Paleontology News

Pterosaurs Used All Four Limbs to Propel Themselves in Air, New Study Suggests

One second take-off sequences used in the study highlighting key phases: (A) bipedal burst style take-off with crouched, ankle lifted, and launch phase timings highlighted; (B) bipedal countermotion style take-off with countermotion and launch phase timings highlighted; (C) quadrupedal take-off style with crouch, vault, and launch phases highlighted. Image credit: Griffin et al., doi: 10.7717/peerj.17678.
Aug 7, 2024 by News Staff

Take-off is a vital part of powered flight which likely constrains the size of birds, yet extinct pterosaurs are known to have reached far larger sizes. Three different hypothesized take-off motions (a vertical burst jump using just the legs like those used by primarily ground-dwelling birds; a less vertical jump using just the legs more similar to the jump used by birds that fly frequently; and a four-limbed jump using its wings as well in a motion...

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Life reconstruction of Hypnovenator matsubaraetoheorum. Image credit: Masato Hattori.

New Species of Troodontid Dinosaur Identified in Japan

Aug 5, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have announced the discovery of a new genus and species of troodontid theropod dinosaur, based on the fossilized remains found in Japan. Life...

An anatomical overview of Youti yuanshi. Image credit: Smith et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-07756-8.

Well-Preserved Worm Larva Fossil from Cambrian Period Found in China

Aug 5, 2024 by News Staff

Named Youti yuanshi, the newly-identified euarthropod species fills an important gap in our understanding of how the arthropod body plan originated and...

This painting depicts an asteroid slamming into tropical, shallow seas of the sulfur-rich Yucatan Peninsula in what is today southeast Mexico. The aftermath of this immense asteroid collision, which occurred approximately 65 million years ago, is believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other species on Earth. Shown in this painting are pterodactyls, flying reptiles with wingspans of up to 50 feet, gliding above low tropical clouds. Image credit: Donald E. Davis / NASA.

Study: Dinosaur-Killing Mass Extinction Triggered Rapid Evolution of Bird Genomes

Aug 2, 2024 by News Staff

About 66 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, a 10-km-wide asteroid crashed into Earth near the site of the town of Chicxulub in what...

Holotype of Propterodacylus frankerlae. Image credit: Frederik Spindler, doi: 10.26879/1366.

150-Million-Year-Old Fossil Fills Important Gap in Evolution of Pterosaurs

Aug 1, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of monofenestratan pterosaur being named Propterodacylus frankerlae documents the transition from the more ancient rhamphorhynchoid...

An artist’s impression of Pakudyptes hakataramea. Image credit: Tatsuya Shinmura / Ashoro Museum of Paleontology.

Ancient Tiny Penguin Unearthed in New Zealand: Pakudyptes hakataramea

Aug 1, 2024 by News Staff

Pakudyptes hakataramea would have been similar in body size to the living little blue penguin (Eudyptula minor), which is around 40-45 cm (15.7-17.7 inches)...

An artist’s impression of the lobate macrofossils living 2.1 billion years ago in a shallow marine inland sea created by the collision of two continents. Image credit: Abderrazzak El Albani, University of Poitiers.

Complex Organisms First Appeared 2.1 Billion Years Ago, Paleontologists Say

Jul 31, 2024 by News Staff

Until now, scientists broadly accepted complex life forms first emerged on Earth around 635 million years ago (Ediacaran period). But an international...

The early ape Proconsul, center, and the primate Dendropithecus, upper right, inhabited a warm and relatively wet, closed canopy tropical seasonal forest 18 million years ago in equatorial eastern Africa – on Rusinga Island, Kenya. Image credit: Jason Brougham.

Earliest Primates Gave Birth to Twins, New Research Suggests

Jul 31, 2024 by News Staff

Twinning has been around longer than we thought, according to new research led by Western Washington University. Jack H. McBride & Tesla A. Monson...

Reconstruction of Pentecopterus (170 cm long), the earliest sea scorpion (eurypterid) from the Ordovician period (467 Ma) of Iowa, USA. Image credit: John Alexander.

Giant 400-Million-Year-Old Scorpion May Be a Crustacean

Jul 29, 2024 by Simon Braddy

Sea scorpions (eurypterids), extinct giant aquatic arthropods, were apex predators. New research suggests that early species of the scorpion-like carcinosomatoid...

