Duck-Billed Dinosaurs Endured extensive, dim Polar Winters

Duck-billed dinosaurs that lived within Arctic latitudes about 70 million years ago probable endured extensive, dark polar winters instead of migrating to more southern latitudes, a new study by researchers from the University of Cape Town, Museum of natural world and Science in Dallas and Temple University has found.

The Museum of Nature and Science, a paleontologist Anthony Fiorillo excavated Cretaceous Period fossils along Alaska's North Slope. Most of the skeleton belonged to Edmontosaurus, a duck-billed herbivore, but some others such as the horned dinosaur Pachyrhinosaurus were also found.

Fiorillo hypothesized that the microscopic structures of the dinosaurs' skeleton could prove how they lived in Polar Regions. He enlisted the aid of Allison Tumarkin-Deratzian, an assistant professor of earth and environmental science, who had both skill and the services to make and check thin layers of the dinosaurs' bone microstructure.

"The bone microstructure of these dinosaurs is really a record of how these animals were rising throughout their lives," said Tumarkin-Deratzian. "It is about alike to looking at tree rings."

Enigmatic Dinosaurs egg discovered in Patagonia

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

"What makes the discovery unique are the two eggs sealed near articulated bones of its hind limb? This is the first time the eggs are originated in a seal proximity to skeletal remains of an alvarezsaurid dinosaur," says Dr. Martin Kundrat dinosaur specialist from the group of Professor per Erik Ahlberg at Uppsala University.

The dinosaur represents the newest survivor of its kind from Gondwana, the southern island in the Mesozoic Era.

The creature belongs to one of the strangest groups of dinosaurs, the Alvarezsauridae, and it is one of the major members, 2.6 m, of the family.

The two eggs establish mutually with the bones during the journey might have been inside the oviducts of the Bonapartenykus feminine when the creature perished.

"During examination of the shell samples using the electron scanning microscopy observed strange fossilized substance inside of the pneumatic canal of the eggshells. It twisted out to be the first proof of fungal contamination of dinosaur eggs.

Shaggy T. Rex Cousin Was Heftiest Feathered Dinosaur

The recently unearthed tyrannosaur, named Yutyrannus huali or "stunning feathered tyrant," lived about 125 million years ago in northeastern China. The over 29-foot-long non-avian dinosaur, represented by three specimens, is significantly smaller than its notorious relative T. rex.

"The largest specimen conserve feathers on the tail, and two lesser specimens protect feathers over the neck, on the forelimbs, near the pelvis, and even feet," lead author Xing Xu, a lecturer at Beijing's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, said.

Xu and his colleagues analyzed the remains of the three dinosaurs and exposed that patches of filamentous structures were near the frame on the slabs containing the specimens.

The researchers consider that when the dinosaurs were alive, these easy structures would have been additional like the hairy down of a contemporary infant chick than the stiff plumes of a mature bird.

"The dimension, structure and extent of the feathers suggests that they would have shaped a shaggy body covering that would have had at least some insulating purpose,"