Paleontology

More Stories in Paleontology

  1. close-up of wings of large banded grasshopper
    Paleontology

    Insects had flashy, noise-making wings as early as 310 million years ago

    The structure of a grasshopper-like insect’s fossilized wing suggests it crackled and reflected light, perhaps to attract mates or warn off predators.

    By Carolyn Gramling
  2. illustration of the head of an ancient insect-eating reptile
    Paleontology

    Fossilized dung from a dinosaur ancestor yields a new beetle species

    Whole beetles preserved in fossilized poo suggest that ancient droppings may deserve a closer look.

    By Nikk Ogasa
  3. family of tyrannosaurs
    Paleontology

    For some dinosaurs, the Arctic may have been a great place to raise a family

    Fossils of baby dinosaur remains found in northern Alaska challenge the idea that some dinosaurs spent only summers in the Arctic.

    By Nikk Ogasa
  4. illustration of a lizard sitting on a branch. shown is its head and neck with sap dripping down around it
    Paleontology

    An ancient creature thought to be a teeny dinosaur turns out to be a lizard

    CT scans of hummingbird-sized specimens trapped in amber reveal that the 99-million-year-old fossils have a number of lizardlike features.

    By Carolyn Gramling
  5. hammerhead shark swimming in the ocean
    Paleontology

    Something mysteriously wiped out about 90 percent of sharks 19 million years ago

    Deep sediments beneath the Pacific Ocean revealed a mystery: a massive shark die-off with no obvious cause.

    By Carolyn Gramling
  6. head of T. rex fossil
    Paleontology

    T. rex’s incredible biting force came from its stiff lower jaw

    T. rex could generate incredibly strong bite forces thanks to a boomerang-shaped bone that stiffened the lower jaw, a new analysis suggests.

    By Sid Perkins
  7. illuistration of a pterosaur with opposable thumbs
    Paleontology

    ‘Monkeydactyl’ may be the oldest known creature with opposable thumbs

    A newly discovered pterosaur that lived during the Jurassic Period could have used its flexible digits to climb trees like a monkey.

    By Maria Temming
  8. tropical rainforest in Colombia
    Paleontology

    The dinosaur-killing asteroid impact radically altered Earth’s tropical forests

    The asteroid impact fundamentally reset the nature of Earth’s tropical rainforests, decreasing diversity at first and making them permanently darker.

    By Carolyn Gramling
  9. reconstruction of an ancient eagle shark
    Paleontology

    An ancient shark’s weird fins helped it glide like a manta ray

    Nicknamed eagle shark, the newly discovered ancient creature achieved underwater flight 30 million years before the first rays.

    By Carolyn Gramling