Thalassotitan teeth.
Nicholas Longrich
Fossils of a giant killer mosasaur have been discovered, alongside the fossilised remains of its prey.
Sotheby’s sold a 77 million-year-old Gorgosaurus skeleton for over $6 million in July 2022.
Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Derided as ‘toys for the rich,’ the specimens being bought and sold raise broader questions about the relationship between science and capitalism.
Steve Bourne, Author provided
The findings will help us better understand how biodiversity responds to a changing climate over time.
An artist’s impression of the Pantolambda bathmodon
H Sharpe
Palaeontologists studied Pantolambda fossils in forensic detail to learn about its lifestyle.
Smile if you love dinosaurs as much as Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus loved being a carnivore.
YuRi Photolife
The African continent is a rich repository for dinosaur fossils, including teeth and track marks.
Artwork in the Djourab desert, Chad, gives a taste of how our oldest ancestors got around.
Sabine Riffaut, Guillaume Daver, Franck Guy / Palevoprim / CNRS – Université de Poitiers / MPFT
August 24, 2022
Jean-Renaud Boisserie , Université de Poitiers ; Andossa Likius , Université de N'Djamena (Tchad) ; Clarisse Nekoulnang Djetounako , Université de N'Djamena (Tchad) ; Franck Guy , Université de Poitiers ; Guillaume Daver , Université de Poitiers ; Laurent Pallas , Kyoto University ; Mackaye Hassane Taisso , Université de N'Djamena (Tchad) , and Patrick Vignaud , Université de Poitiers
New research shows our oldest ancestors were able to walk as well as evolve in trees.
The author looking at fossil specimens from the Geiseltal collection in Germany.
Daniel Falk
Millions of years on. modern frogs and toads still haven’t learnt you can have too much of a good thing.
Ancestors of modern-day Cape fur seals left distinctive fossil traces thanks partly to their flippers.
Stuart on Nature/Stuart on Nature
The fossilised seal traces date back about 75,000 years.
A site in Tsiokane (Lesotho) where diverse tridactyl theropod tracks are preserved.
Author supplied
Fossil footprints are a treasure chest of information.
A rare find — a fossil of Stanleycaris hirpex with the nervous system preserved.
(Jean Bernard Caron/Royal Ontario Museum)
The discovery of a fossil over 500 million years old reveals new information. Its brain and nervous system are remarkably preserved, filling in some gaps in what we know about arthropod evolution.
A great hammerhead shark’s two eyes can be 3 feet apart on opposite sides of its skull.
Ken Kiefer 2/Image Source via Getty Images
The first hammerhead shark was likely the result of a genetic deformity. A biologist explains how shark DNA reveals hammerheads’ history.
Megalodon would have dwarfed today’s great white sharks.
Christina Spence Morgan
Megalodon, the world’s largest known shark species, swam the oceans long before humans existed. Its teeth are all that’s left, and they tell a story of an apex predator that vanished.
Tritylodon, a therapsid, reconstructed as a night dwelling warm blooded animal. Note the steam coming out of its lungs.
Illustrated by Luzia Soares
Warm-bloodedness is the key to what makes mammals what they are today. That’s why working out when it emerged in mammal ancestors matters.
An artist’s vision of Qikiqtania enjoying its fully aquatic, free-swimming lifestyle.
Alex Boersma
The newly discovered species – Qikiqtania – highlights evolution’s twisty, tangled path.
Tomlinsonus inhabited a shallow sea with abundant sea lilies. It probably used its stilt-like legs to move across the seafloor while looking for prey or carcasses.
(ROM/Christian McCall)
Marrellomorphs are one of the rarest arthropod groups in the world. The discovery of a new fossil sheds light on this enigmatic creature.
Reconstruction of Haikouichthys ercaicunensis based on fossil evidence.
Talifero/Wikimedia Commons
A biologist explains how researchers nail down the age of ancient fossils thanks to a physical process called radioactive decay.
Marmorerpeton
Brennan Stokkermans
The discovery shakes up what scientists thought they knew about salamander evolution.
Roaming the ancient seas eons ago, the megalodon shark eviscerated its prey with jaws that were 10 feet wide.
Warpaintcobra/iStock via Getty Images Plus
A terrifying sight in ancient waters, the megalodon shark was once the most feared creature in the sea.
Trilobites similar to those above have been found in 505 million-year-old rocks in New Zealand.
Shutterstock
Australia has them, so why doesn’t New Zealand have national or regional fossil emblems? A campaign to change that kicks off today.
Holberg Inlet, along the north shore of Vancouver Island, is a rich site for Cretaceous flora.
(Az Klymiuk)
How flowering plants evolved has been a mystery, but a new fossil discovery hints at the unknown complexity of ancient plant diversity.