Paleontology News

Mar 29, 2012 by James Freeman

An international team of Ethiopian and American scientists conducting paleontological field research in the Woranso-Mille area of the Afar region of Ethiopia has discovered a partial foot skeleton, which is the first fossil evidence to show the presence of more than one pre-human species in eastern Africa at the beginning of the Late Pliocene epoch. The fourth metatarsal of the Burtele partial foot right after discovery (Yohannes Haile-Selassie /...

Mar 28, 2012 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of paleontologists led by Dr. Xiaolin Wang of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology has discovered a new...

Mar 26, 2012 by James Freeman

A team of researchers led by Dr. Susan Rule of the Australian National University has found that human arrival rather than climate change caused the extinction...

Mar 24, 2012 by News Staff

An international team of paleontologists has discovered a new species of fossil scops owl, the first extinct bird on the archipelago of Madeira, Portugal. Illustration...

Mar 20, 2012 by James Freeman

A team of scientists from Monash University and the University of Bristol has found that the tiny teeth of a long-extinct prehistoric fish are the sharpest...

Mar 15, 2012 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has found that rodent-like creatures called multituberculates flourished during the last 20 million years of the dinosaurs’...

Mar 13, 2012 by James Freeman

A team of paleontologists has identified two new species of horned dinosaurs, known from fossils found in Alberta, Canada. Unescoceratops koppelhusae (upper...

Mar 12, 2012 by News Staff

A team of researchers has discovered that plumage of Microraptor, a pigeon-sized dinosaur that lived about 120 million years ago, was iridescent with a...

Feb 27, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

Dr. Eliseu Vieira Dias of the State University of Western Paraná (UNIOESTE) has announced the discovery of a new species of deep-bodied fish that prowled...

Feb 24, 2012 by James Freeman

A team of scientists led by researchers from the University of Florida and University of Nebraska has discovered a correlation between environmental temperature...

Feb 21, 2012 by James Freeman

An international team of paleontologists has discovered a tropical forest preserved in ash when a volcano erupted 300 million years ago in what is today...

Feb 8, 2012 by James Freeman

An international team of paleontologists has discovered fossil organisms, which they believe are the first animals that lived on Earth. Fossilized Otavia...

Feb 7, 2012 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has reconstructed a song played by a prehistoric bushcricket some 165 million years ago. A modern-day bushcricket...

Feb 1, 2012 by James Freeman

A team of paleontologists has identified a new species of prehistoric crocodile, nicknamed ‘Shieldcroc’ due to a thick-skinned shield on its head. A...

Feb 1, 2012 by News Staff

A team of UK researchers has revealed how the arrival of the first plants 470 million years ago triggered a series of ice ages. The moss Physcomitrella...

Jan 20, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

An international team of paleontologists led by Dr. Junchang Lü from Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, has announced the...

Jan 6, 2012 by Enrico de Lazaro

For the first time, Canadian researchers have suggested that the Earth’s most severe mass extinction was caused by an influx of mercury into the eco-system. In...

Jan 5, 2012 by News Staff

A team of researchers working at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center has found that some insects such as crickets and katydids evolved their supersensitive...

Dec 18, 2011 by Sergio Prostak

Chinese paleontologists have found fossil remains of a new species of pterosaur in Liaoning province, China. Xiaolin Wang from the Graduate University...

Dec 13, 2011 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the University of Chicago suggested that the ability to walk has originated underwater. It is known that tetrapods were the...