Paleontology News

Dr. West hunts for fossils using a rock hammer to split apart shale on Ellesmere Island. Image credit: Markus Sudermann.

Canadian High Arctic Islands Were Once Home to Rich Forests

Dec 30, 2019 by News Staff

Lush green forests grew on Ellesmere and Axel Heiberg islands of the Canadian High Arctic 56 million years ago (Paleocene-Eocene boundary), according to...

Rocks containing microscopic pollen were collected to determine the age of fossil leaves from Castle Cove, Otway Ranges, Victoria, Australia. Image credit: Vera Korasidis.

Flowering Plants Reached Australia 126 Million Years Ago: Study

Dec 25, 2019 by News Staff

Australia’s oldest angiosperms (flowering plants) are approximately 126 million years old, and they resembled modern magnolias, buttercups and laurels,...

An artist’s impression of an adult and a juvenile Dendromaia unamakiensis. Image credit: Henry Sharpe.

305-Million-Year-Old Fossil Shows Parent Caring for Its Offspring

Dec 24, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A Carboniferous-period fossil found in Nova Scotia, Canada, shows an ancient creature called a varanopid synapsid (family Varanopidae) caring for its young. An...

An artist’s depiction of the ornithopod dinosaur Weewarrasaurus pobeni tending its nest. Image credit: University of New England.

Paleontologists Uncover Fossilized Remains of Baby Ornithopod Dinosaurs in Australia

Dec 23, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have unearthed the 100-million-year-old (Cretaceous period) fossilized bones of perinatal non-iguanodontian ornithopods in the Griman Creek...

Illustration of Isityumzi mlomomde (lower right) and other Late Devonian freshwater ecosystem creatures including the early tetrapod Unzantsia. Image credit: Maggie Newman.

365-Million-Year-Old Lungfish Unearthed in South Africa

Dec 23, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of lungfish that lived approximately 365 million years ago (Famennian stage of the Late Devonian period) has been identified from...

World’s Oldest Fossil Forest Unearthed

Dec 19, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have unearthed the extensive root system of 386-million-year-old (Devonian period) primitive trees in a sandstone quarry near Cairo, New...

Earth’s technosphere now weighs some 30 trillion tons -- a mass of more than 50 kg for every sq.m of the planet’s surface, according to Jan Zalasiewicz et al.

Humans and Domestic Animals Will Dominate Anthropocene-Era Fossil Record, Paleontologists Say

Dec 19, 2019 by News Staff

The terrestrial fossil record of the current geological epoch, the Anthropocene, will be unique in Earth history and will be dominated by humans, cows,...

The 340-million-year-old Hardraw trackway. Image credit: Trustees of the Natural History Museum.

340-Million-Year-Old Tetrapod Footprints Uncovered in UK

Dec 17, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have discovered an ancient tetrapod (land vertebrate) trackway in North Yorkshire, England, dating back to the Carboniferous period. Made...

Mesophthirus engeli nymphs crawled and fed on dinosaur feathers. Image credit: Gao et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-13516-4.

Cretaceous Feathered Dinosaurs Suffered from Lice

Dec 16, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

Paleontologists have found tiny nymphs of a previously unknown ancient insect species trapped in two pieces of 99-million-year-old (mid-Cretaceous period)...

An artist’s impression of Basilosaurus isis. Image credit: Pavel Riha / CC BY-SA 3.0.

New Eocene-Period Whale Unearthed in Egypt

Dec 13, 2019 by Sergio Prostak

Paleontologists have announced the discovery of a new genus and species of extinct protocetid whale, based on the fossilized remains found in the Western...

Kupoupou stilwelli. Image credit: Jacob Blokland.

New Species of Paleocene Penguin Bridges Gap in Penguin Family Tree

Dec 10, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists in New Zealand have uncovered the fossilized bones from an extinct penguin that swam the oceans between 62.5 and 60 million years ago....

Life reconstruction of Origolestes lii. Image credit: Chuang Zhao.

New Cretaceous-Period Mammal Unveiled

Dec 6, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have discovered the remains of a previously unknown symmetrodont mammal that lived alongside dinosaurs in what is now China. The fossils...

Eobodotria muisca bridges an approximately 165 million year gap in the cumacean fossil record. Image credit: Javier Luque.

New Fossil Fills Gap in Evolution of Comma Shrimps

Dec 5, 2019 by News Staff

A new species of comma shrimp that lived during the mid-Cretaceous period, between 95 and 90 million years ago, has been identified from well-preserved...

New Pterosaur Species Unearthed in Lebanon: Mimodactylus libanensis

Dec 4, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in Lebanon have discovered the extremely well-preserved fossilized remains of a previously unknown Cretaceous-period flying reptile. Life...

Paleontologists Find Fossils of Six New Dragonfly Species

Dec 3, 2019 by News Staff

Six new species of dragonflies that lived about 50 million years ago (early Eocene epoch) have been identified from fossils found in the Okanagan Highlands,...

A range of now extinct megafauna that was present when humans first arrived in Australia. Image credit: Peter Trusler, Monash University.

Study: Humans and Climate Change Drove Australian Megafauna to Extinction

Dec 2, 2019 by News Staff

Ancient Australia’s super-sized animals, the megafauna, became extinct about 42,000 years ago, but the role of humans in their demise has been debated...

A life reconstruction of the Cretaceous multituberculate Jeholbaatar kielanae. Image credit: Yong Xu.

Cretaceous-Period Mammal Had Bizarre Middle Ear

Nov 29, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in China have unearthed a nearly complete skeleton of a previously unknown Cretaceous mammal species with well-preserved middle ear bones. A...

Two individuals of Majungasaurus chasing Rapetosaurus, with Masiakasaurus in the foreground. Image credit: ABelov2014, abelov2014.deviantart.com / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Majungasaurus Replaced All Its Teeth Every Two Months: Study

Nov 29, 2019 by News Staff

Majungasaurus, a carnivorous dinosaur that lived approximately 70 million years ago (Cretaceous period) in what is now Madagascar, grew new teeth roughly...

Yin et al use X-ray microtomography to show that the 609-million-year-old Caveasphaera develops within an envelope by cell division, ingression, detachment, and polar aggregation in a manner analogous to gastrulation; together with evidence of functional cell adhesion and development within an envelope, this is suggestive of a holozoan affinity. The image shows a life cycle of Caveasphaera and a simplified phylogenetic tree of Holozoa. Image credit: Yin et al, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.10.057.

Animal-Like Embryos Evolved Long Before Complex Animals, Scientists Say

Nov 28, 2019 by News Staff

Complex animals evolved from single-celled ancestors, before diversifying into 30-40 distinct anatomical designs. When and how this major evolutionary...