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Articles on Fossils

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With the evidence uncovered by paleontologists, an artist sketched El Bosque Petrificado Piedra Chamana as it might have looked long before humans. Mariah Slovacek/NPS-GIP

A volcanic eruption 39 million years ago buried a forest in Peru – now the petrified trees are revealing South America’s primeval history

Using remnants of fossilized trees, scientists and an artist figured out what the forest looked like long before humans existed.
Fossils of Shuvuuia deserti depict a small predatory creature with exceptional night vision and hearing. Mick Ellison/American Natural History Museum

Nocturnal dinosaurs: Night vision and superb hearing in a small theropod suggest it was a moonlight predator

By looking at the eye bones and ear canals of extinct dinosaurs, researchers show that a small ancient predator likely hunted at night and had senses as good as a modern barn owl.
Today the shoreline of Lake Malawi is open, not forested the way it was before ancient humans started modifying the landscape. Jessica Thompson

Early humans used fire to permanently change the landscape tens of thousands of years ago in Stone Age Africa

Combining evidence from archaeology, geochronology and paleoenvironmental science, researchers identified how ancient humans by Lake Malawi were the first to substantially modify their environment.
Tyrannosaurus rex spanned all of ancient North America, and about 20,000 lived at once. Roger Harris/Science Photo Library vie Getty Images

How many Tyrannosaurus rex walked the Earth?

Using the incredible wealth of fossil data and a modern ecological theory, researchers estimated population density for the extinct apex predator.
A live reconstruction of Anteosaurus attacking a herbivorous Moschognathus. Artwork by Alex Bernardini @SimplexPaléo

New study reveals the secrets of an ancient, extinct super predator

Because of its skeleton’s heavy architecture, scientists have always assumed that Anteosaurus was a rather sluggish, slow-moving animal, only capable of scavenging or ambushing its prey, at best.

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