Ancient DNA News
May 23, 2025
Top Headlines
May 23, 2025 A group of fossils of elasmosaurs -- some of the most famous in North America -- have just been formally identified as belonging to a 'very odd' new genus of the sea monster, unlike any previously ...
May 23, 2025 Cold-adapted animals started to evolve 2.6 million years ago when the permanent ice at the poles became more prevalent. There followed a time when the continental ice sheets expanded and contracted and around 700,000 years ago the cold periods ...
May 21, 2025 New research shows that dentine, the inner layer of teeth that transmits sensory information to nerves inside the pulp, first evolved as sensory tissue in the armored exoskeletons of ancient ...
May 22, 2025 Researchers have analyzed ancient DNA from Borrelia recurrentis, a type of bacteria that causes relapsing fever, pinpointing when it evolved to spread through lice rather than ticks, and how it gained and lost genes in the ...
Latest Headlines
updated 10:51pm EDT
May 22, 2025 A new study proves that a type of genetic element called 'introners' are the mechanism by which many introns spread within and between species, also ...
May 14, 2025 Scientists have now discovered the oldest ancestor for all the Australian tree frogs, with distant links to the tree frogs of South ...
May 14, 2025 The origin of reptiles on Earth has been shown to be up to 40 million years earlier than previously thought -- thanks to evidence discovered at an ...
May 13, 2025 Scientists confirm CT scanning doesn't interfere with natural decomposition processes, opening new windows into understanding how fossils ...
May 14, 2025 Archaeopteryx is the fossil that clearly demonstrated Darwin's views. It's the oldest known fossil bird, and it helps show that all birds -- ...
May 13, 2025 Palaeontologists have discovered a remarkable new 506-million-year-old predator from the Burgess Shale of Canada. Mosura fentoni was about the size of your index finger and had three eyes, spiny ...
May 9, 2025 Modern HIV medicine is based on a common genetic mutation. Now, researchers have traced where and when the mutation arose -- and how it protected our ancestors from ancient ...
May 9, 2025 The Arctic landscape during the Cretaceous Period may have been dominated by the dinosaurs, but the rivers and streams held something more familiar. Alaska's fresh waters 73 million years ago were ...
May 6, 2025 Tyrannosaurus rex evolved in North America, but its direct ancestor came from Asia, crossing a land bridge connecting the continents more than 70 million years ago, according to a new ...
May 6, 2025 A new study is reshaping how scientists date dinosaur fossils in Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park (DPP). Using advanced drone-assisted 3D mapping, ...
Earlier Headlines
May 1, 2025 Why do some ancient animals become fossils while others disappear without a trace? A new study reveals that part of the answer lies in the body itself. The research shows that an animal's size ...
May 1, 2025 A new study links fossilized flying reptile tracks to animals that made them. Fossilized footprints reveal a 160-million-year-old invasion as pterosaurs came down from the trees and onto the ground. ...
Apr. 24, 2025 A 113-million-year-old hell ant that once lived in northeastern Brazil is now the oldest ant specimen known to science, finds a new report. The hell ant, which was preserved in limestone, is a member ...
Apr. 23, 2025 Ancient DNA analysis challenges our understanding of the ancient Phoenician-Punic civilization. An international team of researchers analyzing genome-wide data from 210 ancient individuals has found ...
Apr. 9, 2025 A new genomic study has uncovered long-lost genetic diversity in mammoth lineages spanning over a million years, providing new insights into the evolutionary history of these ...
Apr. 8, 2025 The idea that dinosaurs were already in decline before an asteroid wiped most of them out 66 million years ago may be explained by a worsening fossil record from that time rather than a genuine ...
Apr. 2, 2025 Dozens of amphibians perished together on an ancient floodplain around 230 million years ago, according to a new ...
Apr. 2, 2025 Jurassic dinosaurs milled about ancient Scottish lagoons, leaving up to 131 footprints at a newly discovered stomping ground on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, according to a new ...
Apr. 2, 2025 An international team has sequenced the first ancient genomes from the so-called Green Sahara, a period when the largest desert in the world temporarily turned into a humid savanna-like environment. ...
Mar. 26, 2025 A new species of fossil is 444 million years-old with soft insides perfectly preserved. Research 'ultramarathon' saw palaeontologist puzzled by bizarre fossil for 25 ...
Mar. 18, 2025 Modern humans descended from not one, but at least two ancestral populations that drifted apart and later reconnected, long before modern humans spread across the ...
Mar. 18, 2025 An analysis of a 30,000-year-old fossil vulture from Central Italy has revealed for the first time that volcanic rock can preserve microscopic details in feathers -- the first ever record of such a ...
Mar. 13, 2025 A researcher has confirmed a boulder at a regional school contains one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur footprints per square meter ever documented in ...
Feb. 27, 2025 Researchers examined dozens of bird species in museum collections looking for differences in the feathers and bodies between birds that can fly and birds that can't. They found that when birds ...
