra crunch.

Gastrolith Image: Outside of the field of view of this photo is Mike Trask sitting beside me telling all about the construction of the scaffolding he devised for the extraction of the elasmosaur bones. 

Across the river, his twin brother Pat was covering the bones in a protective case and oodles of VIPS volunteers were getting ready for the big moment when the bones would be taken out of the cliff. 

It is a bittersweet memory, as Mike has gone for his last walk in the woods and is waiting for our next adventure on the other side. I miss that man so much. 

GARGOYLEOSAURUS: THE SPIKED GUARDIAN OF THE JURASSIC FOREST

Gargoyleosaurus by Daniel Eskridge

Step back into the lush forests of the Late Jurassic, about 155 million years ago, where ferns brushed the ankles of giants, and the air buzzed with the calls of ancient insects. 

In the shade of towering conifers, a low-slung, tank-like creature ambled through the undergrowth — Gargoyleosaurus parkpini, one of the earliest known ankylosaurs.

A quiet forest dweller but no easy meal, Gargoyleosaurus was proof that sometimes survival comes not from speed or strength, but from a good suit of armour.

Unlike its later Cretaceous cousins, Ankylosaurus and Euoplocephalus, this Jurassic pioneer was smaller and a little more lightly built — about 3 metres long and weighing as much as a cow. 

But don’t let that fool you: Gargoyleosaurus was well-defended. Its body was draped in thick, bony plates called osteoderms, and along its flanks ran sharp spikes that would make any hungry predator think twice. 

Its head bore a beaked snout perfect for cropping low-growing plants, and behind that, the skull was crowned with rugged armour that gave the dinosaur its gargoyle-like name.

Fossils of Gargoyleosaurus have been unearthed in Wyoming’s Morrison Formation — the same ancient landscape that hosted Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, and Diplodocus. Imagine this spiky herbivore moving slowly through the ferns while massive sauropods grazed nearby and the shadows of meat-eating theropods flickered between the trees.

As one of the oldest ankylosaurs in the fossil record, Gargoyleosaurus gives us a glimpse into the early evolution of these living fortresses. Its mix of primitive and advanced features — such as an early form of its armoured skull — hints at the experimentation nature was doing with defence long before the rise of the tail-club-wielding ankylosaurs of the Cretaceous.

JOSE BONAPARTE: MASTER OF THE MESOZOIC

José Fernando Bonaparte

One of the most delightful palaeontologists to grace our Earth was José Fernando Bonaparte (14 June 1928 – 18 February 2020). 

We often think of those who have shaped our past and found many of the firsts of their region as living in ancient history, but José left us just a few years ago. 

He was a prolific and hard-working Argentinian palaeontologist who you'll know as the discoverer of some of Argentina's iconic dinosaurs — Carnotaurus, along with Amargasaurus, Abelisaurus, Argentinosaurus and Noasaurus. 

His first love was mammals and over the course of his career, he unearthed the remains of some of the first South American fossil mammals from the Mesozoic. 

Between 1975 and 1977, Bonaparte worked on excavation of the Saltasaurus dinosaur with Martín Vince and Juan C. Leal at the Estancia "El Brete."  Bonaparte was interested in the anatomy of Saltasaurus, particularly the armoured plates or osteoderms embedded in its skin. 

Carnotaurus skull

Based on this discovery, together with twenty examples of Kritosaurus australis and a lambeosaurine dinosaur found in South America, Bonaparte hypothesized that there had been a large-scale migration of species between the Americas at the end of the Mesozoic period.

The supercontinent of Pangea split into Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south during the Jurassic. During the Cretaceous, South America pulled away from the rest of Gondwana. 

The division caused a divergence between the northern biota and the southern biota, and the southern animals appear strange to those used to the more northerly fauna. 

Bonaparte's finds illustrate this divergence. His work is honoured in his moniker given to him by palaeontologist Robert Bakker — "Master of the Mesozoic."

