Early Mammals News

November 15, 2025

Top Headlines

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 ...

From Poison to Power: How Lead Exposure Helped Shape Human Intelligence

Oct. 16, 2025 Long before humans built cities or wrote words, our ancestors may have faced a hidden threat that shaped who we became. Scientists studying ancient teeth found that early humans, great apes, and even Neanderthals were exposed to lead millions of ...

Ancient DNA Finally Solves the Mystery of the World’s First Pandemic

Aug. 30, 2025 Scientists have finally uncovered direct genetic evidence of Yersinia pestis — the bacterium behind the Plague of Justinian — in a mass grave in Jerash, Jordan. This long-sought discovery resolves a centuries-old debate, confirming that the ...

Scientists Just Uncovered Three Ancient Worlds Frozen Beneath Illinois for 300 Million Years

Aug. 9, 2025 Over 300 million years ago, Illinois teemed with life in tropical swamps and seas, now preserved at the famous Mazon Creek fossil site. Researchers from the University of Missouri and geologist ...

The First Pandemic? Scientists Find 214 Ancient Pathogens in Prehistoric DNA

July 11, 2025 Scientists have uncovered DNA from 214 ancient pathogens in prehistoric humans, including the oldest known evidence of plague. The findings show zoonotic diseases began spreading around 6,500 years ...

New Velvet Worm Species a First for the Arid Karoo

May 30, 2025 A new species of velvet worm, Peripatopsis barnardi, represents the first ever species from the arid Karoo, which indicates that the area was likely historically more forested than at present. In the Cape Fold Mountains, we now know that every ...

New Method Provides the Key to Accessing Proteins in Ancient Human Remains

May 30, 2025 A new method could soon unlock the vast repository of biological information held in the proteins of ancient soft tissues. The findings could open up a new era for palaeobiological ...

Dinosaurs Could Hold Key to Cancer Discoveries

May 29, 2025 New techniques used to analyze soft tissue in dinosaur fossils may hold the key to new cancer discoveries. Researchers have analyzed dinosaur fossils using advanced paleoproteomic techniques, a method that holds promise for uncovering molecular data ...

Oldest Whale Bone Tools Discovered

May 28, 2025 Humans were making tools from whale bones as far back as 20,000 years ago, according to a new study. This discovery broadens our understanding of early human use of whale remains and offers valuable insight into the marine ecology of the ...

Megalodon: The Broad Diet of the Megatooth Shark

May 26, 2025 Contrary to widespread assumptions, the largest shark that ever lived -- Otodus megalodon -- fed on marine creatures at various levels of the food pyramid and not just the top. Scientists analyzed the zinc content of a large sample of fossilized ...

Mystery of 'Very Odd' Elasmosaur Finally Solved: Fiercely Predatory Marine Reptile Is New Species

May 23, 2025 A mysterious sea monster fossil discovered decades ago in British Columbia has finally revealed its true identity — and it’s unlike anything scientists have seen before. Named Traskasaura ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:54am EST

A 540-Million-Year-Old Fossil Is Rewriting Evolution

Nov. 12, 2025 Over 500 million years ago, the Cambrian Period sparked an explosion of skeletal creativity. Salterella, a peculiar fossil, defied conventions by combining two different mineral-building methods. ...

2 Million-Year-Old Teeth Reveal Secrets from the Dawn of Humanity

Nov. 1, 2025 For decades, Paranthropus robustus has intrigued scientists as a powerful, big-jawed cousin of early humans. Now, thanks to ancient protein analysis, researchers have cracked open new secrets hidden ...

Scientists Find “living Fossil” Fish Hidden in Museums for 150 Years

Oct. 31, 2025 Researchers have uncovered dozens of long-misidentified coelacanth fossils in British museums, some overlooked for more than a century. The study reveals that these ancient “living fossils” ...

Humans Evolved Faster Than Any Other Ape

Oct. 29, 2025 UCL scientists found that human skulls evolved much faster than those of other apes, reflecting the powerful forces driving our brain growth and facial flattening. By comparing 3D models of ape ...

3,000 Years of Secrets Hidden Beneath Egypt’s Greatest Temple

Oct. 6, 2025 A sweeping new geoarchaeological study has revealed how Egypt’s famed Karnak Temple complex rose from an island amid Nile floods to become one of the ancient world’s most enduring sacred centers. ...

Hidden for 70 Million Years, a Tiny Fossil Fish Is Rewriting Freshwater Evolution

Oct. 5, 2025 Researchers in Alberta uncovered a fossil fish that rewrites the evolutionary history of otophysans, which today dominate freshwater ecosystems. The ...

Scientists Uncover a Mysterious Jurassic Lizard With Snake-Like Jaws

Oct. 3, 2025 A strange Jurassic lizard discovered on Scotland’s Isle of Skye is shaking up what we know about snake evolution. Named Breugnathair elgolensis, the “false snake of Elgol” combined hook-like, ...

Scientists Just Found Rare Spores Inside a Fossil Older Than Dinosaurs

Sep. 27, 2025 Scientists reclassified a long-misunderstood fossil from Brazil as a new genus, Franscinella riograndensis. Using advanced microscopy, they discovered spores preserved in situ—a rare find that ...

