At first it had no name. The beast was a mammal relative with a heavy skull, a mouth full of fangs, and a tall dorsal sail made of skin stretched over long struts of bone. Sinuous as a crocodile, ...

Paleontologists have long been fascinated by bizarre structures on prehistoric animals. The horns of Styracosaurus, the sail of Dimetrodon, the crest of Tupuxuara and more—these odd ornaments raise ...

Abstract: The function of the exaggerated structures that adorn many fossil vertebrates remains largely unresolved. One recurrent hypothesis is that these elaborated traits had a role in ...