SAILS OF THE PERMIAN: REIGN OF DIMETRODON

Dimetrodon by Daniel Eskridge

In the steamy forests of the early Permian, some 295 million years ago, a Dimetrodon prowls through a world that feels both alien and oddly familiar. 

The forest hums with insect life, and the air hangs heavy with the scent of wet soil and decaying vegetation. 

Towering above are stands of lycopsids, early relatives of modern clubmosses, their scaly trunks reaching for the pale sun. 

Ferns carpet the forest floor, interwoven with the roots of primitive conifers. Between them flow sluggish streams, their surfaces shimmering with pollen and the movements of darting amphibians.

Through this primeval landscape moves Dimetrodon—muscular, deliberate, and unmistakable. Its back is crowned with a tall, elegant neural sail, formed by elongated vertebral spines connected by stretched skin. As dawn light breaks through the canopy, the sail glows amber and crimson, absorbing warmth to jumpstart its cold-blooded metabolism. 

Dimetrodon by Daniel Eskridge

In a world of fluctuating temperatures, such thermoregulation was a powerful evolutionary advantage. By mid-morning, the great predator is alert, its metabolism primed for the hunt.

A rustle in the underbrush betrays the movement of smaller synapsids—perhaps an Edaphosaurus, a plant-eater with its own sail, though broader and dotted with crossbars. Dimetrodon lowers its head and advances silently, each step careful, practiced. Its jaws, lined with serrated, ziphodont teeth, were perfectly adapted for slicing through flesh. 

Unlike the simple cone-shaped teeth of earlier reptiles, Dimetrodon’s dentition reveals its lineage as a synapsid—a group that would, through deep evolutionary time, give rise to mammals, including us.

Despite its reptilian appearance, Dimetrodon was not a dinosaur. It lived more than 40 million years before the first dinosaurs appeared. Its lineage represents an earlier, distinct branch on the tree of life: the pelycosaurs, the dominant land vertebrates of the Permian. 

These creatures were part of the great synapsid radiation, experimenting with new body plans and ecological roles in a rapidly changing world. Dimetrodon’s sail, once thought to serve purely for display, likely functioned as a thermal regulator, allowing it to warm up quickly in the morning and cool down in the heat of the day. 

Some also propose that the sail could have been a signal structure—flashing color patterns to warn rivals or attract mates among the ferns and cycads.

In the murky shallows nearby, lungfish burrow into the mud, preparing for the dry season. Amphibians the size of crocodiles lounge in the shallows, their nostrils barely above water. 

Dimetrodon may have been primarily a terrestrial hunter, but it was never far from the wetlands where prey was abundant. A sudden splash draws its attention—a large amphibian, perhaps a Diplocaulus, with its strange boomerang-shaped head, breaking the surface. Dimetrodon’s muscles tense; the predator lunges, jaws snapping shut with a crack that echoes through the forest. The water churns, then stills. A moment later, the sail-backed hunter emerges, victorious, dragging its meal to the shore.

The Permian ecosystem was one of transition—between the lush coal swamps of the Carboniferous and the arid supercontinent of Pangaea to come. Forests gave way to open plains and deserts, forcing animals to adapt or perish. Dimetrodon thrived in this environment for millions of years before disappearing in the changing climates of the late Permian, replaced by more advanced therapsids, the true precursors to mammals.

We find the fossils of Dimetrodon across North America, particularly in the Texas Red Beds and parts of Oklahoma, their bones preserved in ancient floodplain sediments. These remains—skulls, vertebrae, and the distinctive spines of its sail—offer us a window into deep time, to an age before dinosaurs, when the world was still finding its balance between reptile and mammal, swamp and desert, day and night.

Beneath the humid canopy of the Permian, Dimetrodon was master of its realm—a creature of sunlight and shadow, its sail gleaming like a living flame against the green gloom of the world’s first great forests.