Riley Black

Riley Black

 

Riley Black is the author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs and many other books. She is a science correspondent for Smithsonian magazine covering fossils and natural history, and she writes about the prehistoric past for a variety of publications. 

A reconstruction of Patagonykus, one of South America’s alvarezsaurs.

Did Dinosaurs Eat Ants?

The weird alvarezsaurs look perfectly-adapted to eating termites, but how can we find out what they really ate?

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The Saddest Dinosaur Cartoon Ever

Mountain of Dinosaurs, from 1967, uses extinction as a metaphor for Soviet oppression

A skeletal reconstruction of Agujaceratops

A is for Agujaceratops

Though little-known to the public, Agujaceratops plays an important role in tracing one particular episode in dinosaur evolution

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Jurassic Park 4′s Discharged Dinosaur Soldiers

Some scrapped Jurassic Park 4 designs show the movie's insane ideas for dinosaur soldiers

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The Bat-Winged Dinosaur That Never Was

Just when naturalists began to suspect that birds might be dinosaurs, one researcher put forward a truly strange idea of what early bird ancestors would have looked like

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Doing the T. rex Stretch

Did T. rex use its tiny arms to do push-ups?

A second specimen of the troodontid Mei, preserved in a bird-like sleeping position.

How Did Dinosaurs Sleep?

A lovely little fossil shows how some dinosaurs said goodnight

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The Fall of Domino Dinosaurs

A delicately-balanced domino setup replays the end of the Age of Dinosaurs

A headless Haplocanthosaurus, laid out at the Utah Field House of Natural History.

Haplocanthosaurus–A Morrison Mystery

Without a skull, determining the dinosaur's relationships is difficult

Thomas the T. rex, a lovely reconstruction at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles.

Long Live the King

Paleontologists have named scores of dinosaurs, but why is T. rex our favorite?

Dilophosaurus, in a restoration based on an impression found at St. George, Utah. Art by Heather Kyoht Luterman

Dilophosaurus – An Early Jurassic Icon

Tracks made by a 20-foot predatory dinosaur have been found in rock from Connecticut to Arizona, but who made the tracks?

Recyclosaurus rex, seen outside the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, Florida.

Dinosaur Sighting: Recyclosaurus

A reader shows us a snapshot of a spare-parts dinosaur

The Tyrannosaurus rex known as Stan, excavated in South Dakota in 1992, is one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons in the world.

The Tyrannosaurus Rex’s Dangerous and Deadly Bite

The dinosaur had the strongest bite of any land animal – even harder than we previously thought

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Triceratops Wasn’t Toxic

Triceratops was an awesome dinosaur, but, despite one site's claim, it wasn't equipped with poisonous quills

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Where’s My Clone-o-saurus?

Physicist Michio Kaku says we'll be able to clone dinosaurs in the future, but he glosses over some crucial technicalities

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Dino Time Botches Dino Feathers

Feathered dinosaurs are wonderful, but DinoTime 3D makes them look stupid

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Technicalities Tangle Tarbosaurus Case

A new development in the ongoing Tarbosaurus struggle complicates attempts to send the dinosaur home

Fossil swim tracks indicate that theropods similar to this Megapnosaurus at least occasionally swam in prehistoric lakes and rivers.

Did Dinosaurs Swim?

Carnivorous theropod dinosaurs were thought to be hydrophobic, but swim tracks show that these predators at least sometimes took a dip in lakes and rivers

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What Kind of Dinosaur is Godzilla?

Everyone knows that Godzilla is a radioactive dinosaur, but just what sort of dinosaur is the famous monster?

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The Awkwardness of Tyrant Teens

Adult T. rex had the most powerful bite of any creature to walk the earth, but they had to grow into that destructive power

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