Paleontology News
April 29, 2024
Top Headlines
Apr. 24, 2024 A new study has recovered a 3.7-billion-year-old record of Earth's magnetic field, and found that it appears remarkably similar to the field surrounding Earth ...
Apr. 23, 2024 Palaeontologists have solved a hundred-year-old mystery of how some fossil frogs preserve their fleshy parts -- it's all down to their skin. Palaeontologists studied 45-million-year-old fossil frogs from the Geiseltal site in central Germany. ...
Apr. 17, 2024 A detailed reconstruction of climate during the most recent ice age, when a large swath of North America was covered in ice, provides information on the relationship between CO2 and global ...
Apr. 17, 2024 Marine communities migrated to Antarctica during the Earth's warmest period in 66 million years long before a mass-extinction ...
Latest Headlines
updated 10:56am EDT
Apr. 17, 2024 Researchers have identified a variant in the gene TBX1 as key in the development of the unique morphology at the base of the skull. TBX1 is present at higher levels in humans than in closely related ...
Apr. 17, 2024 Competition between species played a major role in the rise and fall of hominins -- and produced a 'bizarre' evolutionary pattern for the Homo ...
Apr. 17, 2024 The fossilized remains of a second gigantic jawbone measuring more than two meters long has been found on a beach in Somerset, ...
Apr. 16, 2024 According to a research team led by palaeontologists, the net-like leaf veining typical for today's flowering plants developed much earlier than ...
Apr. 15, 2024 Palaeontologists have described three unusual new species of giant fossil kangaroo from Australia and New Guinea, finding them more diverse in shape, range and hopping method than previously thought. ...
Apr. 10, 2024 Early jawless fish were likely to have used bony projections surrounding their mouths to modify the mouth's shape while they collected food. Experts ...
Apr. 9, 2024 Several similar large, fossilized bone fragments have been discovered in various regions across Western and Central Europe since the 19th century. The animal group to which they belonged is still the ...
Apr. 5, 2024 A new reconstruction of the 375-million-year-old fossil fish Tiktaalik -- a close relative of limbed vertebrates -- used micro-CT to reveal bones still embedded in matrix. The reconstruction shows ...
Apr. 5, 2024 A new study calls into question Bergmann's rule, an 1800s-era scientific principle stating that animals in high-latitude, cooler climates tend to be larger than close relatives living in warmer ...
Apr. 3, 2024 The earliest dinosaurs had rapid growth rates, but so did many of the other animals living alongside them, according to a new ...
Earlier Headlines
Apr. 3, 2024 Genomic anamolies dating back to the time of the dinosaurs misled scientists about the evolutionary history of ...
Apr. 2, 2024 Researchers describe zircons from the Andes mountains of Patagonia. Although the zircons formed when tectonic plates were colliding, they have a chemical signature associated with when the plates ...
Mar. 26, 2024 When the skeletal remains of a giant ground sloth were first unearthed in 1796, the discovery marked one of the earliest paleontological finds in American ...
Mar. 25, 2024 A new study has challenged previously held views that brain preservation in the archaeological record is extremely rare. The team compiled a new archive of preserved human brains, which highlighted ...
Mar. 22, 2024 Spiders that disguise themselves as ants live in many locations around the globe but until now most had been able to avoid detection from fossil researchers as well as ...
Mar. 21, 2024 Scientists have explored the puzzling world of rays that lived 150 million years ago and discovered a previously hidden diversity -- including a new ray species. This study significantly expands the ...
Mar. 21, 2024 Scientists have uncovered the fossilized skull of a 270-million-year-old ancient amphibian ancestor in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The team of ...
Mar. 20, 2024 Measuring between 3 to 3.5 meters, 16 million years old: Paleontologists have announced the discovery of a new species of freshwater dolphin in the Peruvian Amazon region. Surprisingly, its closest ...
Mar. 20, 2024 Claims that climate change is natural are inconsistent with new oceanic temperature ...
Mar. 18, 2024 Dinosaurs get all the glory. But aetosaurs, a heavily armored cousin of modern crocodiles, ruled the world before dinosaurs did. These tanks of the Triassic came in a variety of shapes and sizes ...
Mar. 12, 2024 A large find of dinosaur tracks and fossilized plants and tree stumps in far northwestern Alaska provides new information about the climate and movement of animals near the time when they began ...
Mar. 12, 2024 An international team of palaeontologists applied recently developed methods to measure theropod (carnivorous) dinosaur species diversity. The newly applied method uses both traditional phylogenetic ...
New Study Reveals Insight Into Which Animals Are Most Vulnerable to Extinction Due to Climate Change
Mar. 7, 2024 In a new study, researchers have used the fossil record to better understand what factors make animals more vulnerable to extinction from climate change. The results could help to identify species ...
Mar. 7, 2024 The oldest fossilized forest known on Earth -- dating from 390 million years ago -- has been found in the high sandstone cliffs along the Devon and Somerset coast of South West ...
