Dinosaur 200th Anniversary Collection

The presence of an advance bird-like pulmonary system in sauropods has long remained a controversy. Here, the authors report a new sauropod species, Tataouinea hannibalis, which shows pervasive skeletal pneumatization, supporting an advanced bird-like pulmonary system.

Troodontid dinosaurs share a close ancestry with birds and were distributed widely across the northern hemisphere before the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs. Goswami et al. report the discovery in South India of the first Gondwanan troodontid, extending their geographic range by nearly 10,000 km.

Tyrannosaurids were top predators in Asia and North America during the latest Cretaceous and most species had deep skulls. Here, Lü et al. describe mature fossils of Qianzhousaurus sinensis, a new long-snouted tyrannosaurid species from southeastern China that groups with other long snout species from Asia.

A new titanosaurian sauropod, Mansourasaurus, is the most complete terrestrial vertebrate from the post-Cenomanian Cretaceous of the African mainland. Phylogenetic analyses reveal the existence of a titanosaurian clade inhabiting both Africa and Europe at this time and a faunal connection between the two continents.

A new sauropodomorph dinosaur taxon, Ingentia prima, and new lessemsaurid fossils from the Late Triassic of Argentina, reveal a distinctive and early pathway towards gigantism, 30 million years before the first eusauropods appeared.

A number of paravian dinosaurs have been described from the Jurassic Yanliao biota, but these have tended to be morphologically similar to Archaeopteryx. Here, Hu. describe the new paravian dinosaur, Caihong juji gen. et sp. nov., which possesses a suite of unusual skeletal and feather characteristics.

Diplodocoid dinosaurs are generally thought to have been excluded from East Asia due to the fragmentation of Pangaea. Here, Xu et al. describe the new diplodocoid Lingwulong shenqi from the Jurassic of East Asia, suggesting an earlier diversification and dispersal of diplodocoids and other sauropods.

Suskityrannus hazelae gen. et sp. nov. is a small-bodied tyrannosauroid that bridges the gap between earlier, smaller tyrannosauroids and the gigantic, last-surviving tyrannosaurids of the terminal Cretaceous.

A well-preserved Late Triassic theropod skeleton from what is now Switzerland informs the evolution of coelophysids and dilophosaurids.

Lindsay Zanno et al. report the discovery of a new tyrannosaur that helps to fill in a 70 million year gap in the fossil record. This new species reveals that the earliest North American tyrannosaurs relied on speed and small body size to survive and that apex predator status and large body sizes were not reached until much later in their evolutionary history.

Congyu Yu et al. present the partial skull of a new basal neoceratopsian dinosaur from Mongolia. They show that this group is a sister taxon to all other neoceratopsian dinosaurs, and that it occurs earlier in the Cretaceous than previously shown.

Hechenleitner et al. describe two new titanosaurians and the finding of numerous accumulations of titanosaurian eggs in La Rioja, Argentina. This study suggests nesting site philopatry among Titanosauria and that this clade was spread throughout southern South America at the end of the Late Cretaceous.

The authors report a fossilized vertebrate rib with spiked dermal armour fused to its dorsal surface from the mid-Jurassic of Morocco, which they interpret as the earliest known ankylosaur.

The authors report a new genus and species of titanosaurian sauropod, Abditosaurus kuehnei, from the Late Cretaceous (ca. 70.5 Ma) of Spain. A. kuehnei groups phylogenetically with South American and African taxa, suggesting geographical connectivity between Africa and Europe at this time.

Molecular analyses of modern and fossil skeletal samples reveal that elevated metabolic rates consistent with endothermy evolved independently in mammals and plesiosaurs, and ornithodirans: Exceptional metabolic rates are ancestral to dinosaurs and pterosaurs and were acquired before energetically costly adaptations, such as flight.

A new Triassic dinosaur assemblage from Zimbabwe reveals that the earliest dinosaurs were confined to a temperate region in the far south of Pangaea.

A dramatic fossil may shed light on how modern archosaurs became devoted parents.

Dinosaur nesting sites have been found in many different places, but the factors that influenced the choice of location are unclear. Here, a sauropod nesting site is described in a geothermal setting in the Sanagasta Valley, suggesting that the dinosaurs used the warm environment to favour the incubation process.

A few dinosaurs have been inferred to have shifted from quadrupedality to bipedality, or vice versa, during growth. Here Zhao et al. use a combination of limb measurements and analysis of limb bone cross-sections to infer a shift towards bipedality in the primitive ceratopsian Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis.

Microraptorines are a group of dromaeosaurids known for having some degree of aerodynamic capacity. Here, the authors describe a new four-winged Early Cretaceous microraptorine from China, with a remarkably long-feathered tail, and show how the tail might have helped with landing.

