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Paleontology & Fossils news
Lizard tail preserved in amber sheds light on a 100-million-year-old defense mechanism
A lizard making a dramatic escape, leaving its tail wriggling behind as it darts to safety, is an image familiar to many. Tail-shedding is one of the most widespread defenses against predators among living lizards, yet tracing ...
Evolution
13 minutes ago
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Armored amphibian lived entirely at sea 237 million years ago, fossils suggest
Scientists report fossil evidence of the first fully marine amphibian in a study from the University of California, Davis; Peking University; and the Geological Museum of Guizhou. The amphibian is an armored, giant salamander–sized, ...
Evolution
53 minutes ago
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New long‑clawed British dinosaur is the first of its kind in Europe
The fossilized skull of a new species of mysterious meat-eating dinosaur from the Isle of Wight has been rediscovered in the collections of the Natural History Museum after over 100 years in storage.
Paleontology & Fossils
Oct 24, 2026
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Rare fossils reveal what ancient Denisovans may have looked like
Whenever anything is written about the Denisovans, the word "mysterious" is almost guaranteed to appear. That is because we just don't know a lot about this extinct human group that may have lived in East Asia from at least ...
Ancient fish bones reveal how Arctic cod species survived the last ice age
The glacial Arctic Ocean was not a barren ice desert but a breeding ground for the evolution of cold adaptation in marine fish. This is the main conclusion of a new scientific publication from Stockholm University that examines ...
Evolution
Oct 21, 2026
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Keeping to warm climates may have helped crocodiles outlast the dinosaurs
Keeping to warm climates throughout their 250-million-year history may have helped crocodiles and their relatives survive the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, finds a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers.
Evolution
Oct 21, 2026
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Giant Jurassic fossil sheds light on the evolution of a six-legged predator
Insects belong to a broader group of six-legged animals called hexapods. This group also includes other less well-known, small animals, including diplurans or two-pronged bristletails, wingless relatives of insects with two ...
Caribbean islands were once the center of diversity for barn owls
Legend has it that a giant elfin, owl-like creature called the chickcharney haunts the islands of the Bahamas. Those who encounter this cryptid on cordial terms are said to be blessed with good luck. Those who disrespect ...
Evolution
Oct 20, 2026
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Algae fossils from Cambrian explosion hint at sophisticated reproductive system
The Cambrian explosion was a major diversification of animal life that unfolded early in the Cambrian period, which began around 538.8 million years ago. During this interval, marine animals became much more varied, building ...
Earth's oldest evidence of life is written in stone—but it's at risk of disappearing
Today, our planet is teeming with life, but it has not always looked the same. Long before forests reached skyward, animals walked on land and dinosaurs rose and fell, our planet was shaped by a much smaller, more unassuming ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Oct 18, 2026
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Lion tracks from the ice age: How two ways of seeing brought ancient animals to life
The coastline near the southern tip of Africa looked vastly different between about 400,000 years ago and 70,000 years ago, compared with today. At times it lay as much as 100km (62 miles) south of its present location, exposing ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Oct 15, 2026
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Fossil footprints reveal how dinosaur ancestors gradually shifted from sprawling to upright walking
A research team led by Dr. Lorenzo Marchetti of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin described the earliest archosauriform footprints (Pachychirotherium gardenaensis) from the GEOPARC Bletterbach—UNESCO World Heritage Dolomites, ...
Evolution
Oct 15, 2026
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Toothless 'hell chicken' dinosaur may have had a taste for fruit
While many dinosaurs were fearsome predators with razor-sharp teeth, others were peaceful herbivores munching on plants. We can now add a new species to the list of plant-eaters, Infernogallus jamesi. Its name means hell ...
Not all early birds evolved toward better flight, Jurassic fossil suggests
For early birds, evolution wasn't always about becoming better flyers. This conclusion is supported by the recent discovery of a remarkably well-preserved, 150-million-year-old bird fossil from Fujian province, China, which ...
Evolution
Oct 14, 2026
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Modeling study shows early tetrapods had surprisingly little ability to move their necks
A new model using sturgeon as a material analog has made it possible to estimate how the backbones of some of the first animals on land could and could not move. These results disprove a long-standing hypothesis that changes ...
Evolution
Oct 14, 2026
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Ancient climate shifts may explain why today's flowering plants are so diverse
The two warmest time periods on Earth in the past 140 million years drove both mass extinctions and explosions in plant diversity, according to researchers in Australia and Austria who say this could explain how flowering ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 14, 2026
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Isle of Wight fossil Europe's first known long-clawed megaraptoran dinosaur
A new species of dinosaur—a long-clawed predator the size of a large tiger—has been discovered by a UCL-led team from a fossil found on the Isle of Wight. The dinosaur, described in a new paper in the journal Royal Society ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Oct 13, 2026
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Winged insect evolution: New evidence sheds light on century-old debate
A new study combining genomic analyses and fossil evidence sheds light on the century-old "Palaeoptera Problem," a longstanding debate over the evolutionary relationships among major groups of winged insects.
Evolution
Oct 13, 2026
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Baby tooth places macaques in northern Germany more than 300,000 years ago
A research team from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen and Leiden University in the Netherlands has examined a tooth from the Schöningen archaeological site in ...
Evolution
Oct 12, 2026
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Tiny fossils reveal a missing chapter of ocean life after Snowball Earth
A rare assemblage of micro- and macro-fossils found in a roadside outcrop in South China, featuring thin ribbons, branching shapes and a tiny balloon on a stalk, offers a glimpse of marine life after one of Earth's most extreme ...
More news
Zimbabwe's dinosaurs were different from South Africa's: New species offers clues
Rise of collagen-eating microbes may help explain gaps in the fossil record
Fossil bite marks suggest first evidence of a small raptor feeding on an apex predator
Flexible tails could boost ancient sea predators' ambush speeds, fossil-based models suggest
New crocodile species discovered in rocks used to build the Great Sphinx
New saber-toothed predator from Argentina suggests its lineage survived longer than believed
Rare insect discovery reveals a new species from the dinosaur age
Other news
Diamond defects confirm 80-year-old theory of crystal stress
RNA archiving method reveals what a cell did days ago
An 'electron waiting room' helps blue titanium dioxide hold light energy longer
Crows make decisions twice as fast as humans and monkeys
Monarchs report their locations via… cellphone?
Fossil long known as world's oldest reptile dethroned
8-million-year-old rhino skull found in Crete
An ancient human face emerges from pieced together Moroccan fossil remains
New species of proto-amphibian described by students, named in honor of their mothers
A treasure map to search for past marine life
Bizarre new dinosaur with giant claws discovered in China
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