Early Mammals News

August 9, 2026

Top Headlines

Ancient DNA Reveals Plague Was Already Killing Humans 5,500 Years Ago

June 18, 2026 Plague was already a deadly killer 5,500 years ago, long before cities, farming, or the rat-infested conditions usually linked to historic outbreaks. By analyzing ancient DNA from hunter-gatherer cemeteries in Siberia, researchers discovered early ...

Who Are the Japanese? Huge DNA Discovery Rewrites History

May 14, 2026 Scientists analyzing the genomes of thousands of people across Japan discovered evidence for a previously overlooked third ancestral group, challenging the long-accepted “dual origins” theory. The newly identified ancestry appears linked to the ...

Scientists Find Perfect Fossils in Rust Beneath Australian Farmland

Apr. 24, 2026 Beneath the dry farmland of New South Wales lies a hidden window into a lost rainforest teeming with life from 11-16 million years ago. At McGraths Flat, scientists have uncovered fossils preserved in astonishing detail—not in typical rock like ...

Scientists Just Solved a 160-million-year Fossil Mystery “I’ve Never Seen Anything Like It”

Apr. 15, 2026 A rare fossil discovery is shedding light on the “missing years” of early sponge evolution. Scientists found a 550-million-year-old sponge that likely lacked hard skeletal parts, explaining why ...

Ancient DNA Solves 12,000-year-old Mystery of Rare Genetic Growth Disorder

Feb. 17, 2026 An Ice Age double burial in Italy has yielded a stunning genetic revelation. DNA from a mother and daughter who lived over 12,000 years ago shows that the younger had a rare inherited growth disorder, confirmed through mutations in a key bone-growth ...

Europe’s “Untouched” Wilderness Was Shaped by Neanderthals and Hunter-gatherers

Feb. 12, 2026 Long before agriculture, humans were transforming Europe’s wild landscapes. Advanced simulations show that hunting and fire use by Neanderthals and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers reshaped forests and ...

This AI App Can Tell Which Dinosaur Made a Footprint

Feb. 1, 2026 Dinosaur footprints have always been mysterious, but a new AI app is cracking their secrets. DinoTracker analyzes photos of fossil tracks and predicts which dinosaur made them, with accuracy rivaling human experts. Along the way, it uncovered ...

A Lost Disease Emerges from 5,500-year-old Human Remains

Jan. 26, 2026 A 5,500-year-old skeleton from Colombia has revealed the oldest known genome of the bacterium linked to syphilis and related diseases. The ancient strain doesn’t fit neatly into modern categories, hinting at a forgotten form that split off early ...

New Fossils in Qatar Reveal a Tiny Sea Cow Hidden for 21 Million Years

Dec. 12, 2025 Fossils from Qatar have revealed a small, newly identified sea cow species that lived in the Arabian Gulf more than 20 million years ago. The site contains the densest known collection of fossil sea cow bones, showing that these animals once thrived ...

Scientists Find a Surprising Link Between Lead and Human Evolution

Nov. 16, 2025 Researchers found that ancient hominids—including early humans—were exposed to lead throughout childhood, leaving chemical traces in fossil teeth. Experiments suggest this exposure may have driven genetic changes that strengthened ...

A 400-million-year-old Plant Creates Water so Weird It Looks Alien

Nov. 13, 2025 Researchers discovered that living horsetails act like natural distillation towers, producing bizarre oxygen isotope signatures more extreme than anything previously recorded on Earth—sometimes resembling meteorite water. By tracing these isotopic ...

Hippos Once Roamed Frozen Germany with Mammoths

Oct. 26, 2025 New research shows that hippos lived in central Europe tens of thousands of years longer than previously thought. Ancient DNA and radiocarbon dating confirm they survived in Germany’s Upper Rhine Graben during a milder Ice Age phase. Closely ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:49am EDT

Dinosaurs Became Giants — So Why Did They Never Become Tiny?