Feb. 25, 2025 A new study suggests that Neanderthals experienced a dramatic loss of genetic variation during the course of their evolution, foreshadowing their eventual extinction. Examination of semicircular ...
Feb. 14, 2025 Ancient Egyptian mummified bodies smell 'woody,' 'spicy' and 'sweet', finds a new study, revealing new details about mumification ...
Feb. 12, 2025 Global warming is producing a rapid loss of plant species -- according to estimates, roughly 600 plant species have died out since 1750 -- twice the number of animal species lost. But which species ...
Feb. 12, 2025 Fossil collectors in Florida have discovered an ancient sinkhole, now at the bottom of a river, which holds the remains of animals rarely seen in the state, including a type of giant armadillo, giant ...
Feb. 5, 2025 Where lies the origin of the Indo-European language family? Researchers contribute a new piece to this puzzle. They analyzed ancient DNA from 435 individuals from archaeological sites across Eurasia ...
Jan. 23, 2025 The remains of the earliest dinosaurs may lie undiscovered in the Amazon and other equatorial regions of South America and Africa, suggests a new ...
Thursday, May 1, 2025
- Why Did Some Ancient Animals Fossilize While Others Vanished?
- Ptero Firma: Footprints Pinpoint When Ancient Flying Reptiles Conquered the Ground
Thursday, April 24, 2025
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
- Ancient Amphibians as Big as Alligators Died in Mass Mortality Event in Triassic Wyoming
- Footprints Reveal Prehistoric Scottish Lagoons Were Stomping Grounds for Giant Jurassic Dinosaurs
- First Ancient Genomes from the Green Sahara Deciphered
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
- Genetic Study Reveals Hidden Chapter in Human Evolution
- New Fossil Discovery Reveals How Volcanic Deposits Can Preserve the Microscopic Details of Animal Tissues
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Friday, February 14, 2025
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
- Global Warming and Mass Extinctions: What We Can Learn from Plants from the Last Ice Age
- Underwater Fossil Bed Discovered by Collectors Preserves Rare Slice of Florida's Past
Wednesday, February 5, 2025
Thursday, January 23, 2025
- New Twist in Mystery of Dinosaurs' Origin
- Rare Pterosaur Fossil Reveals Crocodilian Bite 76m Years Ago
Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
- DNA Adds New Chapter to Indonesia's Layered Human History
- Dinosaurs Roamed the Northern Hemisphere Millions of Years Earlier Than Previously Thought, According to New Analysis of the Oldest North American Fossils
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Thursday, December 19, 2024
Thursday, December 12, 2024
- Study Sheds Light on the Origin of the Genetic Code
- A New Timeline for Neanderthal Interbreeding With Modern Humans
- Oldest Modern Human Genomes Sequenced
Thursday, December 5, 2024
Monday, December 2, 2024
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Monday, November 18, 2024
Monday, November 11, 2024
Thursday, November 7, 2024
Monday, November 4, 2024
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
- Fossils Unveil How Southern Europe's Ecosystem Changed Through Glacial-Interglacial Stages
- 'Paleo-Robots' To Help Scientists Understand How Fish Started to Walk on Land
- Paleontologists Discover Colorado 'swamp Dweller' That Lived Alongside Dinosaurs
Monday, October 21, 2024
- Ancient Viral DNA in the Human Genome Linked to Multiple Sclerosis and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Monday, October 14, 2024
Friday, October 11, 2024
Thursday, October 10, 2024
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
Monday, September 16, 2024
Thursday, September 12, 2024
- Trilobite Fossils from Upstate New York Reveal 'extra' Set of Legs
- Research Reveals Reality of Ice Age Teen Puberty
- The Neanderthals May Have Become Extinct Because of Their Isolated Lifestyle
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Monday, August 26, 2024
- Darwin's Fear Was Unjustified: Writing Evolutionary History by Bridging the Gaps a Big Issue
- Matching Dinosaur Footprints Found on Opposite Sides of the Atlantic Ocean
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Friday, August 16, 2024
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Thursday, August 8, 2024
Tuesday, August 6, 2024
Friday, August 2, 2024
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Tuesday, July 23, 2024
- Taco-Shaped Arthropod Fossils Gives New Insights Into the History of the First Mandibulates
- Nanoscopic Imaging Aids in Understanding Protein, Tissue Preservation in Ancient Bones
Friday, July 19, 2024
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Thursday, July 11, 2024
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
- Research Reveals the Most Complete Dinosaur Discovered in the UK in a Century
- The Plague May Have Caused the Downfall of the Stone Age Farmers
Tuesday, July 9, 2024
Monday, July 8, 2024
Thursday, June 27, 2024
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
- Rewriting the Armadillo Family Tree: A New Species, Plus a Name Change for the State Mammal of Texas
Thursday, June 20, 2024
Wednesday, June 5, 2024
Tuesday, June 4, 2024
- Gigantic Jurassic Pterosaur Fossil Unearthed in Oxfordshire, UK
- Human Activity Contributed to Woolly Rhinoceros' Extinction
Thursday, May 30, 2024
- 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