The fossil dinosaur embryo ‘Baby Louie’ and associated clutch of eggs were first discovered in the early 1990s, but were not formally described. Here, the authors identify the specimen as an embryo and eggs of the new large caenagnathid oviraptorosaur,Beibeilong sinensis, from the Late Cretaceous of China.

The fossil record of the reproductive traits of early birds is limited. Here, Bailleul and colleagues describe the Cretaceous enantiornithine bird Avimaia schweitzerae, which preserves an unlaid egg in the abdominal cavity and putative medullary bone.

Biomechanical and shape analyses explore the function of forelimb claws, revealing adaptations for digging and display in maniraptoran theropods.

Discovery that the giant theropod dinosaur Spinosaurus has a large flexible tail indicates that it was primarily aquatic and swam in a similar manner to extant tail-propelled aquatic vertebrates.

Presenting Natovenator polydontus, a non-avian dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia displaying morphology indicative of swimming behaviour.

The shape of bird toe pads and foot scales can be used to infer their behaviour. Here, the authors examine fossil evidence of toe pads and scales, in addition to claws and bones, from birds and close relatives, illustrating diverse lifestyles and ecological roles among early theropod flyers.

The earliest larynx discovered in fossil dinosaurs indicates that non-avian dinosaurs may have had bird-like vocalization.

Birds exhibit extensive close ecological interactions with flowering plants, but the evolutionary origins of those relationships remain unclear. Plant phytolith analysis of stomach contents of the Early Cretaceous long-tailed bird Jeholornis reveals the earliest example of leaf eating by birds.

Dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago due to volcanism and a bolide impact, but whether their numbers were already declining is still not clear. This study calculates the morphological disparity of seven dinosaur subgroups, showing that at least some groups were in a long-term decline before the extinction.

Phylogenetic analysis of behavioural data across all living mammalian orders suggests the earliest mammals were nocturnal, and other modes such as cathemerality and strict diurnality did not arise until the end of the Cretaceous and early Cenozoic.

Here, a biogeographical model reconstructs ancestral locations of dinosaurs, revealing the spatial mechanisms underpinning their lengthy radiation process over 170 million years: initially rapid, movement slowed towards the time of their extinction.

Dinosaurs originated ~245 million years ago (mya) but did not diversify until some time in the Late Triassic. Here, Bernardi and colleagues synthesize palaeontological and dated stratigraphic evidence to show that dinosaur diversification followed the Carnian Pluvial Episode 234–232 mya.

Micro- and nannofossil, trace fossil and geochemical evidence from the Chicxulub impact crater demonstrates that proximity to the asteroid impact site did not determine rates of recovery of marine ecosystems after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.

The fossil record shows a decline in dinosaur diversity preceding their mass extinction. Here, the authors apply ecological niche modelling to show that suitable dinosaur habitat was declining in areas with present-day rock-outcrop, but not across North America as a whole, possibly generating sampling bias in the fossil record.

Dinosaurs are thought to have been driven extinct by an asteroid impact 66 million years ago. Here, Condamine et al. show that six major dinosaur families were already in decline in the preceding 10 million years, possibly due to global cooling and competition among herbivores.

The Chicxulub impact 66 million years ago caused catastrophic environmental changes, leading to the extinction of three-quarters of plant and animal species, including the dinosaurs. This Review explores how the Chicxulub impact structure provides insight into cratering processes and events leading to the Cretaceous–Palaeogene extinction.

Examination of fish that died on the day the Mesozoic ended reveal that the impact that caused the Cretaceous–Palaeogene mass extinction occurred during boreal spring.

Fine silicate dust generated by the Chicxulub impact had a dominant role in the global cooling and disruption of photosynthesis that followed, according to palaeoclimate simulations constrained by grain-size analysis of Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary sediments.

The impact flux from kilometre-sized bodies has increased by at least a factor of two over the long-term average during the last ∼100 Myr. This surge probably was triggered by the catastrophic disruption of the parent body of the asteroid Baptistina, which broke up in the inner main asteroid belt. Fragments evolved to orbits where they could strike the terrestrial planets.

Here the presence of melanosomes — characteristic bodies that give feathers their colour — is demonstrated in feathers and feather-like structures of fossil early birds and dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Group of China. Not only is it shown that the feather–like structures of dinosaurs such as Sinosauropteryx really are akin to feathers, it is also possible to speculate in an informed way about their colour.

Analysis of a wide range of dinosaurs and dinosauromorphs recovers a sister-taxon relationship between Ornithischia and Theropoda, calling for the redefinition of all the major clades within Dinosauria and the revival of the clade Ornithoscelida.

The archosaur species Teleocrater rhadinus, part of the new clade Aphanosauria, is an example of the earliest divergence of the avian stem lineage (Avemetatarsalia), the lineage that contains dinosaurs (including birds).