Paleontology
- Paleontology
Fossils’ ear design hints at aquatic lifestyle
New studies of distinctive skull structures in fossils of one of Earth's earliest-known four-limbed creatures suggest the animal could hear best when it was underwater.
- Paleontology
Oh, what a sticky web they wove
A look inside a piece of 130-million-year-old amber has revealed a thin filament of spider silk with sticky droplets that look just like those produced by modern spiders.
- Paleontology
Three Species No Moa? Fossil DNA analysis yields surprise
Analyses of genetic material from the fossils of large flightless birds called moas suggest that three types of the extinct birds may not be separate species after all.
- Paleontology
A human migration fueled by dung?
When people made their way from Asia to the Americas, the path they took may have been covered in dung.
- Paleontology
Learning from the Present
New field studies of unfossilized bones, as well as databases full of information about current fossil excavations and previous fossil finds, are providing insights into how complete—or incomplete—Earth's fossil record may be.
- Paleontology
Secrets of Dung: Ancient poop yields nuclear DNA
Researchers have extracted remnants of DNA from cells preserved in the desiccated dung of an extinct ground sloth.
- Paleontology
Teeth tell tale of warm-blooded dinosaurs
Evidence locked within the fossil teeth of some dinosaurs may help bolster the view that some of the animals were, at least to some degree, warm-blooded.
- Paleontology
Alaska in the ice age: Was it bluegrass country?
At the height of the last ice age, northern portions of Alaska and the Yukon Territory were covered with an arid yet productive grassland that supported an abundance of large grazing mammals, fossils suggest.
- Paleontology
Earful of data hints at ancient fish migration
Small bony growths that developed in the ears of fish more than 65 million years ago are providing a wealth of information about the species’ environment and lifestyle.
- Paleontology
Ancient wood points to arctic greenhouse
Chemical analyses of wood that grew in an ancient arctic forest suggest that the air there once was about twice as humid as it is now.
- Paleontology
Winging South: Finally, a fly fossil from Antarctica
A tiny fossil collected about 500 kilometers from the South Pole indicates that Antarctica was once home to a type of fly that scientists long thought had never inhabited the now-icy, almost insectfree continent.
- Paleontology
First Family’s last stand
New evidence indicates that about 3.2 million years ago, at least 17 Australopithecus afarensis individuals were killed at the same time by large predators at an eastern African site.
