The mysterious Denisovans left DNA traces in populations across Southeast Asia and Australasia, but until now no physical signs of their presence outside Eurasia had been found.
Two newly discovered species of quokka-sized kangaroos, which lived 18 million years ago in the Queensland rainforest, show evolution in the act of giving kangaroos a taste for leaves.
The little dinosaur is curled up inside its shell the same way birds do before hatching, shedding new light on the link between the behaviour of dinosaurs and modern birds.
A new study finds more than one early human species lived on the landscape in Northern Tanzania 3.66 million years ago. But there are reasons to be cautious about the findings.
Most modern animals have their roots half a billion years ago in the Cambrian Explosion, but one group was curiously missing from the fossil record - until now.
The complex social behaviour in early dinosaurs observed in a new study lines up with other fossil evidence that dinosaurs were more bird-like than crocodilian-like.
Archaehierax sylvestris, whose remains have been unearthed in the arid South Australian outback, was the apex predator in a lush prehistoric forest filled with marsupials and waterfowl.
Finding a fossil tooth embedded in bone is always great news for palaeontologists, as it is the gateway to some otherwise out-of-reach understanding of the behaviour of extinct animals.
Our research has also uncovered major long-term changes in ancient animal populations at Denisova Cave, and has provided the first direct evidence of Homo sapiens having lived there.
A spectacular series of fossilised footprints from sauropod dinosaurs and other ancient animals opens a window onto life in northeast Australia 95 million years ago.
This is a crucial dinosaur for palaeontologists; the variety of fossils available means researchers can study the species’ growth through its whole life span.
Tilly Edinger was the first person to apply a deep-time perspective into different species’ brain evolution. She did this by focusing on the hollow space within a dead animal’s skull.