Moab's red rock keeps giving, and this time the dig sits practically in the shadow of a national park famous for its stone, not its bones. Early word is cautious, with a lot of 'possible' in it, which is how real palaeontology sounds before the paper lands. Dinosaur news makes the cut on principle; this one earns it on scenery too.

Every few years someone claims soft tissue in a dinosaur bone and the field braces for the argument. This time the selling point is chemical confirmation rather than a suggestive smear under the microscope, which is the bit worth reading closely. If it holds up, the clock on how long biomolecules can last just got a lot longer.

Alberta has been handing palaeontologists tyrannosaurs for over a century, and apparently the province still has a few in the drawer. Each new branch on this family tree tightens the story of how the big northern tyrants split and spread, so it's worth noticing where this one sits relative to its famous cousins. The CTV headline writer clearly had fun, too.

Most dinosaur diets get sorted into meat or leaves, so a beaked little theropod built for mashing fruit is a genuinely new line on the menu. The nickname does a lot of work here, but the jaw is the real story: if the reading holds, this is the first good case for a dinosaur frugivore. Worth noticing how much of palaeo-diet science comes down to the hinge of a jaw.

Dinosaur news gets a free pass here, and this one comes with scenery. Nothing beats a dig where the commute runs past Arches, and the Moab country has a long habit of giving up new animals. The word to hold on to is possible: naming a species is a slow argument, so treat this as the opening statement.

Two days after a megaraptor turned up in a London museum drawer, here is one on home turf. Patagonia remains the group's stronghold, and the finds keep adding to a family that took palaeontologists a long while to place on the tree. Same talons, different continent, and a tidy reminder that the British specimen had relatives with better weather.

Palaeontologists are supposed to be sober people, and then one of them finds a juvenile small enough to deserve a cartoon namesake. Dooly the little green dinosaur is a household name in Korea, so the christening is less whimsy than national service. The description itself dates from earlier this year and is doing the rounds again, but South Korean dinosaur skeletons are scarce enough to justify a second look.

Dinosaur news is always in, and this one has the best possible plot: the fossil spent a hundred-odd years being politely overlooked before anyone noticed what it was. Long claws, a name that translates to something like an unconquered female warrior, and a useful reminder that some of the best digging in palaeontology happens in the collections room.

No new fossil this run, since the week's dinosaur headlines have already been through here, so have some history instead. Buckland gets the credit for Megalosaurus, but notice the problem he faced: nobody had ever seen one, and somebody had to imagine it accurately. That somebody is the story.

Soft-tissue claims in dinosaurs are a reliable way to start an argument, which is half the fun. Note the careful wording: chemical traces, not a Jurassic Park blood bag, so nobody needs to book a mosquito. The species name also salutes Brazil's National Museum, a nice touch for a fossil from that country's northeast.

Everyone remembers the teeth; hardly anyone asks about dessert. A dinosaur diet built around fruit would be a real first, and the evidence is in the jaw, so note the careful 'may be' in the claim. It also gives the tabloids a nickname the Linnaean name can't compete with.

No dinosaurs this run, since the week's new species have already been through here, so the palaeontology slot goes to a relative. Notice the verb: scientists suspect, not scientists have proven. One old fossil in the right place can start an argument that takes decades to finish, and those are the best kind.