Vertebrate Paleontology News & Updates


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Exhibit of Silvisaurus condrayi fossil skeletal remains with scientific illustration of it in the back
LAWRENCE — The only dinosaur known to have lived in what is now Kansas, Silvisaurus condrayi, was designated the official state land fossil of Kansas, thanks in part to a Kansas rancher and a Goddard schoolteacher and his sixth-grade students. Teacher Joel Condray, his students from Challenger Intermediate School in Goddard as well as David Burnham, University of Kansas fossil preparator, provided testimony for the bill, SB-3. The bill was sponsored by State Sen. Elaine Bowers, R-Concordia, and signed by into law by Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on April 7.

News Archive

Mon, 04/10/2023
LAWRENCE — The only dinosaur known to have lived in what is now Kansas, Silvisaurus condrayi, was designated the official state land fossil of Kansas, thanks in part to a Kansas rancher and a Goddard schoolteacher and his sixth-grade students. Teacher Joel Condray, his students from Challenger Intermediate School in Goddard as well as David Burnham, University of Kansas fossil preparator, provided testimony for the bill, SB-3. The bill was sponsored by State Sen. Elaine Bowers, R-Concordia, and signed by into law by Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on April 7.
Wed, 01/25/2023

Two sister species of near-primate, called “primatomorphans,” dating back about 52 million years have been identified by researchers at the University of Kansas as the oldest to have dwelled north of the Arctic Circle. The findings appear today in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE. ...

Wed, 07/07/2021

paper appearing in Biology Letters describes the oldest-known fragmentary bat fossils from Asia, pushing back the evolutionary record for bats on that continent to the dawn of the Eocene and boosting the possibility that the bat family’s “mysterious” origins someday might be traced to Asia. ...

Fri, 03/29/2019

to be published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers a scientific first: a detailed snapshot of the terrible moments right after the Chicxulub impact — the most cataclysmic event known to have befallen life on Earth. ...