Name Means: “Bird mimic” Length: 5 feet (1.5 m) Pronounced: AYV-ee-MIME-us Weight: 45 pounds (20 kilos) When it lived: Late Cretaceous – 95 MYA Where found: Mongolia, China Avimimus was discovered by Russian paleontologist Sergei Mikhailovich Kurzanov during the exploration of the Joint Soviet-Mongolian paleontological expedition in the summer of 1973, at the Udan-Sayr […]
Archive for April, 2015
‘platypus’ dinosaur: Vegetarian relative of T. rex
April 28th, 2015 
Riffin Although closely related to the notorious carnivore Tyrannosaurus rex, a new lineage of dinosaur discovered in Chile is proving to be an evolutionary jigsaw puzzle, as it preferred to graze upon plants. Palaeontologists are referring to Chilesaurus diegosuarezi as a ‘platypus’ dinosaur because of its bizarre combination of characters that resemble different dinosaur groups. For […]
mammoths back to life !
April 25th, 2015 Riffin An international team of researchers has sequenced the nearly complete genome of two Siberian woolly mammoths — revealing the most complete picture to date — including new information about the species’ evolutionary history and the conditions that led to its mass extinction at the end of the Ice Age. “This discovery means that recreating extinct […]
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Tags: mammoths back to life!, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, WFS, world fossil society 
No Comments »Sexual Dimorphism in the Plated Dinosaur Stegosaurus
April 23rd, 2015 Riffin Abstract Conclusive evidence for sexual dimorphism in non-avian dinosaurs has been elusive. Here it is shown that dimorphism in the shape of the dermal plates of Stegosaurus mjosi (Upper Jurassic, western USA) does not result from non-sex-related individual, interspecific, or ontogenetic variation and is most likely a sexually dimorphic feature. One morph possessed wide, oval […]
Oldest fossils controversy resolved
April 22nd, 2015 Riffin New analysis of world-famous 3.46 billion-year-old rocks by researchers from the University of Bristol, the University of Oxford and UWA (the University of Western Australia) is set to finally resolve a long running evolutionary controversy. The new research, published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that structures once thought to […]
WFS : Ariyalur Fossils : Rastellum Carinatum
April 16th, 2015 Riffin Rastellum (Arctostrea) carinatum (Lamarck) This upper Cretaceous oyster is characterized by long and curved valves. Stout ribs cross the upper valve. The sample is obtained from Ariyalur/Dalmiapuram area. samples collected by Riffin T Sajeev and Russel T Sajeev from World Fossil society. The Rastellum genus of oysters lived between 161 to 65 million years ago […]
A new birth story for mosasaurs discovered.
April 15th, 2015 Riffin They weren’t in the delivery room, but researchers at Yale University and the University of Toronto have discovered a new birth story for a gigantic marine lizard that once roamed the oceans. Thanks to recently identified specimens at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, paleontologists now believe that mighty mosasaurs — which could grow […]
Llallawavis scagliai: fossil gives clue of ancient bird sound
April 11th, 2015 Riffin A new species of South American fossil terror bird called Llallawavis scagliai (“Scaglia’s Magnificent Bird”) is shedding light on the diversity of the group and how these giant extinct predators interacted with their environment. The new species, described in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, is the most complete terror bird ever […]
WFS: Ariyalur Fossils : INOCERAMUS
April 10th, 2015 Riffin Some species of clams (bivalves) grew to giant size in the late Cretaceous, attaining diameters of four feet or more. In cross section, these shells are composed of prismatic (calcitic) crystals. The inner, nacreous (Mother of Pearl) layer of the shell (composed of aragonite) was usually dissolved during fossilization and the outer portion is usually […]
Ancient seashell coloration patterns revealed using ultraviolet light
April 8th, 2015 Riffin Nearly 30 ancient seashell species coloration patterns were revealed using ultraviolet (UV) light, according to a study published April 1, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jonathan Hendricks from San Jose State University, CA. Unlike their modern relatives, the 4.8-6.6 million-year-old fossil cone shells often appear white and without a pattern when viewed […]
