2011 | Everything Dinosaur Blog

18 07, 2011

Monsters from Manitoba (Important Fossil Site Excavation Work Continues)

By Mike|2024-04-22T12:22:04+01:00July 18th, 2011|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Main Page|0 Comments

Major Fossil Excavation Site Continues in Manitoba

A very significant fossil excavation is continuing in Manitoba province (Canada), with researchers and field workers from the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre working on strata deposited during the Late Cretaceous.

Fossil Excavation

In 2010, the Centre served notice that a massive Xiphactinus fish and mosasaur skeleton were being unearthed at one of its palaeontological dig sites. The excavation of these skeletons continues with great success and has lead to a number of other significant fossil discoveries in 2011, providing an intriguing insight into marine environments in the Late Mesozoic.

A Drawing of the Fearsome Xiphactinus

The Xiphactinus drawing that was commissioned by Everything Dinosaur as the company prepares for the arrival of the CollectA Xiphactinus 1:40 scale replica. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Museum curator Anita Janzic explained:

“This dig site continues to be extremely productive, with the appearance of even more fossils than anticipated. Our excavation of the Xiphactinus and mosasaur skeletons from 2010 has allowed us to find another mosasaur, a squid and some Ichthyornis (bird) fossils. We are finding layer upon layer of exciting fossil discoveries. It is amazing how one small dig site is producing such an abundance of diverse fossils.”

The scientific information being generated from this dig site could have far reaching global impact for the palaeontological community. The dig site is providing a high quality and isolated look into the detailed passage of time during the Late Cretaceous period.

Assistant curator of the Centre, Joseph Hatcher stated:

“This dig site is showcasing the most exciting five inches of rock that I’ve ever witnessed. This small layer of rocks is suggesting a rapid change in the palaeoecology and environment of prehistoric Manitoba. There is great science emerging from this dig site that has our team very excited!”

The rock units at this dig site are also of increasing interest to the Manitoba Geological Survey, with the appearance of a previously unseen rock layer for southern Manitoba.

A Model of the Fearsome Prehistoric Fish Xiphactinus

The CollectA Deluxe 1:40 scale Xiphactinus prehistoric fish model.

Xiphactinus Fish

The ironic element of this dig site is that the most provoking skeleton, the Xiphactinus fish, might be the last set of fossils to be removed from the site. This excavation continues to unearth other new & exciting fossil discoveries, in the rock layers above the fish skeleton, which must be properly processed first. Xiphactinus grew to lengths of up to 6 metres and has been nicknamed the “Bulldog fish” due to its ugly appearance.

The new discoveries include another mosasaur, two unidentified fossils, squid fossils and bird fossils. The two unidentified fossils are of great interest to the palaeontologists on staff at the Centre and we look forward to hearing more about these discoveries in the future.

To view replicas of marine reptiles including mosasaurs and a model of the fearsome prehistoric fish Xiphactinus, check the CollectA Deluxe models section of our our website: Scale Models of Prehistoric Animals (CollectA Deluxe).

17 07, 2011

Countdown to Sea Monster Exhibition

By Mike|2023-01-20T10:08:50+00:00July 17th, 2011|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Educational Activities, Main Page|0 Comments

Sea Monster Exhibition Opens at the Bournemouth International Centre

The Purbeck Hall at the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC) is playing host to a whole new cast of prehistoric characters as the countdown to the opening of the BBC Sea Monsters Exhibition continues. With just under a week to go; the enthusiastic staff are busy settling in their new charges – amazing creatures such as Anomalocaris the world’s first super-predator, giant sharks and fearsome marine reptiles, one time residents of Dorset.

An Illustration of Anomalocaris

Anomalocaris drawing. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Sea Monster Exhibition

The Sea Monsters Exhibition gives visitors the chance to come face to face with some of the largest predators that hunt the sea today, including the iconic great white shark and giant squid, whilst witnessing some of the strangest creatures and latest scientific discoveries from our most recent explorations of the deep in the fantastic deep sea submarine simulator.

