Ichnofossils, also known as trace fossils, are geological records of biological activity rather than preserved body parts, encompassing structures such as burrows, tracks, trails, borings, and coprolites. They provide direct evidence of organism behavior, ethology, and organism–substrate interactions, often where body fossils are absent. Ichnofossil analysis underpins ichnology and is used to interpret paleoenvironmental conditions, substrate consistency, energy regimes, and bioturbation intensity. Because ichnofossils are typically preserved in situ, they are critical for refining depositional models, sequence stratigraphy, and basin analysis, and for constraining the distribution, locomotion, and trophic strategies of ancient benthic and nektonic communities.
The south coast of South Africa's Western Cape province is a rich source of fossil tracks and traces—clues suggesting what this environment may have been like many thousands of years ago.
Paleontology & Fossils
Apr 16, 2026
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The study of dinosaurs has been through a revolution in recent decades. The story began half a century ago, when Robert McNeill Alexander, a professor of zoology at the University of Leeds, showed how the speed of an animal ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Apr 5, 2026
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Newly discovered fossils have given scientists their first real glimpse of when Earth made a crucial transition from plants and unrecognizably simple animals to the complex creatures that took over the world and would eventually ...
Evolution
Apr 4, 2026
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Cute, green, and sporting two sprigs of hair on his head, a mischievous baby dinosaur named Dooly is one of the most beloved cartoon characters in South Korea. So, when researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Mar 19, 2026
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The article presenting the research results was published online at the end of February in the journal Ichnos. The study focuses on two trackways (T1 and T2) preserved as convex hyporeliefs on the underside of a Late Jurassic ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Mar 10, 2026
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Powerful, fierce and the king of the Cretaceous world, Tyrannosaurus rex was the ultimate apex predator. But it was also surprisingly dainty on its feet, according to new research. Findings published in the journal Royal ...
An international research team led by Dr. Lorenzo Marchetti from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin has described the oldest known impressions of reptile skin from the Thuringian Forest in central Germany. Particularly remarkable ...
Evolution
Feb 12, 2026
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University of Queensland research has confirmed Brisbane's only dinosaur fossil is Australia's oldest, dating back to the earliest part of the Late Triassic period 230 million years ago. The 18.5-centimeter footprint was ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Feb 2, 2026
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Southern Africa is world renowned for its fossil record of creatures that lived in the very distant past, including dinosaurs. But, about 182 million years ago, a huge eruption of lava covered much of the landscape (the inland ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Jan 31, 2026
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When you hear the word "dinosaur," the first thing that might spring to mind is a hulking skeleton like Sue the T rex in Chicago's Field Museum or Sophie the Stegosaurus at the Natural History Museum in London. Dinosaur skeletons ...
Biotechnology
Jan 27, 2026
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