DOI: 10.5061/dryad.05qfttfd3
title: New frontiers in dinosaur exploration

description: 200 years after the naming of the first dinosaur, taxonomic studies remain
 an important component of dinosaur research. Around 50 new dinosaurs are
 named each year, and are discovered from across the globe. The rate of new
 dinosaur discovery shows no signs of slowing, but not all geographic areas
 and temporal windows have been equally investigated. The potential for new
 dinosaur discoveries in India and Africa seems particularly high, while
 the Carnian, when dinosaurs probably originated, and the Middle Jurassic,
 when the major clades diversified, offer the best opportunities to make
 discoveries that will fundamentally change our understanding of dinosaur
 evolution. A major challenge to the discovery of new dinosaurs is funding.
 Frontier fieldwork is sometimes viewed as too risky to fund, while basic
 taxonomic work is considered to lack impact. As a consequence, we risk an
 ‘extinction of experience’, where researchers have limited training in the
 basic field and specimen-based research that underpins our discipline.
 Going forward, new remote sensing techniques may help to find prospective
 areas, while 3D scanning apps on smartphones will allow us to quickly
 record field data. Artificial intelligence is likely to be used
 increasingly for CT segmentation and identification of problematic
 fossils.
description: <em>Collector curves–</em>All dinosaur regular genera
 and species, both valid and invalid, were downloaded from the Paleobiology
 Database (PBDB; paleobiodb.org) on 17th December 2024. The data were
 cleaned to remove Avialae, ichnotaxa, and ootaxa. Taxa that were listed as
 invalid due to misspellings, obsolete variates, or that were renamed for
 grammatical or linguistic reasons were removed. <em>Nomina dubia,
 nomina nuda, </em>objective and subjective synonyms,<em>
 </em>and recombinations were retained. Collector curves (Fig. 1)
 were built in R 3.4.0 [124]. Code and raw data are available in the
 Supplementary Material.  <em>Time-calibrated
 phylogeny</em>–A consensus dinosaur phylogeny was manually produced
 in Mesquite [125]. First and last appearance data were collected for all
 taxa in the phylogeny and are listed in the data file provided in the
 Supplementary Material. First and last appearances generally correspond to
 the earliest and latest dates of the Stage from which the taxon is known,
 unless more accurate information was available in the literature. Ages
 were derived from the International Chronostratigraphic Chart version
 2024/12. The consensus phylogeny was time-calibrated using the
 TimePalaeoPhy function in the R package Paleotree [126] with minimum
 branch lengths of 0.5 million years. Code and raw data are available in
 the Supplementary Material. <em>Occurrences
 through time histogram–</em>All dinosaur body fossil occurrences
 were downloaded from the PBDB on 22nd January 2025 and were manually
 cleansed to remove ichnotaxa and ootaxa. The midpoint of the first
 appearance datum and last appearance datum was taken for each occurrence,
 and these midpoints were plotted in 1 million year bins in R 3.4.0 [124].
 Code and raw data are available in the Supplementary Material.
 <em>Occurrences map–</em>Non-avialan dinosaur
 occurrences, excluding form taxa, were downloaded from the PBDB (27th
 January 2025). These were manipulated in R 4.4.2. The data set was pruned
 to limit it to species type occurrences only. Triassic, Jurassic and
 Cretaceous occurrences were plotted onto modern day maps using the
 packages <em>maps</em> and <em>ggplot</em>. Code
 and raw data are available in the Supplementary Material.
 124. R Core Team. 2023. R: A Language and Environment for
 Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna,
 Austria. https://www.R-project.org/. 125. Maddison WP,
 Maddison DR. 2023. Mesquite: a modular system for evolutionary analysis.
 Version 3.81. http://www.mesquiteproject.org. 126. Bapst DW. 2012. Paleotree: an R package for palaeontological and phylogenetic analyses of evolution. <em>Methods in Ecology and Evolution</em> 3: 803–807.
description: # New frontiers in dinosaur exploration
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.05qfttfd3](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.05qfttfd3) ## Description of the data and file structure These data were collected to review the state of dinosaur taxonomy and systematics today, as part of an invited review titled 'New Frontiers in Dinosaur Exploration'. The raw data tables in xlsx and csv format were downloaded from the Paleobiology Database or Scopus and then cleansed according to the methods provided here and in the publication. The .txt file was compiled from the literature, while the .nex file is a phylogenetic tree that represents a consensus dinosaur phylogeny and was hand-built in Mesquite.  ### Files and variables #### File: Ages.txt **Description:** A file showing the first and last appearance data for dinosaur taxa in the phylogenetic tree. This file is needed for time-calibration of the phylogenetic tree (DinotreeR1.nex) and is used in the code "Time-calibration_palaeotree.R". ##### Variables * Taxon: This is a list of dinosaur taxa that appear in the phylogenetic tree * FAD: first appearance datum * LAD: last appearance datum * \#Ages based on International Chronostratigraphic Chart 2024-12#: The hashtag prevents any data from this column from being implemented in R, but provides a rationale for FADs and LADs.  #### File: Dinotree\_R1.nex **Description:** A consensus phylogeny of Dinosauria hand-built in Mesquite. This is a consensus phylogenetic tree of dinosaurs that is time-calibrated using the code "Time-calibration_palaeotree.R" and the file "Ages.txt".  #### File: Dinos.xlsx **Description:** A dataset for building collector curves, downloaded from the PBDB and cleansed according to the methods. Blank cells in this spreadsheet represent missing data. It is used with the code "Collector_curve_code.R". ##### Variables * taxon_rank: the Linnean rank of the taxon * taxon_name: the name of the taxon * continent: the continent the taxon came from * how_discovered: empty column for this dataset * taxon_attr: the taxonomic authority for the taxon name * difference: current validity status of the taxon * accepted_rank: the Linnean or cladistic rank of the variable 'accepted_name' * accepted_name: the currently accepted name of the taxon * parent_name: the higher-level classification of the taxon * ref_author: the author who named the taxon * ref_pubyr: the year the taxon was published * n_occs: number of occurrences * class: the taxon class * family: the taxon family * genus: the taxon genus * primary_reference: the primary reference for the taxon.  #### File: Dinosaur\_data.xlsx **Description:**  A dataset for building maps, downloaded from the PBDB and cleansed according to the methods. Blank cells in this spreadsheet represent missing data. It is used with the code "Map.R" ##### Variables: This file has a very large number of variables, which are derived from the PBDB, most of which are not used in this script. Details of all of the variables can be found here: [https://paleobiodb.org/data1.2/](https://paleobiodb.org/data1.2/) #### File: pbdb\_data\_occurrences.csv **Description:** A dataset for building the occurrence histogram, downloaded from the PBDB and cleansed according to the methods. Blank spaces in this spreadsheet represent missing data. It is used with the code "Occurrences_curve.R" ##### Variables: This file has a very large number of variables, which are derived from the PBDB, most of which are not used in this script. Details of all of the variables can be found here: [https://paleobiodb.org/data1.2/](https://paleobiodb.org/data1.2/) #### File: Dinosaur all publications 2014-2023.xlsx **Description:** Raw data for Scopus information on dinosaurs provided in the manuscript. #### File: Dinosaur taxonomy 2014-2023 summary.xlsx **Description:** Raw data for Scopus information on searches on dinosaur taxonomy provided in the manuscript.  ## Code/software The data files can be viewed in any text editor, Excel, or Google Sheets. The code can be implemented in R.  ## Access information Other publicly accessible locations of the data: * [www.paleobiodb.org](http://www.paleobiodb.org).