paleontology

Matching dinosaur prints were found an ocean apart in Africa and South America

11:25am August 28, 2024

A group of scientists say in new research that matching dinosaur tracks found in modern-day Brazil and Cameroon were made 120 million years ago in an area that once connected the two continents.

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When did humans get to South America? This giant shelled mammal fossil may hold clues

5:00am July 23, 2024

by Ari Daniel

A fossil of an armadillo-like mammal appears to bear cut marks from butchering by humans, suggesting people were living in South America at least 20,000 years ago, even earlier than once thought.

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In Lebanon, the 'Amber Man' digs up golden time capsules from the age of the dinosaurs

6:00am June 28, 2024

by Ari Daniel

When dinosaurs reigned some 130 million years ago, flowering plants were taking over the world. That change is sealed in ancient amber specimens on the slopes of Lebanon that Danny Azar knows so well.

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This illustration depicts a washed-up Ichthyotitan severnensis carcass on the beach.

Science

Largest-ever marine reptile found with help from an 11-year-old girl

5:00am May 06, 2024

by Ari Daniel

A father and daughter discovered fossil remnants of a giant ichthyosaur that scientists say may have been the largest-known marine reptile to ever swim the seas.

Dinocephalosaurus orientalis swimming alongside prehistoric fish known as Saurichthys.

Science

Paleontologists discover a 240-million-year-old 'dragon' fossil in full

1:27pm February 23, 2024

by Diba Mohtasham

Dinocephalosaurus orientalis's snake-like body was 16 feet long and lived in Triassic China. The newly revealed specimen allows scientists to depict the creature in full for the first time.

Phillip Stearnes holds a fossilized Megalodon shark tooth. 2

Science

That giant extinct shark, Megalodon? Maybe it wasn't so mega

8:58am January 26, 2024

by Ari Daniel

The ancient extinct shark that starred in the film The Meg is thought to be the largest shark that ever swam the Earth. But there's debate over what it really looked like.

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Scientists have identified a fossil of an herbivorous dinosaur, Psittacosaurus, being bitten by a mammal, Repenomamus.

Science

This fossil of a mammal biting a dinosaur captures a death battle's final moments

7:27pm July 18, 2023

by Ari Daniel

A 125-million-year-old fossil from the early Cretaceous shows the skeletons of a smaller mammal biting a larger horned dinosaur, suggesting a much more complex ancient food web.

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A photo of the the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite in Moab, Utah. A construction project at the site recently damaged some of the tracks and trace fossils.

A construction project caused damage to 100-million-year-old dinosaur tracks in Utah

3:24pm April 04, 2022

by Joe Hernandez

A project to replace the boardwalk at the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite in Moah, Utah, cause minor damage to tracks and trace fossils at the site, a Bureau of Land Management paleontologist found.

Fossilized human footprints shown at the White Sands National Park in New Mexico. According to a report published in the journal Science, the impressions indicate that early humans were walking across North America around 23,000 years ago.

Science

Ancient Footprints Suggest Humans Lived In The Americas Earlier Than Once Thought

4:07pm September 24, 2021

by Scott Neuman

A team of scientists dated the footprints along an extinct lake bed in New Mexico and found them to be between 21,000 and 23,000 years old — far older than reliable evidence has suggested to date.

A reconstructed Neanderthal skeleton (right) and a modern-human version of a skeleton are displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 2003. A new study confirms that early humans who lived in colder places adapted to have larger bod

Science

Colder Climates Meant Bigger Bodies For Ancient Humans

6:25pm July 08, 2021

by Rebecca Hersher

Human ancestors got steadily larger over the last 1 million years. Our relatives living in colder places developed bigger bodies, a new study finds.