As Pangea split there were huge volcanic eruptions, about 200 million years ago, and these plunged the world into chaos: environmental destruction and rapid climate swings, the big amphibians couldn't cope well and many species went extinct, but dinosaurs and mammals made it through.

Steve Brusatte

Categorized in : Science

Only after these ancestral Tyrannosaurs evolved their clever brains and sharp senses did they grow into the colossal sizes of T. rex, tyrannosaurs had to get smart before they got big.

Ancestors of the T. rex would have looked a whole lot like Timurl... by Steve Brusatte

Ancestors of the T. rex would have looked a whole lot like Timurlengia.

[The back end of the skull] turned out to be the Rosetta stone, it's a very complex part of the anatomy that we can easily compare to a lot of other dinosaurs, and that's what told us we definitely had a tyrannosaur, that it was a new species, and that it was only about the size of a horse.

The ancestors of T. rex would have looked a whole lot like Timurlengia, a horse-sized hunter with a big brain and keen hearing that would put us to shame, only after these ancestral tyrannosaurs evolved their clever brains and sharp senses did they grow into the colossal sizes of T. rex. Tyrannosaurs had to get smart before they got big.

These small ancestors were then really well–equipped to take over the large predator role when the opportunity presented itself when other large predatory dinosaurs– like allosaurs– went extinct.

When we looked closely at them, we could see the individual digits, impressions of the fingers and toes and the claws. Really, it was in a few minutes that we figured it out, just right place at the right time and it came together. We frantically started taking a lot of photos, measurements and notes because it was getting dark and the tide was coming in.

The reason why the site is so important is that these footprints were made in a lagoon. We know from the geology this was a lagoon, sauropods were making their foot prints while they were wading in the water … We have three different layers so that is three different time intervals. This is telling us these huge dinosaurs lived or at least moved through these lagoons fairly regularly over time. This was a normal part of their repertoire.

They weren’t sharks or whales but they were at home in shallow water, it doesn’t seem like it was some kind of fluke or random occurrence that they were there They must have just been at home in these environments, he continued. Maybe they were eating there. Maybe it was a place where there weren’t so many predators so they were a bit safer. Maybe it was a way for them to cool themselves down. We don’t really know. This is a whole new question now that is kind of emerging.

As we were walking back to the cars, we noticed this big depression in the rock, this platform of rock that juts out into the Atlantic. It kind of looked like a pot hole.

We were just there at a lucky time. by Steve Brusatte

We were just there at a lucky time.

We read reports about a German geology student who in the 1970s found fragments of bone, but didn't know what to make of them, we went back to the site and found that there weren't just a few fragments, but a mass graveyard!

Our team included many students and volunteers as well, hopefully... by Steve Brusatte

Our team included many students and volunteers as well, hopefully we'll be going back soon!

These fossils were found by an international team. by Steve Brusatte

These fossils were found by an international team.

We have a site where a lot of these animals died together and were preserved together, so, basically, it's a mass graveyard.

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Part of the fabric of that world were these huge amphibians [metoposaurids] — they lived all over the place, especially in the low latitudes.

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