Paleontology News

Early Primates Primarily Inhabited Cold and Temperate Climates, New Study Suggests

Primates historically transitioned across diverse climates: (A) transition between the temperate (top), arid (left), tropical (bottom), and cold (right), main climates, for all primates; arrow size represents the proportion of phylogenetic branches with the respective transitions; (B) climatic transitions for early primates, who were living between 65 and 47.8 million years ago; (C) climatic transitions for species that were living between 47.8 and 23.03 million years ago; (D) climatic transitions for species that were living from 23.03 million years ago to the present. Image credit: Avaria-Llautureo et al., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2423833122.
Aug 12, 2025 by News Staff

Textbooks often portray primates as originating, evolving, and dispersing exclusively within warm tropical forests. This tends to come from fossil evidence distributed across tropical latitudes. However, new research led by University of Reading suggests first primates most likely lived in North America in a cold climate with hot summers and freezing winters. Primates historically transitioned across diverse climates: (A) transition between the temperate...

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Life reconstruction of Shri rapax. Image credit: Connor Ashbridge / CC BY 4.0.

New Bird-Like Dinosaur from Mongolia Had Extremely Robust Hands

Aug 11, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have identified a new species of dromaeosaurid dinosaur from an almost complete and articulated skeleton found in the 2000s in Mongolia. Life...

An artistic rendering of an evening approximately 252 million years ago during the Late Permian epoch in the Luangwa Basin of Zambia. The scene includes several saber-toothed gorgonopsians and beaked dicynodonts. Image credit: Gabriel Ugueto.

New Fossils from Tanzania and Zambia Shed Light on End-Permian Mass Extinction

Aug 11, 2025 by News Staff

Paleontologists have identified the myriad of animals — saber-toothed predators, burrowing foragers and a large, salamander-like creature —...

Dissacus praenuntius. Image credit: DiBgd / CC BY 4.0.

Fossil Teeth Reveal How Extinct Carnivorous Mammal Adapted to Global Warming 56 Million Years Ago

Aug 5, 2025 by News Staff

During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a period of geological rapid warming and aridification approximately 56 million years ago, a flesh-eating...

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.

Gigantic Megalosauroid and Allosauroid Dinosaurs Had Weak Bites, Study Suggests

Aug 5, 2025 by News Staff

While tyrannosaurid dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex  had skulls that were optimized for high bite forces, other gigantic carnivorous dinosaurs such...

Reconstructed skeleton and representative bones of Wudingloong wui. Individual scale bars - 5 cm. Scale bar of the reconstructed skeleton - 50 cm. Image credit: Wang et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-12185-2.

East Asia’s Oldest Known Sauropodomorph Dinosaur Unearthed in China

Aug 4, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Wudingloong wui lived in what is now Yunnan, China, around 200 million years ago (Early Jurassic epoch). Reconstructed skeleton and representative bones...

Life reconstruction of Plesionectes longicollum. Image credit: Peter Nickolaus.

Paleontologists Unveil New Species of Plesiosaur

Aug 4, 2025 by News Staff

Paleontologists have identified an unusual new genus and species of early-diverging plesiosauroid plesiosaur from a nearly complete skeleton found in the...

Pleurosaurus, a remarkable, long-bodied swimming rhynchocephalian that lived during the Late Jurassic epoch, some 150 million years ago, in what is now Germany. Image credit: Roberto Ochoa.

Unique Fossil of Juvenile Pleurosaurus Unearthed in Germany

Aug 1, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Rhynchocephalians — members of a sister group of squamates (lizards, snakes, and worm lizards) that includes the living tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus)...

Life reconstruction of Astigmasaura genuflexa. Image credit: Mattia Yuri Messina.

95-Million-Year-Old Plant-Eating Dinosaur Discovered in Argentina

Jul 28, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in Patagonia, Argentina, have unearthed a portion of a postcranial skeleton that belonged to a previously unknown rebbachisaurid sauropod...

A herd of ceratopsians (Styracosaurus albertensis) accompanied by an ankylosaur (Euplocephalus tutus) walk through an old river channel under the watchful eyes of two tyrannosaurs (Gorgosaurus libratus). Image credit: Julius Csotonyi.

Paleontologists Discover First Evidence of Multispecies Dinosaur Herding

Jul 28, 2025 by News Staff

Paleontologists say they have discovered the 76-million-year-old footprints of a ceratopsian dinosaur-dominated herd in Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta,...

