Links   

Dinosaur information sites: Unfortunately, a lot of these are becoming legacy sites.  If you're looking for current information, you've got Dinodata, the DML, Wikipedia, and, well, this site.  Of course, it was always true that there were only a few sites operating at any time that provided constant updating.  When I started, the gold standards for information were the DML, Dinosauria On-Line and whatever version of The Dinosauricon was operating.

Aragosaurus.com: This site covers Spanish paleontology (as such, it is in Spanish).  Among its features is a section on Galvesaurus, and a section of pdfs on various topics. 

Archives of the DINOSAUR Mailing List: This is -the- best dinosaur information location on the Internet. It holds archives from mailing list discussions that touch on virtually everything dinosaur-related.  If you need information on a specific dinosaur, especially a recently-described one, you should immediately search the Archives.

DinoData: This site I like especially for news and the reference base. It also hosts a number of other sites; one of my favorites is Octávio Mateus' Lusodinos, the new home of the old Lourinhanosaurus pages, a very good source of information on Portuguese dinosaurs.

The Dinosaur FAQ: The title says it all. This site is a work-in-progress concerning the most common questions about dinosaurs, from "How can I make a career in paleontology?" to the ever-popular biggest\smallest\longest\etc.

Dinosaur Genera List: Here is George "Dinogeorge" Olshevsky's venerable, ancestral dinosaur genera list.

The Open Dinosaur Project: The Open Dinosaur Project invites public contributions to form a database of measurements of dinosaur bones, starting at this time with ornithischians.

Palaeos (old) and Palaeos (new, wiki version): This site combines information from Toby White's Vertebrate Notes with material from Alan Kazlev's Kheper site to produce one of the most informative websites for dinosaurs (and a whole lotta other things as well!). It's more technical than a lot of sites (mine included), but this is one of the things which makes it useful.It was going to go extinct, but has been resurrected in wiki format.

The Polyglot Paleontologist: Another site for pdfs, this one provides a great service for English monolinguists with translations of a huge number non-English articles (no figures).

Supplementary Information for Holtz's Dinosaurs: Even if you don't have Thomas Holtz's 2007 dinosaur encyclopedia (Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages), you'll surely find the updated genus list of use. The site is an interesting experiment in keeping a book up to date using the Internet.

The Theropod Database: Mickey Mortimer's site dedicated to the peculiarly popular theropods, of course. This is where you go for theropod nitty-gritty, no ifs, ands, or buts. Any questions? Should you desire yet more on theropods, The Theropod Archives maintains a collection of theropod-related scientific articles.

The Tree of Life: Dinosaur Pages: Two pages on dinosaur classification are currently up at The Tree of Life, and I highly recommend visiting them. They are: Tyrannosauroidea by Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.; and Ankylosauromorpha, by Kenneth Carpenter. Both of the authors are recognized experts in their particular area of dinosaur paleontology.

Vertebrate Paleontology Journal Links: Jerry Harris' fantastically useful compendium of scientific journals is a great site for anyone who wants to look at the primary literature. (Google Scholar is also nice, as it may point you to free PDFs you didn't know were available)

Wikipedia dinosaur information: The dinosaur section on Wikipedia has been an interesting development. It can have blindingly fast response time (particularly if a theropod is the object of interest), and has a few dedicated editors who keep out hoaxes, revert vandalism, are conversant with the literature, and provide useful figures. Most of the big-name dinosaurs have useful articles. Coelurosaurian theropods, ornithopods, and ceratopsids are the strong suits; more basal theropods, prosauropods, and the rest of Ornithischia are middling, but Sauropoda is a weakness. I'm rooting for the editors to succeed, because a quality source maintained by a number of enthusiasts, at a fixed location, will in the end be better than individual sites, which are maintained by individuals who inevitably have other things going on in their lives. If this comes true, then you won't have to hear me complain about extinct sites. The link I gave goes to the main dinosaur page; to find other articles, go to the categories at the bottom and select "dinosaurs," or try Portal: Dinosaurs.

Paleo Blogs: When I started this site, back in the waning days of the Clinton administration, the blog as we know it was just stirring. Nowadays, of course, paleo blogs are important platforms for discussing new research, issues facing paleontology, and various other topics of interest, complementing the above sites which focus more on what has come before. The other side of the coin is that not every post is going to be about paleontology, but you doubtless knew that already. Here are a few:

Chinleana: Written by Bill Parker out of Petrified Forest National Park, this is slanted to the Triassic, but that's not a bad time to be slanted at.

Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings: This blog is similar in spirit to Tetrapod Zoology, although as suggested by its name it covers a smaller slice of the tetrapod tree, and its entries are shorter in form.

Laelaps;
Dinosaur Tracking; previous Laelaps (one); previous Laelaps (two); previous Laelaps (three): Science writer Brian Switek's work is comparable in spirit to Tetrapod Zoology below, but not as technical. "Dinosaur Tracking", now retired, was focused mostly on dinosaurs, while Laelaps in its various incarnations has a wider scope. Keep an eye on Laelaps for coverage of recent findings.

Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs: "Love" is notable for its coverage of the cultural side of dinosaur paleontology, including tongue-in-cheek evaluations of popular dinosaur books of time gone by. 

PALAEOBLOG: From Michael Ryan, this blog covers historical anniversaries as well as new discoveries and ongoing research.

Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week: Also known affectionately as SV-POW!, this blog is run by Darren Naish, Mike Taylor, and Matt Wedel. It is unashamedly hyperfocused. While this may seem off-putting in theory, rest assured that it works spectacularly in practice.

