Category: Curiosities

Smilodon Smilodon is a genus of machairodont felid. It is one of the most famous prehistoric mammals, and the best known saber-toothed cat. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely related to the tiger or other modern cats. Smilodon lived in the Americas during the Pleistocene epoch (2.5 mya–10,000 years ago). The genus was named in 1842, based […]

Paraceratherium Paraceratherium is a genus of hornless rhinoceros, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals that has ever existed. It lived from the early to late  Oligocene epoch (34–23 million years ago); its remains have been found across Eurasia between China and the Balkans. It is classified as a member of the hyracodont subfamily Indricotheriinae. Paraceratherium means “near the hornless beast”, in reference to Aceratherium, the genus in which […]

About 100 million years ago, during the middle Cretaceous period, the continent of South America was home to both Argentinosaurus, at up to 100 tons and over 100 feet from head to tail, probably the biggest dinosaur that ever lived, and the T.-Rex sized Giganotosaurus; in fact, these dinosaurs’ fossilized remains have been discovered in close proximity to each […]

Kaprosuchus  Kaprosuchus is a  genus of mahajangasuchid crocodyliform. It is known from a single nearly complete skull collected from the Upper Cretaceous Echkar Formation of Niger. The name means “boar crocodile” from the Greek κάπρος, kapros (“boar”) and σοῦχος, souchos (“crocodile”) in reference to its unusually large caniniform teeth which resemble those of a boar. It has been nicknamed “BoarCroc” by Paul Sereno and Hans Larsson, who first described the genus in a monograph published […]

When we talk of dinosaurs, the most common image that comes to our mind is that of the deadly T. Rex. However, it wasn’t the only deadly one out there. Carnotaurus from the same period of the T. Rex was yet another ferocious meat-lover. The two were separated by long distances and hence, they couldn’t really […]

Pangea Pangea or Pangaea or was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from earlier continental units approximately 335 million years ago, and it began to break apart about 175 million years ago. In contrast to the present Earth  and its distribution of continental mass, Pangea was centred on the Equator and surrounded by the superocean Panthalassa. Pangea is the most recent […]

What is the smallest dinosaur? At the word “dinosaur” we most often imagine a huge formidable predator with a full mouth of razor-sharp teeth. Be that as it may, according to an article published on livescience.com, we can be very mistaken about the appearance of some representatives of the ancient fauna. So, one of such examples […]

More often than you might think, the dinosaurs the public happens to latch onto as their favorites on the big screen —Apatosaurus, Velociraptor, Tyrannosaurus Rex, etc.—are less important to paleontologists than they are to journalists, fiction writers, and movie producers. Here’s a slideshow of 10 dinosaurs that don’t get much fanfare but that have made substantial contributions […]