Paleontology

Fossil Of Placoderm A Clue To Possible Origin Of Sex (Though Not Reproduction)

A pregnant fossil fish at the Natural History Museum in London has shed light on the possible origin of sex, according to a study published today in the journal Nature by an international team including Museum scientists. The fossil is an adult placoderm, ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 26 2009 - 6:56pm

380-Million-Year-Old Placoderm Fossil Shows Oldest Evidence Of Live Birth

A 380-million-year-old fossil fish that shows an unborn embryo and umbilical cord has been discovered, write scientists from the Natural History Museum in Nature.  The extremely rare specimen shows incredible detail. The umbilical cord is attached to an ar ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 25 2009 - 10:33pm

Holotomography- 300 Million Year Old Brain Fossil Gets An Image

When Alan Pradel of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris CAT scanned a 300-million-year-old fossilized iniopterygian from Kansas, he and his colleagues saw a symmetrical blob nestled within the braincase. This turned out to be the oldest ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 8 2010 - 6:55pm

"Jaws" Of 4 Million BC- From A Peruvian Desert

Sharks are among the most popular animals featured in television and cinema. And today among sharks, the undisputed king is the great white, a giant predator that can exceed 20 feet in length. Despite the popularity of great whites, relatively little is kn ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 14 2009 - 11:48am

Dinosaur Social Snapshot- Herd Of Dinosaurs Died At The Same Time

A herd of young birdlike dinosaurs met their death on the muddy margins of a lake some 90 million years ago, according to a team of Chinese and American paleontologists that excavated a site in the Gobi Desert in western Inner Mongolia.  The sudden death o ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 16 2009 - 1:53am

Hesperonychus Elizabethae- Mini Cousin Of Velociraptor Roamed North America

Massive predators like Albertosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex may have been at the top of the food chain, but they were not the only meat-eating dinosaurs to roam North America, according to Canadian researchers who have discovered the smallest dinosaur speci ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 16 2009 - 5:33pm

Hurdia Victoria- 500 Million Year-Old Monster Predator, Not A Crustacean

Hurdia victoria was originally described in 1912 as a crustacean-like animal. Now, researchers reveal it to be just one part of a complex and remarkable new animal that has an important story to tell about the origin of the largest group of living animals ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 19 2009 - 1:47pm

Freakish Find Excites Scientists

Scientists from Sweden’s Uppsala University have pieced together a bizarre marine predator who trolled the seas some 505-million years ago. Hurdia, an extinct species of anomalocaridid, had a giant head, protruding hollow spike-shaped head shield and spin ...

Blog Post - Heidi Henderson - Mar 27 2009 - 7:47pm

What Fossilized Food Tells Us About Fish Extinction 65 Million Years Ago

It wouldn't seem logical today that big predators are at the greatest risk for extinction, but they are, and a group of researchers sees a number of similarities between extinctions of 65 million years ago and today. Studies of modern fishes demonstra ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 1 2009 - 4:08pm

African Killer: Carcharodontosaurus Iguidensis

Afraid of  being eaten alive? Most folks are. Lucky for those living in Nigeria today the dinosaurs went extinct some 65 million years ago. Had they lived on, one of the fiercest meat-eating killers on the planet would be wreaking havoc in Africa. Those fr ...

Article - Heidi Henderson - Apr 12 2009 - 9:27am