Read about these recently published scientific papers on new dinosaur discoveries that will be featured in the exhibition:

JUVENILE PSITTACOSAUR FOUND IN BELLY OF LARGEST-KNOWN PRIMITIVE MAMMAL

Shows Early Mammals Fed on Young Dinosaurs

Two paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History and their colleagues have studied a fossil of a 130-million-year-old opossum-sized mammal called Repenomamus robustus and found the remains of a psittacosaur in its stomach area. This fossil, discovered in China and described in a new paper in the journal Nature, is the first direct evidence that some primitive mammals fed on small vertebrates, including young dinosaurs. In the same paper, the team also has described the fossil of a much larger and very close relative of the psittacosaur eater, Repenomamus giganticus, which was the size of a small dog—larger than some dinosaurs that lived in the same region of China at this time. Together, these two fossil findings on mammals in the genus Repenomamus show that some Mesozoic mammals were carnivores, could grow to be much larger than previously thought, and competed with smaller dinosaurs for food and land. MORE »

NEWLY DISCOVERED PRIMITIVE TYRANNOSAUR FOUND TO BE FEATHERED

Finding by American Museum of Natural History Paleontologists and Others Underscores Evolutionary Links among Living Birds and Non-Avian Dinosaurs

Two American Museum of Natural History scientists and their colleagues in China have found evidence that a newly identified 130-million-year-old primitive tyrannosaur was covered with branched protofeathers—precursors to the feathers found on living birds. The team has named the new small dinosaur Dilong paradoxus, with the generic name derived from the Mandarin words for emperor and dragon and the specific name referring to the two-yard-long carnivore's unusual features. MORE »

FIRST EVER FOSSIL OF SLEEPING DINOSAUR FOUND IN CHINA

Finding by American Museum of Natural History Paleontologists Suggests Some Dinosaurs Were Warm-Blooded Like Birds

The first fossil of a sleeping non-avian dinosaur has been described by a pair of American Museum of Natural History paleontologists. The small bird-like dinosaur is preserved in a remarkable life-like pose, with its head tucked between its forearm and trunk with its tail encircling its body. The pose matches the typical sleeping or resting posture found in living birds and thereby supports the already established evolutionary connection between extinct dinosaurs and modern birds (which are living dinosaurs) and the occurrence of bird-like features in early dinosaurian evolution. It also supports the hypothesis that non-avian dinosaurs, like the modern birds that evolved after them, were warm-blooded. MORE »