Largest-ever octopus was great white shark of invertebrate predators
During the Cretaceous, 19-metre-long predatory octopuses swam the seas, and evidence from their fossilised remains suggest they may have been highly intelligent hunters
Earliest octopuses were giant top predators in Cretaceous oceans. They were up to 19 meters (62 feet) long. Wear patterns on their jaws suggest they fed on marine reptiles like Mosasaurs and Plesiosaurs.
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Octopus ‘krakens’ as large as semi-trucks stalked ancient seas
Giant cephalopods may have rivaled marine reptiles as apex predators during the age of the dinosaurs
'Kraken' octopus that lived at the time of the dinosaurs was a 62-foot-long apex predator of the ocean
A close inspection of 27 fossil jaws from finned octopuses challenge the longstanding belief that the apex oceanic predators of the Cretaceous were all vertebrates.
In Eastern Africa, the cradle of humankind is tearing apart
Eastern Africa's Turkana Rift is both a hotbed for fossil discoveries of our earliest ancestors and a literal hotbed of volcanic activity caused by shifting tectonic plates. Now researchers have found...
This ancient crocodile relative grew up on four legs then walked on two
A bizarre crocodile relative from the age of dinosaurs is rewriting what scientists thought they knew about ancient reptiles. This poodle-sized creature, called Sonselasuchus cedrus, appears to have s...
Ostracod fauna from the Lower Cretaceous Cangxi Formation of the Sichuan Basin, southwestern China: taxonomy, biostratigraphy and palaeobiogeography
Papers in Palaeontology, Volume 12, Issue 2, March/April 2026.
Breathing new life into an ancient mystery: Unlocking the trilobite's respiratory secrets
For more than 270 million years, trilobites were among the most successful and diverse creatures on Earth, with over 22,000 known species spanning the Paleozoic Era. Yet, despite their abundance in th...
Strange 65-Foot Dinosaur Discovered in Argentina
Bicharracosaurus dionidei, a newly discovered sauropod from Argentina, shows a mix of brachiosaurid and diplodocid traits, offering new insights into dinosaur evolution in the Southern Hemisphere. Lon...
These tiny dinosaur fossils fooled scientists for 20 years
Tiny dinosaur fossils that puzzled scientists for over 20 years have finally revealed their true identity. Rather than belonging to a miniature species, they are actually baby ankylosaurs—some less th...
CAM photosynthesis may have conferred an advantage during the Permian–Triassic mass extinction event
Rediscovered tracksite reveals large dinosaurs ranged as far as northern Mongolia 120 million years ago
An international research team has rediscovered a dinosaur tracksite in the Saijrakh area of northern Mongolia. The site was originally reported about 70 years ago but had since been lost due to a lac...
Rare soft-bodied fossil from Quebec reveals a new jellyfish relative from 450 million years ago
Canadian researchers studying 450-million-year-old fossils near Quebec City have identified a new species of basal-medusozoan: Paleocanna tentaculum, a soft-bodied, tube-shaped polyp with a ring of te...
Why a bizarre Brazil 'pterosaur' fossil is now being reclassified as a fish
Georges Cuvier, the 19th-century French anatomist who first recognized pterodactyls as flying reptiles, wrote that "of all the beings whose ancient existence has been revealed to us, [they are] the mo...
Moroccan dinosaur's fearsome tail spikes evolved much earlier than we thought—new discovery
In the heart of the Middle Atlas Mountains in central Morocco, a global team of paleontologists and geologists has discovered new remains of a very unusual dinosaur. It belonged to the group called an...
Scientists Rethink Extreme Warming After Surprising Ocean Discovery
Researchers have applied a temperature proxy to exceptionally well-preserved fossil phytoplankton for the first time. The results suggest that conditions in the North Atlantic have been cooler than pr...
250-Million-Year-Old Egg Solves One of Evolution’s Biggest Mysteries
Discovery of a Lystrosaurus embryo inside an egg proves early mammal relatives laid eggs and survived mass extinction through rapid development and resilient reproductive strategies. A new fossil disc...
Scientists thought this was a young T. rex. They were wrong
A long-running dinosaur mystery may finally be solved: Nanotyrannus, once dismissed as just a teenage T. rex, appears to have been its own distinct species after all. Scientists analyzed a tiny throat...
A crushed fossil revealed a dinosaur that shouldn’t have existed
A badly mangled dinosaur skull, once forgotten in a drawer, turned out to be a rare and important discovery. Reconstructed by a Virginia Tech student, it revealed a new species of early carnivorous di...
This 31-foot “terror croc” ate dinosaurs. Now it’s back
A massive, bus-sized “terror croc” that once preyed on dinosaurs has been brought back to life in stunning detail with the first scientifically accurate full skeleton of Deinosuchus schwimmeri. Stretc...