What’s New With Dinosaurs

Here’s a list of recent findings
about dinosaurs, including
some surprises and upsets

‘Teenage T. rex’ fossil is actually a different species (Nature News, 30 Oct 2025). Welcome back, Nanotyrannus. Your falsification was short-lived, wasn’t it? “The discovery of smaller predator Nanotyrannus could prompt a re-think of tyrannosaur evolution,” Katie Kavanaugh writes, proud that science has been proven wrong again. It’s like the joke about the proud guy who admits he was wrong: “I was wrong once; I thought I was wrong, but it turned out I wasn’t.”

Nature is sure that the debate is settled (for now). “T. rex debate settled: contested fossils are smaller rival species, not juveniles” announced Lawrence Witmer in another piece at Nature News. Shamini Bundell bellows in a video for Nature, “Hotly debated dinosaur is not a tiny T. rex after all… After decades of disagreements between palaeontologists, a new fossil suggests that the controversial Nanotyrannus is its own species and not in fact a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex.” The paper Zanno and Napoli offering the evidence to bang the gavel on the debate appeared as an early release in Nature 30 Oct 2025: “Nanotyrannus and Tyrannosaurus coexisted at the close of the Cretaceous.” And that’s a fact. For now. Evidence that “suggests” a conclusion has a way of remaining controversial. We shall see.

Art by Anthony Hutchings. Caution: artwork is interpretation, not data. Maybe the Nanos were inviting Mr. T to tea.

The popular press, proudly displaying Anthony Hutchings’ artwork of a pack of Nanos attacking Big Brother Mr. T,  took Nature‘s judgment uncritically. Tracey Peake at North Carolina State University (Lindsay Zanno’s turf), sang “Everything You Know Is Wrong” for the occasion:

What if everything we know about T. rex growth is wrong? A complete tyrannosaur skeleton has just ended one of paleontology’s longest-running debates – whether Nanotyrannus is a distinct species, or just a teenage version of Tyrannosaurus rex.

Tracey put her question in Tontological form, thereby encompassing all of us in the error. Chris Simms at Live Science rejoiced in all the wrongness going on: “‘I was wrong’: Dinosaur scientists agree that small tyrannosaur Nanotyrannus was real, pivotal new study finds.” Dinosaur go-to expert at Edinburgh Stephen Brusatte admitted defeat:

“The overarching mic drop of this paper is that Nanotyrannus is real, its own distinct tyrannosaur species, and that necessitates a fundamental reassessment of tyrannosaur classification and evolution,” Brusatte said.

In the meantime, your kid will look just fine in her tiny T. rex costume this Halloween evening. She can boast that she is just a Nanotyrannus. For extra authenticity, she can repeat Mork’s mantra, “Nano, Nano,” which evolved by a point mutation and duplication from the original “Nanu Nanu.”

UCalgary paleontologists identify closest-known ancestor to Tyrannosaurs (University of Calgary, 24 Oct 2025). This story came out a week before the Nanotyrannosaur announcement. The author gushed on evolution, mentioning it 8 times in a short press release. Here’s 3 times in one short paragraph:

The research reveals that the new species, or one of its kin, travelled across a land bridge into North America, where it evolved into the famous apex predator Tyrannosaurs. The fossil record indicates Tyrannosaurs were exclusive to North America for few million years before immigrating to Asia, where the lineage split into two groups. One group branched off to become even bigger apex predators, ultimately evolving into T. rex, and the other group evolved into a medium-sized long-snouted species (dubbed ‘Pinocchio rexes’).

Darwin always gets a free ride in the press. Here he is on his dino taxi on the way to teach Groupthink 101.

Talk about the Disney Effect. But you better believe the tale: this is eyewitness reporting, right? The reporter documented all these travels that the dinosaurs supposedly made for millions of years.

On the same day, Justin Jackson at Phys.org knew that dinosaurs were conducting scientific experiments. His headline (24 Oct) reads, “Early experiment at the dawn of dinosaur evolution discovered.” Meanwhile, across the Pond, dinosaur evolutionists at London’s Royal Veterinary College (24 Oct) announced that reptiles had been experimenting with limb posture. Crocs were “paving the way for the evolution of larger sizes in archosaurs – a group that includes crocodylians, dinosaurs and birds.”

Dinosaurs in New Mexico Thrived Until the Very End, Study Shows (Baylor University, 23 Oct 2025). The oscillating story about how dinosaurs were doing right before they went extinct has a new contender: they weren’t already on their last legs, like some Darwinists had proposed earlier. No, they were doing fine, say experts at formerly-Christian-now-Darwinist institution Baylor University. “Study challenges long-held assumptions, finding late-surviving dinosaurs lived in vibrant, regionally distinct communities.” Science Daily’s version inserts some climate-change lingo to make Greta happy: “Fresh fossil evidence reveals dinosaurs were flourishing until the moment of their extinction, living in distinct ecosystems shaped by climate.” Cartoon artwork shows an appropriately-named Alamosaurus looking alarmed at a big flash in the distance.

Dinosaur fossil rewrites the story of how sauropods got long necks (New Scientist, 15 Oct 2025). James Woodford practiced his Kipling technique with a new version of the story, ‘How the Dinosaur Got Its Long Neck.’ You know the answer already; it evolved. His artwork (instead of boring bones) “demonstrates that increased body size and neck lengthening were already evident from the beginning of the evolutionary history of its lineage.” Why is it always an evolutionary history, and not just a history?

