An international team of scientists excavated and analyzed over 200 bones from dinosaurs at different stages of embryonic development from a 190-million-year-old dinosaur bonebed, revealing how dinosaur embryos grew and developed in their eggs. A 190-million-year-old dinosaur bonebed near the city of Lufeng, in Yunnan, China has revealed for the first time how dinosaur embryos [...]

By using elevated pressures and temperatures to simulate the effects of burial on structurally colored cuticles of modern beetles, researchers at Yale University show how colors change during fossilization. An international research team led by Yale University scientists has for the first time explained the preservation of colors in fossil insects. The discovery shows why [...]

More than twenty scientists collaborated on a recently published study that reconstructed the ancestor of placental mammals. The common ancestor of more than 5,000 contemporary placental mammals such as rats, whales, and humans was a small, insect-eating animal that appeared after the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, an international team of researchers report [...]

Paleontologists have discovered the fossilized bones of a 68 million year old flying reptile, Eurazhdarcho langendorfensis, in the Transylvanian Basin of Romania. A new kind of pterosaur, a flying reptile from the time of the dinosaurs, has been identified by scientists from the Transylvanian Museum Society in Romania, the University of Southampton in the UK [...]

Findings related to the newly discovered ‘bird-dinosaur’ Eosinopteryx suggest that the origin of flight was much more complex than previously thought. The discovery of a new bird-like dinosaur from the Jurassic period challenges widely accepted theories on the origin of flight. Co-authored by Dr Gareth Dyke, Senior Lecturer in Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of [...]

Researchers have discovered an 8.6-meter long reptile with a massive skull and sharp teeth that lived 244 million years ago, during the Triassic Period. It’s been described as an early ichthyosaur, a four-footed reptile that turned seafarer. The scientists published their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences¹. Other ichthyosaurs fed [...]

A new study indicates that a group of bipedal dinosaurs, known as oviraptors, shook their feather-adorned tails to gain attention during their courtship rituals. The scientists published their findings in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica¹. The key evidence is the structure of their relatively stubby tail, which was muscular and flexible at its base, but [...]

Entombed within the 9 to 10 million year old rocks at Cerro de los Batallones in Spain’s Madrid Basin are at least nine different assemblages of large fossil mammals. Two of these deposits are rich in carnivore bones, and provide an interesting snapshot at how these apex predators coexisted. The scientists published their findings in [...]

Soft tissues, like skin and feathers, aren’t usually part of the fossil record, but a new technique has found a way to bring some of them back into the record. The technique was used to resurrect the teeth and recognize the carcass of a 50-million-year-old fossil of a lizard, long thought to be merely preserved [...]

Megapiranha is an extinct genus of serrasalmid characin fish that lived 8 to 10 million years ago, in the Late Miocene. It’s estimated to have reached lengths of up to 1.3 meters, which is about four times the size of piranha alive today. These estimates are based upon fossil specimens that have been discovered. Based [...]

A new species of mosasaur was discovered in Hungry, providing the first evidence that mosasaurs lived in both freshwater and marine environments. The scientists published their findings in the journal PLoS ONE¹. The first mosasaur was discovered in 1764, and since then, thousands of specimens have been discovered. Until now, paleontologists had no evidence that [...]

The strongest and biggest bird of prey that ever existed was the Haast’s Eagle (Harpagornis moorei) of New Zealand, and it became extinct around the 1400s soon after the Maori settled the South Island of New Zealand. H. moorei was powerful enough to attack and prey on giant flightless birds, the moa, weighing 10 to [...]