Take a trip through the history of the World’s oceans and learn more about these incredible sea monsters, from the ancestors of all back-boned animals to the one of the largest known pliosaurs – Liopleurodon; who was named and described from just a single, huge tooth found across the channel. Learn all about what is most likely the biggest fish to have ever lived – Leedsichthys, a fish with a mouth so big it could have served as a car park. Explore the technology used to make these amazing creatures ‘swim again’ – bringing back leviathans from the deep.

Arthropods of the Palaeozoic

Scientists used to think that creatures like Anomalocaris lived during the Cambrian Period, but a recent discovery of giant fossils in Morocco suggest that this fearsome, distant relative of spiders survived well into the Ordovician Period.

To read more about this discovery: Anomalocaris Discovery.

In “Sea Monsters : A Walking with Dinosaurs Trilogy”, the BBC used the same production team and technologies behind the highly acclaimed “Walking with Dinosaurs” and “Walking with Beasts” series to bring a number of these marine creatures “back to life”.

A spokes person for Everything Dinosaur commented:

“As far as we know life began in the sea and with three-quarters of our planet covered in water, there is still a lot to learn and discover. However, animals in a marine environment generally have a better chance of becoming fossils than creatures that live far away from water and the fossil record is full of incredible evidence providing scientists with an insight into some of the bizarre and amazing creatures that once lived in the sea. The Sea Monsters exhibition at the BIC is a great place to get acquainted with some of them.”

The BBC Sea Monsters exhibition runs from July 23rd until September 11th at the BIC (Bournemouth), for ticket enquiries and other information regarding Sea Monsters check out the Everything Dinosaur blog.

For models of marine reptiles and other ancient sea creatures: CollectA Deluxe Sea Monsters and Marine Reptiles.

16 07, 2011

Palaeontology Meets CSI – Rotten Dinosaur Egg Reveals Ancient Scavengers (New Research Paper)

By Mike|2024-04-22T10:22:16+01:00July 16th, 2011|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

Titanosaurid Egg Containing Cocoons of Wasps Discovered

In a scenario not out of place in a television detective series, scientists have carefully examined the fossilised remains of insects preserved inside a seventy-million-year-old dinosaur egg, to try to piece together the story of how this egg was broken and what it can tell them about the role of insects in dinosaur dominated food chains. The fossil forensics have been conducted upon the egg of a huge, long-necked Cretaceous plant-eater known as a titanosaur. These creatures were some of the largest land-living animals of all time, but their eggs are surprisingly small given the fact that these animals could grown to upwards of thirty metres in length and weigh perhaps as much as ten elephants.

Titanosaurid Egg

Exceptionally preserved fossils of insect cocoons have allowed researchers in Argentina to describe how wasps played an important role in food webs devoted to consuming rotting dinosaur eggs. The research is published in the scientific journal Palaeontology.

The approximately 70-million-year-old eggs, from gigantic titanosaur sauropod dinosaurs were discovered in 1989 in the Patagonia region of Argentina, well known for yielding fossils of sauropod dinosaur eggs and even embryonic dinosaurs. Only recently it was discovered that one of the broken eggs contained tiny sausage-shaped structures, 2-3 cm long and 1 cm wide. The structures closely resembled fossilised insect cocoons, and were most similar in size and shape to the cocoons of some species of modern wasp.

Some Titanosaurs were Huge!

Huge dinosaurs – titanosaurids. An illustration of a giant titanosaur. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Pictures released show the bottom half of the broken sauropod egg, the cocoons of wasps can be made out and the coin provides scale. Each wasp cocoon is approximately 2 cm long.

There are many records of fossilised dinosaur eggs, and even several records of fossil cocoons, but, as author Dr Jorge Genise of the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales stated:

“This is the first time that these cocoons are found closely associated with an egg.”

A Rare Insight into the Role of Insects

This fossils provides a rare insight into the role played by insects and how they interacted with the Dinosauria.

Dr Genise went onto state the results of their forensic examination indicate that:

“Wasps probably participated in the food web, mostly composed of scavenging insects, which developed on the rotten egg.”

