Paleontology News

520-Million-Year-Old Fossil from China Fills Gap in Evolutionary History of Cephalopods

Life reconstruction of Eoceras shaanxiense. Image credit: Dinghua Yang.
Jul 30, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have identified the earliest-known cephalopod equipped with a siphuncle — a tubular extension of the mantle found in shelled cephalopods — pushing back the fossil record of this key evolutionary feature to the Early Cambrian, roughly 520 million years ago. Life reconstruction of Eoceras shaanxiense. Image credit: Dinghua Yang. Cephalopods are a group that today includes octopuses, squid, cuttlefish and nautiluses, and once...

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Ankylosaurus magniventris, a large armored dinosaur species, witnesses the impact of an asteroid, falling on the Yucatan peninsula 66 million years ago. Image credit: Fabio Manucci.

Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Didn’t Just Strike Earth, Its Dust Cloud Cooked It

Jul 29, 2026 by News Staff

The Chicxulub impact not only plunged Earth into an impact winter but also produced a dust blanket that later overheated the planet, according to new research...

Life reconstruction of Musango matusadonaensis. Image credit: Mark Witton.

New Species of Triassic Dinosaur Discovered on Shores of Zimbabwe’s Lake Kariba

Jul 29, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of paleontologists has identified a new species of early sauropodomorph dinosaur in Zimbabwe, adding to growing evidence that southern...

Apis aibai. Image credit: Y. Takahashi & J-ichi Takahashi, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1255.162389.

Japanese Fossil Bee Fills Two-Million-Year Gap in Honeybee History

Jul 27, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have announced the discovery of a new fossil honeybee species that fills a long-standing gap in the evolutionary record of the genus Apis. Apis...

An artist’s reconstruction of Miyumba chrisdickmani in the Early Miocene rainforests of northern Australia. Image credit: Nellie Pease.

Early Miocene Fossil Rewrites Family Tree of Little Carnivorous Marsupials

Jul 24, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists at the University of New South Wales have described a new genus and species of dasyurid marsupial from the Early Miocene of Australia,...

Life reconstruction of Tametara mirim. Image credit: Gabriel Ugueto.

Did Early Snakes Burrow, Swim or Crawl? 80‑Million‑Year‑Old Fossil Suggests: All Three

Jul 23, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have unearthed a remarkably preserved fossil snake in Brazil that is reshaping ideas about how the earliest snakes lived and complicating...

An artist’s impression of the end-Triassic fern spike interval. Image credit: Mark Garlick.

Fern-Fueled Wildfires Raged across Europe for Millennia during End-Triassic Mass Extinction

Jul 23, 2026 by News Staff

A 201-million-year-old climate catastrophe turned Europe into a landscape of fern savannahs that repeatedly caught fire, according to new research published...

An artist’s impression of the Kimmeridge Clay pliosaur. Image credit: Megan Jacobs, University of Portsmouth.

Jurassic Pliosaur Liopleurodon Was Big, but Not as Big as Once Feared

Jul 22, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

For several decades, Liopleurodon ferox — a short-necked marine reptile that patrolled the seas of what is now England and France some 163 million...

Life reconstruction of Ceratocaudia antiqua, the earliest-known macronarian neosauropod species from India. Image credit: Connor Ashbridge / CC BY 4.0.

Small Sauropod Dinosaur from Jurassic Period Discovered in India

Jul 21, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in India have unearthed a partial skeleton of a diminutive, previously unknown neosauropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic rocks of Gujarat’s...

Life reconstruction of Limnospondylus ajimuensis. Image credit: Kanon Tanaka.

3.5-Million-Year-Old Fossil from Japan Reveals Lost Lineage of Giant Salamanders

Jul 21, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of cryptobranchid salamander that lived in lakes in Japan about 3.5 million years ago has been identified from three fossil vertebrae,...

Carinasquama rusmithii. Image credit: Daza et al., doi: 10.3897/sjp.145.188227.

Oldest Known Male Gecko Found Preserved in Kachin Amber

Jul 20, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have described a new genus and species of ancient gecko found in two pieces of amber from the 99-million-year-old (mid-Cretaceous) amber...

The Middle Devonian Hujiersite amber. Image credit: Lu et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aeh1266.

385-Million-Year-Old Amber Found in China

Jul 17, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Paleontologists in China have discovered what they say is the earliest confirmed pieces of amber ever found, a fossilized resin roughly 385 million years...

Life reconstruction of Edmontosaurus annectens. Image credit: Dani Navarro.

Tyrannosaurus rex Scavenged Duck-Billed Dinosaurs in Ancient Wyoming, Bite Marks Reveal

Jul 15, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Thousands of fossilized bones from a Cretaceous-period bonebed in Wyoming, the United States, offer rare physical evidence that Tyrannosaurus rex fed on...

Life reconstruction of Plesiolophus warnerensis. Image credit: Connor Ashbridge / CC BY 4.0.

New Crested Dinosaur Species Identified in Canada

Jul 14, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of lambeosaurine hadrosaurid dinosaur has been identified in southern Alberta, Canada, dating back 77 million years to the Campanian...

Mesetasaurus protector. Image credit: Merlina Ramírez.

Paleontologists Discover New Species of Titanosaur in Uruguay

Jul 13, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in Uruguay have identified a new species of aeolosaurine titanosaur from a pair of remarkably well-preserved tailbones unearthed in the...

A landscape from the Late Triassic of southern Brazil showing Cargninia enigmatica being observed by the sauropodomorph dinosaur Macrocollum itaquii. Image credit: Marcio L. Castro.

Tiny Triassic Reptile Sheds Light on Early Lizard Evolution

Jul 10, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Today, lepidosaurs — the reptile group that includes lizards, snakes and New Zealand’s tuatara — are among the most diverse vertebrates on...

Fossils of Spriggina floundersi from South Australia; white arrows highlight lifted areas, white triangle indicates divergent bend angle of adjacent modules. Scale bars - 10 cm. Image credit: Evans et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-026-53857-x.

Ediacaran Sea Creature May Hold Earliest Evidence of Right-Handedness

Jul 10, 2026 by News Staff

Spriggina floundersi, a marine species that lived during the Ediacaran period 550 million years ago, is one of Earth’s earliest bilaterally symmetrical...

Life reconstruction of a herd of five individuals of Uragasaurus kalasinensis inhabiting a Late Jurassic forest in Thailand, accompanied by a pair of rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs and a metriacanthosaurid theropod. Image credit: Pakorn Chotchaiyaporn.

New Species of Long-Necked Dinosaur Identified in Thailand

Jul 9, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists working in northeastern Thailand have identified a new species of mamenchisaurid sauropod dinosaur, offering fresh evidence that a group...

Life reconstruction of Zhengheornis buyu. Image credit: Chung-Tat Cheung.

New Jurassic Fossil Reveals How Birds Lost Their Dinosaur Tails

Jul 7, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in China have described a small, previously unknown Jurassic bird whose short tail offers new evidence for how the earliest birds traded...

Life reconstruction of the Antarctic titanosaur. Image credit: Andrew McAfee, Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

83-Million-Year-Old Fossil Rewrites Timeline of Antarctica’s First Dinosaur Discovery

Jul 1, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A small fossil collected on an Antarctic island more than four decades ago is a tail vertebra of a titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur that roamed Antarctica...

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