Qiqi, the last confirmed Chinese river dolphin. Image credit: Roland Seitre / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Extinct Long-Snouted Dolphins Already Possessed Narrow-Band High-Frequency Hearing: Study

Jul 29, 2024 by News Staff

Parapontoporia, an extinct genus of long-snouted dolphins that lived off the Pacific coast of North America from the Late Miocene epoch until the Pliocene,...

Reconstruction of the first animals on land, an ancient tidal flat at Blackberry Hill (500 million years ago), Wisconsin. Stranded jellyfish (1 m wide), the euthycarcinoid Mosineia (bottom left, 15 cm long), phyllocarid crustacean Arenosicaris (bottom right, green) and large slug‐like mollusc (70 cm long). Some euthycarcinoids occupy a tidal pool before it dries up. Image credit: Todd Gass.

The First Animals on Land Evolved in Warm Tidal Nursery Pools 500 Million Years Ago

Jul 26, 2024 by Simon Braddy

The evolution of the first animals on land, 500 million years ago, has been revealed. The ancestors of millipedes, called euthycarcinoids, evolved in warm...

The fossil remains of Asiatyrannus xui, the first deep-snouted tyrannosaur from Ganzhou City of southeastern China. Image credit: Zheng et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-66278-5.

New Tyrannosaur Species Discovered in China

Jul 26, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have discovered the remains of a deep-snouted tyrannosaurid dinosaur named Asiatyrannus xui in southeastern China. The fossil remains of...

Nuucichthys rhynchocephalus was a pelagic organism with limited swimming abilities. Image credit: Franz Anthony.

Fossil of Cambrian Long-Headed Chordate Unearthed in Utah

Jul 25, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Characterized by a finless torpedo-shaped body, Nuucichthys rhynchocephalus is the first soft-bodied vertebrate known from the American Great Basin. Nuucichthys...

Artistic reconstruction of Odaraia alata, swimming inverted. Image credit: Danielle Dufault.

Taco-Shaped Mandibulate Lived in Cambrian Burgess Shale

Jul 25, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Mandibulates are an example of evolutionary success, representing over half of all current species on Earth. Today, mandibulates are everywhere: from sea-dwelling...

This is an artist's impression of the Upland Moa, Megalapteryx didinus, by George Edward Lodge, 1907.

Extinct Moa’s Refugia Continue to Serve as Sanctuaries for New Zealand’s Remaining Flightless Birds

Jul 25, 2024 by News Staff

Human settlement of islands across the Pacific Ocean was followed by waves of faunal extinctions that occurred so rapidly that their dynamics are difficult...

An artist’s rendition of an early human habitat in Tanzania 1.8 million years ago. Image credit: M. Lopez-Herrera / Enrique Baquedano / Olduvai Paleoanthropology and Paleoecology Project.

New Research Sheds Light on Processes that Shaped Hominin Evolution in Eastern Africa

Jul 23, 2024 by News Staff

Eastern Africa preserves the most complete record of human evolution anywhere in the world but scientists have little knowledge of how long-term biogeographic...

Hibernophis breithaupti lived 38 million years ago in what is now western Wyoming. Image credit: Jasmine Croghan.

38-Million-Year-Old Fossil Rewrites Snake Evolution

Jul 23, 2024 by News Staff

Paleontologists have described a new species of snake from the Early Oligocene of Wyoming based on four nearly complete and articulated specimens found...

Life reconstruction of Electroscincus zedi; areas of the lizard not represented in the material available are depicted as blurred. Image credit: Stephanie Abramowicz.

99-Million-Year-Old Burmese Amber Reveals Oldest Known Skink

Jul 22, 2024 by Natali Anderson

Paleontologists have found the remains of a previously unknown species of lizard in a piece of mid-Cretaceous amber excavated in northern Myanmar. Life...

Life reconstruction of Harenadraco prima. Image credit: Yusik Choi.

New Bird-Like Dinosaur Unearthed in Mongolia

Jul 17, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Harenadraco prima is the first species of troodontid dinosaur ever found in the Late Cretaceous Baruungoyot Formation of Mongolia. Life reconstruction...

Paleo-Indians hunting a glyptodont, a relative of the armadillo that lived during the Pleistocene epoch. By Heinrich Harder, 1920.

Archaeologists Find Stone Tool Marks on 21,000-Year-Old Glyptodont Bones in Argentina

Jul 17, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists in Argentina have analyzed the 21,000-year-old fossil remains with cut marks belonging to a specimen of the exinct glyptodont Neosclerocalyptus,...

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