Such creatures make-up of carrion communities – spiders, beetles and other creatures populating rotting organic matter, today modern forensic police scientists use insect and other scavenger evidence to try to date corpses, as any viewer of the CSI franchise would know. The work done by the researchers on the dinosaur egg is more familiar to us from the screens of crime scene investigation documentaries.

The numbers and different types of creatures indicate the length of deposition and the time since death. In this particular CSI, it appears that the dinosaur egg was broken by force, and subsequent fractures in the egg shell allowed scavenging creatures to feed upon the contents. At egg sizes of around 20 cm, this represents a sizeable amount of yolk! Other creatures later appeared to feed not upon the egg contents, but on the initial scavengers themselves. The wasps represent the top of the food web, and could have been feeding on insects or spiders gorging on rotting egg contents.

These scavengers also played an important role in cleaning up nest sites. Palaeontologists believe that some dinosaurs revisited nest sites year after year to lay new clutches of eggs. Carrion communities were essential to removing decaying material in advance of new nesting seasons. This new discovery gives us an insight into the murky world of insect communities that thrived at the feet of gigantic dinosaurs.

For models and replicas of titanosaurids and other dinosaurs: Titanosaurs and Dinosaurs (CollectA Prehistoric Life).

15 07, 2011

Young Archaeologists Club Give Everything Dinosaur the Thumbs Up

By Mike|2023-03-08T13:19:58+00:00July 15th, 2011|Educational Activities, Teaching|0 Comments

Young Archaeologists Give Everything Dinosaur’s Teachers Top Marks

Budding archaeologists at a museum in Cumbria enjoyed a visit from Everything Dinosaur team members to teach about dinosaurs in school. Over the course of the two hour session the school children studied dinosaurs and dinosaur fossils.

Young Archaeologists Club Give Everything Dinosaur the Thumbs Up

Young Archaeologists Give Everything Dinosaur the Thumbs Up

Thumbs up for Everything Dinosaur. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Everything Dinosaur and the Beacon Museum

The company’s dinosaur workshops in school got a big thumbs up from the keen, enthusiastic budding archaeologists.

Everything Dinosaur

For replicas of prehistoric animals, dinosaur toys and games visit Everything Dinosaur’s website: Visit Everything Dinosaur’s Award-winning Website.

15 07, 2011

How did the Chelonia Survive the Cretaceous Mass Extinction?

By Mike|2023-03-08T08:09:22+00:00July 15th, 2011|Animal News Stories, Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

Being Slow, Small and Aquatic may have Saved the Turtles

The Chelonia, that Order of reptiles that includes tortoises, turtles and terrapins may have had the advantage over the Dinosauria when it came to surviving global catastrophes such as the Cretaceous mas extinction. These ancient reptiles, that first evolved sometime in the Triassic with their slow metabolisms, cold-blooded energy needs and the ability to hibernate or at least enter into prolonged periods of suspended animation may be one of nature’s great survivors.

Cretaceous Mass Extinction

These tough creatures managed to survive the Cretaceous mass extinction event that saw the demise of the pterosaurs, dinosaurs and marine reptiles, in fact something like 65% of all life on Earth died out, because turtles and tortoises have slow metabolisms and a lot of them live in water all huge benefits according to new American research.

Palaeontologist Tyler Lyson of Yale University, who has been studying one particular part of the Chelonia family tree that seem to have remained unchanged from 85 million years ago, through to the mass extinction event and beyond into the Cenozoic commented:

“Turtles are very tough animals, if times get tough they can go into a state of animation. Animals that were living in the water were kind of protected against whatever killed the land plants and the dinosaurs.”

Essentially, since their bodily processes were so slow, needing very little energy, they could survive on sparse resources during and after the wipe out of dinosaurs. Being able to burrow and to hide out underground would also have been a major advantage for these small reptiles, something that a six tonne Triceratops, an Ankylosaurus or indeed T. rex could never have done.

