News tagged with fossil history

Warm and fuzzy T. rex? New evidence surprises

The discovery of a giant meat-eating dinosaur sporting a downy coat has some scientists reimagining the look of Tyrannosaurus rex.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Apr 04, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (11) | comments 15

Dinosaurs had fleas too -- giant ones, fossils show

In the Jurassic era, even the flea was a beast, compared to its minuscule modern descendants. These pesky bloodsuckers were nearly an inch long.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Feb 29, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (11) | comments 8

Toothed pterosaur: Tiny fossil fragment reveals giant-but-ugly-truth

New research from the Universities of Portsmouth and Leicester has identified a small fossil fragment at the Natural History Museum, London as being part of a giant pterosaur – setting a new upper limit ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Oct 13, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (10) | comments 15 | with audio podcast

Fossil find fills in picture of ancient marine life

Paleontologists have discovered a rich array of exceptionally preserved fossils of marine animals that lived between 480 million and 472 million years ago, during the early part of a period known as the Ordovician. ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 13, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

47-million-year-old fossil could shed light on primate family tree

(PhysOrg.com) -- A 47-million-year-old primate fossil, a purported "missing link" between primates and humans, was unveiled this week in New York. The fossil, formally called Darwinius masillae but nicknamed ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 19, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (13) | comments 2

Fossilised pregnant fish was one of the first animals to have sex

(PhysOrg.com) -- A pregnant fossil fish at the Natural History Museum in London has shed light on the possible origin of sex, according to a study published in Nature today by an international team includ ...

Biology /

created Feb 25, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (17) | comments 3

Four, three, two, one... pterosaurs have lift off

Pterosaurs have long suffered an identity crisis. Pop culture heedlessly — and wrongly — lumps these extinct flying lizards in with dinosaurs. Even paleontologists assumed that because the creatures flew, they were birdlike ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Jan 06, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (10) | comments 2

Mini-mammoths lived on Crete: scientists (w/ Video)

(Phys.org) -- The smallest mammoth known to have ever lived has been identified by Natural History Museum scientists, and is reported in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B today.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 09, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Analytical standards needed for 'reading' Pliocene bones

Researchers studying human origins should develop standards for determining whether markings on fossil bones were made by stone tools or by biting animals, Indiana University faculty member Jackson Njau writes ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Apr 05, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Ancient whale species sheds new light on its modern relatives

Beluga whales and narwhals live solely in the cold waters of the Arctic and sub-arctic. Smithsonian scientists, however, found that this may not have always been the case. They recently described a new species ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Mar 22, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (8) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Research reveals evolution of earliest horses was driven by climate change, global warming affected body size

When Sifrhippus, the earliest known horse, first appeared in the forests of North America more than 50 million years ago, it would not have been mistaken for a Clydesdale. It weighed in at around 12 pounds ...

Biology / Evolution

created Feb 23, 2012 | popularity 3.6 / 5 (7) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

Details of ancient shark attack preserved in fossil whale bone

A fragment of whale rib found in a North Carolina strip mine is offering scientists a rare glimpse at the interactions between prehistoric sharks and whales some 3- to 4-million years ago during the Pliocene.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Nov 10, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

'Fossil eel' squirms into the record books

A new species of eel found in the gloom of an undersea cave is a "living fossil" astonishingly similar to the first eels that swam some 200 million years ago, biologists reported on Wednesday.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Aug 17, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (19) | comments 58

'Pregnant plesiosaur' examined

A paper to be published on August 12, 2011 in Science reveals that Dr. F. Robin O'Keefe of Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. and Dr. Luis Chiappe, Director of the Natural History Museum's Dinosaur Institute, have d ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Aug 11, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

20-million-year-old ape skull unearthed in Uganda

A team of Ugandan and French paleontologists announced Tuesday they had found a 20-million-year-old ape skull in northeastern Uganda, saying it could shed light on the region's evolutionary history.

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Aug 02, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 1