Paleontology News

Odaraia alata, a large swimming arthropod with a pair of bulbous eyes and a tubular carapace open ventrally. Image credit: Jean Bernard Caron, Royal Ontario Museum.

500M-Year-Old Fossil Brain Helps Paleontologists Understand Origins of Arthropods

May 8, 2015 by News Staff

Dr Javier Ortega-Hernández of the University of Cambridge, UK, has discovered one of the oldest fossil brains ever found, and used it to help identify...

Archaeornithura meemannae stood about 6 inches (15 cm) tall on two legs that had no feathers. Image credit: Zongda Zhang / Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Bejing.

Archaeornithura meemannae: Earliest Known Ancestor of Modern Birds Discovered in China

May 6, 2015 by News Staff

An international team of paleontologists has described a new ornithuromorph bird that lived during the Hauterivian stage of the Early Cretaceous epoch,...

Artist’s concept of Yi qi. Image credit: Dinostar.

Yi qi: Bat-Winged Dinosaur Discovered in China

Apr 30, 2015 by News Staff

A team of paleontologists, co-led by Dr Xing Xu and Dr Xiaoting Zheng of the Linyi University’s Institute of Geology and Paleontology, has discovered...

Chilesaurus diegosuarezi was up to 3 meters long; the different parts of its body were adapted to a particular diet and way of life, which was similar to other groups of dinosaurs. Image credit: Gabriel Lio.

Chilesaurus diegosuarezi: New Herbivorous Dinosaur Discovered in Chile

Apr 28, 2015 by News Staff

An international team of paleontologists led by Dr Fernando Novas of the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires has described a new...

Silhouettes of male and female Stegosaurus mjosi. Image credit: Evan Saitta.

Differences in Size, Shape of Bony Plates Offer Way to Tell Male, Female Stegosaurs Apart

Apr 23, 2015 by News Staff

According to paleontologist Evan Saitta of the University of Bristol, UK, stegosaur plates may have differed between males and females. Silhouettes of...

A close-up view of a male Osedax priapus. Scale bar - 0.3 mm. Image credit: Greg Rouse.

Prehistoric Bone-Devouring Osedax Worms Fed on Carcasses of Plesiosaurs

Apr 16, 2015 by News Staff

In a new paper in the journal Biology Letters, scientists reported fossil traces of Osedax – a genus of bone-devouring worms that both eat and inhabit...

Artist’s interpretation of the study’s principal conclusions, illustrating the mosasaur Clidastes liodontus giving live birth in an open ocean approximately 85 million years ago, beneath the shadow of the toothed stem bird Ichthyornis. Image credit: Julius T. Csotonyi.

Mosasaurs Gave Birth to Their Offspring in Open Ocean, Say Paleontologists

Apr 11, 2015 by News Staff

A team of paleontologists led by Dr Adam Behlke of Yale University says that very large marine reptiles called mosasaurs did not lay eggs on beaches, and...

Llallawavis scagliai. Image credit: H. Santiago Druetta.

Llallawavis scagliai: New Terror Bird Discovered in Argentina

Apr 10, 2015 by News Staff

A group of paleontologists has described a new genus and species of Phorusrhacidae that lived in what is now Argentina during the Pliocene epoch, around...

Artist’s reconstruction of one Daspletosaurus feeding on another. Image credit: Tuomas Koivurinne.

Paleontologists Find Evidence of Cannibalism in Tyrannosaurine Dinosaurs

Apr 9, 2015 by News Staff

The evidence comes from paleontologists Dr David Hone of Queen Mary University of London and Dr Darren Tanke of the Royal Tyrrell Museum who analyzed a...

Illustration of Brontosaurus in the water, and Diplodocus on land, by Charles R. Knight, 1897.

Brontosaurus: Paleontologists Resurrect Forgotten Dinosaur Genus

Apr 7, 2015 by Enrico de Lazaro

Since the early 1900s, paleontologists have believed that the dinosaur genus Brontosaurus (thunder lizard) was in fact the Apatosaurus. Now, a new study,...

Toxic Panthalassa May Have Triggered end-Triassic Mass Extinction, Scientists Say

Apr 3, 2015 by News Staff

A mass extinction some 201 million years ago may have been triggered by changes in the biochemical balance of Panthalassa (also known as the Panthalassic...

Fossil cone shells and their original colors, from top to bottom rows: Conasprella stenostoma, Conus lombardii, and C. carlottae. Image credit: Jonathan Hendricks / San Jose State University; adapted by Sci-News.com.

UV Light Reveals Original Colors of 5-Million-Year-Old Cone Shells

Apr 2, 2015 by News Staff

San Jose State University researcher Dr Jonathan Hendricks has used ultraviolet (UV) light to reveal and characterize the original shell coloration patterns...

Wathondara kotejai from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber, stacked image with a blue filter. Scale bar - 1 mm. Image credit: Bo Wang et al.

Paleontologists Find 100-Million-Year-Old Evidence of Insect Brood Care

Mar 31, 2015 by News Staff

A team of scientists from China, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom, has described a new genus and species of an ensign scale insect from mid-Cretaceous...

Yawunik kootenayi. Image credit: University of Toronto.

Yawunik kootenayi: Paleontologists Discover Cambrian Lobster-Like Animal

Mar 28, 2015 by News Staff

A multinational group of paleontologists has described a prehistoric lobster-like animal from the Marble Canyon site, part of the renowned Canadian Burgess...

Reconstruction of Metoposaurus algarvensis. Image credit: Marc Boulay / Cossima Productions.

Metoposaurus algarvensis: Fossils of Giant Salamander-Like Amphibian Found in Portugal

Mar 24, 2015 by News Staff

A team of scientists led by Dr Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh, UK, has discovered a new species of metoposaurus that lived in lakes and...

South American ungulate mammals Macrauchenia patachonica. Image credit: Olga Kobrina / CC BY 3.0.

Prehistoric South American Ungulate Mammals are Relatives of Horses, Study Reveals

Mar 19, 2015 by News Staff

According to a team of scientists headed by Dr Ross MacPhee from the American Museum of Natural History, South American native ungulates – the last...

Life reconstruction of Carnufex carolinensis. Image credit: Jorge Gonzales.

Carnufex carolinensis: New Prehistoric Crocodile Discovered in North Carolina

Mar 19, 2015 by News Staff

A new species of prehistoric crocodile that dates back 231 million years ago (Carnian stage of the Triassic period) has been identified by a team of paleontologists...

The 17 million-year-old beaked whale fossil. Image credit: Southern Methodist University.

Whale Fossil Sheds Light on Timing, Starting Elevation of East African Plateau’s Uplift

Mar 17, 2015 by News Staff

Uplift associated with the East Africa’s Great Rift Valley has puzzled scientists for many years because the timing and starting elevation have been...

Reconstruction of Aegirocassis benmoulae. Image credit: Marianne Collins / ArtofFact.

Human-Sized ‘Lobsters’ Lived on Earth 480 Million Years Ago

Mar 12, 2015 by News Staff

Paleontologists have discovered fossils of a 2-m-long lobster-like animal that lived in the seas of what is now Morocco during the early Ordovician period,...