Winter Wonderland

This is the heart of the winter season - the time of year that the Northern Hemisphere of planet earth is in the grip of the coldest weather of the year. It is characterized by the shortest daylight and longest night of December 21 - the winter solstice, marking when the north pole is at its furthest tilt away from the sun. The earth had a similar tilt during the reign of the dinosaurs, and polar regions during the Cretaceous Period were subjected to alternating seasons of long days and short days resulting from the tilt combined with the journey around the sun, just as we experience today. However, the entire global climate of the Cretaceous was warmer than today, and the polar chill was less extreme. Dinosaurs inhabiting polar regions experienced a cool-down during winter months, but not nearly as cold as now.

Dinosaurs living above the Arctic Circle, or below the Antarctic Circle in the southern hemisphere, encountered an environment similar to the wet, lush yet cool rain forests of the "Pacific Northwest" region of modern North America. During the winter months, the main issue for polar dinosaurs was lack of sunlight: they would have been plunged into weeks of darkness when the sun dropped below the horizon. The sun wouldn't rise again until spring, similar to current-day northern Alaska and Siberia.

Dinosaurs did populate what is now the north slope of Alaska, and northern Alaska was in nearly the same latitude then as now: fossils found from above the Arctic Circle represent dinosaurs that actually lived above the Arctic Circle millions of years ago.

Pictured above is a midday scene from the north slope of Alaska, as it would have looked in December, 70 million years ago. Midday in December would be the heart of a dark winter's night. However, the Troodon seen here are well adapted for the long night, protected from chilled air by dense feathered plumage, and possessing especially large eyes that accommodated hunting at night. The teeth of Troodon were uniquely adapted for a mixed diet of meat and foliage - perfect for a lifestyle that required flexibility in a widely changing, seasonal environment.

Mesozoic Halloween Skies

What could be considered a "Halloween" scene from millions of years ago might be the nocturnal sight of giant, bat-like spectres gliding past the moon; shadows cast from the largest flying animals of all time. Quetzalcoatlus, shown here, is thought to have stayed aloft in the skies of what is now Texas for up to weeks at a time. This means they were flying at night, apparitions "haunting" warm Cretaceous evenings with enormous 38 foot wide skin membrane wings...

Cretaceous Blood Moon

The "Blood Moon" of September 2015 was spectacular. And has happened before...

                        

Your next big download is near.

Fall 2015

Dinosaurs of a Feather

This past week the world was rocked by the news of yet another feathered dinosaur being discovered in - wait for it - China. Called Zhenyuanlong (translation, "Zhenyuan's dragon", after the man who obtained the specimen for study), it is just the latest in a sensational series of Chinese dinosaur specimens sporting feathers.

China is currently the mother lode of feathered dinosaur fossils. This region is ground zero of a modern day feathered dinosaur gold rush, still churning out one spectacular feathered find after another.

Virtually "down the road" from where the newly described dinosaur was discovered, the Dino Cam, calibrated to 73 million years ago in Mongolia, has snapped a shot of a pack of sprinting velociraptors - feathered cousins to Zhenyuanlong. 

From the early Cretaceous of 120 million years ago, Zhenyuanlong may have been an ancestor to Velociraptor, which inhabited late Cretaceous Asia, between 75 to 71 million years ago. Despite the 50 million year separation between the two dinosaurs, they are clearly anatomically related and share many physiological features - including a substantial cloak of feathers. The arm feathers, in particular, are especially well preserved in Zhenyuanlong, with precise outlines seen in exquisite detail. In fact, Zhenyuanlong does a service to Velociraptor, providing a vivid snapshot of how dinosaurs very similar to Velociraptor looked in life. 

As the first important dinosaur that suggested the presence of feathers, Velociraptor has become the most famous feathered dinosaur - in fact, the genus that really jumpstarted the feather "fever", that revolutionized the public perception, as well as the scientific consideration, of dinosaur appearance and evolutionary relationships. 

As a result of the preponderance of bird-like dinosaur specimens discovered in recent years, the dino-bird connection is being reinforced with increasing conviction. And we benefit from this connection, since the one key aspect of dinosaurs that eludes science - how they looked in life, how they were colored, etc. - is now within reach. Although fossils don't provide this information directly, the knowledge that many species were feathered (aka bird-like) enables us to have bona-fide, living references to the WAY dinosaurs looked - in the form of birds. We may not be able to determine the specific colors or patterns that specific feathered dinosaur species had, but we can get a sense of the likely range and types of colors and patterns that dinosaurs possessed, as seen in the direct descendants of dinosaurs, modern birds. As dinosaurs become closer to birds, birds have become evidence: birds give us insight to the possible colors and patterns of dinosaurs.

And it works both ways: as the dino-bird connection increases scientifically, birds are increasingly "becoming" dinosaurs. Birds will never be the same. So, the next time you see a robin, a goldfinch, a raven, a hawk, a parrot, or a cassowary and ostrich at a zoo, consider that you're looking at not just a living descendant of a dinosaur, but at the colors and patterns that dinosaurs must have possessed millions of years ago.

And, for the record, as exciting as the film is, the dinosaurs of Jurassic World would have been even scarier if the producers expanded on reality, and didn't shy away from exploring the phenomenal range and riot of color that FEATHERED dinosaurs must have been - imagine THAT in 3D!

Coelophysis, Fireworks and Barbecues

Summer is a time of fireworks - then again, a time of fireworks. Technically it's been summer for over a week now. But in the States, summer is formally kicked-off on the fourth of July, ushered in by the dramatic fireworks of Independence Day, and the irresistable aroma of barbecues fired up for celebratory feasts around the country. It's also the threshold of the season of forest fires, as temperatures soar throughout the northern hemisphere during the upcoming weeks.

Forest fires were also commonplace in the overheated, often arid environment of the Triassic Period. Here we see a pack of Coelophysis trying to AVOID a barbecue as they flee a fire 200 million years ago, in what is now the state of New Mexico.