Paleontology News

Jun 1, 2020 by Natali Anderson

A new genus and species of pterosaur has been identified from a partial fossilized jaw collected on Isle of Wight, southern England. Wightia declivirostris flying over an oxbow lake in the valley of the ancient Wessex River that flowed from Devon to the Isle of Wight. Image credit: Megan Jacobs. The newly-discovered flying reptile lived during the Cretaceous period some 127 million years ago. Named Wightia declivirostris, it belongs to Tapejaridae,...

May 29, 2020 by News Staff

An analysis of the fossilized vertebrate remains from the Jurassic Mygatt-Moore Quarry in Colorado has revealed the bones of a theropod dinosaur called...

May 28, 2020 by News Staff

High levels of damaging ultraviolet-B (UV-B) radiation collapsed forest ecosystems and killed off many species of fish and tetrapods at the end of the...

May 27, 2020 by News Staff

A 10-km asteroid crashed into Earth near the site of the small town of Chicxulub in Mexico at the end of the Cretaceous period, about 66 million years...

May 27, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of jeholornithiform avialan that lived during the Cretaceous period has been identified from a nearly-complete specimen found in...

May 26, 2020 by Natali Anderson

An isotopic analysis of fossil collagen from the bones collected in three Romanian caves indicates that the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus), an extinct species...

May 20, 2020 by News Staff

A team of archaeologists from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen, the Lower Saxony State Office...

May 20, 2020 by News Staff

Titanichthys, a giant placoderm (armored fish) from the Devonian period, fed in a similar manner to basking sharks, according to a study published in the...

May 19, 2020 by News Staff

Extreme environmental change was the most likely cause of extinction of megafauna in Sahul, the supercontinent formed by Australia and New Guinea during...

May 18, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in Australia have found a fossilized vertebra from an elaphrosaurine theropod dinosaur that walked the Earth 110 million years ago (Cretaceous...

May 14, 2020 by News Staff

Non-avian theropod dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex relied less on speed, more on energy-saving, according to a new study published in the journal PLoS...

May 14, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

A team of paleontologists from Australia and the UK has found fullerene-like structures in Cretaceous-period crinoids, marine animals related to starfish,...

May 7, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of paleontologists from the University of Plymouth, the University of Kansas and the Forge Fossils has found a specimen of the squid-like...

May 7, 2020 by News Staff

An analysis of the fossilized teeth of Deinonychus antirrhopus, a species of wolf-sized dromaeosaurid dinosaur that lived between 115 and 108 million years...

May 6, 2020 by News Staff

A species of plant that grew about 400 million years ago (Early Devonian period) produced a spectrum of spore sizes, which is an essential innovation necessary...

Apr 30, 2020 by News Staff

A species of carnivorous dinosaur called Spinosaurus aegyptiacus used tail-propelled swimming locomotion to hunt for prey in rivers, according to a new...

Apr 30, 2020 by News Staff

A new species of gondwanatherian mammal from the Cretaceous period has been identified from a very well-preserved fossilized skeleton found on the island...

Apr 27, 2020 by News Staff

A large number of ferocious predators, including predatory dinosaurs, pterosaurs and crocodile-like creatures, made Sahara the most dangerous place on...

Apr 18, 2020 by News Staff

The physiology of pterosaurs and other fossil flyers could provide ancient solutions to modern flight problems, such as aerial stability and the ability...

Apr 10, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Powerful X-ray beams at the European Synchrotron in France allowed an international team of researchers to study some of the world’s oldest and well-preserved...