Aug. 9, 2026 Dinosaurs conquered the land at enormous sizes, but strangely, they almost never evolved into truly tiny animals. New research suggests that physiology alone can’t explain this missing miniature ...

The Dodo Bird Had a Secret Sensory World Scientists Are Only Now Discovering

Aug. 8, 2026 CT scans of the world’s rarest dodo skulls suggest the extinct bird may have had a stronger sense of smell, a highly sensitive beak, and a ...

567-Million-Year-Old Fossils Rewrite the Dawn of Animal Life

Aug. 5, 2026 A spectacular fossil site in Canada contains 567-million-year-old creatures that may represent some of the earliest animals to move, reproduce sexually, and develop recognizable body plans. The ...

This School-Bus-Sized “terror Croc” Ate Dinosaurs. Now It’s Back

Aug. 5, 2026 A massive crocodilian capable of attacking dinosaurs has been brought back to life as the first scientifically accurate mounted skeleton of Deinosuchus schwimmeri. The 31-foot replica at Georgia’s ...

Did T. Rex Leave These 66-Million-Year-Old Bite Marks?

Aug. 4, 2026 Fossilized dinosaur bones from Wyoming are offering a rare glimpse into the feeding behavior of Tyrannosaurus rex. Researchers examined more than 3,000 bones dating back 72 to 66 million years and ...

Scientists Found Two Mysterious ‘ghost’ Ancestors Hiding in Our DNA

July 31, 2026 Modern humans carry DNA from two mysterious extinct lineages in addition to Neanderthals and Denisovans. Their hidden genetic legacy shows that our evolutionary past was shaped by repeated mixing ...

A Forgotten Fossil Just Revealed a New Triassic Predator from 210 Million Years Ago

July 30, 2026 A fossil overlooked for nearly 80 years has revealed a previously unknown crocodile relative that lived 210 million years ago in what is now New ...

Hidden Charcoal Reveals the True Age of Ancient Cave Paintings

July 28, 2026 A new analysis has precisely dated paintings in France’s Font-de-Gaume cave for the first time. Scientists discovered charcoal inside black pigments once thought to contain only minerals, allowing ...

500,000-Year-Old Elephant Bone Hammer Shows Ancient Humans Were Master Toolmakers

July 27, 2026 Early humans in England crafted a rare piece of elephant bone into a reusable hammer for sharpening stone tools nearly 500,000 years ago. The ...

Ancient Ape Fossil in Egypt Challenges the Story of Human Origins

July 24, 2026 A newly identified fossil ape from northern Egypt is reshaping ideas about where the ancestors of modern apes first emerged. Analyses place it closer to living apes than any known East African ...

Scientists Just Discovered a Lost Branch of Australia’s Marsupials

July 19, 2026 Fossils from Queensland suggest a newly recognized marsupial order may have survived in Australia for around 35 million years, rewriting part of the story of how the continent's unique mammals ...

Ancient Denisovan DNA Still Shapes Human Immunity Today

June 13, 2026 Ancient encounters between humans and the mysterious Denisovans are still shaping people today. By analyzing genomes from populations across the Pacific, researchers uncovered evidence that the ...

After 70 Years of Excavation, Ancient Sardis Becomes a UNESCO World Heritage Site

June 25, 2026 After nearly seven decades of excavation, the legendary ancient city of Sardis has become a UNESCO World Heritage Site, celebrating years of discoveries that continue to reshape its history. ...

This Four-Winged Dinosaur May Have Terrorized Earth's Earliest Birds

June 23, 2026 A newly discovered feathered dinosaur called Jian changmaensis may be the missing predator responsible for mysterious piles of crushed prehistoric bird bones in China. The four-winged glider, a close ...

Stonehenge's Most Mysterious Stone Traveled 700 Kilometers Across Britain

June 9, 2026 Scientists have uncovered new evidence that Stonehenge’s six-ton Altar Stone was deliberately transported hundreds of kilometers from Scotland by ancient people. The feat would have required ...

