Reconstruction of the ancient environment at the Highlands trace fossil site about 183 million years ago.
Artwork by Akhil Rampersadh. Heterodontosaurid silhouette is courtesy of Viktor Radermacher.
Populations of plankton are in decline. If we push this critical foundation of the marine food chain to extinction, we could cripple ecosystems for millions of years.
When is bigger better?
Willyam Bradberry/Shutterstock.com
Pedro L. Godoy, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)
Paleontologists created an evolutionary map of how croc body size changed over the last 200 million years – with some interesting implications for today’s species.
A fossil of the giant new trilobite species Redlichia rex.
James Holmes
A series of new studies sheds light on the population crash and extinction of the giant birds, lemurs and more that roamed the island until around A.D. 700-1000.
Dinosaurs had some bad luck, but sooner or later extinction comes for all of us.
rawpixel/Unsplash.com
Death is inevitable for individuals and also for species. With help from the fossil record, paleontologists are piecing together what might make one creature more vulnerable than another.
Tiktaalik: bridging the gap between land and sea.
Zina Deretsky/National Science Foundation
Scientists believe since 2010 we have entered the sixth period of mass extinction. CO2 emissions will change the lives of plants and animals in the next three to four decades.
The Taung child (foreground) was the first of a long series of human ancestors discovered in Africa.
Julien Benoit
Recent research suggests that humankind’s origins lay outside of Africa. This is the nature of science: a paradigm that cannot be questioned on a regular basis becomes a dogma.
Kayentapus ambrokholohali footprints belong to an animal of about 26 feet long, dwarfing all the life around it.
Theropod image adapted by Lara Sciscio, with permission, from an illustration by Scott Hartman