The research team’s conclusion is based on a newly discovered turtle fossil from North Dakota, known as Boremys which dates back to between 60 million and 65 million years ago (Palaeocene Epoch). The specimen belongs to a turtle species thought to have survived the global extinction, Lyson said, because fossils of the same species have been found in rocks deposited up to 75 million years ago indicating that these particular reptiles survived relatively unchanged through the end of the Mesozoic and into the Cenozoic.

A Global Extinction Event

The global extinction event that killed the dinosaurs, called the K-T boundary due to its special signature in rock layers, was most likely set off by a meteorite strike, though the true sequence of events is hotly debated. We at Everything Dinosaur wrote an article earlier this week on the discovery of a ceratopsian horn very close to the K-T boundary, which marks the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.

To read more about this discovery: The Last Dinosaur Standing.

Some researchers believe a set of world-shattering volcanic eruptions darkened the sky, which may or may not have been caused by an extraterrestrial impact. The turtles, along with other burrowing and water-living animals, survived the dinosaur-killing whole-Earth extinction event, which extinguished the vast majority of the animal and plant species living on land, including land-living turtles.

Crocodiles too, as they are mainly aquatic and cold-blooded also survived but the Dinosauria, a group of reptiles that had ruled the land for some 150 million years, did not make it through into the Palaeocene (let’s not include Aves for the moment).

Crocodiles can enter into a period of summer-sleep (estivation), Nile crocodiles excavate large borrows or occupy underground caves formed by the erosion of soil from tree roots alongside river banks. Here safely entombed in their cool, sleeping chambers these animals effectively shut down, slowing their metabolic rates and this enables them to survive long, hot, dry seasons or other difficult climatic conditions. An ability to estivate would have come in handy around sixty-five million years ago.

Lyson added:

“If you only looked at turtles across this boundary you wouldn’t think there was an extinction. Small animals that have a slow metabolism and live in the water do very well across the K-T boundary.”

These turtles lived in lakes and streams in North America, where they ate soft plants and crustaceans. They would have resembled the painted or cooter turtles of today, Lyson said, though they aren’t closely related to any living turtle species. They were part of a very large group of species called the Baenid turtles, at least eight of which survived the extinction event only to vanish later by some other means.

After the land-based wipe out, the remaining small mammals populating the Earth spread in what’s called “adaptive radiation,” where a limited number of species fans out and diversifies in empty habitats. The living mammals underwent rapid evolution and spread into the niches vacated by other animals, including the dinosaurs.

Even though turtles had the metabolic upper hand to survive the extinction event, it was the agile, fast-breeding mammals that gained the advantage when it came to exploiting all those vacated niches.

Lyson concluded:

“In the water, before and after the boundary, it was business as usual. A lot of these smaller species are around right after the impact. Not a whole lot changed. Mammals just have more of a rapid turnover, so they are able to more quickly adapt to their environment and their changing surroundings.”

However, even the hardy Baenid turtles cannot be guaranteed survival forever. This particular family of the Order Chelonia finally became extinct around 40 million years ago, towards the end of the Eocene Epoch when North America experienced climate change and became much drier.

Scientists have long speculated on the serendipity of mass extinctions. Some types of animal can survive relatively unchanged, whilst in other cases entire Orders can become extinct. At the end of the Cretaceous, being small, having low energy needs and a fondness for water may have cushioned such creatures against the very worst of the global climate change.

For models and replicas of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures: Safari Ltd. Wild Safari Prehistoric World Models.

14 07, 2011

Young Archaeologists at the Beacon Museum Explore Dinosaurs

By Mike|2023-03-08T08:10:21+00:00July 14th, 2011|Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page|0 Comments

Young Archaeologists Become Palaeontologists for the Day

Members of the Beacon Museum’s Young Archaeologists Club (Whitehaven, Cumbria) got the chance to put their archaeology skills to the test when team members from Everything Dinosaur led a special session exploring dinosaur fossils.

Everything Dinosaur

The club, known as the YAC meets on the last Saturday of every month, to take part in activities with the Beacon Museum’s trained staff who can utilise the large collection of objects and artefacts within the Beacon’s impressive collection. However, with the museum showing the Walking with Dinosaurs exhibition for the summer, special dispensation was arranged to bring forward the August meeting so that club members could get to grips with being a palaeontologist for the afternoon.

