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Paleontology & Fossils news
Adult fossil strengthens evidence for Homo erectus in southern Africa 2 million years ago
La Trobe archaeologists have described 18 new hominin fossils, including a second Homo erectus skull fragment that confirms the species first appeared in southern Africa 2.0 million years ago—200,000 years earlier than traditionally ...
Evolution
2 hours ago
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Dinosaur snacked on seaweed washed up on North American coasts, fossil teeth suggest
Storms routinely wash marine material ashore, providing food for land animals and other organisms. This is known as marine subsidization (MS). Today, MS is particularly common in coastal ecosystems and is especially important ...
Ecology
16 hours ago
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New feathered, winged dinosaur from China challenges our theories on bird and dinosaur evolution
A newly described feathered dinosaur found in northeastern China adds evidence supporting the theory that flight-related features evolved differently in various bird-like dinosaur groups. The findings, reported in Nature ...
Evolution
23 hours ago
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8-million-year-old rhino skull found in Crete
A rhinoceros skull at least 8 million years old has been found in the town of Sitia on Crete, the Greek news agency ANA reported Tuesday.
Paleontology & Fossils
Sep 29, 2026
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Ancient bird becomes second Australian species to be named from the Cretaceous period
A pair of exceptionally rare Cretaceous bird bones found at separate sites near Richmond, Queensland, reveal a previously unknown species—the second formally named Cretaceous bird from Australia. Cretaceous bird fossils are ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 29, 2026
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An ancient human face emerges from pieced together Moroccan fossil remains
In the 1960s, a miner working at a mineral extraction site in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, struck something far more valuable than any mineral in the area: a skull with distinctly humanlike features. After an initial examination, ...
A treasure map to search for past marine life
Fossils offer a glimpse into Earth's distant past. They provide insights into extinct animals and plants, as well as past ecosystems. However, the fossil record is incomplete: Fossilization is rare, and only a small fraction ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Sep 24, 2026
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New species of proto-amphibian described by students, named in honor of their mothers
Around 309 million years ago, long before the dinosaurs, the area around Chicago was a swampy river delta swarming with early land-dwelling animals, giant insects and strange swimming animals. What was once a hotbed for new ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Sep 24, 2026
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Bizarre new dinosaur with giant claws discovered in China
It walked on two legs and may have looked like a feathered bear with giant claws. Meet Kayrasaurus changliensis—well, its almost complete skeleton, to be precise.
Bat genomes and fossils point to a European origin 65 million years ago
New research from the University of St Andrews has created the largest combined study of bat genomes and fossils ever undertaken, finding that bats most likely originated in Europe around 65 million years ago before spreading ...
Evolution
Sep 23, 2026
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Queasy plesiosaurs swam to shore to vomit, Jurassic fossils reveal
Plesiosaurs swam into river deltas to vomit up shells and other indigestible elements of their marine meals, suggests new research published by Cambridge University Press. The behavior resembles that of today's fur seals ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Sep 22, 2026
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Elusive builders of nearly perfect hexagonal tunnel fossils were probably small crustaceans—not worms
For more than 170 years, paleontologists have been trying to solve the mystery of what created the strangely uniform hexagonal tunnels found in fossils. In a new study published in Earth Science Reviews, a team of researchers ...
Capybaras in the desert? Fossil casts doubt on Atacama as world's oldest continuously dry region
Ask any zoo-goer and they will tell you that capybaras are adorable. Ask a scientist specializing in the rodents, which resemble oversized guinea pigs, and they will tell you they are obligate semiaquatic herbivores that ...
Ecology
Sep 17, 2026
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Endurance running or endurance diving—which came first?
A new study combines paleoanthropology and diving physiology to address a fundamental question in human evolution: Why did humans evolve their exceptional aerobic endurance? Did our ancestors begin endurance running to exhaust ...
Evolution
Sep 17, 2026
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Bone strength study reveals new clues about human evolution
Bipedalism, or walking on two legs, is one of the key features that distinguishes humans from other apes. But when and why our ancestors transitioned from a life often spent in trees to a life spent almost exclusively on ...
Evolution
Sep 16, 2026
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Tyrannosaurus rex teeth reveal a body temperature close to the human average
When picturing a scaled, toothy Tyrannosaurus rex stomping across North America, building nests and eating other dinosaurs, it's easy to forget that scientists have gleaned everything we know about T. rex from clues left ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Sep 16, 2026
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Half-billion-year-old fossils rewrite the origin story of starfish
Scientists have discovered several 518-million-year-old fossils that reshape understanding of the origins of the animal group containing starfish. The fossils show that these animals ate using tentacles rather than passively ...
Evolution
Sep 16, 2026
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Well-preserved tooth from Pacific mastodon found in a creek in San Francisco Bay Area
Brigid Lynch was working along a wooded creek in a mountainous part of the San Francisco Bay Area when something that didn't look like the rocks she'd been studying caught her eye. It turned out to be the fossilized tooth ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Sep 16, 2026
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New species of 240-million-year-old prehistoric animal could reshape dinosaur origins timeline
A new prehistoric animal species from Tanzania dating to around 240 million years ago, during the Triassic period, has been described by an international team of researchers. Led by the University of Bristol, the new species, ...
Evolution
Sep 15, 2026
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First confirmed Diplodocus outside North America reshapes Late Jurassic migration picture
In a discovery that challenges our understanding of dinosaur distribution during the Late Jurassic period, paleontologists have identified the first evidence of the iconic Diplodocus outside North America.
Paleontology & Fossils
Sep 14, 2026
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More news
Ancient armored fish evolved two distinct ways to crush prey 385 million years ago
The surprising place where giant dinosaurs incubated their eggs
A 66.5-million-year-old trackway captures adult T. rex at walking pace
First Denisovan forearm bone discovered in southwest China
Fossils from embryo to adult suggest how an enigmatic, bird-like troodontid dinosaur grew
One of the oldest known 3D animal fossils found in Norwegian sheep field
Neutron bone imaging brings T. rex to life
Other news
AI-enhanced petitions on Change.org: More text, less success
How sea squirts perceive underwater noise
Honeybee silk could power smarter wound dressings
Earth and Mars: Built from different cosmic recipes
Iguanodon shinbone growth may be first evidence of an infected skin ulcer in a dinosaur
Animal-bone records reveal how cattle and sheep fueled medieval England's changing economy
Not tiger, not wolf: Australian thylacine skull reveals a far different hunting style
A Permian fossil may reveal the oldest known flowering-plant structure
Tracks and tooth marks reveal bone-crushing dogs at Nebraska supervolcano ashfall site
Laser-made muons produce first images of dense objects
Alpine bacteria show unexpected ability to fight viruses
Butterflies use optical illusions to dodge predators
