Vertebrate paleontology is the scientific discipline within paleontology that focuses on the study of fossilized remains of vertebrate animals, including their morphology, systematics, evolutionary relationships, and paleoecology. It integrates anatomical analysis, comparative biology, stratigraphy, and geochronology to reconstruct the origin, diversification, and extinction patterns of vertebrates through deep time. Research in vertebrate paleontology often involves detailed examination of skeletal elements, functional morphology, and phylogenetic methods to infer evolutionary trajectories and biogeographic histories, as well as to interpret environmental and climatic conditions recorded in vertebrate fossil assemblages and associated sedimentary contexts.
Neumark-Nord in northeastern Germany was a lake landscape in the last interglacial period. It is rich in archaeological finds discovered during lignite mining. The area in Saxony-Anhalt is one of the most important European ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Mar 16, 2026
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My fixation on a small, desolate locale in the heart of the Sahara Desert started with a single line buried in a 630-page tome in French about the rocks of the central Sahara: "Dent de Carcharodontosaurus saharicus Depéret," ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Mar 16, 2026
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In biology and paleontology (the study of extinct organisms) there are a few ways to estimate the age of an animal's skeleton. One is the extent of fusion of sutures in the skeleton—how much the plates of bone have joined ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Mar 14, 2026
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The oceans of the Cretaceous of North America teemed with life. Gigantic fish and enormous marine reptiles hunted the Western Interior Sea. A unique new fossil demonstrates rare evidence of direct conflict between these apex ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Mar 13, 2026
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Tyrannosaurus rex is one of the most recognizable names of the dinosaur world, a hulking and terrifying meat-eating behemoth. While fossil remains have been extensively studied, not much is known about its family history ...
Thirteen million years ago, a group of medium-sized monkeys known for guarding their territory among the treetops with fearsome "howls" started doing something new. These monkeys, among the oldest known ancestors of the modern ...
Evolution
Mar 11, 2026
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Analysis of a volcanic ash tuff layer, only a few millimeters thick and discovered during excavations in 2024, revealed that the fossil-bearing Bromacker rocks are 294 million years old—four million years older than previously ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Mar 11, 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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A "peculiar" ancient relative of the crocodile which experts believe began life on four legs before, in adulthood, it learned how to walk on just two has been revealed in a new study. Named Sonselasuchus cedrus, this archaic ...
Evolution
Mar 9, 2026
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Roughly 425 million years ago, in the warm seas over what is now southern China, there lived a meter-long bony fish with jaws full of clusters of spiky teeth.
Paleontology & Fossils
Mar 8, 2026
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