Team members at Everything Dinosaur, led the session and gave the YAC members the chance to cast their very own museum replica fossils including Velociraptor claws, teeth from a giant shark, duck-billed dinosaur toe bones and part of the nose horn from a Late Cretaceous horned dinosaur.

Young Archaeologists handling an Ammonite Fossil

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The picture shows Alan Gillon, the Learing Officer at the Beacon museum examining a 180 million year old Jurassic ammonite fossil with two, enthusiastic YAC members.

When asked to explain the difference between archaeology and palaeontology, Mike Walley of Everything Dinosaur said:

“Put simply, archaeologists get the dirt and we get the rocks. Archaeologists are mainly concerned with the study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites related to human settlements, palaeontologists on the other hand are interested in the study of ancient life and our excavations are concerned with finding traces of ancient creatures and plants that lived many millions of years ago.”

The Whitehaven branch of the Young Archaeologists’ Club usually meets on the last Saturday of each month from 2-4pm. The club provides archaeology and history based activities for 8-14 year olds. Members go on trips and take part in hands-on workshops, exploring all aspects of archaeology and history, both ancient and modern. They even get the chance to take part in dinosaur workshops in schools.

To learn more about the Beacon museum and its Young Archaeologists Club: The Beacon Museum.

YAC Members at the Beacon Museum with the Right Dentary of a Tyrannosaurus rex

Young Archaeologists meeting with Everything Dinosaur

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Team members at Everything Dinosaur will be paying one last visit to the Beacon Museum’s Walking with Dinosaurs event, over the weekend of August the 13th and 14th. If you want to get the chance to handle some cool fossils or indeed to ask the experts any questions relating to dinosaurs – here’s your chance, after all, not everyone gets the chance to take part in a dinosaur workshop.

Visit Everything Dinosaur’s award-winning website: Everything Dinosaur.

13 07, 2011

The Last Dinosaur Standing – Rare Triceratops Horn Close to the KT Boundary

By Mike|2024-04-22T12:22:31+01:00July 13th, 2011|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Main Page|0 Comments

Scientists Find Evidence of the “Last of the Dinosaurs”

It may be relatively small when one considers the huge fossil remains of certain dinosaurs, but the fossilised piece of a ceratopsian’s horn could help scientists understand more about the mass extinction event that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous.

Fossil Remains

Although, it is very difficult to determine the actual species that the horn belonged to, the fossil was found in the Hell Creek Formation of south-eastern Montana, an area known as the badlands and these Late Cretaceous aged rocks (Masstrichtian faunal stage) have yielded a number of Triceratops fossils – so the horn could well represent a brow horn from “three horned face”.

As the fossil was found just 13 centimetres below the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, otherwise known as the K-T boundary which marks the end of the age of dinosaurs, some scientists are suggesting that this is evidence that the Dinosauria were wiped out by an extraterrestrial impact. If fossils are being found close to the impact layer, then it can be summised that large herbivores such as Triceratops were still around at the very end of the Cretaceous, indicating a strong ecosystem. This constrasts with other theories put forward by palaeontologists that suggest that mega fauna such as the dinosaurs were already under threat of extinction before the meteor/asteroid impact.

Based on this fossil evidence, it can be proposed that dinosaurs were around right up to the time all traces of their existence vanished, to put it another way, they disappeared suddenly, as the result of an abrupt global disaster rather than a slow, drawn out extinction.

A Model of a Triceratops

Rebor Male Triceratops Trident Horn of Doom

Rebor male Triceratops horridus Trident Horn of Doom.

The Triceratops model (above) is from the Rebor range of models and figures. To view this range: Rebor Models and Prehistoric Animal Figures.

