Fossils News

April 20, 2024

Top Headlines

Paleontologists Unearth What May Be the Largest Known Marine Reptile

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, ...

First Evidence of Human Occupation in Lava Tube Cave in Saudi Arabia

Apr. 17, 2024 — New research has highlighted an area in Arabia that once acted as a key point for cultural exchanges and trades amongst ancient people -- and it all took place in vast caves and lava tubes that have remained largely untapped reservoirs of ...

Digging Up New Species of Australia and New Guinea's Giant Fossil Kangaroos

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. The three new species are of the extinct genus ...

Do Some Mysterious Bones Belong to Gigantic Ichthyosaurs?

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 subject of much debate to this day. A study could ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:24am EDT

Dinosaur Study Challenges Bergmann's Rule

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 ...

Early Dinosaurs Grew Up Fast, but They Weren't the Only Ones

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 ...

When Did the Chicken Cross the Road? New Evidence from Central Asia

Apr. 2, 2024 — An international team of scholars present the earliest clear archaeological and biomolecular evidence for the raising of chickens for egg production, based on material from 12 archaeological sites ...

Ancient DNA Reveals the Appearance of a 6th Century Chinese Emperor

Mar. 28, 2024 — What did an ancient Chinese emperor from 1,500 years ago look like? A team of researchers reconstructed the face of Chinese Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou using DNA extracted from his remains. The study ...

New Archive of Ancient Human Brains Challenges Misconceptions of Soft Tissue Preservation

Mar. 20, 2024 — A new study has challenged previously held views that brain preservation in the archaeological record is extremely rare. The team compiled a new ...

Rays Were More Diverse 150 Million Years Ago Than Previously Thought

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 ...

Research Uncovers a Rare Resin Fossil Find: A Spider That Aspires to Be an Ant

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 Name Prehistoric Amphibian Ancestor Discovered in Smithsonian Collection After Kermit the Frog

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 ...

Ancient Giant Dolphin Discovered in the Amazon

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 ...

Tanks of the Triassic: New Crocodile Ancestor Identified

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 ...

Alaska Dinosaur Tracks Reveal a Lush, Wet Environment

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 ...

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 ...

Earth's Earliest Forest Revealed in Somerset Fossils

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 ...

Fossil Named 'Attenborough's Strange Bird' Was the First in Its Kind Without Teeth

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 ...

Scientists ID Burned Bodies Using Technique Used for Extracting DNA from Woolly Mammoths, Neanderthals

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 ...

Slimming Down a Colossal Fossil Whale

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 ...

High Resolution Techniques Reveal Clues in 3.5 Billion-Year-Old Biomass

Feb. 21, 2024 — To learn about the first organisms on our planet, researchers have to analyze the rocks of the early Earth. These can only be found in a few places on the surface of the Earth. The Pilbara Craton in ...

Panama Canal Expansion Rewrites History of World's Most Ecologically Diverse Bats

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, ...

Ancient DNA Reveals Down Syndrome in Past Human Societies

Feb. 20, 2024 — By analysing ancient DNA, an international team of researchers have uncovered cases of chromosomal disorders, including what could be the first case of Edwards syndrome ever identified from ...

Why Two Prehistoric Sharks Found in Ohio Got New Names

Feb. 19, 2024 — Until recently, Orthacanthus gracilis could have been considered the 'John Smith' of prehistoric shark names, given how common it was. Three different species of sharks from the late ...

Mystery Solved: The Oldest Fossil Reptile from the Alps Is an Historical Forgery

Feb. 16, 2024 — Palaeontological analysis shows that a renowned fossil thought to show soft tissue preservation is in fact just paint. The fossil discovered in 1931 was thought to be an important specimen for ...

Searching for Clues in the History Book of the Ocean

Feb. 15, 2024 — New research has shown that the tropical subsurface ocean gained oxygen during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (commonly referred to as PETM). During this short-lived interval of time in Earth s ...

A Lighthouse in the Gobi Desert

Feb. 14, 2024 — A new study explores the weight great fossil sites have on our understanding of evolutionary relationships between fossil groups and quantified the power these sites have on our understanding of ...

The Hidden Rule for Flight Feathers -- And How It Could Reveal Which Dinosaurs Could Fly

Feb. 12, 2024 — Scientists examined hundreds of birds in museum collections and discovered a suite of feather characteristics that all flying birds have in common. These 'rules' provide clues as to how the ...

Surprisingly Vibrant Color of 12-Million-Year-Old Snail Shells

Feb. 9, 2024 — Snail shells are often colorful and strikingly patterned. This is due to pigments that are produced in special cells of the snail and stored in the shell in varying concentrations. Fossil shells, on ...

New Fossil Site of Worldwide Importance Uncovered in Southern France

Feb. 9, 2024 — Nearly 400 exceptionally well-preserved fossils dating back 470 million years have been discovered in the south of France by two amateur paleontologists. The discovery provides unprecedented ...

Ancient Australian Air-Breathing Fish from 380 Million Years Ago

Feb. 6, 2024 — The rivers of Australia, which once flowed across its now dry interior, used to host a range of bizarre animals -- including a sleek predatory lobe-finned fish with large fangs and bony scales. The ...

Rare 3D Fossils Show That Some Early Trees Had Forms Unlike Any You've Ever Seen

Feb. 2, 2024 — In the fossil record, trees typically are preserved with only their trunks. They don't usually include any leaves to show what their canopies and overall forms may have looked like. In a new ...

Did Dementia Exist in Ancient Greek and Rome?

Jan. 31, 2024 — Did the ancient Greeks and Romans experience Alzheimer's? Medical texts from 2,500 years ago rarely mention severe memory loss, suggesting today's widespread dementia stems from modern ...

Scientists Pinpoint Growth of Brain's Cerebellum as Key to Evolution of Bird Flight

Jan. 30, 2024 — Evolutionary biologists report they have combined PET scans of modern pigeons along with studies of dinosaur fossils to help answer an enduring question in biology: How did the brains of birds evolve ...