Dinosaurs were warm-blooded, WUSTL anthropologist says
In a study published in the journal PLoS ONE, a team of researchers, including Herman Pontzer, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences, has found strong evidence that many dinosaur species likely were warm-blooded.
Dinosaurs were warm-blooded, new study says
Were dinosaurs “warm-blooded” like present-day mammals and birds, or “cold-blooded” like present day lizards? The implications of this simple-sounding question go beyond deciding whether or not you’d snuggle up to a dinosaur on a cold winter’s evening. In a study published this week in the journal PLoS ONE, a team of researchers, including Herman Pontzer, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has found strong evidence that many dinosaur species were probably warm-blooded.
Species determination model is developed by graduate student
Stephanie Novak devised the “Archosaurian Morphospecies Concept” and presented its details at the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting.
‘Picture positive’
Photograph of *Spinosaurus* dinosaur bones found in a German museum.A geologist at Washington University has confirmed the discovery of a geologist from another era by discovering presumably lost photographs in a German museum. The finding is important to the history of paleontology. More…
WUSTL researchers make discoveries in first collaboration with Libyan scientists
Josh Smith in the Libyan desert.They’re back! Joshua Smith, Ph.D., assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, and D. Tab Rasmussen, Ph.D., professor of anthropology, both in Arts & Sciences, are stateside, teaching at Washington University after returning from what is thought to be the first-ever collaborative paleontological expedition between American and Libyan scientists. Smith and Rasmussen were in Libya for just three weeks in August of 2005. They were in the field for only 10 days, and they and their colleagues visited 13 new places that have produced Cretaceous-aged vertebrate fossils. They found fossils of sharks, bony fish, crocodiles and turtles.
‘Taking a bite out of the problem’
Josh Smith compares tooth measurements of unidentified dinosaur species with those of known *Tyrannosaurus* specimens.A paleontologist at WUSTL has concocted a mathematical scheme for identifying dinosaurs based upon measurements of their copious Mesozoic dental droppings. His method could help paleobiologists identify and reconstruct the lives of the creatures that roamed terra firma many millions of years ago.