Paleontologists Identify a New Species of Ancient Whale
University of Otago paleontologists are rewriting the history of New Zealand’s ancient whales by describing a previously unknown genus of baleen whale, alive more than…
Paleontology
Four-Eyed Lizard Provides a New Wrinkle in Eyesight Evolution
Researchers have found an ancient monitor lizard with a fourth eye — a discovery that may signal a new wrinkle in the way eyesight evolved…
Paleontologists Provide New Perspective on Triassic Period, Emergence of Dinosaurs
After a great mass extinction shook the world about 252 million years ago, animal life outside of the ocean began to take hold. The earliest…
Paleontologists Identify a New Species of Prehistoric Reptile, Colobops Noviportensis
Scientists have identified a new species of reptile from prehistoric Connecticut and, boy, does it have a mouth on it. Named Colobops noviportensis, the creature…
‘Bloat-and-Float’ Explains Dinosaur Fossil Mystery
A scientist with the Canadian Museum of Nature has answered a long-standing mystery about why fossils of ankylosaurus—the “armoured tanks” of the dinosaur world—are mainly…
New Discovery Changes Perceptions of the Evolution of Earth’s Biosphere
For the first four billion years of Earth’s history, our planet’s continents would have been devoid of all life except microbes. All of this changed…
Paleontologists Discover Never-Before-Seen Ancient Fish Species
Paleontologists from the University of Alberta have discovered a never-before-seen species of fish in South America, with the help of a curious tourist. The fossil,…
Cretaceous Footprints Found at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
A slab of sandstone discovered at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center contains at least 70 mammal and dinosaur tracks from more than 100 million years…
Newly Discovered Dinosaur (Mansourasaurus shahinae) Links Africa and Europe
When it comes to the final days of the dinosaurs, Africa is something of a blank page. Fossils found in Africa from the Late Cretaceous,…
New Approach to Studying Biomarkers Helped Solve 500-Million-Year-Old Mystery
A postgraduate student of the Faculty of Geology of MSU, working with an international scientific group, participated in chemical analysis of biomarkers — compounds that…
Tiny Jurassic Dinosaur Featured Rainbow Ruff and a Bony Crest
Ancient dinosaurs were adorned in some amazing ways, from the horns of the triceratops to the plates and spikes of the stegosaurus. A newly discovered,…
Habelia Optata – A 508-Million-Year-Old Sea Creature
Paleontologists at the University of Toronto (U of T) and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto have entirely revisited a tiny yet exceptionally fierce…
Permian Ecosystems Tell Us A Lot About Modern Earth
A whopping two hundred and fifty-two million years ago, Earth was crawling with bizarre animals, including dinosaur cousins resembling Komodo dragons and bulky early mammal-relatives,…
Archaeologists Discover Oldest Known Funereal Fish Hooks
An archaeologist from The Australian National University (ANU) has uncovered the world’s oldest known fish-hooks placed in a burial ritual, found on Indonesia’s Alor Island,…
Inner Ears of Living Aquatic Animals Resemble Those of Extinct Sea Monsters
The inner ears of extinct aquatic reptiles from millions of years ago closely resemble those of some living aquatic animals with similar lifestyles or body…
Fossil Shows Transition From Life on Land to Life in the Sea
Using modern research tools on a 155-million-year-old reptile fossil, scientists at Johns Hopkins and the American Museum of Natural History report they have filled in…
Exceptionally Preserved Embryos Detail the Life History of a Pterosaur
The pterosaur record is generally poor, and pterosaur eggs are even rarer. Only a handful of isolated occurrences of eggs and embryos have been reported…
Mongolian Microfossils Shed Light on the Rise of Animals
A newly published study from Yale University details how a cache of embryo-like microfossils discovered in northern Mongolia may shed light on questions about the…