Paleontology

It's not disputed that long necked sauropod dinosaurs were the largest land animals ever to walk the Earth, but why they got so large is a debate. Was it the nature of the food they ate?  While…

Researchers have discovered what may be the earliest dinosaur, Nyasasaurus parringtoni, a creature the size of a Labrador retriever, but with a five foot-long tai. It walked the Earth about 10…

I like to think of palaeontology as a historical science. We use science as a tool to speculate and test ideas about the history of life on Earth. The alternative is mythology, where we create ideas…

Three new collembolan species have been discovered in the Maestrazgo caves in Teruel, Spain. Their description has been published in the Zootaxa journal and belong to one of the most ancient animal…

An international team of researchers has resolved the evolutionary relationships of Necrolestes patagonensis, the so-called “grave robber” because of its burrowing and underground lifestyle.…

Small critters tend to evolve into bigger beasts, according to paleontologist Edward Cope, what is now known as Cope's Rule. Using statistical modeling methods, a new test of this rule as it applies…

A spectacular find of some 1,800 fossilized mesa chelonia turtles from the Jurassic era has been uncovered in China’s northwest province of Xinjiang. Today one of the world’s driest regions, 160…

The coelacanth has one of the longest lineages, 400 million years, of any animal and is the closest living fish to all vertebrates alive on land. Now it has a new member. Pieces of tiny fossil skull…

Twenty years ago Mary Schweitzer found herself the closest that anyone has ever been to a living dinosaur. As she examined a thin slice of a T. Rex bone fragment under a microscope, she realized she…

Researchers have found what they say is the only fossil ever discovered of a spider attacking prey caught in its web – and it dates back 100 million years.  The extraordinarily rare fossils are…