Paleontology News

The Chicxulub impact 66 million years ago generated a tsunami-like wave in an inland sea that killed and buried fish, mammals, insects and a Triceratops, the first victims of a cataclysm that led to Earth’s last mass extinction. Image credit: Robert DePalma.

66-Million-Year-Old Fossil Site Preserves Animals Killed within Minutes of Chicxulub Impact

Apr 3, 2019 by News Staff

At a site dubbed Tanis in North Dakota’s Hell Creek Formation, paleontologists have unearthed an assemblage of exquisitely-preserved fossilized organisms...

Reconstruction of the American mastodon (Mammut americanum). Image credit: Sergio De la Rosa Martinez / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Pacific Mastodon: New Species of Ancient Elephant Relative Identified

Apr 1, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new species of mastodon that lived during the Pleistocene period has been identified from fossil found in California and Idaho. The Pacific mastodon...

A reconstruction of early Cambrian ocean life in South China. Image credit: Dongjing Fu.

Paleontologists Discover 518 Million-Year-Old Fossil Site in China

Mar 26, 2019 by News Staff

Animal life exploded in diversity and form during the Cambrian period about 500 million years ago. An international team of paleontologists has discovered...

Scotty is the largest dinosaur skeleton ever found in Canada. Image credit: Amanda Kelley.

Meet Scotty, World’s Largest Specimen of Tyrannosaurus rex

Mar 25, 2019 by News Staff

The world’s biggest known Tyrannosaurus rex — one of the largest and most fearsome carnivores of all time — lived about 66 million years...

An artist’s impression of an asteroid hitting the Earth. Image credit: State Farm / CC BY 2.0.

Evidence from Chile Supports Younger Dryas Extraterrestrial Impact Hypothesis

Mar 20, 2019 by News Staff

The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, also known as Clovis comet hypothesis, posits that the hemisphere-wide debris field of a large, disintegrating asteroid...

Yamagata et al succeeded in observing the signs of the biological activity of 28,140-year-old mammoth nuclei in mouse oocytes. In this image, proteins that form chromosomes (red) and proteins that form dividing spindles (green) gather around a mammoth cell nucleus (upper right) in the mouse oocyte. Image credit: Yamagata et al, doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-40546-1.

Researchers ‘Revive’ Woolly Mammoth Cell Nuclei

Mar 14, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

In 2010, the 28,140-year-old partial carcass of a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), nicknamed ‘Yuka,’ was found in Siberian permafrost. Now a...

New Species of Plant-Eating Dinosaur Discovered in Australia

Mar 11, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists in Australia have found fossil fragments from a new genus and species of ornithopod dinosaur that walked the Earth during the Early Cretaceous...

The Pan-American sloth (Eremotherium laurillardi). Image credit: Sergio de la Rosa / CONABIO / CC BY-SA 4.0.

27,000-Year-Old Tooth of Giant Ground Sloth Sheds Light on Animal’s Diet and Climatic Exposure

Mar 8, 2019 by News Staff

By analyzing a tooth from the first fossil remains of the extinct Pan-American sloth (Eremotherium laurillardi) found in Belize, a team of paleontologists...

Reconstruction of Late Maastrichtian (66 million years ago) paleoenvironment in North America, where a floodplain is roamed by dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex, Edmontosaurus and Triceratops. Image credit: Davide Bonadonna.

Dinosaurs Were Unaffected by Climate Change, Flourished before Asteroid Strike, Paleontologists Say

Mar 6, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists largely agree that the Chicxulub asteroid impact, possibly coupled with intense volcanic activity in India’s Deccan Traps, wiped out...

The skull of Culebratherium alemani. Image credit: Aaron Wood.

Ancient Tusked Sea Cow Unearthed in Panama

Mar 1, 2019 by News Staff

The remarkably complete fossil skeleton of a sea cow with large incisor tusks that lived approximately 20 million years ago (Miocene epoch) has been discovered...

A Chinle frog, inside the jaw of a phitosaur. Image credit: Andrey Atuchin.

216-Million-Year-Old Microfossils Represent North America’s Earliest Frog

Feb 28, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists in Arizona have identified microfossils of what are thought to be the oldest known frog relative in North America. A Chinle frog, inside...

Moros intrepidus. Image credit: Jorge Gonzalez.

Moros intrepidus: New Deer-Sized Species of Tyrannosaur Discovered

Feb 22, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have unveiled a remarkable new species of tyrannosauroid dinosaur from the Cretaceous period: a small relative of Tyrannosaurus rex. The...

Unnuakomys hutchisoni. Image credit: James Havens.

Cretaceous Marsupial Lived Above Arctic Circle

Feb 21, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists have uncovered a new species of marsupial that lived during the Cretaceous period above the Arctic Circle, the farthest north marsupials...

Reconstructions of land vertebrate communities through the Phanerozoic. Image credit: University of Birmingham.

Extraordinary Diversity on Land Is Not a Recent Phenomenon, Says New Study

Feb 20, 2019 by News Staff

According to new research published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, land animal diversity has been similar for at least the last 60 million...

Volume rendering showing continuity between sheet and string morphologies in a single specimen. Scale bars - 1 cm. Image credit: El Albani et al, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1815721116.

Multicellular Life Began 1.5 Billion Years Earlier than Thought

Feb 19, 2019 by News Staff

Approximately 2.1-billion-year-old fossilized tracks discovered in Gabon suggest the existence of a cluster of single cells that came together to form...

Mnyamawamtuka moyowamkia in its environmental setting. Image credit: Mark Witton.

New Titanosaurian Dinosaur Unearthed in Tanzania

Feb 15, 2019 by News Staff

Paleontologists in Tanzania have found fossil fragments from a new species of giant dinosaur that walked the Earth approximately 100 million years ago...

Two fossil specimens from the extinct spider family Lagonomegopidae had reflective eyes, a feature still apparent under light. Image credit: Paul Selden.

Some Cretaceous Spiders Had Reflective Eyes, New Fossils Reveal

Feb 13, 2019 by News Staff

In a paper published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, an international team of paleontologists from the University of Kansas, the Korea Polar...

Gobiraptor minutus. Image credit: Do Yoon Kim.

New Species of Oviraptorid Dinosaur Unearthed: Gobiraptor minutus

Feb 7, 2019 by News Staff

A new species of oviraptorosaur has been unearthed in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Gobiraptor minutus. Image credit: Do Yoon Kim. Named Gobiraptor minutus,...

Along the banks of a river, three archosaur inhabitants of the dense Voltzia conifer forest cross paths: Antarctanax shackletoni sneaks up on an early titanopetran insect, Prolacerta broomi lazes on a log, and an enigmatic large archosaur pursues two unsuspecting dicynodonts, Lystrosaurus maccaigi. Image credit: Adrienne StrouAntarctanax shackletoni. Image credit: Adrienne Stroup, Field Museum.p, Field Museum.

Iguana-Sized Reptile Roamed Antarctica 250 Million Years Ago

Feb 1, 2019 by News Staff

Some 250 million years ago (early Triassic epoch), an early relative of dinosaurs and crocodiles lived in what is now a frozen continent, Antarctica, according...