Fossils
- Animals
Fossils show mammals’ rise to dominance after the dino-killing asteroid
What happened to mammals after an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs? Newfound fossils show how they grew in size, eventually dominating much of life on Earth.
- Fossils
Scientists Say: Paleontology
This is the study of prehistoric life based on fossils of microbes, plants, and animals found in rock.
- Animals
A flexible bone that aids mammals in chewing arose during the Jurassic
A flexible bony structure that helps with chewing may have helped give rise to the Age of Mammals, a new fossil suggests.
- Animals
Ancient crocodiles may have preferred chomping plants, not meat
Fossil teeth of ancient crocodilians suggest that some ate plants and that such green diets evolved in crocs at least three times more than 60 million years ago.
- Earth
Reliving the last day of the dinosaurs
The Chicxulub crater is helping reveal what happened on the day a 12-kilometer-wide asteroid slammed into the Gulf of Mexico, 66 million years ago.
- Animals
This tiny dinosaur is officially T. rex’s cousin
A newly identified dinosaur species fills a gap in the tyrannosaur family tree.
- Animals
Paleontologists find the first fossilized egg inside an ancient bird
For the first time, paleontologists have found an unlaid egg inside an ancient bird fossil. That egg may have caused its mother’s death.
- Fossils
Mini tyrannosaur fills big evolutionary gap
A newfound dinosaur named “omen of doom” fills a gap in tyrannosaur evolution. It helps to narrow when the group sized up.
- Animals
Bones show ancient marine reptile was a big baby
A new study of a rare baby plesiosaur reveals that these marine reptiles were huge at birth, then continued to grow speedily.
- Fossils
This robot shows how an ancient creature might have walked
Scientists used fossils, footprints, a computer models and a life-sized walking robot to find out how an ancient creature moved.
- Animals
These fuzz-covered flying reptiles had catlike whiskers
New fossils are changing the look of ancient flying reptiles called pterosaurs.
- Fossils
A skeleton named ‘Little Foot’ causes big debate
New studies suggest a fossil hominid called Little Foot belongs to the species Australopithecus prometheus. Other scientists question whether such a species exists.
