Paleontology

Credit: Albert Protopopov The extinction of prehistoric megafauna like the woolly mammoth, cave lion, and woolly rhinoceros at the end of the last ice age has often been attributed to the spread of early humans across the globe.…

Updated evolutionary tree and biomechanical estimates of feathered dinosaurs and early birds show powered flight may have evolved in these animals at least three different timesCredit: Julius Csotonyi New research using the…

Findings help dispel the view that Australia's first peoples were 'only hunter gatherers'Credit: ANU Archaeologists at The Australian National University (ANU) have found the earliest evidence of Indigenous communities…

Radiocarbon dating is set to become more accurate than ever after an international team of scientists improved the technique for assessing the age of historical objects. The team of researchers at the Universities of Sheffield, Belfast,…

Scientists in Southampton believe four bones recently found on the Isle of Wight belong to a new species of theropod dinosaurCredit: Replicate 3D A new study by Palaeontologists at the University of Southampton suggests four…

A new study, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, supports predictions that the Arctic could be free of sea ice by 2035. A new study, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, supports predictions…

New group with possible symbiotic life strategyCredit: Anja Spang In a publication in Nature Communications last Friday, NIOZ scientists Nina Dombrowski and Anja Spang and their collaboration partners describe a…

Credit: Adam Cossette A new study, revisiting fossil specimens from the enormous crocodylian, Deinosuchus, has confirmed that the beast had teeth "the size of bananas", capable to take down even the very largest of…

How microbes in the primordial atmosphere obtained energy without oxygenCredit: Uwe Dettmar for Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany In the first billion years, there was no oxygen on Earth. Life developed in an anoxic environment.…

Credit: Emma Finley-Jacob Its neck was three times as long as its torso, but had only 13 extremely elongated vertebrae: Tanystropheus, a bizarre giraffe-necked reptile which lived 242 million years ago, is a paleontological…

In a 99-million-year-old preserved amber fossil, researchers get a detailed glimpse into how 'Hell Ants' hunted with scythe-like mandibles and horn appendagesCredit: NJIT, Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of Rennes, France In…

Twenty-foot-long specimens described as separate species from their cousins, named after mythology's HydraCredit: Emma Finley-Jacob A fossil called Tanystropheus was first described in 1852, and it's been puzzling scientists ever…

Credit: Tetsuto Miyashita Ottawa, August 5, 2020 - Zebrafish are a common aquarium species, of value to hobbyists and scientists alike. Researchers have now engineered an unusual change in them that has echoes of Jurassic…

A new study which provides a global estimate of rock cover on the Earth's glaciers has revealed that the expanse of rock debris on glaciers, a factor that has been ignored in models of glacier melt and sea level rise, could be…

Threatened with extinction despite perfect adaptation The general picture of a shark is that of a fast and large ocean predator. Some species, however, question this image - for example angel sharks. They have adapted to a life on the…

Royal Ontario Museum and McMaster University researchers diagnose osteosarcoma in a Centrosaurus apertusCredit: Credit: Courtesy of Royal Ontario Museum. © Royal Ontario Museum/McMaster University A collaboration led by the Royal Ontario…

Credit: Image by DING Wenna The alpine biome harbors distinctive communities adapted to stressful environmental conditions. For plants, the world's most species-rich temperate alpine biota occurs in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP),…

Geological evidence suggests the known dinosaur groups diverged early on, supporting the traditional dinosaur family tree The classic dinosaur family tree has two subdivisions of early dinosaurs at its base: the Ornithischians, or…

Credit: Senckenberg Research Institute Paleontologists have described in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology a large owl that killed medium-sized mammals with its feet and claws some 55 million years ago. "Today, owls kill with…

Deforestation and habitat removal may accelerate ext Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot. In the last 20 years new lemur species have been discovered while forested habitats have been quickly disappearing. Recent reports by the IUCN…