Mar. 5, 2024 Fossils of a strange new species of marine lizard with dagger-like teeth that lived 66 million years ago, show a dramatically more biodiverse ocean ecosystem to what we see ...
Mar. 5, 2024 A new fossil, named 'Attenborough's strange bird' after naturalist and documentarian Sir David Attenborough, is the first of its kind to evolve a toothless beak. It's from a ...
Feb. 29, 2024 A technique originally devised to extract DNA from woolly mammoths and other ancient archaeological specimens can be used to potentially identify badly burned human remains, according to ...
Feb. 29, 2024 Massive volcanic events in Earth's history that released large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere frequently correlate with periods of severe environmental change and mass extinctions. A new ...
Feb. 29, 2024 A 30 million year-old fossil whale may not be the heaviest animal of all time after all, according to a new analysis by paleontologists. The new analysis puts Perucetus colossus back in the same ...
Feb. 20, 2024 In a new study, paleontologists describe the oldest-known leaf-nosed bat fossils, which were found along the banks of the Panama Canal. They're also the oldest bat fossils from Central America, ...
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
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
- Pacific Kelp Forests Are Far Older That We Thought
- Feeding Mode of Ancient Vertebrate Tested for First Time
Monday, January 15, 2024
Thursday, January 11, 2024
- Even the Oldest Eukaryote Fossils Show Dazzling Diversity and Complexity
- Oldest Known Fossilized Skin Is 21 Million Years Older Than Previous Examples
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
- The Extinction of the Giant Ape: Long-Standing Mystery Solved
- New Research Sheds Light on an Old Fossil Solving an Evolutionary Mystery
Tuesday, January 9, 2024
Friday, January 5, 2024
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Thursday, December 21, 2023
- Insects Already Had a Variety of Defense Strategies in the Cretaceous
- Unveiling Ancient Secrets: 3D Preservation of Trilobite Soft Tissues Sheds Light on Convergent Evolution of Defensive Enrollment
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Friday, December 15, 2023
Thursday, December 14, 2023
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
Thursday, December 7, 2023
- Molecular Fossils Shed Light on Ancient Life
- It Turns Out, This Fossil 'plant' Is Really a Fossil Baby Turtle
- Geoscientists Map Changes in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Over Past 66 Million Years
- Study Reshapes Understanding of Mass Extinction in Late Devonian Era
Monday, December 4, 2023
- More Than a Meteorite: New Clues About the Demise of Dinosaurs
- Earliest-Known Fossil Mosquito Suggests Males Were Bloodsuckers Too
- Crocodile Family Tree Mapped: New Light Shed on Croc Evolution
Wednesday, November 29, 2023
- Unknown Animals Were Leaving Bird-Like Footprints in Late Triassic Southern Africa
- Landscape Dynamics Determine the Evolution of Biodiversity on Earth
Tuesday, November 28, 2023
Wednesday, November 22, 2023
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
Friday, November 17, 2023
- Deep Dive on Sea Level Rise: New Modelling Gives Better Predictions on Antarctic Ice Sheet Melt
- Like the Phoenix, Australia's Giant Birds of Prey Rise Again from Limestone Caves
Thursday, November 16, 2023
- Plants That Survived Dinosaur Extinction Pulled Nitrogen from Air
- Birds Set Foot Near South Pole in Early Cretaceous, Australian Tracks Show
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Tuesday, November 14, 2023
- Study Sheds Light on How Earth Cycles Fossil-Carbon
- New Study Reveals Surprising Insights Into Feeding Habits of Carnivorous Dinosaurs in North America
Monday, November 13, 2023
- Evolution of Taste: Early Sharks Were Able to Perceive Bitter Substances
- Recreation of Ancient Seawater Reveals Which Nutrients Shaped the Evolution of Early Life
Thursday, November 9, 2023
Tuesday, November 7, 2023
- Why a Surprising Discovery, Warming Seas and the Demise of the 'Meg' May Spell Trouble for More and More Sharks
- Window to the Past: New Microfossils Suggest Earlier Rise in Complex Life
Monday, November 6, 2023
- 450-Million-Year-Old Organism Finds New Life in Softbotics
- Fossils Tell Tale of Last Primate to Inhabit North America Before Humans
- Frogs Were Florida's First-Known Vertebrates from the Caribbean
Thursday, November 2, 2023
- 'Jurassic Worlds' Might Be Easier to Spot Than Modern Earth
- Study Links Changes in Global Water Cycle to Higher Temperatures
Wednesday, November 1, 2023
- Giant Dinosaur Carcasses Might Have Been Important Food Sources for Jurassic Predators
- How the Fish Got Its Shoulder
Monday, October 30, 2023
Friday, October 27, 2023
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
- Climate Change Likely Impacted Human Populations in the Neolithic and Bronze Age
- Sediment Core Analysis Supports New Epoch Characterized by Human Impact on Planet
- Bizarre New Fossils Shed Light on Ancient Plankton