Paleontology News

An artist’s impression of elephant birds in their natural habitat, Madagascar. Image credit: Bonnie Koopmans.

1,000-Year-Old Fossil Eggshells Provide Rare Glimpse into Evolution of Madagascar’s Elephant Birds

Mar 1, 2023 by News Staff

Paleontologists from Curtin University and elsewhere have examined ancient fossil eggshells of Madagascar’s extinct elephant birds and found that genetic...

Life reconstruction of Paralitherizinosaurus japonicus. Image credit: Masato Hattori.

Study: Giant Therizinosaurs Used Their Meter-Long, Sickle-Like Claws for Display

Feb 28, 2023 by News Staff

The dinosaur clade Maniraptora includes the ancestors of birds, and most maniraptoran dinosaurs used their hands for grasping and in flight, but early...

An artistic reconstruction of Macronectes tinae in its paleoenvironment; a darker plumage was chosen for the reconstruction because a darker coloration in giant petrels seems to be related to warmer regions, as Taranaki had warmer temperatures during the Pliocene period. Image credit: Simone Giovanardi / Te Papa.

Giant Petrels Lived in New Zealand 3 Million Years Ago

Feb 27, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Macronectes tinae lived approximately 3 million years ago (Pliocene period), and belongs to the extant genus Macronectes. An artistic reconstruction of...

Torvosaurus gurneyi. Image credit: © Sergey Krasovskiy.

New Research Shines Light on Evolution of Body Size in Theropod Dinosaurs

Feb 27, 2023 by News Staff

Over evolutionary history, many different species of animals have evolved very large body sizes. The general consensus has been that an animal grows to...

Life reconstruction of the non-marine component of the Waterloo Farm ecosystem: Hyneria udlezinye is shown together with the tetrapods Umzantsia amazana and Tutusius umlambo, the placoderms Groenlandaspis riniensis and Bothriolepis africana, the coelacanth Serenichthys kowiensis, the lungfish Isityumzi mlomomde, and a cyrtoctenid eurypterid. Image credit: Maggie Newman / R.W. Gess.

360-Million-Year-Old Fossils of Giant Predatory Fish Found in South Africa

Feb 24, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The newly-identified species of tristichopterid fish grew up to 3 m (10 feet) long and belongs to the extinct genus Hyneria. Life reconstruction of the...

Life reconstruction of Patagorhynchus pascuali. Image credit: Gabriel Lio.

Ancient Relative of Platypus Lived in South America 70 Million Years Ago

Feb 21, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Patagorhynchus pascuali represents the first Cretaceous toothed monotreme from the supercontinent Gondwana. Life reconstruction of Patagorhynchus pascuali....

Nyctinasty is the movements involving circadian rhythmic folding at night and opening at daytime of plant leaves or leaflets. Image credit: Feng et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.12.043.

252-Million-Year-Old Insect-Damaged Leaves Reveal First Fossil Evidence of Foliar Nyctinasty

Feb 20, 2023 by News Staff

Paleontologists have documented the first fossil evidence of foliar nyctinasty — the movements involving circadian rhythmic folding at night and...

The 166-million-year-old theropod dinosaur footprint from the Cleveland Basin, Yorkshire, UK. Image credit: Hudson et al., doi: 10.1144/pygs2022-008.

Giant Footprint of Jurassic Carnivorous Dinosaur Found in UK

Feb 17, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The 80-cm- (31.5-inch) long footprint was possibly made by a Megalosaurus-like theropod dinosaur, and is assigned to the ichnogenus Megalosauripus. The...

Life reconstruction of the eurypterid Brachyopterus. Image credit: Nix Illustration / CC BY 4.0.

Earliest Sea Scorpion Tracks on Land

Feb 16, 2023 by Simon Braddy

Palmichnium gallowayi, a 460-million-year-old fossil trackway of a sea scorpion, from upstate New York, is one of the earliest signs of animal life on...

Miracinonyx trumani probably deployed a unique predatory behavior without modern analogues. Image credit: Sheatherius / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Extinct American Cheetah Had Unique Predatory Behavior, Research Suggests

Feb 15, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Miracinonyx trumani is an extinct species of cheetah-like cat that roamed the North American prairies and steppe terrains more than 13,000 years ago. Miracinonyx...

An artist’s impression of Ceratosuchops inferodios and the orientation of the endocast in the skull. Image credit: Anthony Hutchings.

Paleontologists Reconstruct Brains of Two Spinosaur Species

Feb 14, 2023 by News Staff

Using X-ray computed tomography scan data, paleontologists reconstructed the braincase endocasts of Baryonyx walkeri and Ceratosuchops inferodios from...

Spatula praeclypeata is a stem taxon of the living species Spatula smithii (depicted here). Image credit: C.G. Finch-Davies.

Paleontologist Discovers New Species of Prehistoric Duck in Ukraine

Feb 13, 2023 by Sergio Prostak

Spatula praeclypeata lived in the Northern Black Sea region between 1.9 and 1.5 million years ago. Spatula praeclypeata is a stem taxon of the living species...

The assemblage of Aetosaurus ferratus skeletons exhibited in the State Natural History Museumin Stuttgart. Image credit: E.M. Teschner.

Aetosaurs Were Gregarious, Paleontologists Say

Feb 13, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Aetosaurs are quadrupedal, heavily-armored reptiles in the extinct order Aetosauria. Their name means ‘eagle lizard,’ and comes from the fact that...

Field photo of the fossilized remains of a fish called Watsonulus, a member of the Guiyang Biota. Image credit: Xu Dai.

Modern-Type Marine Ecosystems Existed as Early as 250 Million Years Ago

Feb 10, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The recovery of life from the devastating end-Permian mass extinction, which peaked about 252.3 million years ago, was an important period of evolution....

Life reconstructions of Kumimanu fordycei and Petradyptes stonehousei. Image credit: Simone Giovanardi.

Fossils Reveal Two New Species of Giant Penguins

Feb 9, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

One of the two new species, Kumimanu fordycei, weighed up to 160 kg and may have been the largest penguin ever to have lived, according to Bruce Museum...

An artist’s reconstruction of Notocolossus gonzalesparejasi, a sister taxon of Chucarosaurus diripienda. Image credit: Nobu Tamura, http://spinops.blogspot.com.

New Species of Colossosaur Identified in Argentina

Feb 6, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of giant colossosaurian titanosaur has been identified from fossils found in Patagonia, Argentina. An artist’s reconstruction...

Life reconstruction of Coccocephalus wildi. Image credit: Márcio L. Castro.

Carboniferous Fossil Gives Insight into Neural Anatomy of Early Ray-Finned Fishes

Feb 2, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Paleontologists have examined the fossilized brain and cranial nerve soft tissues of Coccocephalus wildi, a species of early ray-finned fish that lived...

Iotuba chengjiangensis. Image credit: Zhang et al., doi: 10.1098/rspb.2022.2014.

515-Million-Year-Old Fossils Shed Light on Evolution of Annelid Worms

Feb 1, 2023 by News Staff

The principal animal lineages diverged in the Cambrian period, but most diversity at lower taxonomic ranks arose more gradually over the subsequent 500...

Flightless or poorly-flighted modern, and recently extinct, paleognath birds with their respective egg sizes. Lithornis, an ancient flying paleognath bird, is depicted and has an unknown egg size. Image credit: Hyunjoo Shin / CC BY 4.0.

Ornithologists Construct New Phylogenetic Family Tree for Paleognath Birds

Feb 1, 2023 by Natali Anderson

About 50 species of birds on Earth today do not belong to the same group as the other 10,000 currently in existence. Known as the paleognaths, this small...