Paleontology News
October 3, 2025
Top Headlines
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 ...
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 ...
July 3, 2025 When Siberian volcanoes kicked off the Great Dying, the real climate villain turned out to be the rainforests themselves: once they collapsed, Earth’s biggest carbon sponge vanished, CO₂ ...
June 2, 2025 New research adds to our understanding of how rapidly rising sea levels due to climate change foreshadow the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. The findings suggest the reef can withstand rising sea levels in isolation but is vulnerable to ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
May 29, 2025 The fossils of ancient salamander-like creatures in Scotland are among the most well-preserved examples of early stem tetrapods -- some of the first animals to make the transition from water to land. Thanks to new research, scientists believe that ...
May 29, 2025 Spring in the Arctic brings forth a plethora of peeps and downy hatchlings as millions of birds gather to raise their young. The same was true 73 million years ago, according to a new article. The paper documents the earliest-known example of birds ...
May 29, 2025 A new study reveals that the aerobic nitrogen cycle in the ocean may have occurred about 100 million years before oxygen began to significantly accumulate in the atmosphere, based on nitrogen isotope analysis from ancient South African rock cores. ...
May 29, 2025 Palaeontologists have analyzed the most complete stegosaurian skull ever found in Europe and rewritten the evolutionary history of this iconic group of ...
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 ...
Latest Headlines
updated 1:23pm EDT
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, ...
Sep. 29, 2025 Scientists have named a new ichthyosaur, Eurhinosaurus mistelgauensis, from fossils found in Mistelgau, Germany. The marine reptile had a dramatic overbite similar to swordfish and unique skeletal ...
Sep. 28, 2025 Ancient copper smelters may have accidentally set the stage for the Iron Age. At a 3,000-year-old workshop in Georgia, researchers discovered that metalworkers were using iron oxide not to smelt iron ...
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 ...
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 ...
Sep. 22, 2025 More than a century after its discovery, a mysterious fossil from South Wales has finally been confirmed as belonging to a new species of predatory dinosaur. Using cutting-edge digital scanning, ...
Sep. 20, 2025 A newly discovered fossil in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert has revealed the oldest and most complete pachycephalosaur ever found, offering a rare glimpse into the early evolution of these dome-headed ...
Sep. 14, 2025 By analyzing tooth enamel chemistry, scientists uncovered proof that Jurassic dinosaurs divided up their meals in surprising ways—some choosing buds and leaves, others woody bark, and still others ...
Sep. 11, 2025 Dating dinosaur eggs has always been tricky because traditional methods rely on surrounding rocks or minerals that may have shifted over time. Now, for the first time, scientists have directly dated ...
Sep. 10, 2025 A groundbreaking discovery on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi reveals that early hominins crossed treacherous seas over a million years ago, leaving behind stone tools that reshape our ...
Earlier Headlines
Sep. 5, 2025 Two tiny pterosaurs, preserved for 150 million years, have revealed a surprising cause of death: violent storms. Researchers at the University of Leicester discovered both hatchlings, nicknamed Lucky ...
Sep. 7, 2025 Sauropod tooth scratches reveal that some dinosaurs migrated seasonally, others ate a wide variety of plants, and climate strongly shaped their diets. Tanzania’s sand-blasted vegetation left ...
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 ...
Sep. 1, 2025 Fossilized bones in Brazil reveal that deadly infections plagued sauropods 80 million years ago. Researchers uncovered unhealed lesions consistent with osteomyelitis, pointing to pathogens spread ...
Aug. 30, 2025 Spicomellus afer, a newly analyzed Jurassic ankylosaur from Morocco, is overturning scientists’ understanding of dinosaur evolution. Unlike any other known creature, it carried a collar of ...
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, ...
Aug. 21, 2025 Scientists have uncovered the world s earliest fossil showing both Neanderthal and Homo sapiens features: a five-year-old child from Israel s Skhul Cave dating back 140,000 years. This discovery ...
Aug. 27, 2025 Fossils unearthed in Ethiopia are reshaping our view of human evolution. Instead of a straight march from ape-like ancestors to modern humans, researchers now see a tangled, branching tree with ...
Aug. 21, 2025 In the deserts of Ethiopia, scientists uncovered fossils showing that early members of our genus Homo lived side by side with a newly identified species of Australopithecus nearly three million years ...
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, ...
Aug. 5, 2025 Tyrannosaurus rex might be the most famous meat-eater of all time, but it turns out it wasn’t the only way to be a terrifying giant. New research shows that while T. rex evolved a skull designed ...
Aug. 4, 2025 A new long-necked marine reptile, Plesionectes longicollum, has been identified from a decades-old fossil found in Germany’s Posidonia Shale. The remarkably preserved specimen rewrites part of the ...
July 29, 2025 A fish thought to be evolution’s time capsule just surprised scientists. A detailed dissection of the coelacanth — a 400-million-year-old species often called a “living fossil” — revealed ...
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 ...
Aug. 14, 2025 A groundbreaking fossil discovery in the Grand Canyon has unveiled exquisitely preserved soft-bodied animals from the Cambrian period, offering an unprecedented glimpse into early life more than 500 ...
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 ...
