Paleontology News
July 21, 2024
Top Headlines
July 19, 2024 A new species of fossil snake unearthed in Wyoming is rewriting our understanding of snake evolution. The discovery, based on four remarkably well-preserved specimens found curled together in a ...
July 17, 2024 Cut marks on fossils could be evidence of humans exploiting large mammals in Argentina more than 20,000 years ago, according to a new ...
July 17, 2024 New research has examined the fossil record going back 66 million years and tracked changes to mammalian ecosystems and species diversity on the North American ...
July 12, 2024 Researchers have shed light on Earth's earliest ecosystem, showing that within a few hundred million years of planetary formation, life on Earth was already ...
Latest Headlines
updated 10:15am EDT
July 11, 2024 An international research team has assembled the genome and 3D chromosomal structures of a 52,000-year-old woolly mammoth -- the first time such a ...
July 10, 2024 The surprising discovery of a new species of extinct crocodile relative from the Triassic Favret Formation of Nevada, USA, rewrites the story of life ...
July 10, 2024 The most complete dinosaur discovered in the UK in the last 100 years, with a pubic hip bone the size of a 'dinner plate', has been described in a ...
July 9, 2024 A type of extinct kangaroo that lived during the Pleistocene around two and a half million to ten thousand years ago, known as the 'giant wallaby', was a poor hopper, a study has ...
July 9, 2024 A newly discovered ancestor of Thescelosaurus shows evidence that these animals spent at least part of their time in underground burrows. The new species contributes to a fuller understanding of life ...
July 4, 2024 In recent years global warming has left its mark on the Antarctic ice sheets. The 'eternal' ice in Antarctica is melting faster than previously assumed, particularly in West Antarctica more than East ...
July 3, 2024 Bone remains found in a Tibetan cave 3,280 m above sea level indicate an ancient group of humans survived here for many ...
July 3, 2024 Meet Gaiasia jennyae, the swamp creature with a toilet seat-shaped head. It lived 40 million years before the first dinosaurs, and it was the top ...
July 3, 2024 Global warming as well as recent droughts and floods threaten large populations along the Nile Valley. Sediment cores off the Nile mouth reveal insights into the effects and causes of heavy rainfall ...
July 1, 2024 Human hunting, not climate change, played a decisive role in the extinction of large mammals over the last 50,000 years. This conclusion comes from ...
Earlier Headlines
July 1, 2024 Scientists discovered the oldest fossil grapes in the Western Hemisphere, which help show how after the death of the dinosaurs, grapes spread across the ...
June 27, 2024 Ammonites were not in decline before their extinction, scientists have ...
June 27, 2024 The last population of woolly mammoths was isolated on Wrangel Island off the coast of Siberia 10,000 years ago, when sea levels rose and cut the mountainous island off from the mainland. A new ...
June 27, 2024 Researchers have described some of the best-preserved three-dimensional trilobite fossils ever discovered. The fossils, which are more than 500 million years old, were collected in the High Atlas of ...
June 27, 2024 Why did multicellularity arise? Solving that mystery may help pinpoint life on other planets and explain the vast diversity and complexity seen on Earth today, from sea sponges to redwoods to human ...
June 26, 2024 Researchers continue to expand the case for the Younger Dryas Impact hypothesis. The idea proposes that a fragmented comet smashed into the Earth's atmosphere 12,800 years ago, causing a ...
June 20, 2024 For centuries, scientists thought they knew where the griffin legend came from. A new study takes a closer look at the data and folklore's influence on ...
June 20, 2024 A new dinosaur has been identified and named. The dinosaur's name, Lokiceratops rangiformis, translates roughly to 'Loki's horned face that looks like a ...
June 17, 2024 An international team of scientists has identified the oldest fossil of a sea-going reptile from the Southern Hemisphere -- a nothosaur vertebra found on New Zealand's South Island. 246 million ...
June 14, 2024 Scientists have unraveled the ancestral history of one of the most iconic birds of prey in the current Iberian fauna: the Bonelli's eagle (Aquila fasciata). The study combines evidence from ...
June 14, 2024 New research has found that sharks retained high levels of functional diversity for most of the last 66 million years, before steadily declining over the last 10 million years to its lowest value in ...
June 13, 2024 Paleontologists have identified a new genus of fossil goby, revealing evolutionary secrets of a lineage that stretches back millions of ...
June 13, 2024 When it comes to the ocean's response to global warming, we're not in entirely uncharted waters. A new study shows that episodes of extreme heat in Earth's past caused the exchange of ...
June 12, 2024 New research has identified 100-million-year-old fossilized bones discovered in western Queensland as belonging to a newly identified species of pterosaur, which was a formidable flying reptile that ...
June 7, 2024 Ancient apes in Germany co-existed by partitioning resources in their environment, according to a new ...
June 6, 2024 In a parasitic first, a Baltic amber specimen has revealed that millions of years ago tiny worms known as nematodes were living inside of and feeding on the outer protective layer of ...
June 5, 2024 The identity of a prehistoric marine reptile has finally been revealed after experts discovered that some of its remains actually belonged to ...
June 5, 2024 Geobiologists reported a 550 million-year-old sea sponge that had been missing from the fossil record. The discovery sheds new light on a conundrum that has stumped zoologists and paleontologists for ...
June 4, 2024 A team of palaeontologists has discovered a fossil of a gigantic flying reptile from the Jurassic period with an estimated wingspan of more than three metres -- making it one of the largest ...
June 3, 2024 The sharks we know today as the open ocean's top predators evolved from stubby bottom dwellers during a dramatic episode of global warming millions of years ...