Although it is now accepted that a cosmic impact took place at that time, most likely in the Yucatan peninsula resulting in the Chicxulub crater; very few dinosaur fossils have been found in the rock layers immediately below the K-T boundary. Indeed, surveys undertaken by American scientists studying the Hell Creek Formation have shown a remarkable decline in the diversity of dinosaur genera leading up to the end of the Cretaceous. The paucity of fossils from layers of rock just below the K-T boundary and the lack of many different genera, has been put forward as evidence to indicate that the dinosaurs were already under severe extinction pressure before the global catastrophe of the impact from outer space.

The K-T Boundary

In some parts of the western United States, the gap between dinosaur fossils and the beginning of the Cenozoic is as much as three metres, marking a huge amount of geological time. This zone barren of dinosaur fossils has led experts to claim that this was evidence that dinosaurs might have died well before any impact.

Now, researchers have found a fossil in this zone – a dinosaur horn no more than five inches below the impact layer, making it the specimen closest to the end of the Age of Dinosaurs found yet.

Tyler Lyson, a young vertebrate palaeontologist from Yale University, who has already made an “impact” on the science of palaeontology with the remarkable discovery of a beautifully preserved duck-billed dinosaur fossil in South Dakota stated:

“Just because we have one dinosaur in the gap doesn’t necessarily falsify the idea that dinosaurs were gradually declining in numbers. However, this find indicates that at least some dinosaurs were doing fine right up to the K-T boundary.”

He went on to add:

“We need to do more field work to find more dinosaurs within the three metre gap, I am confident that with more field work, we will find more dinosaurs within this interval.”

The new findings were published in the journal Biology Letters.

12 07, 2011

Close Encounters of the Crocodile Kind

By Mike|2023-03-08T08:11:13+00:00July 12th, 2011|Animal News Stories, Main Page|0 Comments

Tourists Get Very Close to Huge Estuarine Crocodile

Many visitors to the Northern Territories of Australia like to get up close to the amazing wildlife of the region. Sure, Australia has cute and cuddly kangaroos and koala bears but for one group of boat trippers out to spot crocodiles they got a little too close a view of one river giant – an eighteen-foot-long Saltwater crocodile called Brutus.

Crocodile

The incredible animals of Australia, both extinct ones and those creatures that are very much alive and kicking, have been in the news a lot over the last few days. Last week, Everything Dinosaur reported on the discovery of a very well preserved giant wombat fossilised skeleton that had been found in Queensland.

To read more about this: Outback Dig for Giant Wombat Fossil.

However, the tourists on a river cruise got their own encounter with a giant creature from Australia, one of the most dangerous animals on the planet – a giant Saltwater (Estuarine) crocodile. The crocodiles are attracted to the pleasure crafts by tour guides who dangle kangaroo meat on poles. The crocs soon learn to associate the river cruisers with food and they tend to congregate in the hope of getting an easy meal.

Beaware of Brutus

The crocodile, nick-named Brutus is certainly a very impressive beast, perhaps weighing as much as 1200 kilogrammes and measuring almost six metres in length. This male croc is believed to be one of the largest in the Darwin river system. It is missing its right front limb, perhaps as a result of a fight with a shark or another crocodile. The loss of the limb does not seem to have affected this crocodile’s ability to leap out of the water to grab the food on offer. The power to propel them several metres out of the water is generated by their immensely strong tail muscles.

This is certainly one holiday “snap” that will be remembered. Although such tourist activities brings in much needed income and plays a role in educating visitors to the area about the dangers of crocodiles the number of large crocodiles in the Northern Territories is a cause for concern amongst government officials. There have been several crocodile attacks in the last few months, including fatalities, the number of such incidents is on the increase as the crocodile population continues to bounce back after years of illegal hunting.

To read about a recent crocodile attack: Crocodile Sinks Teeth into Dentist.

This close encounter with Brutus may lead to more calls to restrict the number of river tours and there has already been discussions regarding a cull of crocodiles in the Darwin river system.

Visit Everything Dinosaur’s award-winning website: Everything Dinosaur.