July 24, 2025 A century-old fossil long mislabeled as a caterpillar has been reidentified as the first-known nonmarine lobopodian—rewriting what we know about ancient life. Discovered in Harvard’s museum ...
July 24, 2025 Half a billion years ago, a strange sea-dwelling creature called Mollisonia symmetrica may have paved the way for modern spiders. Using detailed fossil brain analysis, researchers uncovered neural ...
July 24, 2025 A tiny, overlooked wrist bone called the pisiform may have played a pivotal role in bird flight and it turns out it evolved far earlier than scientists thought. Fossils from bird-like dinosaurs in ...
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 ...
Friday, September 5, 2025
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Thursday, July 24, 2025
- A Dusty Fossil Drawer Held a 300-Million-Year-Old Evolutionary Game-Changer
- A 500-Million-Year-Old Fossil Just Rewrote the Spider Origin Story
- A Tiny Dinosaur Bone Just Rewrote the Origin of Bird Flight
Monday, August 25, 2025
Saturday, July 12, 2025
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Friday, August 29, 2025
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Friday, May 23, 2025
- Mystery of 'very Odd' Elasmosaur Finally Solved: Fiercely Predatory Marine Reptile Is New Species
- Different Phases of Evolution During Ice Age
Thursday, May 22, 2025
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
Thursday, May 15, 2025
- Scientists Use Fossils to Assess the Health of Florida's Largest Remaining Seagrass Bed: Surprisingly, It's Doing Well!
- Digital Reconstruction Reveals 80 Steps of Prehistoric Life
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
- Dexterity and Climbing Ability: How Ancient Human Relatives Used Their Hands
- Fossil Tracks Show Reptiles Appeared on Earth Up to 40 Million Years Earlier
- Australia's Oldest Prehistoric Tree Frog Hops 22 Million Years Back in Time
- UV Light and CT Scans Helped Scientists Unlock Hidden Details in a Beautifully-Preserved Fossil Archaeopteryx
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
- CT Scanning Helps Reveal Path from Rotten Fish to Fossil
- Palaeontologists Discover 506-Million-Year-Old Predator
Monday, May 12, 2025
Friday, May 9, 2025
- First Fossil Evidence of Endangered Tropical Tree Discovered
- New Ancient Fish Species Earliest Known Salmon Ancestor
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
- T. Rex's Direct Ancestor Crossed from Asia to North America
- New Drone-Assisted 3D Model Offers a More Accurate Way to Date Dinosaur Fossils
- Slickrock: Geologists Explore Why Utah's Wasatch Fault Is Vulnerable to Earthquakes
Monday, May 5, 2025
- Western US Spring Runoff Is Older Than You Think
- Genomic Survey Uncovers Evolutionary Origins of Secretoglobins
Friday, May 2, 2025
Thursday, May 1, 2025
- Why Did Some Ancient Animals Fossilize While Others Vanished?
- Ptero Firma: Footprints Pinpoint When Ancient Flying Reptiles Conquered the Ground
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Monday, April 28, 2025
- Elephant Instead of Wild Boar? What Could Have Been in Europe
- Anatomy of a 'zombie' Volcano: Investigating the Cause of Unrest Inside Uturuncu
- 'Extremely Rare Event': Bone Analysis Suggests Ancient Echidnas Lived in Water
Thursday, April 24, 2025
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Wednesday, April 16, 2025
- Sunscreen, Clothes and Caves May Have Helped Homo Sapiens Survive 41,000 Years Ago
- Secret to Crocodylian Longevity
Saturday, August 9, 2025
Monday, April 14, 2025
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
- Prehistoric Rhinos Lived in Super-Herds
- Mediterranean Hunter Gatherers Navigated Long-Distance Sea Journeys Well Before the First Farmers
- Mammoth Genetic Diversity Throughout the Last Million Years
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
- Ancient Fossil Sheds Big Light on Evolution Mystery: Solving a 100-Year Arthropod Mystery
- Life Recovered Rapidly at Site of Dino-Killing Asteroid: A Hydrothermal System May Have Helped
- Dinosaurs' Apparent Decline Prior to Asteroid May Be Due to Poor Fossil Record
Thursday, April 3, 2025
- Animal Behavioral Diversity at Risk in the Face of Declining Biodiversity
- Machine Learning Helps Construct an Evolutionary Timeline of Bacteria
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
- Early Earth's First Crust Composition Discovery Rewrites Geological Timeline
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
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Monday, March 24, 2025
Thursday, March 20, 2025
- From Dinosaurs to Birds: The Origins of Feather Formation
- Researchers Propose New Hypothesis for the Origin of Stone Tools
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
- Genetic Study Reveals Hidden Chapter in Human Evolution
- When Did Human Language Emerge?
- New Fossil Discovery Reveals How Volcanic Deposits Can Preserve the Microscopic Details of Animal Tissues
Monday, March 17, 2025
Thursday, March 13, 2025
- Misha Lived in Zoos, but the Elephant's Tooth Enamel Helps Reconstruct Wildlife Migrations
- Dozens of 3-Toed Dinosaurs Leave Their Mark in Australia
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
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Thursday, March 6, 2025
- World's Oldest Impact Crater Found, Rewriting Earth's Ancient History
- Plants Struggled for Millions of Years After the World's Worst Climate Catastrophe