We humans use the euphemism for sex that “we like to get a leg over” but the first jawed vertebrates – the placoderms – they liked to get a leg in. They were the first back-boned creatures to evolve male…
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Articles on Fossils
Displaying 341 - 360 of 386 articles
Chinese researchers have announced the rare discovery of fossilised pterosaur eggs. Xiaolin Wang from the Chinese Academy…
Collecting fossils helps raise interest in palaeontology and the natural history of Australia, and many important fossil discoveries have been made by members of the public collecting unusual specimens…
In a recent paper in Nature, we described a strange marine animal, called Tamisiocaris. They were giants that swam in the oceans over 500 million years ago. They had strange looking appendages on their…
Researchers in Sweden have unearthed a 180 million year old fossilised fern in near pristine condition. The fossil, found…
Life as we know it is carbon-based, that is, organic. These organic molecules containing mostly carbon and hydrogen are delicate to the ravages of time, relatively speaking. They aren’t usually preserved…
The impact of European settlement on Australia was so massive that many mammals disappeared before anyone noticed they were there, but fossils from the past 10,000 years offer excellent evidence of pre-European…
Fossils can tell us lots about animals – their size, age or sex, which is mostly physical characteristics. Evidence about how they may have behaved is rare. But the 240m-year-old fossil dung that I found…
Analyses of the deepwater, or mesophotic, reefs of the Great Barrier Reef has shown how the reef responds to global sea level…
The fossil record of early humans is punctuated by gaps, voids in our understanding of all the transitions from the common ancestor of humans and other apes to modern day Homo sapiens. While working in…
Accurate copies of fossilised bones can now be made from the combined use of computed tomography (CT) scans and 3D printers, according to a paper published today in the journal Radiology. The technique…
A new study by Rebecca Pian, Mike Archer and Sue Hand, published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, describes the tooth of a new, giant species of extinct platypus. The fossil history of…
Bees went though a mass extinction, along with the dinosaurs and species of flowering plants, 65 million years ago. It’s…
Newly-discovered fossilised pollen grains found in Swizerland have set the evolution of flowers to 100 million years earlier…
A spectacular new “missing link” fossil has been unearthed in China. The 419 million year old armoured fish, called Entelognathus, meaning “complete jaw” solves an age-old debate in science. For palaeontologists…
The sudden appearance of a range of modern animals about half a billion years ago, during evolution’s “big bang”, has intrigued and puzzled generations of biologists from Charles Darwin onwards. A new…
The storage of ancient DNA in amber fossils, famously brought to life in the film Jurassic Park, now appears highly unlikely…
On the same day that the latest instalment of the Jurassic Park film series has been confirmed, a study published in the journal PLOS One has detailed experiments that seem to demonstrate once and for…
Fossilised soft tissues, such as skin and muscle, are exceptionally hard to come by. When you think the chances of an animal being fossilised is less than one in a million - and these usually have only…
The fossilised teeth of kangaroos and other extinct marsupials reveal southeastern Queensland three million years ago was a mosaic of tropical forests, wetlands and grasslands, and much less arid than…
Top contributors
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Senior Researcher in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand
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Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University
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Strategic Professor in Palaeontology, Flinders University
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Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of Bristol
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Professor in Evolutionary Biology (jointly appointed with South Australian Museum), Flinders University
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Associate Professor, Vertebrate Palaeontology Group, Flinders University
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Senior Lecturer in Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences at the University of Bath, University of Bath
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Professor, Southern Cross University
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Research Assistant in Palaeontology, University of Bristol
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Research associate, Curtin University
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Professor, Flinders University
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Lecturer, University of Cape Town
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Honorary Research Associate, Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand
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Lecturer in Palaeontology, Flinders University
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Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney
