Paleontology
- Paleontology
New fossil suggests echolocation evolved early in whales
A 27-million-year-old whale fossil sheds light on echolocation’s beginnings.
- Paleontology
Woolly mammoths’ last request: Got water?
Woolly mammoths survived on an Alaskan island thousands of years after mainland mammoths went extinct. But they died out when their lakes dried up, thanks to a warming climate and rising sea levels.
- Earth
How dinosaurs hopped across an ocean
Land bridges may have once allowed dinosaurs and other animals to travel between North America and Europe around 150 million years ago, a researcher proposes.
- Paleontology
Why the turtle got its shell
Fossil evidence suggests that turtles’ ancestors started to form precursors to today’s shells to help them dig, not to protect themselves.
- Paleontology
Parasites wormed way into dino’s gut
Tiny slimed tunnels in the guts of a 77-million-year-old duck-billed dinosaur fossil offer the first hard evidence that dinosaurs may have been infected by parasitic worms, paleontologists say.
- Animals
Two newly identified dinosaurs donned weird horns
Two newly discovered relatives of Triceratops had unusual head adornments — even for horned dinosaurs.
- Animals
Insect debris fashion goes back to the Cretaceous
Ancient insects covered themselves in dirt and vegetation just as modern ones do, fossils preserved in amber suggest.
- Paleontology
Human route into Americas traced via trail of bison fossils
Bread crumbs in the form of ancient bison may mark one potential path that humans took to colonize the Americas.
- Life
1.56-billion-year-old fossils add drama to Earth’s ‘boring billion’
Ancient multicellular eukaryotes big enough to be seen by the naked eye discovered in 1.56-billion-year-old rock in China may be an ancestor of modern algae.
- Anthropology
Asian primates hit hard by ancient climate change
Chinese fossils suggest primates diverged in Asia and Africa around 34 million years ago.
- Paleontology
Beetle saved in amber had helicopter wings
For the first time, scientists report the fossilized remains of two tiny Jacobson’s Beetles, preserved in amber for at least 37 million years.
- Paleontology
Baby titanosaur was parents’ Mini-Me
Babies of one species of titanosaur resembled mini-versions of full-grown adults, and probably acted like them, too.