Tetrapod Zoology;
Darren Naish: Tetrapod Zoology (version one); Tetrapod Zoology (version two): Dr. Naish's blog is possibly the flagship tetrapod paleontology blog, and covers a variety of biological and paleontological topics in great depth. Although he is best known in dinosaur circles for his work on coelurosaurian theropods and dinosaurs from the Isle of Wight, his interests are extremely wide in scope, and you'll never know what he'll write on next.

Theropoda: The deeply informative blog of Andrea Cau, Theropoda is written in Italian but includes translation service for those of us who need it.

The Theropod Database Blog: It's The Theropod Database, now in blog form! Actually, if you were on the Dinosaur Mailing List around the turn of the century, it's like the "Details on" series Mickey would post. 

Dinosaur Restorations: I'm not hugely experienced in the ways of dinosaur illustrations (as you can guess from my own amateurish attempts), but you may want to see some more:

CU Museum: MFS: Scientific Illustration (MUSM 5061): Well, there's technically only two dinosaur images on display here (and of the same animal; no points for guessing which one), but it's my website, and so here's a link to the fine scientific artwork my classmates and I produced in Dr. Dena Smith's Scientific Illustration class.

Frederik Spindler's home page (in German): Here's the latest location of Frederik Spindler's paleoart.

Welcome to Skeletal Drawing.com: For those of you who like to do your own work, you know the value of a good skeletal reconstruction. Well, here's a pot of gold for you!

Other Prehistoric Animals:

Oceans of Kansas Paleontology: Oceans of Kansas Paleontology is one of the true crown jewels of paleontology sites on the Internet. You could easily get lost in this review of everything you could want to know about the Western Interior Seaway.

Palaeocritti: An offshoot of Wikipedia's paleo-editing, Palaeocritti at this point has information capsules covering a wide range of ancient life. Like WP, it is illustrated throughout (which shouldn't come as a surprise, as the site owner, Nobu Tamura, created many of the restorations used at WP).

The Paleobiology Database: Although there is a lot about dinosaurs here, this site is useful for looking up information on any prehistoric organism, and rewards poking around.

The Plesiosaur Directory and The Plesiosaur Site: These two sites will help you get your plesiosaurian fix.

Pterosaur.net and The Pterosaur Database: Or perhaps you prefer pterosaurs?

The Tree of Life Web Project: In general, if you use this site, the UCMP site below, and Palaeos, you can find useful information on just about any group of organisms.

UCMP Home Page: Another crown jewel, this site has information on just about every kind of extinct animal. Be sure to also pay a visit to The Paleontology Portal, one of its subsites.

The Ground Underfoot: Well, you know, the geology!

Ron Blakey's and Chris Scotese's paleogeography reconstructions: If you ever wonder where your part of the world was during, say, the Middle Jurassic, here you go.

Geologic maps of US states: This site does what it says on the box: go to the state of choice, find the area of interest, click on the unit, and find out what kind of rock it is and what it's called (if it's a named formation). Useful and a great timewaster for the geologically inclined. Some unit designations may be out of date, in which case...

USGS National Geological Lexicon: You can cross-reference the map unit here.

Museums: I thought I'd throw in a few more museums and make a separate heading out of it.

Denver Museum of Nature and Science: My thoughts: Fantastic skeletal mounts for the paleoartist to photograph and for everyone to enjoy.

Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center: This museum, in Woodland Park, CO, has some good Lancian-age skeletons, including two Thescelosaurus with the new skull (very interesting). Also, they run an extensive paleo giftshop (Prehistoric Paradise) with an online component for those times when you're in the mood for paleo merchandise.

Science Museum of Minnesota:  This is the website for my hometown museum. For the dinophile, it has, among other exhibits, the world's largest Triceratops mount.

University of Colorado Museum of Natural History: Yeah, so it's not so much a dino paleo place (terrific mammal stuff, though), but I thought I'd include it as it has been my "home" institution.

For Fun: The History of Dinosaur Toys:

Dinosaur Collector Site A (DC): Dioramas featuring toy dinosaurs! Also, for the dinosaur toy enthusiast, there is extensive material on some of the figures put out by various companies. I've communicated with the author before, on the subject of Inpro dinosaurs.

The Dinosaur Toy Blog and Forum: The Dinosaur Toy Blog specializes in detailed reviews of specific toys, from a variety of makers and periods. There is also an extensive community at the blog's forum.

Dinosaur toys collectors guide: This site is a bit like a combination of the Dinosaur Toy Blog's detailed reviews with the Dinosaur Collector Site's short listings, and the diorama aspect of the Dinosaur Collector's site. Also, the dinosaurs do odd things, which is always a plus.

Realm of Rubber Dinosaurs: Here's another fun site, this one focusing more on the companies and their products.

Other:

Internet Archive: When a site goes extinct, here's the place to find it again (provided you still have the url). Many public-domain publications (pre-1921) can be found as well. Also, you can listen to old time radio, which has little to do with dinosaurs (except for a couple of time-travel stories in some of the adventure and science fiction anthology series), but hey. I particularly like the Bob Bailey years of "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar" (particularly the five-part stories), "Dragnet", "Lights Out", the darkly detached "Crime Classics", and "Dark Fantasy", a supernatural horror series that was never afraid to transcend from the expected weirdness of the genre into sheer insanities of plot that would have never flown in a nationwide or large regional series. Honorable mention: "Suspense", "Escape", "Richard Diamond, Private Detective", "Gunsmoke", and "The Whistler".