A new fossil from the Eocene of Iran provides new insights regarding the evolution of the morphologically bizarre tube‐eye fish
Papers in Palaeontology, Volume 12, Issue 4, July/August 2026.
Arctic fossil abandoned in 1948 proves to be record-size Triassic hunter
Nearly 80 years ago, a British expedition discovered the battered remains of a giant fossil on the peak of an Arctic island. Unable to take it with them, they snapped some pictures, took some bones an...
This Fossil Upends a Decades-Old Debate About Snake Evolution
Exceptionally preserved Brazilian fossil reveals early snakes explored several habitats. More than 4,000 snake species live today, yet the evolutionary path that produced their elongated, limbless bod...
240-million-year-old reptile fossil reveals a lost chapter before dinosaurs and crocodiles
A 240-million-year-old reptile discovered in Brazil is revealing what evolution looked like just before the rise of dinosaurs and crocodiles. The small predator had unusually positioned legs that may ...
Early snakes explored life underground, on land and at sea
Snakes are highly modified lizards, with more than 4,000 living species today. The origin of snakes has long been one of evolutionary biology's most debated questions. Their sparse fossil record has m...
Dinosaurs became giants — so why did they never become tiny?
Dinosaurs conquered the land at enormous sizes, but strangely, they almost never evolved into truly tiny animals. New research suggests that physiology alone can’t explain this missing miniature end o...
Scientists rediscover lost Megalodon fossils—and reveal a 79-foot giant
Several enormous Megalodon vertebrae thought to have been destroyed in 1989 were found sitting unnoticed on a museum shelf. Their analysis strengthens evidence that the giant shark could exceed 24 met...
Uberaba Geopark: A time capsule from the Late Cretaceous period nestled in Brazil's tropical savanna
Uberaba Geopark, also known as the "Land of the Giants," is a region in Brazil's Cerrado biome that preserved thousands of prehistoric fossils.
Meet the 30-Million-Year-Old Dog That Climbed Trees Instead of Chasing Sticks
A nearly complete fossil shows that one early dog combined climbing ability with a body unlike those of modern running canids. For more than 30 years, a fossil roughly 30 million years old remained se...
567-million-year-old fossils rewrite the dawn of animal life
A spectacular fossil site in Canada contains 567-million-year-old creatures that may represent some of the earliest animals to move, reproduce sexually, and develop recognizable body plans. The discov...
One of the world's only two complete dodo skulls reveals new clues about the extinct bird
Only two complete dodo skulls are known to exist anywhere in the world: one at the Natural History Museum Denmark and one at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The specimen housed in Cop...
Stunning fossil from Australian outback reveals pliosaur killed a sea monster that had just eaten a pterosaur
Using advanced neutron imaging, researchers scanning fossils from Queensland uncovered clues about the complex food chain of prehistoric Earth.
300-Million-Year-Old Fossil Babies Challenge the Textbook Story of Life’s Move Onto Land
Fossils of young tetrapods suggest that the common ancestors of amphibians, reptiles and mammals did not evolve from animals with tadpole-like larvae, as scientists once thought. The first animals to ...
Cambrian small shelly fossils from North Greenland (eastern Laurentia; Series 2, Stage 4) with regional and global correlations
Papers in Palaeontology, Volume 12, Issue 4, July/August 2026.
This school-bus-sized “terror croc” ate dinosaurs. Now it’s back
A massive crocodilian capable of attacking dinosaurs has been brought back to life as the first scientifically accurate mounted skeleton of Deinosuchus schwimmeri. The 31-foot replica at Georgia’s Tel...
Did T. rex leave these 66-million-year-old bite marks?
Fossilized dinosaur bones from Wyoming are offering a rare glimpse into the feeding behavior of Tyrannosaurus rex. Researchers examined more than 3,000 bones dating back 72 to 66 million years and fou...
80-million-year-old snake brain reveals a surprising evolutionary secret
An exceptionally preserved snake fossil from Brazil reveals that early snakes were far more diverse than scientists once thought. Detailed brain reconstructions show that Tametara mirim was adapted fo...
Fossils from Wyoming's Smiley Draw deepen understanding of early primate evolution
A new study from the University of Kansas complicates the picture of primates living in North America some 55 million years ago during the Eocene, a warm period that allowed mammals to diversify quick...
A study of fossilized feces from across the Cambrian period found that the explosion of life around 540 million years ago could have been partly driven by the buildup of excrement produced by primitive sea creatures.
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518-million-year-old creature reveals the origins of spider fangs
A tiny 518-million-year-old sea creature has revealed the earliest known evidence of the structures that eventually became spiders’ fangs. Hidden inside the fossil were pincerlike limbs and preserved ...