Feed: Dinosaurs Site - AggScore: 43.8

Jurassic pain: Giant ‘flea-like’ insects plagued dinosaurs 165 million years ago

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It takes a gutsy insect to sneak up on a huge dinosaur while it sleeps, crawl onto its soft underbelly and give it a bite that might have felt like a needle going in -- but giant "flea-like" animals, possibly the oldest of their type ever discovered, probably did just that.

ScienceDaily: Dinosaur News http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501162730.htm

Were dinosaurs undergoing long-term decline before mass extinction?

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Despite years of intensive research about the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs about 65.5 million years ago, a fundamental question remains: Were dinosaurs already undergoing a long-term decline before an asteroid hit at the end of the Cretaceous? A new study suggests that in general, large-bodied, "bulk-feeding" herbivores were declining during the last 12 million years of the Cretaceous. But carnivorous dinosaurs and mid-sized herbivores were not.

ScienceDaily: Dinosaur News http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501162730.htm

Egg-laying beginning of the end for dinosaurs

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Their reproductive strategy spelled the beginning of the end: The fact that dinosaurs laid eggs put them at a considerable disadvantage compared to viviparous mammals. Researchers believe they now know why and how this ultimately led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

ScienceDaily: Dinosaur News http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501162730.htm

Duck-billed dinosaurs endured long, dark polar winters

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Duck-billed dinosaurs that lived within Arctic latitudes approximately 70 million years ago likely endured long, dark polar winters instead of migrating to more southern latitudes.

ScienceDaily: Dinosaur News http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501162730.htm

Could ‘advanced’ dinosaurs rule other planets?

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New scientific research raises the possibility that advanced versions of T. rex and other dinosaurs -- monstrous creatures with the intelligence and cunning of humans -- may be the life forms that evolved on other planets in the universe. "We would be better off not meeting them," concludes the study, which appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

ScienceDaily: Dinosaur News http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501162730.htm

Eggs of enigmatic dinosaur in Patagonia discovered

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An Argentine-Swedish research team has reported a 70-million-year-old pocket of fossilized bones and unique eggs of an enigmatic birdlike dinosaur in Patagonia.

ScienceDaily: Dinosaur News http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501162730.htm

Newly discovered close relative of T. rex is largest known feathered dinosaur

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Palaeontologists have known for more than a decade that some small dinosaurs had bird-like feathers, mainly thanks to beautifully preserved fossils from northeastern China. Now three specimens of a new tyrannosauroid from the same region show that at least one much larger dinosaur had a feathery coat as well.

ScienceDaily: Dinosaur News http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501162730.htm

When dinosaurs roamed a fiery landscape

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New research reveals dinosaurs may have faced an unexpected hazard: fire. Scientists have shown that during the Cretaceous fire was much more widespread than previously thought.

ScienceDaily: Dinosaur News http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501162730.htm

T. rex’s killer smile revealed

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One of the most prominent features of life-size models of Tyrannosaurus rex is its fearsome array of flesh-ripping, bone-crushing teeth. New research shows that the T. rex’s front teeth gripped and pulled, while the teeth along the side of the jaw punctured and tore flesh.

ScienceDaily: Dinosaur News http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501162730.htm

Some mammals used highly complex teeth to compete with dinosaurs

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New research shows that at least one group of small mammals, the multituberculates, actually flourished in the last 20 million years of dinosaurs’ reign and survived their extinction.

ScienceDaily: Dinosaur News http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501162730.htm