Paleontology News

View of the cliff face at Lavernock Point from the east end of the beach, showing the red mudstones of the Williton Member (Mercia Mudstone Formation) transitioning upwards into the interbedded shales of the Westbury Formation. Image credit: Evans et al., doi: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2024.05.001.

205-Million-Year-Old Bone Bed Sheds Light on History of Dinosaurs in Wales

May 30, 2024 by News Staff

The newly-discovered Late Triassic bone bed at Lavernock, South Wales, represents a storm deposit that preserves a rich coastal marine assemblage with...

Simosthenurus occidentalis. Image credit: Nellie Pease / ARC CoE CABAH / CC BY-SA 4.0 Deed.

Extraordinary Fossil of Giant Short-Faced Kangaroo Found in Australia

May 29, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists from the Museums Victoria Research Institute and elsewhere have unearthed a nearly 50,000-year-old skeleton of Simosthenurus occidentalis...

North American porcupines differ from the southern relatives in having more fur, a shorter tail and a bulkier frame.

Extinct North American Porcupine Had Long, Prehensile Tail

May 28, 2024 by News Staff

New World porcupines originated in South America and dispersed into North America between 4 and 3 million years ago. Prehensile-tailed porcupines today...

Kiyacursor longipes, referred specimen (b) and holotype (c-j). Image credit: Averianov et al., doi: 10.1098/rspb.2024.0537.

Paleontologists Discover New Species of Ceratosaur

May 27, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Kiyacursor longipes is the first species of ceratosaur known from the Early Cretaceous of Asia, extending the stratigraphic range of the dinosaur group...

Moa browsed trees and shrubs within the forest understorey. Image credit: Heinrich Harder.

Researchers Sequence Genome of Extinct Little Bush Moa

May 27, 2024 by News Staff

Using ancient DNA recovered from a fossil bone from New Zealand’s South Island, scientists from Harvard University and elsewhere have generated a draft...

Six monotremes living in the same place at the same time, 100 million years ago at Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia; clockwise from lower left: Opalios splendens; Stirtodon elizabethae, the largest monotreme of the time; Kollikodon ritchiei, with hot-cross-bun shaped molars; Steropodon galmani, now known from additional opalized fossils; Parvopalus clytiei, the smallest monotreme of the time; and Dharragarra aurora, the earliest known species of platypus. Image credit: Peter Schouten.

Three New Species of Fossil Monotremes Found in Australia

May 26, 2024 by News Staff

The three newly-identified species show combinations of features not previously seen before in other living or fossil monotremes, according to Professor...

Koleken inakayali. Image credit: Gabriel Díaz Yantén.

Fossils from New Species of Carnivorous Dinosaur Discovered in Argentina

May 22, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of furileusaurian abelisaurid that lived during the Cretaceous period has been identified from fossilized skeletal remains found...

The studied Psittacosaurus specimen under natural (upper half) and UV light (lower half) showing the orange-yellow fluorescence of the fossilized skin. Image credit: Zixiao Yang.

Study: Some Feathered Dinosaurs Had Reptile-Style Scales and Bird-Like Skin with Feathers

May 21, 2024 by News Staff

The evolution of feathers is associated with novel skin ultrastructures, but the fossil record of these changes is poor and thus the critical transition...

Felidae, a highly diverse carnivoran family, emerged during the Oligocene in Eurasia and quickly spread worldwide during the Miocene. Although Felidae represents the sole extant cat-like clade, the sabertoothed morphotype is a textbook example of iterative evolution, having evolved many times among placentals, marsupials, and gorgonopsians. Nimravidae is a well-diversified yet fully extinct carnivoran clade that extensively explored a range of cat-like morphologies, and although they have been commonly called ‘false cats’ or ‘false sabertooth cats’ in opposition to the ‘true cats,’ they evolved cat-like morphologies, including both saber-toothed and non-saber-toothed forms, tens of millions of years prior to the appearance of felids. Image credit: Narimane Chatar / Université de Liège.

New Study Uncovers Secrets of Saber-Tooth Evolution

May 21, 2024 by News Staff

Paleontologists from the University of Liège and elsewhere have investigated the evolutionary patterns behind the development of saber teeth in two groups...

