An international team of paleontologists, led by researchers at the University of Washington and the Field Museum of Natural History, is identifying the animals that thrived in southern Pangea — the planet’s single supercontinent at the time — just before the so-called “Great Dying” wiped out about 70% of terrestrial species, and an even larger fraction of marine ones.

A previously unexploited source of information is now throwing new light on the Earth's climate during the age of dinosaurs. Fossilized dinosaur teeth show that concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere during the Mesozoic Era, i.e., 252 to 66 million years ago, were far higher than they are today.

Researchers used oxygen isotopes in dinosaur teeth to infer CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere during the Mesozoic Era.

A new analysis of the bite strength of 18 species of carnivorous dinosaurs shows that while the Tyrannasaurus rex skull was optimized for quick, strong bites like a crocodile, other giant, predatory dinosaurs that walked on two legs—including spinosaurs and allosaurs—had much weaker bites and instead specialized in slashing and ripping flesh. Reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on August 4, these findings demonstrate that meat-eating dinosaurs followed different evolutionary paths in terms of skull design and feeding style despite their similarly gigantic sizes.  

Paleontologists have identified a new species of ancient marine reptile from Germany's world-renowned Posidonia Shale fossil beds, expanding our understanding of prehistoric ocean ecosystems that existed nearly 183 million years ago.

Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin analyzed the calcium isotopes in the teeth enamel of four different dinosaur species to discover what they ate. They found that some dinosaurs were discerning eaters, with different species preferring different plant parts. This helps explain how these dinosaurs, which all roamed the western U.S. during the Late Jurassic, were all able to coexist in the same ecosystem.