PALEONTOLOGY

Pterosaurs, which dominated the skies of the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, first evolved to take to the air in warm and humid conditions during the Late Triassic, a new study suggests. In a paper published in Nature...
Submarine canyons around Antarctica tend to have less sea ice, higher sea surface temperatures, and more biomass such as phytoplankton blooms than the shelves they cut into. Phytoplankton blooms feed Antarctic krill, making these canyons an...

Earliest evidence of humans in the Americas confirmed

Vance Holliday jumped at the invitation to go do geology at New Mexico's White Sands. The landscape, just west of Alamogordo, looks surreal—endless, rolling...

Ancient termite poo reveals 120 million-year-old secrets of Australia’s polar forests

Imagine a lush forest with tree-ferns, their trunks capped by ribbon-like fronds. Conifers tower overhead, bearing triangular leaves almost sharp enough to pierce skin....

Fossil discovery reveals giant ancient salamander

A giant, strong-jawed salamander once tunneled through ancient Tennessee soil. And thanks to a fossil unearthed near East Tennessee State University, scientists now better...

Oldest known dinosaur bone infection found in 220-million-year-old Plateosaurus

The dinosaur that welcomes visitors to the Natural History Museum harbors a fascinating history. Researchers have identified a severe bone infection in the dinosaur,...

What dinosaur fossils could teach us about cancer

When you think of dinosaurs, you might imagine towering predators or gentle giants roaming prehistoric landscapes. But what if these ancient creatures could teach...

New T-Rex ancestor discovered in drawers of Mongolian institute

Misidentified bones that languished in the drawers of a Mongolian institute for 50 years belong to a new species of tyrannosaur that rewrites the...

How the disappearance of mastodons still threatens native South American forests

Ten thousand years ago, mastodons vanished from South America. With them, an ecologically vital function also disappeared: the dispersal of seeds from large-fruited plants....

Two-million-year-old teeth transform theory of prehistoric human evolution

The enamel that forms the outer layer of our teeth might seem like an unlikely place to find clues about evolution. But it tells...

Fossilised stomach reveals sauropod dinosaur’s final meal

Since the late 19th century, sauropod dinosaurs (long-necks like Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus) have been almost universally regarded as herbivores, or plant eaters. However, until recently,...

Early apes evolved in tropical forests disturbed by fires and volcanoes, fossil find suggests

Great apes began to diverge from other primates about 25 million years ago, according to eastern African fossil records. Though it would take another...

Triassic reptiles took 10,000 mile trips through ‘hellish’ conditions, study suggests

The forerunners of dinosaurs and crocodiles in the Triassic period were able to migrate across areas of the ancient world deemed completely inhospitable to...

Paleontologists identify closest-known ancestor to Tyrannosaurs

Paleontologists have identified a new species of dinosaur, Khankhuuluu, which is being described as the closest-known ancestor to the giant Tyrannosaurs. The finding by an...

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