Paleontology News

Aug 8, 2013 by News Staff

An international team of paleontologists has discovered a well-preserved fossil of a proto-mammal, named Megaconus mammaliaformis, that lived in what is now the Inner Mongolia Region of China about 165 million years ago. The fossil provides evidence that hair and fur originated well before the rise of the first true mammals. Life reconstruction of Megaconus mammaliaformis. It was a nocturnal animal, foraging mostly in the night (April Isch / Zhe-Xi...

Aug 1, 2013 by Natali Anderson

Italian paleontologists have reported the discovery of enigmatic fossils in Pleistocene shallow-marine clay deposits in central Italy. 1.75-million-year-old...

Aug 1, 2013 by News Staff

A team of researchers reporting in the journal Nature has revealed that some non-avian dinosaurs had brains that were as large or larger than that of Archaeopteryx...

Jul 30, 2013 by News Staff

Prof Trevor Lamb of the Australian National University has published a major scientific review of the origin of the vertebrate eye and vision, summarizing...

Jul 26, 2013 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new study published online in the Journal of Human Evolution refutes a long body of evidence, suggesting that a 9-million-year-old ape called Oreopithecus...

Jul 25, 2013 by News Staff

New research reported in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society shows that the previously known but misclassified small predatory fish Fouldenia...

Jul 25, 2013 by News Staff

Two tiny marsupial fossils from Australia are prompting an overhaul of theory about marsupial evolution after they revealed unexpected links to South America...

Jul 23, 2013 by News Staff

A new study, published in the journal Precambrian Research, describes evidence that primitive forms of life existed on land 2.2 billion years ago. Bright,...

Jul 22, 2013 by Natali Anderson

According to a study by scientists at the University of Wisconsin and Yale University, small, herbivorous, dome-headed dinosaurs from the late Cretaceous...

Jul 22, 2013 by Natali Anderson

Paleontologists have described a new extinct genus and species of sea turtle that lived in shallow seas about 67 million years ago during Late Cretaceous. Reconstruction...

Jul 18, 2013 by News Staff

Dinosaurs were warm-blooded like mammals, not cold-blooded like reptiles as previously thought, says a biologist from the University of Adelaide, Australia. This...

Jul 17, 2013 by Natali Anderson

Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of horned, plant-eating dinosaur that lived in Laramidia – a landmass formed when a shallow...

Jul 15, 2013 by News Staff

U.S. scientists have described a new extinct family of scorpionflies from fossils found in British Columbia and Washington state, most prominently at the...

Jul 2, 2013 by News Staff

Thylacosmilus atrox – an extinct, bizarre, marsupial super-predator that roamed South America about 4 – 3 million years ago – had huge...

Jul 1, 2013 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have identified a new species of hornless rhino from fossil skull and mandible found in the Tha Chang area, Nakhon Ratchasima Province,...

Jun 28, 2013 by Sergio Prostak

Paleontologists have identified a new species of scops owl that lived on São Miguel Island, the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores, until about 500...

Jun 25, 2013 by News Staff

According to an international team of paleontologists led by Dr Oumarou Ide from the Université de Niamey, the Republic of Niger, there was an isolated...

Jun 17, 2013 by Natali Anderson

European paleontologists have described a new species of spiny shark that lived about 408 million years ago during the Devonian period. Machaeracanthus...

Jun 13, 2013 by Enrico de Lazaro

Chemical analysis of fossil tooth enamel from extinct marsupials that lived in what is now southeastern Queensland 5 to 2.5 million years ago has revealed...

Jun 10, 2013 by Enrico de Lazaro

A newly discovered bird-like dinosaur named Aurornis xui is about 10 million years older than Archaeopteryx, the feathered dinosaur previously considered...