Paleontologists have discovered two new species of mammal-like, burrowing animals that lived about 120 million years ago in what is now northeastern China. The new species, described today in the journal Nature, are distantly related but independently evolved traits to...
By closely examining the jaw mechanics of juvenile and adult tyrannosaurids, some of the fiercest dinosaurs to inhabit earth, scientists led by the University of Bristol have uncovered differences in how they bit into their prey.
They found that younger...
Research on a newly discovered bird fossil led by The University of Texas at Austin found that a unique brain shape may be why the ancestors of living birds survived the mass extinction that claimed all other known dinosaurs.
Today,...
Scientists from Mahasarakham University (Thailand) and the University of Bonn have examined the newly discovered caudal vertebrae of a spinosaurid dinosaur that could belong to Siamosaurus suteethorni. The comparison with finds around the world led to the realization that...
Archaeologists from the Universities of Manchester and Cardiff have discovered the origins of Arthur's Stone, one of the UK's most famous Stone Age monuments.
Manchester's Professor Julian Thomas, who led the excavation, says the imposing Herefordshire tomb is linked to...
The first photosynthetic oxygen-producing organisms on Earth were cyanobacteria. Their evolution dramatically changed the Earth allowing oxygen to accumulate into the atmosphere for the first time and further allowing the evolution of oxygen-utilizing organisms including eukaryotes. Eukaryotes include animals,...
Humans and animals have a preferred walking speed. This is, in part, influenced by the amount of energy required: they prefer to walk at the speed at which they use the lowest possible amount of energy. One of the...
An 18.5 million-year-old fossil found in Panama provides evidence of a new species and is the oldest reliable example of a climbing woody vine known as a liana from the soapberry family. The discovery sheds light on the evolution...
A study led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History has resolved a long-standing controversy about an extinct "horned" crocodile that likely lived among humans in Madagascar. Based on ancient DNA, the research shows that the horned...
For more than 150 years, scientists have been incorrectly classifying a group of fossil insects as damselflies, the familiar cousins of dragonflies that flit around wetlands eating mosquitoes. While they are strikingly similar, these fossils have oddly shaped heads,...
An international team of paleontologists has identified a new genus and species of hadrosaur or duck-billed dinosaur, Yamatosaurus izanagii, on one of Japan's southern islands.
The fossilized discovery yields new information about hadrosaur migration, suggesting that the herbivors migrated from...
