Paleontology
- Paleontology
That’s no footprint, it’s got no toes
The impressions near Isona, Spain, long thought to be fossilized dinosaur footprints may actually record the feeding behavior of stingrays.
- Paleontology
A Ticklish Debate
Paleontologists engaged in a contentious debate about the origins of feathers often reach interpretations that are poles apart, and they defend their views with fervor.
- Paleontology
Neandertals, humans may have grown apart
A controversial fossil analysis finds that the skulls of Neandertals and humans grew in markedly different ways.
- Paleontology
Study picks new site for dinosaur nostrils
A new analysis of fossils and living animals suggests that most dinosaurs' nostrils occurred at locations toward the tip of their snout rather than farther up on their face, a concept that may change scientists' views of the animals' physiology and behavior.
- Paleontology
For past climate clues, ask a stalag-mite
Mites fossilized in cave formations in the American Southwest show that at times during the past 3,200 years the climate there was much wetter and cooler.
- Paleontology
Two new dinosaurs chiseled from fossil gap
A sleek predator and a pot-bellied giant dinosaur have emerged from North American rocks to fill in a 30-million-year gap in the dinosaur fossil record.
- Paleontology
Sahara yields second-largest dinosaur
Excavations near an Egyptian oasis have unearthed the fossils of an animal that probably ranks as the second-most-massive dinosaur known.
- Paleontology
Fossil footprints could be monumental
Trace fossils found in a vacant lot in a small town in Utah, including the footprints of meat-eating dinosaurs, could soon be protected as part of a new U.S. national monument.
- Paleontology
Beyond Bones
The forensic analysis of trace fossils such as footprints, nests, burrows, and even coprolites—fossilized feces—reveal subtle clues about ancient species, their behavior, and their environment.
- Paleontology
Early Mammal’s Jaw Lost Its Groove
A tiny fossil skull found in 195-million-year-old Chinese sediments provides evidence that crucial features of mammal anatomy evolved more than 45 million years earlier than previously thought.
- Paleontology
The Latest Pisces of an Evolutionary Puzzle
The recent discovery of coelacanths off the northeastern coast of South Africa was the first sighting of the rare fish in that country since the first living coelacanth, a type of fish thought to have been extinct for millions of years, was caught there in late 1938.
- Paleontology
Did fibers and filaments become feathers?
A variety of filamentary structures on the fossil of a small theropod dinosaur recently found in China may provide new insight into the evolution of feathers.
