The remains of a Balaur bondoc, a relative of the Velociraptor, has been found in Romania. It is the first-meat-eating dinosaur to be describe which live in Europe during the final 60 million years of the dinosaurs.

“Balaur might be one of the largest predators in this ecosystem because not even a big tooth has been found in Romania after over a hundred years of research,” paleontologist Zoltan Csiki of the University of Bucharest in Romania said in a press release. Csiki is the lead researcher of the discovery announced Aug. 30 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The new dinosaur was about 6 to 7 feet long. It had functional big toes with large claws — presumably for slashing prey — in addition to a claw on the second toe that is typical of the group of dinosaurs. Its feet and legs were short and stocky, with bones fused together, and large muscle attachment areas on its pelvis, indicating the dinosaur was built for strength over speed. Its hands were atrophied, so Balaur likely used its feet rather than its hands to grasp prey.

“Its anatomy shows that it probably hunted in a different way than its less stocky relatives,” said paleontologist Stephan Brusatte of Columbia University in a press release. “Compared to Velociraptor, Balaur was probably more of a kick boxer than a sprinter, and it might have been able to take down larger animals than itself, as many carnivores do today.”

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A new study is suggesting that the Isle of Wight is home to the one of the richest sources of “pick’n'mix” dinosaurs remains in the world.

Weather conditions 130 million years ago have been suggested as one reason why thousands of small teeth and bones lie buried alongside bigger fossils.

Portsmouth University palaeontologist Dr Steve Sweetman and Dr Allan Insole from Bristol University led the study.

Dr Sweetman said remains were “unique” to the island.

The research has been published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.

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A series of coprolites (fossilized poop) have been found showing bite marks from an ancient species of shark. But why were they biting poop? I thought this was an interesting article to read and I enjoyed how it reveals the researchers’ thought-process and shows you how they reached their conclusions.

The coprolite that had been severed, given the label CMM-V-3245, was not especially helpful in identifying the biter, but the other coprolite (CMM-V-2244) preserved a row of tooth marks. The scientists made a silicone cast of the impressions to see if the punctures held any clues as to the identity of the biter. What they found was that the animal that had made them had a single row of asymmetrical teeth, and while there were as many as eight shark genera with this characteristic, most of these were deemed “innocent” on the basis of anatomical peculiarities. The best fits for the tooth marks were the genera Physogaleus and Galeocerdo (which, in fact, might be synonymous), sharks that, like their living relative the tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) possessesed asymmetrical teeth in the shape of a bent A.

With the list of potential culprits successfully narrowed down Godfrey and Smith were left with the question of how the bite marks had been made. Even though coprolites are relatively common at the Calvert Cliffs site, no one had ever found a shark-bitten piece of shit before, so they had no other reference to go by. They ultimately settled on several possible scenarios.

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The discovery of 650-million-year-old sea sponge fossil has pushed the fossil record for life on earth back 70 million years.

The prior oldest known hard-bodied animals were reef-dwelling organisms called Namacalathus, which date to approximately 550 million years ago. Disputed remains for other possible soft-bodied animals date to between 577 and 542 million years ago.

The even more advanced age of the newly found sponge fossils provides direct evidence that animal life existed before the severe “Snowball Earth” event. The episode marked the end of Cryogenian Period 635 million years ago and left much of the globe covered in ice.

The early sponges somehow managed to survive, perhaps in watery refuges around volcanic islands.

“The sponges were about one centimeter (0.4 inches) tall and probably lived on hard stromatolite reefs made by bacteria,” lead author Adam Maloof told Discovery News.

“The sponges probably swayed in the ocean currents in less than 20 meters (65.6 feet) of water filtering organic carbon out of the water for food,” added Maloof, a geosciences professor at Princeton University.

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Ancient reptile footprints have been found along the Bay of Fundy shoreline in New Brunswick, Canada.

“These are quite remarkable,” he said Thursday. “It’s not just one set of footprints. The slabs are covered with footprints.”

Miller said he actually had his back to the slab and was examining plant fossils when the footprints were discovered.

Falcon-Lang said he was looking for something else, and only discovered the prints after he tripped and fell, scraping his knee.

“I still have the scars to prove it,” he said.

The footprints are quite small — only about four centimetres long. Falcon-Lang said the reptile that made them would have been about 20 centimetres long and resembled a gecko.

He said it is probably an early reptile called Hylonomus. Fossil skeletons have been found in adjacent Nova Scotia.

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