Animals
Analyze This: Bulky plesiosaurs may not have been bad swimmers after all
Long-necked plesiosaurs were thought to be slow swimmers. But new research suggests the animals’ large size helped them overcome water resistance.
Fossils
More Stories in Fossils
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FossilsThis big dino had tiny arms before T. rex made them cool
A predecessor to Tyrannosaurus rex, Meraxes gigas had a giant head. But the muscularity of its puny arms suggests those limbs served some purpose.
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FossilsGreat white sharks may be partly to blame for the end of megalodons
Zinc levels in shark teeth hint that megalodons and great whites competed for food — and great whites won.
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FossilsBright-colored feathers may have topped pterosaurs’ heads
Fossil remains of a flying reptile hint that their vibrant crests may have originated 250 million years ago in a common ancestor with dinosaurs.
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FossilsCool Jobs: Bringing paleontology to the people
From museums to movies, these three paleontologists totally rock their connections with the public.
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TechSmartphones can now bring Ice Age animals back to ‘life’
Scientists bring Ice Age creatures to life with augmented reality. You can view these creatures in your own world on a smartphone.
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FossilsOne of the earliest meat-eating mammals was saber-toothed
Millions of years before the evolution of saber-toothed cats, a newly discovered "hypercarnivore" prowled the forests of what is now San Diego.
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AnimalsThe end of the dinosaurs appears to have come in springtime
Fish fossils from North Dakota suggest when the Chicxulub asteroid devastated Earth, triggering the mass extinction of dinosaurs and other species.
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FossilsDinos may have had the sniffles 150 million years ago
A respiratory infection that spread to air sacs in the vertebrae of a sauropod dinosaur likely led to the dino's now-fossilized bone lesions.
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ArchaeologyOur species may have reached Europe while Neandertals were there
Archaeological finds from an ancient French rock-shelter show periodic settlements by both populations, just not at the same time.