Paleontology News

Artist's rendering of Bunostegos (Marc Boulay)

Bunostegos akokanensis is Earliest Known Creature to Walk Upright on All Fours

Sep 21, 2015 by News Staff

Bunostegos akokanensis – a Permian cow-sized, herbivorous reptile with a knobby skull and bony armor down its back – is the oldest known creature...

New Species of Dinosaur Nicknamed Lightning Claw Found in Australia

Sep 14, 2015 by News Staff

A remarkable new species of theropod dinosaur has been unearthed in an underground mine in north-central New South Wales, Australia. Illustration of the...

Desmatochelys padillai: Paleontologists Find Oldest Known Species of Sea Turtle

Sep 7, 2015 by News Staff

A new species of ancient sea turtle has been identified from fossils found in Colombia. The fossils are at least 120 million years old, about 10 million...

Top panel: a schematic map of the Greater Antilles showing the relative location of fossil sites Cueva Padre Nuestro, where the newly-discovered fossil specimen (labeled a) of the Hispaniola monkey (Antillothrix bernensis) was found, and Samana Bay. Lower panel: fossil tibiae of the species from the Dominican Republic; the views are (left to right) anterior, lateral, and posterior aspects. Image credit: Alfred L. Rosenberger et al.

Paleontologists Find 1.3-Million-Year-Old Fossil of Hispaniola Monkey

Sep 7, 2015 by News Staff

A multinational group of paleontologists has dated a species of fossil monkey, the Hispaniola monkey (Antillothrix bernensis), to over one million years...

Life restoration of Eunotosaurus africanus. Image credit: Smokeybjb / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Study Reveals Important Information about Evolutionary Origin of Turtle Skull

Sep 2, 2015 by News Staff

Paleontologists have determined that Eunotosaurus africanus – a 260 million year old fossil reptile from the Karoo Basin of South Africa and a relative...

Life reconstruction of Isthminia panamensis, feeding on a flatfish, which would have been abundant in the neritic zone of the late Miocene equatorial seas of Panama. Image credit: Julia Molnar.

Isthminia panamensis: Fossil of River Dolphin that Lived 6 MY Ago Found in Panama

Sep 2, 2015 by News Staff

The fossil of a freshwater river dolphin that lived 5.8 – 6.1 million years ago has been found in Panama. Life reconstruction of Isthminia panamensis,...

This is an artist’s rendering of Pentecopterus decorahensis. Image credit: Patrick Lynch / Yale University.

Pentecopterus decorahensis: Ancient Giant Sea Scorpion Unearthed in Iowa

Sep 1, 2015 by News Staff

The fossil of a previously unknown species of eurypterid that lived 460 million years ago (Middle Ordovician period) has been discovered in Iowa. This...

These rocks, recovered by the Ocean Drilling Program on board the drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution, are from the Earth’s upper mantle that underwent intense alteration by heated seawater. The rocks show a systematic change in color from rusty brown (top) to green and black (bottom), reflecting the chemical gradients across the fluid mixing zone. These chemical gradients played a key role in supporting microbes with chemical energy and the substrates they needed to thrive. Fossilized microbes were found in white veins consisting of the minerals calcite and brucite. Image credit: Ocean Drilling Program.

Scientists Find Evidence of Ancient Microbial Life in Sub-Seafloor Mantle Rocks

Sep 1, 2015 by News Staff

Traces of ancient microbial communities have been found in rock samples of Earth’s mantle from a seafloor hydrothermal system that was active more than...

Gobisaurus, an ankylosaur with a stiff tail but no knob of bone at the end, compared with Ziapelta, an ankylosaur with a fully developed tail club. Image credit: Sydney Mohr.

New Study Traces Evolution of Ankylosaur’s Distinctive Tail

Aug 31, 2015 by News Staff

Ankylosaurs are a large group of herbivorous armored dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The typical ankylosaur had a wide...

