Giant crocodylians dominated the food chain in Miocene South America, fossil evidence suggests
South America was a frightening place during the Miocene. More than 10 million years ago, a vast lake covered much of the continent, home to giant turtles and crocodylians.
A new Ice Age species was hiding in la brea tar pits fossils for decades
Scientists have discovered a new extinct amphibian species hiding in the fossil collections of Los Angeles’ La Brea Tar Pits. Named Spea labreae, the Ice Age spadefoot toad is an exceptionally rare fi...
Scientists Discover a 245-Million-Year-Old Reptile With Its Organs Still Preserved
An international research team examined a unique fossil from China that, for the first time, preserves the digestive system of a marine reptile with a long neck that lived in the oceans 245 million ye...
A 30-year-old fossil was hiding bones from a mysterious ancient sea monster
Fossils collected in Osaka more than 30 years ago have revealed a surprise hiding in plain sight: four previously unrecognized bones from a giant Cretaceous mosasaur. Among them is the first confirmed...
520-Million-Year-Old Fossil Reveals How Cephalopods Learned To Float
A 520-million-year-old fossil reveals an early stage in the evolution of cephalopod buoyancy. A tiny tube running through a shell helped early cephalopods control whether they rose or sank in the ocea...
Nearly Complete Fossil Reveals Scientists Were Wrong About This Ancient Mammal
An exceptionally preserved Cretaceous mammal challenges longstanding assumptions about early placental relatives. A nearly complete mammal skeleton recovered from Mongolia’s Gobi Desert has overturned...
Paleontology rocked by organic molecules found in 66-million-year-old dinosaur bones
Researchers have found strong evidence that original collagen can survive inside dinosaur fossils for tens of millions of years, overturning a long-standing assumption about fossilization. The discove...
Crocodiles can't fly. Birds can. Scientists have finally figured out why
The closest living relatives of crocodiles and alligators are, perhaps surprisingly, birds. Both are archosauriforms, a group of species that originated about 250 million years ago near the beginning ...
Where Were All the Tiny Dinosaurs? Scientists May Finally Have an Answer
For all their astonishing diversity, dinosaurs seem to have hit one evolutionary limit: they almost never became truly tiny. Tiny animals are everywhere in modern ecosystems, from mice and shrews to h...
How a mystery kept in London led to the discovery of a new Ecuadorian frog
Scientists from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador officially described Pristimantis milpe, an abundant and widely distributed species that had been confused with another species for more...
Forests in Wyoming lost 60% of their canopy during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the last comparable period of global warming, and it took them well over 100,000 years to recover, according to fossilized leaf fragments
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Climate change decided who ruled as top predator 35 million years ago
An international team of researchers from Belgium, France, Switzerland, Spain and the U.S. has reconstructed the evolution of body mass in carnivorous mammals during the Paleogene—a crucial window in ...
Tiny Fossil Overlooked for Decades Reveals a New Ice Age Species
A tiny fossil overlooked for decades at La Brea Tar Pits has turned out to belong to a species previously unknown to science. Researchers have identified Spea labreae, a previously unknown extinct spa...
A 236-million-year-old fossil challenges the story of mammalian live birth
Some cynodonts may have been giving birth to live young much sooner in evolutionary history than previously assumed. A new Frontiers in Mammal Science study has offered the first compelling evidence t...
African grasslands expanded 5 million year earlier than previously thought, molecular fossils suggest
The iconic grassland savannas of Africa are geographically extensive and important for both local fauna and the global climate. But where did they come from, and how will they change in the future? On...
Ancient penguin fossils offer new window into Antarctica's changing climate
A team of paleontologists from China University of Geosciences (Beijing) studying penguin fossils from Seymour Island off the Antarctic Peninsula have demonstrated how ancient bird bones can act as ch...
150-million-year-old dinosaur footprints reveal something strange about its walk
A spectacular 150-million-year-old trail of more than 130 footprints captures a giant sauropod making a complete loop before continuing on its way. Its uneven stride hints that the long-necked dinosau...
Progress and future directions in dinosaur palaeontology
Seven New Frog Species Uncovered in Madagascar After 12 Years of Research
Seven newly identified diamond frogs reveal hidden diversity that is already influencing conservation planning in Madagascar. Beneath the leaf litter of Madagascar’s forests, diamond frogs can remain ...
A Rare Look Inside the Dodo’s Skull Challenges Centuries of Myths
CT scans reveal new clues to how the dodo sensed its environment and challenge its reputation as an unintelligent bird. For centuries, one of the world’s only two complete dodo skulls has been preserv...