Paleontology News

Fossils of Spriggina floundersi from South Australia; white arrows highlight lifted areas, white triangle indicates divergent bend angle of adjacent modules. Scale bars - 10 cm. Image credit: Evans et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-026-53857-x.

Ediacaran Sea Creature May Hold Earliest Evidence of Right-Handedness

Jul 10, 2026 by News Staff

Spriggina floundersi, a marine species that lived during the Ediacaran period 550 million years ago, is one of Earth’s earliest bilaterally symmetrical...

Life reconstruction of a herd of five individuals of Uragasaurus kalasinensis inhabiting a Late Jurassic forest in Thailand, accompanied by a pair of rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs and a metriacanthosaurid theropod. Image credit: Pakorn Chotchaiyaporn.

New Species of Long-Necked Dinosaur Identified in Thailand

Jul 9, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists working in northeastern Thailand have identified a new species of mamenchisaurid sauropod dinosaur, offering fresh evidence that a group...

Life reconstruction of Zhengheornis buyu. Image credit: Chung-Tat Cheung.

New Jurassic Fossil Reveals How Birds Lost Their Dinosaur Tails

Jul 7, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in China have described a small, previously unknown Jurassic bird whose short tail offers new evidence for how the earliest birds traded...

Life reconstruction of the Antarctic titanosaur. Image credit: Andrew McAfee, Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

83-Million-Year-Old Fossil Rewrites Timeline of Antarctica’s First Dinosaur Discovery

Jul 1, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A small fossil collected on an Antarctic island more than four decades ago is a tail vertebra of a titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur that roamed Antarctica...

An artist’s impression of Urokodia aequalis, a marine predator that lived in the Cambrian seas around 518 million years ago. Image credit: Xiaodong Wang.

Ancient Sea Creature Pushes Back Origins of Spider Fangs to 518 Million Years Ago

Jul 1, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Urokodia aequalis, an early Cambrian marine predator from the Chengjiang biota of China, preserves the earliest known evidence of chelicerae — the...

Although Panthera pardus burgtonnae was roughly similar in length to modern African leopards (Panthera pardus pardus), its skeleton suggests a much stockier build. Image credit: Thomas Fuhrmann / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Fossils from German Quarry Reveal New Subspecies of European Leopard

Jun 30, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Named Panthera pardus burgtonnae, the newly-identified leopard subspecies roamed Europe during the Eemian interglacial period and was far more heavily...

Walters et al. compared theoretical pterosaur wings with published reconstructions over a series of shape and function tests to understand whether the current scientific understanding of pterosaur wing shape is likely to accurately represent the diversity of pterosaur wing shapes and whether issues in depicting pterosaurs stem from the style or substance of life reconstructions; their results revealed that reconstructions do not perform as expected and thus do not accurately represent the flight abilities of pterosaurs. Image credit: Mark P. Witton.

Pterosaurs May Have Sported Far More Varied Wings than Paleontologists Imagined

Jun 30, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

New research from the University of Bristol suggests that pterosaurs — the first vertebrates to achieve powered flight — probably displayed...

Life appearance of Adelphailurus kansensis based on the newly described material. Image credit: Jesús Gamarra.

Early Saber-Toothed Cat Gets New Face after Decades of Mystery

Jun 29, 2026 by Natali Anderson

A nearly complete skull unearthed decades ago in Arizona has given paleontologists their clearest look yet at Adelphailurus kansensis, an enigmatic felid...

Reconstruction of the forest floor of the 74.6 million-year-old Dori’s Tuff flora, featuring hypothetical angiosperm-disperser interactions. The plants depicted, including the foliage, fruits, seeds and flowers, were illustrated in life position based on the fossil plants found at the site and their inferred growth habits. The mammalian and dinosaur seed dispersers depicted were based on the known fauna from the broader region during the Late Campanian age of the Cretaceous period. Image credit: Brian Engh, livingrelicproductions.com.

Flowering Plants Were Already Thriving before Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Hit

Jun 29, 2026 by News Staff

Fossils from the Jose Creek Formation in New Mexico reveal that angiosperms (flowering plants) had built dense, fruit-bearing forests nearly 75 million...

Life reconstruction of Silescelida acristata. Image credit: Matheus Fernandes Gadelha.

Distant Cousin of Crocodiles Stalked Brazil 240 Million Years Ago

Jun 26, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists working in Brazil have identified a previously unknown species of archosauriform that lived about 240 million years ago and may belong...

Changzhousaurus sinensis. Image credit: Connor Ashbridge / CC BY 4.0.

New Feathered Dinosaur from China Had Peacock-Like Tail

Jun 23, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of four-winged pennaraptoran dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of northern China is adding another twist to the story of how birds...

Grice et al. integrate organic geochemical analyses with high-resolution micro-mineral imaging of a three-dimensionally preserved Cretaceous pterosaur wing phalanx from Brazil to reveal steroid biomarkers and multi-stage mineralization pathways underlying its preservation. Image credit: Grice et al., doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2026.116199.

113-Million-Year-Old Pterosaur Fossil Reveals What Flying Reptiles Ate

Jun 19, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A 113-million-year-old pterosaur fossil from northeastern Brazil has yielded rare evidence of soft tissues, organic molecules and chemical traces of a...

New fossil evidence suggests that embolomeres did not undergo a metamorphosis the way that modern amphibians do when growing up, which challenges a long-standing scientific belief that amphibians, reptiles, and mammals evolved from animals that had a tadpole stage. Image credit: Berit Godring.

Earth’s First Land Animals May Never Have Been Amphibian-Like After All

Jun 19, 2026 by News Staff

Paleontologists from the Field Museum of Natural History have described the fossilized remains of baby embolomeres, crocodile-like predators that prowled...

The holotype specimen of Montsecosuchus depereti. Image credit: Castillo-Visa et al., doi: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlag076.

125-Million-Year-Old Crocodile Relative Reveals Its True Colors

Jun 18, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Exceptionally preserved skin of Montsecosuchus depereti, an extinct crocodylomorph no larger than a house cat that prowled the tropical wetlands of Early...

Kryptohadros kallaiae. Image credit: Tibor Pecsics.

New Duck-Billed Dinosaur Unearthed in Romania

Jun 16, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of paleontologists from Romania, Hungary and Italy has identified a new genus and species of herbivorous, duck-billed dinosaur from...

An artist’s impression of a group of Gigantopithecus blacki within a forest in southern China. Image credit: Garcia / Joannes-Boyau, Southern Cross University.

Fossils from Chinese Cave Fill Crucial Gap in History of Gigantopithecus blacki

Jun 15, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

Deep inside a limestone cave in southern China, paleontologists have uncovered an assemblage of thirteen fossilized teeth belonging to Gigantopithecus...

Reconstruction of Phantasmodon travouilloni in the Early Miocene rainforests of northwestern Queensland. Image credit: Peter Schouten.

New Marsupial Lineage Emerges from Australian Fossils

Jun 15, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have described a new genus and three new species of small, insect-eating marsupials from the Early Miocene deposits of the Riversleigh...

Paludocyon moyasolai. Image credit: Jesús Gamarra.

New Species of Ancient Bear-Dog Identified in Spain

Jun 11, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Paleontologists have identified a previously unknown species of amphicyonid — the extinct family of carnivorous mammals popularly known as bear-dogs...

Cave lions painted in the Chauvet Cave, France.

Study: Cave Lions were Distinct Species that Occasionally Bred with Ancestors of Today’s Lions

Jun 10, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

The extinct Eurasian cave lion (Panthera spelaea) and today’s African and Asian lions (Panthera leo) belong to separate evolutionary lineages that diverged...