Watch and share the Short Reel about this article! Click to view it now.

The fossil “breaks somewhat with this idea of a gradual transition, because it coexisted with its small, proportionally shorter-necked relatives,” James confesses later in the article. And watch for the phrase “earlier than thought” in the subtitle: “A 230-million-year-old fossil found in Argentina shows that the evolution of sauropod dinosaurs’ long necks began earlier than previously thought.” But if long necks are such an evolutionary advantage, why do so many prey animals have short necks? Well, stuff happens. That’s why Darwinian evolution is like Calvinball. Evolutionists make up the rules during the game.

The European roots of Africa’s giant predatory dinosaurs (Bavarian Natural History Collections, 18 Sept 2025). Germans examining a fossil spinosaur in Spain named Camarillasaurus cirugedae have concocted an “Out of Europe” hypothesis for the origin of North African spinosaurs. Large bipedal predators, spinosaurs are thought to have hunted for fish, but their fossils in Spain—known only from teeth—indicate that they hunted on land. Professor Rauhut performed divination on additional bone fragments, which he believes show similarities to the African spinosaurs, to conclude they originated in Europe and migrated to Africa.

Oliver Rauhut, dinosaur expert at the Bavarian State Collection of Paleontology and Geology (SNSB-BSPG), goes one step further: “Our phylogenetic analyses indicate that various other representatives of the spinosaurids of the Iberian Peninsula are also on the evolutionary lineage leading to the North African spinosaurids. We suspect that the giant predatory dinosaurs of Africa originated in Europe.”

Suspecting things does not complete the scientific method. It only leaves things in the hypothesis stage. Hypothesis is not science; it is prior to science.

A domed pachycephalosaur from the early Cretaceous of Mongolia (Chinzorig et al., Nature, 17 Sept 2025). They used to be nicknamed boneheads, but now pachycephalosaurs get more respect as “dome-heads,” presumably, except in Latin, where the name means “thick-headed lizard.” As usual, the popular press leapt onto the claim that this is the “oldest known” dome-headed dinosaur said to be 108 million Darwin Years old, each reporter echoing the claims in their own words. All used the same artwork by Masaya Hatton showing two of them butting blood-red heads. James Woodford at New Scientist added eloquence to his uncriticality, saying that this beast “had a serious weapon on top of its skull, a mouth full of no-nonsense teeth and cartoon-like giant eye sockets.” Noting that the fossil individual was a juvenile, Skyler Ware at Live Science quoted an ex-spurt who said, “If you need to headbutt yourself into a relationship, it’s a good idea to start rehearsing early.” Yes, headbutting is such a tender way to show affection.

The press release from North Carolina State University had more detail since the lead author of the paper, Tsogtbaatar Chinzorig, is a homeboy. He named his prize specimen Zavacephale rinpoche (“head-origin precious one”), and stated matter-of-factly that it “predates all known pachycephalosaur fossils to date by about 15 million years.” This dinosaur was ready to butt heads in its teens. Since it was clearly a pachycephalosaur, why didn’t Chinzorig think to ask why so little evolution occurred for 15 million Darwin Years? A wolf turned into a whale in less time than that in Darwin’s storybook.

Art by Masaya Hatton. Caution: artwork is interpretation, not data. Maybe the bony heads had another purpose.

The only one with enough sense to state that this “early” dinosaur was a fully-formed pachycephalosaur showing no signs of evolutionary ancestry was Frank Sherwin at the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). Sherwin also pointed out that the circumstances of its burial suggested a sudden, catastrophic burial, like a big, wide Flood.

Another notable feature is this specimen’s exceptional preservation—including articulated limbs, gastroliths, and intact tendons—which suggests rapid burial in a high-energy depositional environment. Such preservation is consistent with catastrophic burial, potentially indicative of widespread flooding.

Researchers remain divided over ‘feathered dinosaurs’ (Creation Ministries International, 7 Sept 2025). Speaking of creation viewpoints, this article by Brian Thomas and Jonathan Sarfati carefully handles the controversy among creationists about whether “feathered dinosaurs” existed. If real dinosaurs had real feathers, it would not change the evidence for creation or support evolution, they argue. They look at both sides, and provide good reasons to doubt the claims made primarily by evolutionists that extinct creatures with true feathers were related to dinosaurs. Quotes from secular experts who disagree with the feathered dinosaur claims are provided.

STOP THE PRESSES! DINO DNA FOUND!

DNA and bone cells found in dinosaur bone (Creation Ministries International, 27 Oct 2025). Jonathan Sarfati just updated his 2012 story about Dinosaur DNA. He refers to one of Mary Schweitzer’s papers that detected DNA three different ways in a dinosaur bone. In the update, Sarfati answers objections to the claim that the DNA is really original to the dinosaur. See also our 31 March 2021 report.

If dinosaur DNA is credible to our readers, given the many other (>100) finds of intact soft tissue in fossils claimed (by evolutionists) to be tens or hundreds of millions of years old (see 20 March 2025), you can forget all the tales above about dinosaur evolution and millions of years. It means that dinosaurs lived and died recently. The whole evolutionary timeline collapses in a heap. Biblical creationists argue that the dinosaurs went extinct in the Genesis Flood along with many other kinds of animals.

Without deep time, Darwinism is dead. Can you accept this? You owe it to yourself to look at the evidence for a young earth without Darwinian bias. Ditch the popular press groupthink. Take the Darwin glasses off, look, and think for yourself.