Henry

Both in the modern day and in the past, the lives of predators are often violent and short. The holotype of Meraxes, believed to have been between 39 and 53 years old when it died, is one of the oldest dinosaurs ever discovered.

I can't believe it's been almost three years since I posted Spinosaurus! There haven't been any big news in terms of its appearance, but I changed some of my opinions on the cross-scaling between specimens, which ended up giving the animal *slightly* larger hindquarters.

Recent studies show that the iconic whip-like tail of sauropods like Diplodocus could swing at speeds of over 110 km/h (73 mph). While it may not be as fast as an actual bullwhip, it's more than enough to make a potential predator reconsider.

Pycnonemosaurus was first described as a medium-sized abelisaurid, about 6.5 meters long. Most fragmentary fossil taxa tend to get lower size estimates as we learn more about them, but later studies actually revealed Pycnonemosaurus to be much larger than previously thought!

It may be fragmentary, but some of the indeterminate loricatan material here (estimates based on @LiterallyMiguel's skeletal reconstructions!) is actually terrifying.

Tyrannotitan is not nearly as famous as its larger relatives Giganotosaurus or Carcharodontosaurus, despite its flashy name. Unlike those two, however, Tyrannotitan has a detailed osteology, so it's winning in my book.

Over 60% of the length of the plesiosaur Albertonectes is made up of its neck, which is the longest relative to body size of any animal ever discovered. At 76, it has more vertebrae in the neck alone than most species have in their entire bodies.

The traditional concept of "Alamosaurus" is now believed to represent multiple different species of large North American titanosaur. Some of these have been suggested to be relatives of South American lognkosaurs like Patagotitan and Puertasaurus, though this is far from certain.

While its anatomy is not as thoroughly studied as that of T.rex, well-preserved skeletons in multiple stages of growth allow us to reconstruct the life history of Tarbosaurus much more clearly than its North American cousin's... especially after Zanno & Napoli (2025).

Starting off 2026 with a remake of one of my oldest works, Patagotitan! Even though it's not the largest, the completeness of its remains makes it one of the most impressive dinosaur discoveries. Seeing a cast of the skeleton in person was absolutely breathtaking.

Shuvosaurus is one of the most incredible cases of convergent evolution in fossil reptiles - it was mistaken for an ornithomimid dinosaur for more than a decade, but as a pseudosuchian, it's more closely related to crocodylians than to any dinosaur.

Aside from its eponymous short crest, Parasaurolophus cyrtocristatus differs from the other species in the genus by having proportionally longer limbs. It was once suggested to be the female counterpart of P.walkeri, but the two lived at different times.

As well as being the largest and geologically youngest species of Parasaurolophus, P.tubicen also had a crest with a rougher surface texture than its closest relatives (perhaps suggesting it was covered in keratin, unlike the fleshy or scaly crests of most other hadrosaurs).

The iconic head crest of Parasaurolophus had a series of internal channels that could have created trombone- or tuba-like sounds as the animal blew air into them, making it one of the very few dinosaurs for which we can actually try to reconstruct the original sounds.