11 07, 2011

Colombian Police Discover Rare Fossils

By Mike|2024-04-22T12:20:55+01:00July 11th, 2011|Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal News Stories, Main Page|0 Comments

Rare Andean Fossils Discovered by Colombian Police

The illicit smuggling of fossils out of South America is big business. Many people are tempted to smuggle by lucrative black market prices for dinosaur and other prehistoric animal fossils. Such smuggling is not just limited to South America, but Colombian police have struck a blow for the scientific community by intercepting a parcel containing twenty-six rare fossils at the airport that serves the city of Florencia (south east Colombia). Colombian police have disrupted fossil smuggling.

Dinosaur Fossils

The bones make up parts of larger skeletons of the prehistoric mammals and reptiles. These are animals that once lived in South America. The fossils are now in custody being examined by experts in order to determine their exact origin.

Workers at the Colombian institutes of Anthropology and History and of Geology and Minerals have determined that the bones date from the Mesozoic and most likely from the Jurassic, dating the fossils at somewhere between 150-200 million years old.

Visit Everything Dinosaur’s website: Everything Dinosaur.

10 07, 2011

Dinosaurs Unleashed Teams up with a London Charity

By Mike|2023-01-19T22:19:42+00:00July 10th, 2011|Dinosaur Fans, Main Page|0 Comments

Competition Entrants can Help Charity

Ever since February, the area around North Greenwich (London) has resounded to the roars and bellows of the dinosaurs and other amazing prehistoric animals that make up the Dinosaurs Unleashed exhibition. This attraction featuring huge animatronic models of amazing beasts such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops has teamed up with London’s oldest children’s hospice – Richard House to enable this charity to benefit from donations every time a person enters the Dinosaurs Unleashed competition to win one of its life-sized dinosaur replicas.

Dinosaurs Unleashed

This link-up will see the hospice benefit every time someone texts into the Dinosaurs Unleashed competition to win one of the exhibitions amazing dinosaur models. The exhibition opened at The O2 arena in February. Dinosaurs Unleashed is the UK’s largest life-size dinosaur adventure that gives visitors a unique chance to experience some of the most iconic and awe-inspiring creatures to walk the earth.

Featuring twenty-five life-size dinosaurs, a prehistoric aquarium (CGI), holographic video presentations by wildlife expert Chris Packham, real and replica fossils, interactives galore and more than 40 educational interpretation panels, this unique exhibition has been developed to appeal to family audiences, especially budding young palaeontologists aged two to twelve.

Nicky Allison, Dinosaurs Unleashed director, said

“When deciding which charity we should support, it was a unanimous decision that it should be a children’s hospice. Not only can we provide a cash injection, but we can also offer its children, their siblings and their parents a unique and memorable experience at our life-size dinosaur exhibition a brief respite from their otherwise very stressful lives.

Richard House is very close to us at The O2 and it is important for us to support the local community. The professionalism of the staff and the organisation, their relentless fund-raising and enthusiasm for our partnership made the choice of charity very easy.”

The Dinosaurs Unleashed Competition Information

Picture credit: Dinosaurs Unleashed

To read more about Dinosaurs Unleashed and to enter the competition to win a replica dinosaur, see the Dinosaur’s Unleashed website: please note this competition has now closed.

Richard House Children’s Hospice cares for 250 families of children with life-limiting, life-threatening and complex health-care conditions from across east and north east London. It needs to bring in £3.1 million each year, and because of this huge fund-raising ask, support from groups such as Dinosaurs Unleashed is essential.

Viv Talbot, Richard House community fund-raising manager, commented:

“Richard House is delighted to be associated with such an excellent exhibition as Dinosaurs Unleashed. The money raised from the text competition will be used for the care of the children at the hospice. Every penny raised is needed to continue the work we do here. This is a fun way of donating whilst having the golden opportunity of winning a dinosaur model. If 1,000 people took up the challenge of entering the competition this would raise £1,000 for the hospice – sufficient to pay for a child to stay at the hospice for 24 hours.”

Check out the Everything Dinosaur blog for more dinosaur themed news stories.

For models and replicas of prehistoric animals: Bullyland Prehistoric Animal Models and Figures.