Life reconstruction of Nektognathus evasmithae. Image credit: Bob Nicholls.

Cambrian Nectocaridids are Early Descendants of Arrow Worms, New Fossil Shows

Jul 24, 2025 by News Staff

Nectocaridids are enigmatic Paleozoic animals with a controversial position. These creatures were adapted for swimming, having fins, a head region with...

Mirasaura grauvogeli in its natural forested environment, hunting insects. Image credit Gabriel Ugueto.

Crested Diapsid Reptile from Middle Triassic Shakes Up Feather Evolution Theories

Jul 23, 2025 by News Staff

Paleontologists have described a new genus and species of Triassic drepanosauromorph diapsid with striking integumentary appendages — which are neither...

Environmental reconstruction of the Montceau-les-Mines Lagerstätte with Palaeocampa anthrax: a large Palaeocampa anthrax is depicted at the edge of a shallow inland streambed, shadowed by the lush vegetation and mist of a coal forest, flanked by several euthycarcinoids, Sottyxerxes multiplex, and a pair of freshwater xiphosurans, Alanops magnificus; the nearest ocean environment is several hundred km southwest. Image credit: Knecht et al., doi: 10.1038/s42003-025-08483-0.

Long-Misidentified Fossil is First Known Nonmarine Lobopodian, Paleontologists Say

Jul 23, 2025 by News Staff

First published in 1865 as a caterpillar, nearly fifty years before the discovery of Canada’s Burgess Shale, Palaeocampa anthrax shuffled between classifications...

Mollisonia symmetrica is characterized by a backward-folded unsegmented brain. Image credit: Strausfeld et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.06.063.

Arachnids Originated in Cambrian Seas, New Research Suggests

Jul 22, 2025 by News Staff

Paleontologists have analyzed the fossilized features of the brain and central nervous system of Mollisonia symmetrica, an extinct animal that lived in...

Articulated skull of the new massopodan sauropodomorph dinosaur in right lateral view. Scale bars - 5 cm. Image credit: Lania et al., doi: 10.1186/s13358-025-00373-6.

Fossil of Triassic Sauropodomorph Dinosaur Discovered in Switzerland

Jul 21, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have discovered the skeletal remains of an entirely new, yet-to-be-named species of massopodan sauropodomorph dinosaur in the Klettgau...

Life representation of Sphenodraco scandentis in the palaeoenvironment of the Solnhofen Archipelago. Image credit: Gabriel Ugueto.

Tree-Dwelling Tuatara Relative Lived in Solnhofen Archipelago 145 Million Years Ago

Jul 18, 2025 by News Staff

The Solnhofen Archipelago is a series of islands that existed during the Late Jurassic epoch in what is now Bavaria, Germany. Life representation of Sphenodraco...

Life reconstruction of Vulcanoscaptor ninoti. Image credit: Jesús Gamarra / IPHES-CERCA.

3.25-Million-Year-Old Fossil Identified as New Mole Species

Jul 15, 2025 by News Staff

Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of mole (family Talpidae) from a partial skeleton discovered at the Pliocene-aged site of Camp...

The skeleton of Pulaosaurus qinglong in left lateral view. Image credit: Hailong Zhang.

New Neornithischian Dinosaur Unearthed in China

Jul 14, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have discovered what they say is a new species of early-diverging neornithischian dinosaur that was part of the Jurassic Yanliao Biota...

This scene depicts an oviraptorid dinosaur called Citipati being startled while resting on a sand dune. The creature raises its arms in a threat display, which reveals its wrists, highlighting the small migrated pisiform carpal (blue X-ray view) bone. Image credit: Henry S. Sharpe.

Key Wrist Bone Appeared in Bird Ancestors Millions of Years Earlier than Previously Thought

Jul 14, 2025 by News Staff

A team of paleontologists from Yale University and Stony Brook University made this discovery after examining fossils from two species of bird-like dinosaurs...

Fossil remains of Tongnanlong zhimingi. Image credit: Wei et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-09796-0.

New Species of Extremely Gigantic Sauropod Dinosaur Found in China

Jul 11, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists in China have discovered the skeletal remains of a remarkable new genus and species of huge-sized mamenchisaurid dinosaur from the Late...

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