Monday, July 1, 2024
Thursday, June 27, 2024
- Ammonites' Fate Sealed by Meteor Strike That Wiped out Dinosaurs
- Last Surviving Woolly Mammoths Were Inbred but Not Doomed to Extinction
- Prehistoric 'Pompeii' Discovered: Most Pristine Trilobite Fossils Ever Found Shake Up Scientific Understanding of the Long Extinct Group
- Why the Harsh Snowball Earth Kick-Started Our Earliest Multicellular Ancestors
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Thursday, June 20, 2024
- New Study Finds Dinosaur Fossils Did Not Inspire the Mythological Griffin
- Newly Discovered Dinosaur Boasts Big, Blade-Like Horns
Monday, June 17, 2024
Friday, June 14, 2024
- Early Homo Sapiens Facilitated the Establishment of the Bonelli's Eagle in the Mediterranean 50,000 Years Ago
- Sharks Have Depleted Functional Diversity Compared to the Last 66 Million Years
Thursday, June 13, 2024
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Friday, June 7, 2024
Thursday, June 6, 2024
Wednesday, June 5, 2024
Tuesday, June 4, 2024
Monday, June 3, 2024
Saturday, June 1, 2024
Thursday, May 30, 2024
- 'Ugly' Fossil Places Extinct Saber-Toothed Cat on Texas Coast
- Origins of 'Welsh Dragons' Finally Exposed by Experts
- Musankwa Sanyatiensis, a New Dinosaur from Zimbabwe
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
- Bringing Back an Ancient Bird
- Florida Fossil Porcupine Solves a Prickly Dilemma 10-Million Years in the Making
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Monday, May 20, 2024
- Diverse Headgear in Hoofed Mammals Evolved from Common Ancestor
- Record Low Antarctic Sea Ice 'extremely Unlikely' Without Climate Change
- Evolutionary History of Extinct Duck Revealed
Friday, May 17, 2024
Thursday, May 16, 2024
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
- Summers Warm Up Faster Than Winters, Fossil Shells from Antwerp Show
- First 'warm-Blooded' Dinosaurs May Have Emerged 180 Million Years Ago
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Friday, May 3, 2024
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
- Rock Solid Evidence: Angola Geology Reveals Prehistoric Split Between South America and Africa
- Revised Dating of the Liujiang Skeleton Renews Understanding of Human Occupation of China
Monday, April 29, 2024
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
- Ice Age Climate Analysis Reduces Worst-Case Warming Expected from Rising CO2
- Paleontologists Unearth What May Be the Largest Known Marine Reptile
- Marine Plankton Behavior Could Predict Future Marine Extinctions
- Genetic Variant Identified That Shaped the Human Skull Base
- Interspecies Competition Led to Even More Forms of Ancient Human -- Defying Evolutionary Trends in Vertebrates
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Monday, April 15, 2024
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Friday, April 5, 2024
- In the Evolution of Walking, the Hip Bone Connected to the Rib Bones
- Dinosaur Study Challenges Bergmann's Rule
Wednesday, April 3, 2024
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Monday, March 25, 2024
Friday, March 22, 2024
Thursday, March 21, 2024
- Rays Were More Diverse 150 Million Years Ago Than Previously Thought
- Researchers Name Prehistoric Amphibian Ancestor Discovered in Smithsonian Collection After Kermit the Frog
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
- Ancient Giant Dolphin Discovered in the Amazon
- Sea Surface Temperature Research Provides Clear Evidence of Human-Caused Climate Change
Monday, March 18, 2024
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
- Alaska Dinosaur Tracks Reveal a Lush, Wet Environment
- Higher Carnivorous Dinosaur Biodiversity of Famous Kem Kem Beds, Morocco
Thursday, March 7, 2024
- New Study Reveals Insight Into Which Animals Are Most Vulnerable to Extinction Due to Climate Change
- Earth's Earliest Forest Revealed in Somerset Fossils
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
- Fossils of Giant Sea Lizard With Dagger-Like Teeth Show How Our Oceans Have Fundamentally Changed Since the Dinosaur Era
- Fossil Named 'Attenborough's Strange Bird' Was the First in Its Kind Without Teeth
Thursday, February 29, 2024
- Scientists ID Burned Bodies Using Technique Used for Extracting DNA from Woolly Mammoths, Neanderthals
- Mercury Rising: Study Sheds New Light on Ancient Volcanoes' Environmental Impact
- Slimming Down a Colossal Fossil Whale
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
Monday, February 19, 2024
Friday, February 16, 2024
Thursday, February 15, 2024
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Monday, February 12, 2024
- Archaeologists Discover Oldest Known Bead in the Americas
- Researchers Studying Ocean Transform Faults, Describe a Previously Unknown Part of the Geological Carbon Cycle
- The Hidden Rule for Flight Feathers -- And How It Could Reveal Which Dinosaurs Could Fly
Friday, February 9, 2024
- Surprisingly Vibrant Color of 12-Million-Year-Old Snail Shells
- New Fossil Site of Worldwide Importance Uncovered in Southern France
Thursday, February 8, 2024
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
- What Turned Earth Into a Giant Snowball 700 Million Years Ago? Scientists Now Have an Answer
- Dinosaurs' Success Helped by Specialized Stance and Gait, Study Finds
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Friday, February 2, 2024
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
Monday, January 29, 2024
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
- DNA from Preserved Feces Reveals Ancient Japanese Gut Environment
- Ancient Brown Bear Genomes Sheds Light on Ice Age Losses and Survival
Monday, January 22, 2024
Sunday, January 21, 2024
Thursday, January 18, 2024
- A Window Into Plant Evolution: The Unusual Genetic Journey of Lycophytes
- Why Animals Shrink Over Time Explained With New Evolution Theory