Paleontology

Paleontology

For past climate clues, ask a stalag-mite

Mites fossilized in cave formations in the American Southwest show that at times during the past 3,200 years the climate there was much wetter and cooler.

Paleontology

Two new dinosaurs chiseled from fossil gap

A sleek predator and a pot-bellied giant dinosaur have emerged from North American rocks to fill in a 30-million-year gap in the dinosaur fossil record.

Paleontology

Sahara yields second-largest dinosaur

Excavations near an Egyptian oasis have unearthed the fossils of an animal that probably ranks as the second-most-massive dinosaur known.

Paleontology

Fossil footprints could be monumental

Trace fossils found in a vacant lot in a small town in Utah, including the footprints of meat-eating dinosaurs, could soon be protected as part of a new U.S. national monument.

Paleontology

Beyond Bones

The forensic analysis of trace fossils such as footprints, nests, burrows, and even coprolites—fossilized feces—reveal subtle clues about ancient species, their behavior, and their environment.

Paleontology

Early Mammal’s Jaw Lost Its Groove

A tiny fossil skull found in 195-million-year-old Chinese sediments provides evidence that crucial features of mammal anatomy evolved more than 45 million years earlier than previously thought.

Paleontology

The Latest Pisces of an Evolutionary Puzzle

The recent discovery of coelacanths off the northeastern coast of South Africa was the first sighting of the rare fish in that country since the first living coelacanth, a type of fish thought to have been extinct for millions of years, was caught there in late 1938.

Paleontology

Did fibers and filaments become feathers?

A variety of filamentary structures on the fossil of a small theropod dinosaur recently found in China may provide new insight into the evolution of feathers.

Paleontology

Rocks yield clues to flower origins

A distinctive organic chemical related to substances produced by modern flowering plants has been found in ancient fossil-bearing sediments, possibly helping to identify the ancestral plants that gave rise to flowers.

Paleontology

Fake fossil not one but two new species

A supposed missing link between dinosaurs and birds that was first unveiled in 1999, and revealed to be a forgery soon thereafter, was actually cobbled together from parts of animals from two new species.

Paleontology

Jumbled bones show birds on the menu

A fossilized pellet of partially digested bones of juvenile and baby birds provides the first evidence that birds served as food for predators.

Paleontology

First brachiosaur tooth found in Asia

A fossil tooth found along a dinosaur trackway in South Korea is the first evidence that brachiosaurs roamed Asia.