Hi Dino Gang,
I hope you had an amazing holiday season!
December was one of those rare months where everything slowed down just enough to breathe. We got to spend real, unrushed time with family, relaxed, caught up, and just enjoyed being together.
I’ve always loved Christmas, but it hits differently when you get to experience it through your kids. Watching them tear into presents takes me right back to being a kid myself. Honestly, it’s way better than opening presents on your own. Seeing that pure joy (and at times chaos) unfold is half the magic of the holidays!
I also lucked out on the practical side of things this year. I finally got some new cutting boards, which were very much needed now that I’ve been cooking more, and my wife got a Dutch oven. We wasted no time breaking them in and tried making sourdough bread for the first time. Somehow we actually managed to make some delicious bread!
Overall, it was exactly the reset I needed: good food, family time, and a chance to slow down, recharge, and start mapping out what I want 2026 to look like.
And then, as the year was winding down, two incredible things happened.
The first was that I gave a presentation at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences! I went in depth on the research the museum conducts in Utah that I personally contributed to. These dinosaurs are so unique because they actually reveal a climate crisis most people have never even heard about (unless you’ve read my book)!
While it was awesome to raise some awareness about this research, it was even better to meet some of you in person at the event! I’ve been doing Daily Dino Guy for so long behind my computer that it was so refreshing to get to meet some of you, shake your hands, talk about dinosaurs, and sign some books. Thank you all for showing up and don’t worry; if you couldn’t make it to this presentation, there will be more in the future. So keep an eye out!
The second was that Surviving Climate and Chaos was featured in The Conversation, a major, climate-focused news organization, and they selected it as one of the top books to read heading into 2026!
That one really meant a lot!
The Conversation is known for thoughtful, evidence-based science writing, and seeing them engage so deeply with the book and place it alongside other major climate titles was such a blessing. If you’d like to read their review and see why they chose it, you can check out the article here:
In this month’s Dino Digest, you’ll find:
• What color sauropods may have actually been
• Two newly discovered dinosaurs, including one with the strangest hands ever found
• What the largest dinosaur track site in the world reveals about dinosaur behavior and ecology
• And how one of the smallest dinosaurs grew
So scroll on, because if you thought you knew how dinosaurs lived, adapted, and evolved… think again. 👇
This new dinosaur died in the most embarrassing way! Chromeornis is a new early bird that lived in China roughly 120 million years ago. Chromeornis was a strange looking early bird; it still had fingers with claws and featured a long beak with a handful of teeth at its teeth to give it a buck-toothed appearance. The unfortunate story of this bird has to do with a massive amount of rocks found in its gut. Initially it was thought that these were gizzard stones, which help birds break down plant material. However, after measuring the volume, density, and shape of this pile of rocks, paleontologists determined these were not gizzard stones. Instead, this bird swallowed a bunch of these tiny pebbles by accident and choked to death
A new dinosaur was discovered that had the weirdest hands to ever exist! Manipulonyx is a new feathered dinosaur that lived in Mongolia roughly 70 million years ago. This dinosaur was specifically an Alvarezsaur, which were small toothless dinosaurs that had a single enlarged claw on each hand. However, Manipulonyx has the most complete hand preserved out of any Alvarezsaur and it reveals many new things about this strange hand. Rather than only having one finger, this dinosaur still had two other fingers, yet these were reduced and were opposable like thumbs. Additionally, it had two bony spikes coming out of the palm of its hand like the spurs of roosters. This unique hand suggests Alvarezsaurs had more dextrous hands and may have been adapted for breaking into eggs.
Long-necked dinosaurs were more colorful than you thought! While we know the colors of some dinosaurs thanks to fossilized feathers and skin, we don't know what color Sauropods were. That is until scientists found fossilized skin of a Sauropod related to Diplodocus and analyzed its melanosomes to determine its color. What they found was that these melanosomes came in several different shapes, each shape corresponding to a specific color. While the exact color wasn’t identified, it revealed that this long-necked dinosaur had a unique contrasting color pattern. This shatters our preconceptions on Sauropod color; showing that these massive dinosaurs were not drab like most reptiles, but were in fact quite vibrant.
The biggest tracksite in the world was just found and it reveals a unique ecosystem! At the Torotoro National Park in Bolivia, an area of over 7,000 square meters was found with over 1,000 new trackways and 200 isolated footprints. These footprints are not only from walking, but many are from dinosaurs swimming, revealing that this area used to be an ancient coastline. This abundance of footprints were created by mostly Theropods and birds, with a few Sauropods and Ornithopods. These tracks were so complete and diverse that paleontologists were able to describe several new tracks and even calculate the speed of the many trackmakers in the region. Overall, these tracks show that Bolivia was an exceedingly diverse region and more tropical than today.
Paleontologists figured out the birthday of this dinosaur! Berthasaura is a small toothless relative of more fearsome predators like Carnotaurus, whose growth history is still mysterious. To learn more, scientists cut open the leg of a Berthasaura skeleton and counted the growth rings inside of it to figure out how old it is. By counting up the growth rings, they estimated it to be roughly three to four years old. Yet, despite its small size and young age, it was actually a sub-adult and was slowing its growth. What’s even more interesting is that each bone that made up the leg grew at different speeds, meaning some bones grew faster than others.
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Q: If Nanotyrannus is a real dinosaur, are there potentially other new species misclassified as baby dinosaurs?
A: Yes! There is definitely potential for some unique species to have been misclassified as baby dinosaurs. As we’ve seen with Torosaurus and now Nanotyrannus, just because something looks similar, doesn’t mean it’s the same species. The only way to definitively know if something is a juvenile or adult is to cut open the leg bones of skeletons and measure their growth rings. If a bone has rings closely packed together, then it’s an adult. If skeletons look different, yet are both adults, then it means they have to be different species. Paleontologists are likely going to review many other juvenile dinosaurs to see if they are actually just miniature species.
Q: In Jurassic Park, what are the flappy things called on the Dilophosaurus that they flare when they’re about to attack?
A: Those are neck frills, but the real Dilophosaurus actually didn’t have those! Those neck frills are based on the Frilled-neck Lizard from Australia. While made of skin and muscles, those muscles that flare out the frills connect to specific places on the jaws and have unique attachment sites on the jaw bones. If Dilophosaurus also had a neck frill, we would see the same attachment sites on its jaws, yet we don’t. Therefore, those neck frills were just some creative liberties taken for the movie.
Q: Did any Theropods have armor?
A: Theropods didn’t have any armor like Stegosaurus or Ankylosaurus. But that didn’t mean they had no armor. The most armored Theropods would probably be the Abelisaurs, which is the group that includes Carnotaurus and Majungasaurus. Nearly all of these dinosaurs had rough bony heads that commonly featured horns. We don’t know the exact function of these horns and rough heads or even if they were capable of being used in combat, but they would have offered more protection than bare skin. Also Tyrannosaurs had prominent cheek and eyebrow horns. Until recently not much attention has been given to them, but bitemarks across several Tyrannosaur skulls suggest that these predators engaged in face biting competitions. With that being the case, these face horns would have come in handy in protecting their face during combat.
Official Trailer of Surviving Climate and Chaos
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THANKS FOR BEING A PART OF THE DINO GANG,
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