Articles for author: Saman Zehra

a close up of a rock with a bird perched on top of it

Inside the Alberta Badlands: What Makes It a Fossil Goldmine?

The Alberta Badlands stand as one of North America’s most remarkable geological treasures, a landscape where time itself seems carved into the earth. Stretching across southeastern Alberta, Canada, this otherworldly terrain of hoodoos, coulees, and stratified cliffs has yielded some of the most significant paleontological discoveries in history. The region’s unique combination of ancient sedimentary ...

a display case filled with shells and other items

How Accurate Was Ross Geller’s Job at the Museum?

Picture this: you’re watching Friends, and there’s Ross Geller passionately explaining dinosaur facts to anyone who’ll listen. For ten seasons, we watched him navigate his career as a paleontologist at the Museum of Natural History in New York. But here’s the million-dollar question that’s been bugging fans and science nerds alike – how realistic was ...

dinosaurs skeleton inside museum

Parisian Fossils: What to Expect at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle

Deep beneath the bustling streets of Paris lies a treasure trove that puts the city’s famous diamonds to shame. The Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle houses one of the world’s most spectacular fossil collections, where ancient creatures frozen in time await your discovery. From towering dinosaur skeletons that dominated prehistoric landscapes to delicate insect specimens preserved ...

What Did a Day in the Life of a Triceratops Look Like?

Imagine a world where thunderous footsteps echo across vast plains, where creatures the size of school buses roam freely under alien skies. Picture yourself transported back 68 million years to the Late Cretaceous period, when one of the most iconic dinosaurs ever discovered ruled the ancient landscapes of North America. The Dawn of a Gentle ...

Stygimoloch: The Spiky-Skulled Oddball That Might Not Be Real

In the prehistoric world of dinosaurs, few creatures have sparked as much scientific debate as Stygimoloch spinifer. With its distinctive spiky skull dome and menacing name meaning “demon from the river Styx,” this Late Cretaceous pachycephalosaur has captured both scientific and public imagination since its discovery in the 1970s. However, what makes Stygimoloch truly fascinating ...

Could Dinosaurs Have Survived in Today’s North American Deserts?

The North American deserts—stretching from the Mojave and Sonoran in the southwest to the Chihuahuan and Great Basin—represent some of the most extreme environments on our continent. These harsh, arid landscapes might seem entirely inhospitable to large animals, yet they support diverse ecosystems of specially adapted creatures. When we consider the mighty dinosaurs that once ...

brown and black tree trunk

Did Dinosaurs Get Dandruff? Fossils Say Yes

Picture this: a massive T-Rex scratching its head with those tiny arms, flakes of ancient dandruff drifting down like prehistoric snow. While that image might make you chuckle, recent fossil discoveries have revealed something absolutely mind-blowing about our favorite extinct giants. Scientists have actually found evidence of dandruff in dinosaur fossils, and it’s changing everything ...

What If Feathers Evolved for Flight Sooner?

The evolution of flight represents one of nature’s most remarkable innovations, fundamentally reshaping Earth’s ecosystems and the course of vertebrate evolution. Feathers, the key adaptation that enabled birds to conquer the skies, first appeared in theropod dinosaurs during the Middle-Late Jurassic period, approximately 165-150 million years ago. However, the development of true powered flight came ...