Paleontology News

Trogons Once Had Ordinary Feet, 55-Million-Year-Old Fossil Shows

Reconstruction of the living bar-tailed trogon (Apaloderma vittatum) in the Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum.
Sep 25, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Trogons — a group of colorful, medium-sized birds that live in tropical and subtropical forests around the world — are recognizable by an odd feature: a foot in which the second toe is permanently reversed. A newly described trogon species from the Early Eocene of Denmark, one of the earliest members of the group, lacked a fully reversed second toe. The holotype of Daniatrogon kochi from the Early Eocene Fur Formation in Denmark. Scale...

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An artist’s impression of a plesiosaur feeding on the sea floor. Image credit: Lente Artemieff.

Fossilized Vomit Reveals How Plesiosaurs Dined on Jurassic Seafloor

Sep 23, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Dr. Dirk Knaust, a geologist with the Norwegian energy company Equinor ASA, has identified plesiosaur regurgitalites — the technical term for fossilized...

Titanosaur hatchlings emerging from a nest in the Cretaceous of Patagonia, Argentina. Image credit: Masato Hattori.

Titanosaurs Nested Far South of Equator, Fossil Eggshells Reveal

Sep 22, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists working in Patagonia, Argentina, have uncovered fossilized eggshells that push the known range of dinosaur nesting deeper into the southern...

Life reconstruction of Jehol therizinosaurians, illustrating variation in body size, skeletal proportions and inferred ecological strategies among species (from bottom to top): Lingyuanosaurus sihedangensis is shown in a posture suggesting greater cursoriality; Jianchangosaurus yixianensis is depicted engaging in lingual-assisted feeding, consistent with its robust hyoid apparatus; Beipiaosaurus inexpectus exhibits a robust, less cursorial bauplan; and Kayrasaurus changliensis is reconstructed browsing on higher vegetation, reflecting its larger body size and inferred feeding strategy. Image credit: Kōhei Futaka.

New Therizinosaurian Dinosaur Unearthed in China

Sep 21, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have described a new genus and species of therizinosaur based on a nearly complete skeleton found in northeastern China. Named Kayrasaurus...

Tyrannosaurus rex holotype specimen at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, the United States. Image credit: Scott Robert Anselmo / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Tyrannosaurus rex Had Mammal-Like Body Temperature, Study Finds

Sep 18, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new analysis of Tyrannosaurus rex teeth indicates the ancient predator maintained a body temperature of about 36.3 degrees Celsius (97.3 degrees Fahrenheit),...

Halisaurus arambourgi, a species of mosasaur from Late Cretaceous of Marocco. Image credit: DiBgd / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Paleontologists Uncover New Mosasaur Species in Egypt’s Western Desert

Sep 16, 2026 by News Staff

Paleontologists have described a previously unknown species of mosasaur — a group of extinct marine reptiles that patrolled Cretaceous seas alongside...

Life reconstruction of Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda. Image credit: Gabriel Ugueto.

New Dicynodont Species from Tanzania Suggests Younger Age for Rocks Tied to Earliest Dinosaurs

Sep 15, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have identified a new species of ancient, distant mammal relative from two fossil specimens found decades apart in the Manda Beds of Tanzania....

Life reconstruction of Hallucinochrysa diogenesi. Image credit: J.A. Peñas.

Spanish Amber Deposit Offers Rare Window into Cretaceous Life

Sep 14, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

El Soplao, a fossil site tucked into the hills of Cantabria in northern Spain, stands out for yielding amber pieces with a blue-violet hue and abundant...

The Spanish Diplodocus was a close relative of Diplodocus hallorum. Image credit: Carmelo López.

Diplodocus, Long Thought Exclusively American, Turns Up in Spain

Sep 14, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists from Fundación Dinópolis have identified the first confirmed fossils of the genus Diplodocus found outside North America. The Spanish...

Devonian placoderm inferognathal jaw bones used display ranging size and morphology reflecting their evolutionary and ecological diversity. Image credit: Mitchell et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-026-57261-3.

