Hi Dino Gang,
Happy December! The holiday season is here, and I couldn’t be more excited to celebrate with all of you. Whether you’re decking the halls, wrapping gifts, or just soaking up the festive vibes, it’s the perfect time to share the joy of dinosaurs with your loved ones.
This month, I’m thrilled to bring you my Ultimate Dinosaur Gift Guide—packed with dino-inspired finds that will make any enthusiast roar with excitement.
Plus, as a limited-time holiday offer, you can experience everything Daily Dino Direct has to offer for just $3! That’s right—early video access, exclusive content, live Q&As, and more, all for less than a cup of coffee. It’s the perfect chance to see what being part of the daily dino guy club is all about 🦖
HOLIDAY OFFER: 30 DAYS OF DINO DIRECT FOR JUST $3
I hope you feel the holiday spirit as we dive into new discoveries, gift ideas, and all things dinos. Let’s make this a December to remember! 🦖🎄
Okay now let's dive into this month's digest ⤵️
A new dinosaur was discovered and it was built to fight! Huaxiazhoulong is a new armored dinosaur that lived in China during the Late Cretaceous. It was about 18 feet (5.5 meters) in length and sported a massive club tail just like Ankylosaurus. What makes this dinosaur interesting is that even though it lived later in time, it resembles some of the earliest ankylosaurs. Unlike later ankylosaurs, like Ankylosaurus, who have condensed back bones, Huaxiazhoulong has relatively long backbones. Additionally, the shin bones and ankle bones of Huaxiazhoulong were relatively flexible whereas later ankylosaurs had shin bines that were fused to their ankle bones to provide more stability.
A new dinosaur was discovered and paleontologists were able to study its brain! Navaornis is a new Opposite Bird (Enantiornithe) that lived in Brazil about 83 million years ago. This tiny bird would have only been about 4 inches (120 mm) long and convergently evolved a skull very similar to modern day birds. What’s really cool about Navaornis is that this skeleton preserved the braincase allowing scientists to scan it and study the brain. The authors found that its brain was in a nearly perfect transitional state between non-bird dinosaur and modern bird brains. Unlike the brain of non-bird dinosaurs, Navaornis had a brain that was more advanced in the regions that control vision and the regions associated with the sinuses. So being“bird-brained” may not be as bad as you think!
The origin of dinosaurs has always been shrouded in mystery. But thanks to an extensive fossil record and fossilized gut content, we can begin to understand their rise to power! Scientists combined research on early dinosaur diets, the evolution of plants, and the climate changes in the Triassic. They found that early dinosaurs filled in important niches that earlier extinct animals used to occupy but still competed with other ancient archosaurs. After a series of intense climate change events, plant life changed dramatically. The plants that other archosaurs ate went extinct while plants that dinosaurs favored became more diverse. In the end, the ecosystems of other archosaurs began to fall apart, while the ecosystems of dinosaurs actually flourished until they became the dominant animals!
Our understanding of how fossils form has totally changed! Many spectacular and rare fossils have been found in China due to its unique environment in the Early Cretaceous. Scientists have thought that these extremely unique skeletons were preserved by rapid volcanic activity, similar to the eruptions of Pompeii. But by analyzing the rocks in which these dinosaurs were found actually show they weren’t buried by violent eruptions. Instead, the authors of this study found that these dinosaurs were buried by flash floods. It even seems to suggest that dinosaurs, like Psittacosaurus, were hiding in burrows during these flash floods!
Grab your popcorn and get ready for a debate on dinosaurs! In the 2010’s, Brian Ford published a book that detailed his hypothesis that dinosaurs were too big to walk and would have been crushed under their own weight. He stated that dinosaurs would have needed large bodies of water in order to keep them buoyant, contrary to the consensus accepted by paleontologists. Dr. Darren Naish offers a rebuttal and defends the consensus that dinosaurs were indeed land animals (excluding a few species, like Spinosaurus, for example). Dr. Naish explains that the limbs of dinosaurs are specially shaped to provide support for large weights and even preserve muscle attachments that correspond to massive powerful muscles. So even though dinosaurs seem to defy what we observe in modern environments, mathematics and physics show that they were able to push biology to the limits!
MONTHLY FAQ's
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Q: What are some really cool facts about Allosaurus?
A: Allosaurus is such an interesting dinosaur! There's probably too much info to fit into a single answer. But some fun facts are that there are three species of Allosaurus, it likely was a cannibal during droughts, and it could open its jaws at around 94 degrees which is the biggest gape of any dinosaur!
Q: I am a student who aspires to become a paleontologist, what courses should I take?
A: On the geology side, I'd recommend Historical Geology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, and Paleontology. On the biology side: I'd recommend Ecology, Climatology, Anatomy, and some type of evolutionary biology.
Q: What does it mean to be extinct?
A: Extinction happens when a type of animal, plant, or other living thing completely dies out and no longer exists anywhere on Earth. It usually happens due to huge changes in the environment of that animal. Dinosaurs, for example, went extinct millions of years ago after a huge asteroid hit the Earth.
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Q: What are some really cool facts about Allosaurus?
A: Allosaurus is such an interesting dinosaur! There's probably too much info to fit into a single answer. But some fun facts are that there are three species of Allosaurus, it likely was a cannibal during droughts, and it could open its jaws at around 94 degrees which is the biggest gape of any dinosaur!
Q: I am a student who aspires to become a paleontologist, what courses should I take?
A: On the geology side, I'd recommend Historical Geology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, and Paleontology. On the biology side: I'd recommend Ecology, Climatology, Anatomy, and some type of evolutionary biology.
Q: What does it mean to be extinct?
A: Extinction happens when a type of animal, plant, or other living thing completely dies out and no longer exists anywhere on Earth. It usually happens due to huge changes in the environment of that animal. Dinosaurs, for example, went extinct millions of years ago after a huge asteroid hit the Earth.
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