Portal:Paleontology/DYK/27


 * ...that the Natural History Museum of Berlin is home to the largest mounted dinosaur in the world, a Brachiosaurus (or Giraffatitan); and the most exquisitely preserved specimen of the earliest known bird, the Archaeopteryx?
 * ... that Charles Darwin's final scientific book discussed the formation of mould through the action of earthworms?
 * ... that during the MN 4 zone, the saber-toothed cat Prosansanosmilus first appeared in Europe?
 * ... that Appianoporites, Margaretbarromyces, and Quatsinoporites are all fossil fungi from Vancouver Island, British Columbia?
 * ... that Ororaphidia and Styporaphidia are the oldest snakeflies known from China, dating from the Middle Jurassic?
 * ...that although no fossils of the extinct Malagasy Hippopotamus have been dated within the last 1,000 years, villagers in Madagascar described a similar creature still alive as recently as 1976?
 * ... that one species of the extinct bivalve Similodonta was found in 108.90 m down a Welsh borehole?
 * ... that the hypercarnivorous crocodyliform Stratiotosuchus (pictured) from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil occupied the niche of top predator in the absence of theropod dinosaurs?
 * ... that the extinct fly Schwenckfeldina archoica has spines on its genitalia?
 * ... that 57 million-year-old Altiatlasius from Morocco may be the oldest fossil primate yet found, despite a molecular estimate that places the last common ancestor of primates at 90 million years ago?