The site at Ngandong held the remains of the last known members of the ancient human species Homo erectus.
Our extinct, distant cousins still lived in Indonesia 110,000 years ago.
The newly discovered Kupoupou stilwelli would have once swam in the waters around Chatham Island near New Zealand.
Illustration by Jacob Blokland
This newly discovered species is the oldest one known to resemble today’s penguins in both size and leg proportions, unlike its giant co-habitants at the time.
Danuvius guggenmosi fossil.
Christoph Jäckle
Newly discovered extinct ape Danuvius has some human-like features, but that doesn’t mean it could walk like us.
A Neanderthal skull shows head trauma, evidence of ancient violence.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
300,000 years ago, there were lots of different species of human. Now it’s only us – and we’re probably the reason why.
Artist’s impression of Tullimonstrum .
PaleoEquii/Wikipedia
Scientists claimed they knew what this bizarre creature was – our evidence suggests the question is still open.
Ferrodraco lentoni , Australia’s newest prehistoric species.
Travis R. Tischler
A ‘game-changing’ fossil pterosaur suggests these species could easily fly between continents, helping to explain why similar specimens have been found all over the world.
Ton Bangkeaw/Shutterstock
Every cloud has a silver lining – even the debris cloud from an asteroid impact
Zhenzhen Deng
Remains of a 365m-year-old forest of extinct lycopsid trees has been found in China.
Therizinosaurs and their fossilised eggs.
Mark Witton/Kohei Tanaka
New research suggests some dinosaurs buried and protected eggs in groups.
Centrosaurus
Linda Bucklin/Shutterstock
Fossils contain a thriving world of bacteria, proteins and perhaps even organic matter from dinosaurs.
Was velociraptor a feathered friend? Here’s one artist’s impression.
Shutterstock
When the first Jurassic Park film came out, we didn’t know which dinosaurs had feathers. But a few years later, a very important discovery was made that changed our thinking on how dinosaurs looked.
Mark Ryan/Mary Parrish/Jay Matternes/Smithsonian Institution
Local tetrapod biodiversity exploded after the dinosaurs, but has barely changed in 60m years.
The dinosaur Ledumahadi mafube - reconstructed in this illustration - made headlines in 2018.
Viktor Radermacher
Five major finds this year adds to our understanding of evolution and ancient life history.
Mary Anning painting.
Fossil hunter Mary Anning didn’t get the recognition she deserved during her lifetime. Now her home town wants to raise a statue in her honour.
Zhao Chuang and PNSO
A new type of Archaeopteryx fossil helps build the case for this creature being called ‘the first bird’.
The fossil of a Mesosaurus tenuidens, which provided important clues about tectonic shifts.
Courtesy of Philippe Loubry - CNRS/MNHN
Ancient indigenous people often collected fossil shells, teeth and bones that have provided critical clues about human origins.
Only you can prevent hothouse earths.
Flickr
What can we expect from our future climate after looking at the ‘Hothouse Earths’ of the past?
We’re gonna need an even bigger boat.
Shutterstock
Megalodons are the latest Hollywood monster to leap out of the fossil record, but what else is lurking in prehistoric seas?
Impression of Megachirella wachtleri walking through the vegetation about 240 million years ago in what is now the Dolomites region of Italy.
Davide Bonadonna
A new study of an ancient fossil has found it to be the earliest lizard known, so far. It shows they survived one the greatest mass extinctions on Earth.
Phillip M Krzeminski
New research shows that ground-dwelling birds were more likely to survive the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period.