Paleontology News

Dickinsonia, which lived more than 550 million years ago, were flat, soft-bodied creatures that moved along the sea bed to eat microbes and algae. Image credit: University of California, Riverside.

Ancient Cholesterol Confirms Dickinsonia as One of Earth’s First Animals

Sep 21, 2018 by News Staff

The first complex organisms emerged during the Ediacaran period (635-541 million years ago). Ediacaran fossils are as ‘strange as life on another planet’...

Mesosaurus. Image credit: Roman Yevseyev / Graciela Piñeiro.

Mesosaurs: ‘Oldest-Known Aquatic Reptiles’ Were Semi-Aquatic, Paleontologists Say

Sep 20, 2018 by News Staff

According to new research published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, mesosaurs — the oldest known reptiles that developed aquatic...

An artist’s impression of Jurassic marine reptiles. Image credit: Nikolay Zverkov.

Fossil Teeth Study Sheds Light on How Jurassic Marine Reptiles Adapted to Environmental Changes

Sep 5, 2018 by News Staff

Jurassic deep-water reptiles thrived as sea levels rose, while species that dwelled in the shallows waters disappeared, according to new research from...

An artist’s impression of a cynodont. Image credit: Jorge Blanco / A.G. Martinelli / M.B. Soares / C. Schwanke / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Jurassic Mammal Precursor Had Tiny Brain

Sep 3, 2018 by News Staff

A team of paleontologists from the University of Texas at Austin has uncovered fossils of an adult female Kayentatherium wellesi — an extinct tritylodontid...

North American dinosaurs. Image credit: Davide Bonadonna.

New Jersey Fossils Shed Light on Theropod Dinosaurs of Eastern United States

Aug 30, 2018 by News Staff

On the east coast of North America, dinosaur fossils are rare finds. Owing to several factors, such as the mass-urbanization of the eastern seaboard, fossils...

Artist’s rendering of what Ekwiiyemakius walshi, Gunnelltarsius randalli and Brontomomys cerutti might have looked like. Image credit: Randy Kirk, University of Texas at Austin.

Paleontologists Discover Three New Fossil Primates

Aug 29, 2018 by News Staff

Paleontologists at the University of Texas at Austin have identified three new species of omomyine primates that lived between 42 and 46 million years...

Illustration of a female Xenomorphia resurrecta ovipositing into a puparium. Image credit: van de Kamp et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-05654-y.

Researchers Find Ancient Parasitic Wasps in Fossil Fly Pupae

Aug 29, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

A research team led by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology scientist Thomas van de Kamp has found ancient parasitoid wasps lurking inside 55 mineralized...

Xu et al report two new Early Cretaceous alvarezsaurian theropods representing transitional stages in alvarezsaurian evolution. The analyses indicate that the evolutionary transition from a typical theropod forelimb configuration to a highly specialized one was slow and occurred in a mosaic fashion during the Cretaceous period. Image credit: Xu et al, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.07.057.

Two New Alvarezsaurian Dinosaurs Unearthed in China

Aug 27, 2018 by News Staff

Paleontologists in China have found fossil fragments from two new dinosaur species — named Xiyunykus pengi and Bannykus wulatensis — that walked...

An artist’s depiction of Eorhynchochelys sinensis as it would have appeared in life 228 million years ago in China. Image credit: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

228-Million-Year-Old Fossil Reveals Complex Early History of Turtles

Aug 24, 2018 by News Staff

Paleontologists in China have discovered a 228-million-year-old extinct species of turtle, known for its weird disc-like body without a shell and its toothless...

An artistic conception of the early Earth. Image credit: Simone Marchi / NASA.

Common Ancestor of All Cellular Life on Earth Emerged Very Early in Planet’s History

Aug 23, 2018 by News Staff

New research from the Universities of Bristol and Bath suggests life originated on our planet a lot earlier than previously thought. An artistic conception...

Caelestiventus hanseni. Image credit: Michael Skrepnick / Brigham Young University.

Caelestiventus hanseni: Newly-Discovered Triassic Pterosaur Lived in Harsh Desert

Aug 14, 2018 by Natali Anderson

Paleontologists have discovered what they say is a completely unexpected desert-dwelling pterosaur that lived in what is now Utah, the United States, about...

Carcharocles angustidens teeth. Image credit: Museums Victoria.

Paleontologists Find Extraordinary Set of Mega-Shark Teeth in Australia

Aug 10, 2018 by News Staff

Citizen scientist Philip Mullaly and professional paleontologists have found a very rare set of fossilized shark teeth at Jan Juc, a renowned fossil site...

Life reconstruction of hadrosaur-therizinosaur co-occurrence based on tracks described in this study. Image credit: Karen Carr.

Cretaceous Alaska Was ‘Superhighway’ for Migrating Dinosaurs, Paleontologists Say

Aug 8, 2018 by News Staff

Paleontologists have discovered the first North American co-occurrence of hadrosaur and therizinosaur tracks, providing more evidence that Alaska was the...

Reconstruction of the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus). Image credit: Sergio de la Larosa / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Research Sheds New Light on How Cave Bears Became Vegetarians

Jul 30, 2018 by News Staff

A Middle Pleistocene cave bear, also known as the Deninger’s bear (Ursus deningeri), is generally regarded as the direct ancestor of the mostly vegetarian...

An artist’s impression of Lingwulong shenqi. Image credit: Zhang Zongda.

New Sauropod Dinosaur Unveiled: Lingwulong shenqi

Jul 26, 2018 by News Staff

Fossils of a diplodocoid sauropod dinosaur unearthed more than a decade ago in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, northwest China, have been recognized as...

This illustration shows a Brachiosaurus eating from an Araucaria tree. These dinosaurs had enormous necks and relatively short tails. The animal to which the foot belongs was nearly 4 m high at its hip. Image credit: Davide Bonadonna.

Giant Dinosaur Foot Proclaimed Largest Ever Discovered

Jul 24, 2018 by News Staff

A fossilized dinosaur foot believed to be the largest in the world has been unearthed in Weston County, Wyoming, the United States. This illustration shows...

Life reconstruction of Akainacephalus johnsoni. Image credit: Andrey Atuchin, Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

Akainacephalus johnsoni: New Armored Dinosaur Species Discovered

Jul 20, 2018 by News Staff

A new species of ankylosaurid dinosaur being named Akainacephalus johnsoni has been discovered by paleontologists Jelle Wiersma and Randall Irmis from...

Xiaophis myanmarensis lived in a forest environment in what is now Myanmar. Image credit: Cheung Chung Tat.

99-Million-Year-Old Snake Hatchling Found Encased in Burmese Amber

Jul 19, 2018 by News Staff

The fossilized remains of an embryonic-to-hatchling snake have been found preserved in Cretaceous amber from Myanmar (also known as Burma). Xiaophis myanmarensis...

Giant Dinosaurs Appeared at Least 25 Million Years Earlier than Previously Thought

Jul 11, 2018 by Enrico de Lazaro

A team of Argentinian paleontologists has rewritten the paleontology textbooks by finding that giant, long-necked, herbivorous dinosaurs known as sauropods...