Gueragama sulamericana inhabited a desert environment. This lizard was found in an ancient oasis along with pterosaurs of the species Caiuajara dobruskii. Image credit: Julius Csotonyi.

New Ancient Iguana Species Discovered in Brazil

Aug 27, 2015 by News Staff

A fossilized jawbone from a newly-described species of acrodontan iguana, Gueragama sulamericana, that lived about 80 million years ago has been unearthed...

This is an artist’s rendition of a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius). Image credit: Flying Puffin / CC BY-SA 2.0.

Paleontologist Releases Most Accurate Map Yet of Woolly Mammoth Distribution

Aug 25, 2015 by News Staff

Prof Ralf-Dietrich Kahlke from the Senckenberg Research Station for Quaternary Paleontology in Weimar, Germany, has recorded the maximum geographic distribution...

Papio hamadryas. Image credit: Moataz Tawfik Igbaria / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Earliest Baboon Found in South Africa

Aug 21, 2015 by News Staff

A two-million-year-old partial skull of the extinct baboon Papio angusticeps has been unearthed at Malapa, in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site,...

Early canids Hesperocyon (left) and Sunkahetanka were both ambush-style predators. Image credit: Mauricio Anton.

Canids Evolved with Climate Change, Says New Study

Aug 19, 2015 by News Staff

A new study of North American canid fossils published in the journal Nature Communications suggests that the evolutionary path of the family Canidae (dogs...

Palaeoplethodon hispaniolae, lying trapped for more than 20 million years in a piece of amber, is almost perfectly preserved; note the leg and foot, in lower center of image, that lacks normal toes. Image credit: George Poinar, Jr. / Oregon State University.

20 Million-Year-Old Salamander Found Preserved in Dominican Amber

Aug 18, 2015 by News Staff

A unique fossil of a 20 million-year-old salamander has been found encased in a chunk of amber from an unlikely place – the Dominican Republic, where...

A large intact specimen of Montsechia vidalii. Image credit: David Dilcher.

Montsechia vidalii: Paleontologists Identify One of Earliest Flowering Plants

Aug 18, 2015 by News Staff

A team of paleontologists from the United States, France, Germany and Spain has identified a Lower Cretaceous freshwater plant named Montsechia vidalii...

Artist’s reconstruction of the Fractofusus community: the bottom right features a large Fractofusus around which there are 5 to 8 medium specimens clustered; each of the medium specimens also has small specimens clustered around them; the small specimens therefore form an independent double cluster pattern, namely clusters of clusters. Image credit: C.G. Kenchington.

Paleontologists Find Earliest Example of Reproduction in Complex Organisms

Aug 3, 2015 by News Staff

A new study has found that Ediacaran organisms known as rangeomorphs reproduced by taking a joint approach: they first sent out an ‘advance party’...

Cretaceous tyrannosaurid dinosaur Gorgosaurus using its specialized teeth for feeding on a young Corythosaurus. Image credit: Danielle Dufault.

New Study Explains Why Theropod Dinosaurs Were So Successful

Jul 28, 2015 by News Staff

Members of Theropoda, the only clade of predominantly predatory dinosaurs, were successful predators partly due to a unique, deeply serrated tooth structure...

Reconstruction of Tetrapodophis amplectus eating a salamander. Image credit: James Brown / UOP.

Tetrapodophis amplectus: Paleontologists Find Four-Limbed Snake Fossil

Jul 24, 2015 by News Staff

A team of paleontologists, led by Dr Dave Martill from the University of Portsmouth, UK, has found a unique four-legged specimen in the Crato Formation...

This image depicts a Pleistocene landscape in northern Spain with woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), equids, a woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis), and European cave lions (Panthera leo spelaea). Image credit: Mauricio Anton.

Abrupt Warming Led to Demise of Woolly Mammoths, Scientists Say

Jul 23, 2015 by News Staff

Short, rapid warming events, known as interstadials, coincided with major extinction events, according to a team of scientists from Australia and the United...