Student’s Pinkie-Sized Fossil Reveals a New Croc Species

Sep. 23, 2025 A 95-million-year-old crocodyliform fossil, affectionately nicknamed Elton, was discovered in Montana by student Harrison Allen. Unlike most crocs, it lived on land and ate a varied diet. The find ...

Woolly Mammoth Teeth Reveal the World’s Oldest Microbial DNA

Sep. 5, 2025 Scientists have uncovered microbial DNA preserved in mammoth remains dating back more than one million years, revealing the oldest host-associated microbial DNA ever recovered. By sequencing nearly ...

70-Million-Year-Old Crocodile Relative With Dinosaur-Crushing Jaws Found in Argentina

Aug. 29, 2025 Seventy million years ago, southern Patagonia was home to dinosaurs, turtles, and mammals—but also to a fierce crocodile-like predator. A newly discovered fossil, astonishingly well-preserved, ...

Tiny Ancient Whale With a Killer Bite Found in Australia

Aug. 13, 2025 An extraordinary fossil find along Victoria’s Surf Coast has revealed Janjucetus dullardi, a sharp-toothed, dolphin-sized predator that lived 26 million years ago. With large eyes, slicing teeth, ...

500-Million-Year-Old “squid” Were Actually Ferocious Worms

Aug. 25, 2025 A stunning discovery in North Greenland has reclassified strange squid-like fossils, revealing that nectocaridids were not early cephalopods but ancestors of arrow worms. Preserved nervous systems ...

Stunning “wonder Reptile” Discovery Rewrites the Origins of Feathers

Aug. 9, 2025 The newly described Mirasaura grauvogeli from the Middle Triassic had a striking feather-like crest, hinting that complex skin appendages arose far earlier than previously believed. Its bird-like ...

Scholars Just Solved a 130-Year Literary Mystery—and It All Hinged on One Word

July 16, 2025 After baffling scholars for over a century, Cambridge researchers have reinterpreted the long-lost Song of Wade, revealing it to be a chivalric romance rather than a monster-filled myth. The twist ...

Forgotten Rock in Japan Reveals 220-Million-Year-Old Ichthyosaur Fossil

Aug. 25, 2025 A chance glance at a museum display has led to the first-ever discovery of an ichthyosaur fossil in western Japan, dating back around 220 million years. Initially mistaken for a common bivalve ...

Tiny Fossil With Razor Teeth Found by Student — Rewrites Mammal History

July 12, 2025 A university student on a fossil-hunting field trip in Dorset made a stunning discovery: a 145-million-year-old jawbone belonging to a previously unknown mammal species with razor-like teeth. With ...

North America’s Oldest Pterosaur Unearthed in Arizona’s Triassic Time Capsule

July 8, 2025 In the remote reaches of Arizona s Petrified Forest National Park, scientists have unearthed North America's oldest known pterosaur a small, gull-sized flier that once soared above Triassic ...

Mammals Didn't Walk Upright Until Late—here's What Fossils Reveal

June 25, 2025 The shift from lizard-like sprawl to upright walking in mammals wasn’t a smooth climb up the evolutionary ladder. Instead, it was a messy saga full of unexpected detours. Using new bone-mapping ...

Monster Salamander With Powerful Jaws Unearthed in Tennessee Fossil Find

June 17, 2025 A massive, extinct salamander with jaws like a vice once roamed ancient Tennessee and its fossil has just rewritten what we thought we knew about Appalachian amphibians. Named Dynamognathus ...

The 10,000-Mile March Through Fire That Made Dinosaurs Possible

June 13, 2025 Despite Earth's most devastating mass extinction wiping out over 80% of marine life and half of land species, a group of early reptiles called archosauromorphs not only survived but thrived, ...

Researchers Recreate Ancient Egyptian Blues

June 2, 2025 Researchers have recreated the world's oldest synthetic pigment, called Egyptian blue, which was used in ancient Egypt about 5,000 years ...

Different Phases of Evolution During Ice Age

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 ...

Ancient DNA Used to Map Evolution of Fever-Causing Bacteria

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 ...

Scientists Have Figured out How Extinct Giant Ground Sloths Got So Big and Where It All Went Wrong

May 22, 2025 Scientists have analyzed ancient DNA and compared more than 400 fossils from 17 natural history museums to figure out how and why extinct sloths got so ...

Climate Change Poses Severe Threat to Bowhead Whale Habitat

May 22, 2025 New research examining 11,700 years of bowhead whale persistence throughout the Arctic projects that sea ice loss due to climate change will cause their habitat to severely contract by up to 75 per ...

Toothache from Eating Something Cold? Blame These Ancient Fish

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 ...

'Sharkitecture:' A Nanoscale Look Inside a Blacktip Shark's Skeleton

May 20, 2025 Using synchrotron X-ray nanotomography with detailed 3D imaging and in-situ mechanical testing, researchers are peering inside shark skeletons at the nanoscale, revealing a microscopic ...

Asians Made Humanity's Longest Prehistoric Migration and Shaped the Genetic Landscape in the Americas

May 15, 2025 A groundbreaking international study has revealed that early Asians undertook humanity s longest known prehistoric migration walking more than 20,000 kilometers over thousands of years from North ...

Dexterity and Climbing Ability: How Ancient Human Relatives Used Their Hands

May 14, 2025 Scientists have found new evidence for how our fossil human relatives in South Africa may have used their hands. Researchers investigated variation in finger bone morphology to determine that South ...