Paleontology

Paleontology

‘Thunder beast’ fossils show how some mammals might have gotten big

Rhinolike mammals called brontotheres repeatedly evolved into bigger and smaller species, a fossil analysis shows. The bigger ones won out over time.

Paleontology

Newfound bat skeletons are the oldest on record

The newly identified species Icaronycteris gunnelli lived about 52.5 million years ago in what is now Wyoming and looked a lot like modern bats.

Life

T. rex may have had lips like a modern lizard’s

Dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus have long been portrayed as lipless, but new research suggests this wasn’t so.

Paleontology

310-million-year-old fossil blobs might not be jellyfish after all

An ancient animal called Essexella may have been a type of burrowing sea anemone, a new study proposes.

Paleontology

520-million-year-old animal fossils might not be animals after all

Newly described fossils of Protomelission gatehousei suggest that the species, once thought to be the oldest example of bryozoans, is actually a type of colony-forming algae.

Paleontology

The oldest known pollen-carrying insects lived about 280 million years ago

Pollen stuck to fossils of earwig-like Tillyardembia pushes back the earliest record of potential insect pollinators by about 120 million years.

Paleontology

Insect bites in plant fossils reveal leaves could fold shut millions of years ago

The 252-million-year-old fossil leaves have symmetrical holes, which suggest an insect bit through the leaves when they were folded.

Paleontology

This dinosaur might have used its feet to snag prey in midair like modern hawks

Fossilized toe pads suggest a hawklike hunting style in Microraptor, a dinosaur that some scientists think could hunt while flying.

Paleontology

In the wake of history’s deadliest mass extinction, ocean life may have flourished

Ocean life may have recovered in just a million years after the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, fossils from South China suggest.

Life

Fossils suggest early primates lived in a once-swampy Arctic

Teeth and jawbones found on Ellesmere Island, Canada, suggest that two early primate species migrated there 52 million years ago.

Paleontology

A bird with a T. rex head may help reveal how dinosaurs became birds

The 120-million-year-old Cratonavis zhui, newly discovered in China, had a head like a theropod and body like a modern bird.

Paleontology

Mysterious ichthyosaur graveyard may have been a breeding ground

Some 230 million years ago, massive dolphinlike reptiles gathered to breed in safe waters — just like many modern whales do, a study finds.