PALEONTOLOGY

How herbivore communities remained remarkably resilient for 60 million years despite extinction and upheaval

From mastodons to ancient rhinos and giant deer, large herbivores have been shaping Earth's landscapes for millions of years. A new study, published in...

Wasp lookalikes from 33 million years ago fooled ancient birds too

New fossil shows that precise wasp mimicry in hoverflies evolved far earlier than previously thought—and wasn't shaped by modern birds. Děčín, Czech Republic—A newly discovered...

Nearly complete dinosaur skull reveals a new sauropod species from East Asia

A team led by China University of Geosciences has described a new species of sauropod, Jinchuanloong niedu, from a partial skeleton and nearly complete...

Scientists find new markers to identify species from fragments of fossilized bone

What happened to all the megafauna? From moas to mammoths, many large animals went extinct between 50 and 10,000 years ago. Learning why could...

Ancient Patagonian fossil sperm whale may have been active predator, reanalysis indicates

A recent study, published in Papers in Palaeontology, discusses the reanalysis of the only known Idiorophus patagonicus specimen. After a nearly 130-year scientific slumber, the...

Birds nested alongside dinosaurs in the Arctic: Fossil find pushes polar nesting record back by 25 million years

Spring in the Arctic brings forth a plethora of peeps and downy hatchlings as millions of birds gather to raise their young. The same was...

Long shot science leads to revised age for land-animal ancestor

In 1984, an amateur paleontologist in Scotland found a remarkable specimen: a nearly complete fossil of what looked to be a lizard or salamander....

Plateosaurus tail may have served as a powerful defensive weapon, paleontologists discover

A small team of paleontologists with members from Austria, Germany and Switzerland has found evidence suggesting that a herbivorous dinosaur from the Late Triassic...

The world’s best-preserved fossils are right outside Chicago: But there are no dinosaur bones at Mazon Creek

Sixty-five miles southwest of Chicago, a small hill that looks like a prop from an Indiana Jones movie breaks up the flat, monotone landscape....

Cheeky discovery: Scientists identify previously unknown soft tissue structure in dinosaurs

Researchers have found evidence of a previously unrecognized soft tissue structure in the cheek region of many dinosaur species, which they've called the "exoparia."...

Ancient cemeteries and rock art discovered on Morocco’s Tangier Peninsula

A trio of archaeologists from the University of Barcelona and the University of Castilla-La Mancha, both in Spain, and the National Institute of Archaeology...

Ancestors of today’s crocodilians survived two mass extinction events: Study uncovers secret to their longevity

Most people think of crocodilians as living fossils—stubbornly unchanged, prehistoric relics that have ruled the world's swampiest corners for millions of years. But their...

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