Paleontology
- Paleontology
Forget bird-brained
Scientists have uncovered a new dinosaur that breathed like a bird.
- Paleontology
Dino domination was in the cards, maybe
A new study finds that early dinosaurs coexisted with and were outnumbered by a competing species. Dinosaurs eventually reigned supreme anyway, but perhaps not because they were better.
- Earth
Mammoth migrations
Ancient DNA shows North American woolly mammoths migrated back to Asia and displaced Siberian mammoths.
- Paleontology
Soft tissue in fossils still mysterious
New research suggests modern biofilms could contaminate ancient fossils.
By Sid Perkins - Paleontology
A wandering eye
New look at fossils of primitive flatfish reveals how these fish evolved eyes on one side of their head
- Paleontology
Fossils, now available in color
Fossilized feathers of an early bird or dinosaur may retain evidence of pigment, offering a chance to animal colors of the Cretaceous.
- Life
Fossil helps document shift from sea to land
New fossils of an ancient, four-limbed creature help fill in the blanks of the evolutionary transition between fish and the first land-adapted vertebrates.
By Sid Perkins - Paleontology
Ancient burrows
Triassic-era sediments unearthed in Antarctica reveal the well-preserved lair of a four-legged, mammal-like reptile.
By Tia Ghose - Paleontology
A mammoth divide
Woolly mammoths roamed Siberia in two distinct clans, and the split between the groups, scientists say, is surprisingly deep, occurring more than 1 million years ago.
- Paleontology
Walking tall
Some types of the largest flying reptiles ever known were well adapted to life on the ground.
By Sid Perkins - Life
Reviving extinct DNA
For the first time, scientists have resurrected a piece of DNA from an extinct animal — the Tasmanian tiger. The researchers engineered mice with a piece of the long-gone marsupial's DNA that turns on a collagen gene in cartilage-producing cells.
- Paleontology
China was an ancient-ape paradise
Fossil dig uncovers the oldest known remains of ancestral gibbons
By Bruce Bower