Douglassarachne acanthopoda. Image credit: Paul Selden & Jason Dunlop, doi: 10.1017/jpa.2024.13.

308-Million-Year-Old Fossil of Remarkable Spiny Arachnid Found in Illinois

May 20, 2024 by News Staff

The forests of the Late Carboniferous period (about 300-320 million years ago) harbored a great variety of arachnids. In addition to the familiar spiders,...

This artist’s impression shows a dromaeosaur, a type of feathered theropod, in the snow. Image credit: Davide Bonadonna / Universidade de Vigo / UCL.

Study: Warm-Bloodedness in Theropod and Ornithischian Dinosaurs Evolved by Early Jurassic

May 16, 2024 by News Staff

A fundamental question in dinosaur evolution is how they adapted to long-term climatic shifts during the Mesozoic Era (the dinosaur era lasting from 230...

An artist’s impression of Chakisaurus nekul. Image credit: Sci.News / UnexpectedDinoLesson / CC BY 4.0 Deed.

Paleontologists Discover New Species of Ornithopod Dinosaur in Argentina

May 14, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

A paper published earlier this month in the journal Cretaceous Research announces the discovery of a previously undocumented genus and species of medium-sized...

Life reconstruction of Setapedites abundantis. Image credit: Elissa Sorojsrisom.

478-Million-Year-Old Fossil Sheds Light on Diversity and Evolution of Early Euchelicerates

May 14, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Euchelicerata is a large group of arthropods comprising horseshoe crabs, scorpions, spiders, mites and ticks, as well as the extinct sea scorpions and...

Hanon et al. paint a vivid picture of a landscape dominated by expansive grasslands, hinting at the complex interplay of life that thrived in this region during the Plio-Pleistocene era. Image credit: Wits University.

Paleontologists Find New Fossil Bovids at Cradle of Humankind Site

May 13, 2024 by News Staff

Kromdraai is a Plio-Pleistocene site located in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. It has produced diverse and abundant faunal assemblages and key...

Geogaranya valiyaensis. Image credit: Agnihotri et al., doi: 10.26879/1276.

New Species of Pseudoscorpion Found Preserved in 50-Million-Year-Old Amber

May 9, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have described a new genus and species of fossil pseudoscorpion from the Eocene-period Cambay amber of Western India. Geogaranya valiyaensis....

An artist’s impression of Dornraptor normani. Image credit: Megan Williams.

New Species of Jurassic Theropod Dinosaur Identified in England

May 6, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

BPP University paleontologist Matthew Baron has identified a previously unknown carnivorous dinosaur from Dorset, England based on fossils collected in...

Life reconstruction of Militocodon lydae. Image credit: Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

Newly-Discovered Species of Mammal Lived 610,000 Years after Dinosaur Extinction

May 6, 2024 by Natali Anderson

Paleontologists from Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Kent State University, the University of Michigan and City University of New York have discovered...

The canine of saber-toothed predators represents one of the most specialized dental structures known. Hypotheses about the function of hypertrophied canines range from display and conspecific interaction, soft food processing, to active prey acquisition. Recent research on the ontogenetic timing of skull traits indicates the adult canine can take years to fully erupt, but the consequences of prolonged eruption on inferences of canine functional morphology are missing from current discourse and have not been quantified. In his new study, Tseng evaluates hypotheses about adult canine bending strength and stiffness, respectively, during eruption in Smilodon fatalis. Image credit: Massimo Molinero.

Saber-Toothed Tigers Held onto Their Milk Teeth to Stabilize Their Sabers, Study Suggests

May 1, 2024 by News Staff

A new analysis of the distinctive canines of the saber-toothed tiger (Smilodon fatalis) suggests that the baby tooth — one of the deciduous teeth...

Sphaerotholus buchholtzae (smaller species) fighting below larger pachycephalosaurs, the Hell Creek Formation, Montana, the United States. Image credit: ABelov2014 / CC BY-SA 3.0 Deed.

Paleontologists Discover Two New Species of Pachycephalosaurine Dinosaurs

Apr 29, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have unearthed the fossilized remains of two new small-bodied pachycephalosaurines: one in the Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta and the...