Paleontology News

Dec 9, 2022 by News Staff

Ankylosaurid dinosaurs were heavily armored herbivores with tails modified into club-like weapons. These tail clubs have widely been considered defensive adaptations wielded against predatory dinosaurs. In a new paper, published in the December 2022 issue of the journal Biology Letters, paleontologists argue instead that ankylosaurid tail clubs were sexually selected structures used primarily for intraspecific combat. Zuul crurivastator in battle....

Dec 8, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Researchers have analyzed microscopic fragments of 2-million-year-old environmental DNA from of the Kap København Formation in Greenland. The DNA record...

Dec 7, 2022 by News Staff

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, a sail-backed theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now North Africa during the Cretaceous period, about 95 million years ago,...

Dec 6, 2022 by Sergio Prostak

Fossilized remains of an enigmatic mawsoniid coelacanth that grew over 1 m long have been discovered by an international team of paleontologists from the...

Dec 6, 2022 by News Staff

Paleontologists in Australia have unearthed the country’s first head and associated body of a long-necked marine reptile called Eromangasaurus australis. The...

Dec 5, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of nodosaurid ankylosaur has been identified from fossils found in Patagonia, Argentina. Life reconstruction of Patagopelta cristata....

Dec 2, 2022 by News Staff

Cryptovaranoides microlanius is an extinct relative of living lizards such as monitor lizards, gila monsters and slow worms. An artist’s impression of...

Dec 2, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of theropod dinosaur with a streamlined body as in diving birds has been identified from a well-preserved skeleton found in Mongolia. Life...

Dec 1, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Janavis finalidens — an extinct bird species that lived 66.7 million years ago and was one of the last toothed birds to ever live — had a mobile,...

Nov 30, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

This Pterodactylus individual lived in what is now Germany during the Kimmeridgian age of the Late Jurassic epoch, between 155 and 152 million years ago. Pterodactylus...

Nov 29, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have examined 142 new specimens, including 160 teeth, of the extinct medium-sized beaver species Steneofiber depereti from the Late Miocene...

Nov 28, 2022 by The Conversation

About 66 million years ago, a 10-km-wide asteroid crashed into Earth near the site of the small town of Chicxulub in what is now Mexico. The impact unleashed...

Nov 25, 2022 by Natali Anderson

Daspletosaurus wilsoni, a tyrannosaurid dinosaur that lived 76.5 million years ago in what is now Montana, the United States, displays a unique combination...

Nov 24, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of rhabdodontid ornithopod dinosaur has been identified from the fossilized skull bones found in the Haţeg Basin in western Romania. Inhabitants...

Nov 23, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

The oldest animals appear in the fossil record among Ediacaran biota communities. In new research, paleontologists from the Australian National University...

Nov 22, 2022 by News Staff

Temnospondyli is a diverse group of extinct amphibians that flourished worldwide during the Carboniferous, Permian, and Triassic periods. The body mass...

Nov 21, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

More than 120 million years ago in what is now China, a hungry dromaeosaurid dinosaur ate a small frog. Daurlong wangi holotype: (a) whole specimen, (b)...

Nov 18, 2022 by News Staff

Aside from being the largest marine turtle species ever discovered in Europe, and one of the largest worldwide, the discovery of Leviathanochelys aenigmatica...

Nov 17, 2022 by News Staff

Many accounts of the early history of ray-finned fishes (actinopterygians) posit that the end-Devonian mass extinction event 359 million years ago had...

Nov 16, 2022 by News Staff

Two specimens of euarthropods from the Middle Ordovician Castle Bank Biota in Wales, the United Kingdom, have striking similarities to Opabinia, an iconic...