Fossils

Animals

How the house mouse found its home

Once people started settling down 15,000 years ago, a mouse species followed them indoors. The animals didn’t need people to be farming and storing food.

Fossils

This hominid may have shared Earth with humans

Newfound fossils in South Africa point to a far more recent age for Homo naledi than had been accepted. If correct, this hominid might have coexisted with humans — even interacted with our species.

Fossils

Scientists are rethinking the dinosaur family tree

The dinosaur family tree consists of three main branches. Or maybe not. A new study suggests a rewrite is due.

Fossils

Fossils offer new candidate for earliest life

Rock unearthed in Canada appears to hold fossils from seafloor microbes that would have lived around 4 billion years ago, when Earth was very young.

Science & Society

Fossils point to Neandertal diets — and medicine use

Whether Neandertals were largely meat-eaters or vegans depended on their environment, fossils now suggest. Their teeth also indicate they used natural medicines.

Fossils

What killed the dinosaurs?

New evidence is emerging that a devastating combo of events — an asteroid impact and supervolcanoes — may be behind the dinosaurs’ demise.

Fossils

Dinosaur tail preserved in amber — feathers and all

Scientists have found the tail of a dinosaur trapped in amber. It includes both feathers and identifiable bits of bone.

Fossils

Speckled dino spurs debate about ancient animals’ colors

Structures found in fossil dinosaur skin may give clues to the creatures’ colors and how they lived. But not all scientists agree on how to interpret what they see.

Fossils

Dino brain found ‘pickled’ in boggy swamp

Scientists claim to have identified the first fossil brain tissue from a dinosaur.

Fossils

Mini pterosaur from the age of flying giants

Not all pterosaurs flying the Cretaceous skies had a wingspan as wide as a school bus is long. Some, new fossils show, were smaller than modern eagles.

Fossils

These may be the oldest fossils on Earth

Some mini mounds in Greenland may just be the earliest evidence of life on Earth, deposited a mere 800,000 years after our planet first formed.

Fossils

Parasites wormed their way into dino’s gut

Tiny burrows crisscross the stomach of a 77-million-year-old dinosaur fossil. These may be tracks left behind by slimy parasitic worms.