New dinosaur discoveries

Dinosaurs were many herpers' first love, so we're always up for some dino-news. In Alberta, a new species of pterosaur was identified by its teeth. From CTV News:

"For a long time we thought it was a little dinosaur jaw and that led us down the wrong path," she said. "We kept coming back saying, ‘What is this thing?' We thought it might be a fish, a reptile -- anything that had teeth at that time." Arbour made a breakthrough when she compared the bone against a known Chinese species of pterosaur, a flying reptile that lived during the Cretaceous period that often grew to the size of a small airplane. "The teeth of our fossil were small and set close together," Arbour said. "They reminded me of piranha teeth, designed for pecking away at meat."

Who doesn't love a beautiful Italian limestone countertop? Add a fossilized crocodilian and I am a happy gal. From National Geographic:

Scientists performed only a cursory examination of the fossils—enough to determine that they belonged to an ancient crocodile—before the slabs were transferred to two museums in Italy. The fossils sat unstudied until 2009, when scientists decided to examine them again in more detail. Analysis of the embedded bones revealed a skull and a few vertebrae that belonged to a previously unknown species of 165-million-year-old prehistoric reptile now named Neptunidraco ammoniticus.

For the full article, click here.