Fossils News
September 3, 2026
Top Headlines
Aug. 12, 2026 Ancient remains from Vietnam suggest diseases like yaws may have been passed from mother to child thousands of years ago, a form of transmission often assumed to indicate syphilis. The discovery ...
July 22, 2026 Ancient fern savannahs may have transformed parts of Europe into a wildfire-prone inferno during the end-Triassic mass extinction. New fossil evidence suggests the ferns repeatedly regrew after fires, creating fresh fuel that helped prolong the ...
July 12, 2026 Why do beaches today have seashells from clams and snails instead of brachiopods? A new study suggests the answer lies in Earth's greatest mass extinction, when warming oceans and falling oxygen levels wiped out animals that couldn't adapt. Species ...
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 ...
May 20, 2026 For decades, scientists believed ancient humans avoided dense rainforests, treating them as nearly impossible environments for early survival. But a groundbreaking discovery in West Africa is rewriting that story. Researchers uncovered evidence that ...
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 ...
May 13, 2026 Humans may have returned to Britain far earlier than scientists once believed — not long after the last ice sheet began retreating. New evidence suggests people were already moving into the British ...
Apr. 26, 2026 Dinosaur DNA may still be out of reach, but scientists are uncovering something almost as exciting—ancient blood vessels hidden inside fossilized bones. In a massive Tyrannosaurus rex nicknamed Scotty, researchers discovered a network of preserved ...
Apr. 25, 2026 Beneath East Africa’s Turkana Rift, scientists have found the crust is thinning to a critical point, suggesting the continent is gradually breaking apart. This “necking” process marks an ...
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 ...
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 ...
Feb. 25, 2026 A lost cache of 250-million-year-old fossils from Australia has rewritten part of the story of life after Earth’s worst mass extinction. Instead of a single marine amphibian species, researchers ...
Latest Headlines
updated 11:19am EDT
Sep. 2, 2026 A meter-long scorpion with massive pincers stalked ancient Britain 415 million years ago, long before forests and the better-known age of giant insects. Its surprising size and possible semi-aquatic ...
Aug. 30, 2026 Ancient footprints in Kenya reveal that eight Paranthropus boisei may have traveled together 1.4 million years ago, with some individuals reaching surprisingly large, human-like body sizes. The ...
Aug. 27, 2026 Ancient fossils suggest insects conquered land through a long amphibious phase rather than making an abrupt jump from water to dry ground. A newly identified 324-million-year-old species still ...
Aug. 20, 2026 Scientists have identified exceptionally rare soft tissue preserved in a 450-million-year-old crinoid fossil, more than 200 million years older than ...
Aug. 20, 2026 The human family tree may be due for a major rewrite. Researchers argue that Australopithecus and Paranthropus should be folded into the genus Homo because new fossils have blurred many of the traits ...
Aug. 19, 2026 Miocene South America was packed with giant prey—and the predators hunting them were just as spectacular. Fossil bite marks suggest crocodylians, especially the enormous Purussaurus neivensis, were ...
Aug. 17, 2026 Scientists are searching some of Earth’s oldest rocks for tiny fossils that could reveal how simple microbial life made the extraordinary leap toward plants, animals, and other complex organisms. ...
Aug. 16, 2026 Scientists have discovered a new extinct amphibian species hiding in the fossil collections of Los Angeles’ La Brea Tar Pits. Named Spea labreae, the Ice Age spadefoot toad is an exceptionally rare ...
Aug. 15, 2026 Fossils collected in Osaka more than 30 years ago have revealed a surprise hiding in plain sight: four previously unrecognized bones from a giant Cretaceous mosasaur. Among them is the first ...
Aug. 14, 2026 Researchers have found strong evidence that original collagen can survive inside dinosaur fossils for tens of millions of years, overturning a ...
Earlier Headlines
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 lifestyle that extended into dawn and dusk. The ...
Aug. 5, 2026 An exceptionally preserved snake fossil from Brazil reveals that early snakes were far more diverse than scientists once thought. Detailed brain reconstructions show that Tametara mirim was adapted ...
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 ...
Aug. 10, 2026 A 240-million-year-old reptile discovered in Brazil is revealing what evolution looked like just before the rise of dinosaurs and crocodiles. The small predator had unusually positioned legs that may ...
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 ...
July 23, 2026 Fossils discovered in Japan more than two decades ago have finally been identified as a new genus and species of giant salamander. Limnospondylus ajimuensis lived around 3.5 million years ago in a ...
Aug. 6, 2026 Several enormous Megalodon vertebrae thought to have been destroyed in 1989 were found sitting unnoticed on a museum shelf. Their analysis strengthens evidence that the giant shark could exceed 24 ...
Aug. 4, 2026 A tiny 518-million-year-old sea creature has revealed the earliest known evidence of the structures that eventually became spiders’ fangs. Hidden inside the fossil were pincerlike limbs and ...
June 24, 2026 A new study suggests early humans were using fire in South Africa’s Wonderwerk Cave as far back as 1.79 million years ago. Researchers found burned bones deep inside the cave, where natural ...
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 ...
June 14, 2026 Millipedes may have been crawling across Earth's landscapes nearly 460 million years ago, long before vertebrates ventured onto land. A new study finally completes their evolutionary family ...
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 ...
June 10, 2026 Earth’s earliest animals may have held evolution back because they reproduced asexually, creating low-competition communities that changed very little over time. When environmental pressures pushed ...
June 8, 2026 Researchers have solved a decades-old mystery by showing that a cache of 43 helmets found off the Spanish coast is medieval, not Roman. The remarkable discovery exposes a thriving weapons trade ...
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 ...
May 29, 2026 A newly discovered raptor-like dinosaur from Patagonia is changing how scientists think about ancient predators. Named Kank australis, the 70-million-year-old dinosaur appears to have hunted fish ...
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 ...
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 ...
May 20, 2026 Why did T. rex have such tiny arms? Scientists now think it’s because its giant head became the ultimate hunting tool. Across multiple dinosaur groups, stronger skulls and crushing jaws evolved ...
May 15, 2026 A massive new dinosaur discovered in Thailand is rewriting Southeast Asia’s prehistoric history. The newly named Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis was a colossal long-necked sauropod that weighed around 27 ...