Fossil Fanatic Blog

Hell Creek is a mountainous rock formation that could easily be described as a 'palaeontologist's dream backyard'.  The region is one of the most fossil-rich locations in the world!  Scientists have been discovering new dinosaur specimens here since its first formal description by Barnum Brown in 1907. Today, ancient layers of freshwater clay, mudstone and sandstone span parts of Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Index map of the Upper Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation along Ft. Peck Lake in northeastern Montana, USA.   Picture credit: Horner et al. (2011). Although the formation is now dry and barren, it was once a thriving coastal floodplain riddled with swamps, lush forests, river systems and lakes.  Some of the most iconic ancient creatures called this place home during the Maastrichtian epoch, roughly 66-67 million years ago.  Dinosaurs that roamed these plains include the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, and the giant sea tu...

Anyone with even a passing interest in prehistoric animals will surely have, at some point in their life, either purchased or been given a small bag full of miniature curiosities. Coming in a wide array of colours, teeth showing menacingly, limbs tense seemingly ready to spring into action at any moment, this can only be a bag full of the most famous animals ever to walk the Earth. Except, what if it isn’t? What if there are some outliers amongst the diversity of teeth, claws, long necks, and tank-like armour? The truth is that in almost of all these bags, it was highly likely you would come across some prehistoric wonders not quite making it into the dinosaur threshold. This doesn’t make them any less impressive and their worlds any easier to comprehend. Still, surely, we deserve some accuracy when buying something even if they are toys designed to amaze young minds, and, in fairness that is something they certainly do. So, what was and was not a dinosaur? Let us take our own step b...