Paleontology News

An artist’s reconstruction of Balticolasma wunderlichi male. Image credit: Joshua Knüppe.

Bizarre Harvestman Species Found Preserved in Ukrainian and Baltic Amber

Apr 2, 2026 by Natali Anderson

In a paper published online March 18 in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, paleontologists described a new species of harvestman found in two pieces...

The surprisingly complex anatomy of Megachelicerax cousteaui. Image credit: Masato Hattori / Harvard University.

500-Million-Year-Old Fossil Identified as Oldest Known Chelicerate

Apr 1, 2026 by News Staff

Paleontologists at Harvard University have described a large predatory arthropod from the Middle Cambrian of Utah featuring massive three-segmented chelicerae....

Gigantic griffinfly in a Carboniferous forest.

Gigantic Prehistoric Dragonfly-Like Insects May Not Owe Their Size to Oxygen: Study

Mar 30, 2026 by News Staff

Long thought to be fueled by increased atmospheric oxygen concentration, enormous griffinflies from the Carboniferous period, 300 million years ago, may...

Reconstruction of a Triassic coelacanth schematically showing the otophysic connection linking the ossified lung to the inner ear and enabling underwater hearing. Image credit: A. Beneteau & L. Cavin, MHNG.

Triassic Coelacanths May Have Heard the Ocean with Their Lungs

Mar 30, 2026 by News Staff

An analysis of two 240-million-year-old coelacanth fossils suggests a bizarre sensory adaptation: an ossified lung that transmitted sound to the inner...

Life reconstruction of Masripithecus moghraensis. Image credit: Mauricio Antón.

Early Miocene Fossil Fills Gap in Ape Family Tree

Mar 29, 2026 by News Staff

Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of fossil ape that lived about 17-18 million years ago in northern Egypt. The discovery suggests...

Canadian Eskimo dogs. Illustration by John James Audubon and John Bachman (1845-1848).

Ancient DNA Study Rewrites Origins of Europe’s First Dogs

Mar 26, 2026 by News Staff

Scientists have extracted and analyzed DNA from 216 canid remains, including 181 from Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe. The oldest data that they recovered...

Life reconstruction of Cistecynodon parvus. Image credit: Morgan Hopf.

CT Scans Solve Decades-Old Mystery of Triassic Cynodont

Mar 23, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

Known from a single skull discovered in South Africa in 1952, Cistecynodon parvus has been shuffled across the evolutionary tree: described at various...

A Tyrannosaurus attacking an adult Edmontosaurus. Image credit: Jenn Hall.

Duck-Billed Dinosaur Fossil Shows Direct Evidence of Tyrannosaur Attack

Mar 23, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A semi-complete skull of an adult Edmontosaurus at Montana State’s Museum of the Rockies preserves a fleeting moment from the Late Cretaceous: a tyrannosaur...

An artist’s interpretation of a juvenile Doolysaurus huhmini. Image credit: Jun Seong Yi.

New Species of Plant-Eating Dinosaur Unearthed in Korea

Mar 19, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new species of small plant-eating dinosaur has been identified from a partial skeleton of a juvenile individual discovered in the Republic of Korea. An...

An artist impression of Huanansaurus ganzhouensis. Image credit: Chuang Zhao.

Oviraptors May Have Needed the Sun to Hatch Their Eggs

Mar 17, 2026 by News Staff

New experiments indicate bird-like oviraptorid dinosaurs could not fully warm their eggs with body heat alone, instead combining brooding with solar warmth...

Yunnanocyclus fortis. Image credit: Sun et al., doi: 10.1002/spp2.70052.

Early Triassic Cyclidan Crustacean Had Powerful Jaws

Mar 16, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have described a new species of enigmatic cyclidan crustacean on the basis of three well-preserved specimens from the Early Triassic Guiyang...

Straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) were the largest land mammals of the European Pleistocene. Image credit: Hodari Nundu, CC-BY-4.0.

Neanderthals May Have Hunted Giant Elephants that Roamed across Prehistoric Europe

Mar 16, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Chemical clues preserved in the teeth of straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) from the 125,000-year-old site of Neumark-Nord in Germany suggest...

Crocodylus lucivenator overlapped with the famed Lucy and her hominin kin and would have hunted them. Image credit: Tyler Stone, University of Iowa.

New Fossil Crocodile from Ethiopia Lived alongside Australopithecus afarensis

Mar 12, 2026 by News Staff

Paleontologists analyzing fossils from Ethiopia have described a previously unknown crocodile species that shared the landscape with a hominid species...

The mantled howler (Alouatta palliata) in Panama. Image credit: Ariel Rodriguez-Vargas / CC BY 4.0.

Early Howler Monkeys Adapted to Eating Leaves 13 Million Years Ago

Mar 11, 2026 by News Staff

Fossil jaws of the ancient monkey species Stirtonia victoriae from the La Victoria Formation in Colombia suggest that a shift toward leaf-eating allowed...

Tanyka amnicola. Image credit: Vitor Silva.

275-Million-Year-Old Amphibian Relative with Twisted Jaws Rewrites Early Tetrapod Diets

Mar 10, 2026 by News Staff

A new genus and species of archaic stem tetrapod from the Permian period has been identified from fossil jawbones found in Brazil. Named Tanyka amnicola,...

An artist’s reconstruction of Sonselasuchus cedrus in its environment in what is now Petrified Forest National Park, 215 million years ago. Image credit: Gabriel Ugueto.

Triassic Crocodile Relative May Have Learned to Walk on Two Legs

Mar 9, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Fossils from the Chinle Formation of Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, the United States, reveal that Sonselasuchus cedrus, a species of shuvosaurid...

Pluridens imelaki, holotype, close-up of the dentaries. Scale bar - 10 cm. Image credit: Nicholas R. Longrich & Nour-Eddine Jalil, doi: 10.3390/d18030159.

New Giant Mosasaur Species Discovered in Morocco

Mar 6, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have identified a new, giant species of the mosasaur genus Pluridens from the Late Cretaceous phosphate deposits of Morocco. Named Pluridens...

Shortly after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, the earliest known primates, such as Purgatorius mckeeveri shown in the foreground, quickly set themselves apart from their competition -- like the archaic ungulate mammal on the forest floor -- by specializing in an omnivorous diet including fruit found up in the trees. Image credit: Andrey Atuchin.

Southernmost Fossils of Earliest Primate Relative Unearthed in Colorado

Mar 3, 2026 by News Staff

The newly-discovered minuscule fossils of Purgatorius — a shrew-sized mammal considered the earliest known relative of all primates, including humans,...

Skeletal reconstruction of Diadectes sideropelicus with overlaid left and right tooth and bore marks in right lateral view. Image credit: Young et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-026-38183-6.

280-Million-Year-Old Fossil Provides Earliest Direct Evidence of Land Predators Attacking Herbivores

Mar 3, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists at the University of Toronto Mississauga have found dozens of tooth marks on the fossilized bones of three juveniles of Diadectes, one...