We know dinosaurs better than ever before. Paleontologists continue to find new species, naming a new one every two weeks or so, and more accurately reconstruct familiar dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops. Despite all our recent advances in understanding the Age of Reptiles, dinosaurs still present us with a slew of unresolved questions. Here’s a list of ten dinosaur mysteries that continue to perplex paleontologists.
1. What was the first dinosaur?
For paleontologists, the earliest species of any major lineage is always a sought-after critter. The trouble is that the fossil record is made up of snippets of life’s history, not the entire reel, so actually finding frames from the dawn of dinosaurs relies on luck as much as science.
Tracks found in Poland and skeletons from Tanzania belong to animals that were close, but not quite dinosaurs. So far, these finds suggest that the “terrible lizards” evolved around 245 million years ago, with the best candidate for the earliest dinosaur being a sleek, lanky, dog-size animal called Nyasasaurus. But further discoveries could still supplant this animal as the oldest known root of the dinosaur family tree.
2. Were dinosaurs hot-blooded or cold-blooded? Read more>>>