Devonian Armored Fish Show Multiple Ways to Crush Hard-Shelled Prey

Sep 14, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Long before sharks or reptiles ruled the seas, armor-plated fish called placoderms were already experimenting with different jaw designs to crush hard-shelled...

The skull of Mandrasuchus milleri, a species of alligatorid that lived nearly 65.4 million years ago in what is now Colorado, the United States. Image credit: Lessner et al., doi: 10.1080/02724634.2026.2712566.

Ancient Alligator Relative Lived Right After Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid

Sep 11, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have identified a new species of extinct alligatorid that lived in what is now Colorado just a few hundred thousand years after the asteroid...

Cryopterygius kristiansenae, a species of ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaur from the Jurassic of Svalbard. Image credit: Esther van Hulsen.

Ichthyosaurs Had Surprisingly Dense Ribs, New Study Finds

Sep 11, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Long before whales ruled the oceans, dolphin-shaped marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs patrolled the same waters. New research from the Natural History...

While some dinosaurs are thought to have had ‘fuzzy’ or ‘downy’ feathers (shown in this illustration as the yellow spikes on a Nanotyrannus’ neck), ancient birds (such as the one in the Nanotyrannus’ mouth) were more likely to have had feathers that look similar to the birds of today. Image credit: Andrey Atuchin.

Exceptionally Preserved Bird Feathers Found in 66-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Coprolite

Sep 10, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in Montana have discovered remarkably preserved feathers of an ancient aquatic bird inside a fossilized dinosaur dropping, offering rare...

The Tyrannosaurus rex trackway in the Hell Creek Formation in North Dakota, the United States. Image credit: Kent Hups.

Paleontologists Discover First-Ever Adult Tyrannosaurus rex Trackway

Sep 9, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in North Dakota have unearthed a set of 66.5-million-year-old fossilized footprints that can be confidently attributed to a full-grown...

Model of Psittacosaurus sp. based on skin and pigmentation patterns on the specimen from the Senckenberg Museum, Germany. Image credit: Jakob Vinther et al.

115-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Fossil Recovered from Deep Drill Core in China

Sep 7, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Scientists have identified the first dinosaur fossil from a remote western section of the Bayan Gobi Formation in China’s Inner Mongolia, extending the...

Miracinonyx trumani and the ecosystem this species lived in. Image credit: Julius Csotonyi.

Ancient DNA Rewrites Story of Enigmatic ‘American Cheetah’

Sep 4, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

For several decades, paleontologists have described Miracinonyx trumani — an extinct species of cheetah-like felid that roamed the North American...

Reconstruction of a mosasaur and large fish preying on an injured Enchoteuthis, representing potential candidates for the bite marks on the octopod. Image credit: Kaitlin Lindblad.

Fossil of Giant Squid-Like Creature from Cretaceous Period Bears Marks of Deadly Attack

Sep 1, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists studying a fossil unearthed in southern Manitoba, Canada, have identified what they believe are two bite marks on the internal skeleton...

Track-bearing slab T-373 from King George Island, Antarctica. Sclae bar - 10 mm. Image credit: Mansilla-Vera et al., doi: 10.1007/s00300-026-03539-1.

55-Million-Year-Old Predatory Mammal Footprint Found in Antarctica

Aug 31, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A single fossilized footprint found in volcanic mud on a remote Antarctic island is the first known trackway from a mammal in Antarctica, and the earliest...

Paleo-Indians hunting a glyptodont, a relative of the armadillo that lived during the Pleistocene epoch. By Heinrich Harder, 1920.

Paleontologists Identify New Species of Glyptodont

Aug 28, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

An incomplete fossilized skull that has sat in the collections of the Natural History Museum of Denmark since the 19th century has turned out to represent...

Fossilized wings of the nine ensiferan species analyzed by Gu et al. Image credit: Gu et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2615107123.

Scientists Reconstruct Sound of Jurassic Insects

Aug 25, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using lasers, computer models and AI, researchers reconstructed the calls of 165-million-year-old relatives of modern crickets and katydids from fossilized...

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