This Bizarre Crocodile Relative from the Triassic Looked Like an Ostrich Dinosaur

May 29, 2026 Scientists have discovered Labrujasuchus expectatus, a bizarre crocodile relative that looked more like an ostrich-like dinosaur than anything resembling a modern crocodile. It walked on two legs, ...

Scientists Discover Giant Sea Predator Tylosaurus Rex That Terrorized Ancient Oceans

May 23, 2026 A colossal new sea predator named Tylosaurus rex has been identified from fossils found in Texas, revealing a brutal 43-foot-long hunter that ruled ancient oceans 80 million years ago. The discovery ...

Scientists Think They’ve Cracked the Mystery of Human Right-Handedness

May 18, 2026 A new study suggests humans became overwhelmingly right-handed because of two major evolutionary shifts: walking on two legs and developing much larger brains. Researchers found that as human ...

Stunning Fossil Discovery Challenges the Origins of Animal Life

May 12, 2026 Scientists revisiting mysterious 540-million-year-old microfossils from Brazil have overturned a major idea about early animal life. What were once thought to be trails left behind by tiny worm-like ...

Ice Age Humans in China Crafted Surprisingly Advanced Stone Tools 146,000 Years Ago

May 9, 2026 Scientists in China discovered that ancient humans were making surprisingly advanced stone tools during a harsh ice age 146,000 years ago. The tools, created by Homo juluensis, show careful planning ...

A Child's Tooth and Strange Green Stones Uncover a 5,500-Year-Old Mystery

June 3, 2026 An ancient mountain cave in the Pyrenees may have served as one of the earliest high-altitude mining camps ever discovered, with evidence of repeated visits spanning thousands of years. The find ...

This Prehistoric Fish May Explain How Animals First Walked on Earth

May 25, 2026 Scientists have peered inside the skull of a 380-million-year-old Antarctic fish that was closely related to the first animals to walk on land, revealing surprising clues about how life began its ...

This Tiny Mammal Survived the Dinosaur Apocalypse and Changed Life on Earth

Apr. 27, 2026 A newly discovered prehistoric mammal may hold clues to how life survived the dinosaur-killing extinction. The tiny species, Cimolodon desosai, lived 75 million years ago and had traits—like a ...

Giant Octopuses Ruled the Oceans 100 Million Years Ago, Study Finds

Apr. 24, 2026 Giant, fearsome octopuses may have once ruled the ancient seas, according to new research that flips the script on their evolutionary past. By uncovering exquisitely preserved fossil jaws hidden ...

100-Million-Year-Old Bug Had Crab-Like Claws Unlike Any Known Insect

May 25, 2026 Deep inside 100-million-year-old amber from Myanmar, scientists uncovered a bizarre ancient bug with clawed front legs that look more like a crab’s pincers than anything seen in modern insects. The ...

Scientists Discover What Kept Ancient Campfires Burning for Generations

July 14, 2026 Nearly 800,000 years ago, early humans living beside a lake in what is now Israel may have chosen the location for one surprisingly practical reason: firewood. Researchers discovered that these ...

A Crushed Fossil Revealed a Dinosaur That Shouldn’t Have Existed

Apr. 15, 2026 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 ...

Mammal Ancestors Laid Eggs, and This 250-Million-Year-Old Fossil Finally Proves It

Apr. 14, 2026 In the aftermath of Earth’s most catastrophic extinction event, one unlikely survivor rose to dominate a shattered world: Lystrosaurus. Now, a stunning fossil discovery—an ancient egg containing ...

289-Million-Year-Old Mummified Reptile Reveals How Breathing Began on Land

Apr. 23, 2026 A remarkably preserved, mummified reptile from 289 million years ago is rewriting what we know about how animals first breathed on land. This tiny creature, Captorhinus aguti, reveals the earliest ...

The World’s “oldest Octopus” Was Never an Octopus

Apr. 7, 2026 A famous “oldest octopus” fossil has been exposed as a case of mistaken identity. Advanced imaging revealed hidden teeth showing it was actually related to a nautilus, not an octopus. The ...