Paleontology

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.

Paleontology

Rocks yield clues to flower origins

A distinctive organic chemical related to substances produced by modern flowering plants has been found in ancient fossil-bearing sediments, possibly helping to identify the ancestral plants that gave rise to flowers.

Paleontology

Fake fossil not one but two new species

A supposed missing link between dinosaurs and birds that was first unveiled in 1999, and revealed to be a forgery soon thereafter, was actually cobbled together from parts of animals from two new species.

Paleontology

Jumbled bones show birds on the menu

A fossilized pellet of partially digested bones of juvenile and baby birds provides the first evidence that birds served as food for predators.

Paleontology

First brachiosaur tooth found in Asia

A fossil tooth found along a dinosaur trackway in South Korea is the first evidence that brachiosaurs roamed Asia.

Paleontology

Dinosaur fossil yields feathery structures

Researchers believe they have found primitive feathers on the remains of Sinornithosaurus millenii, a 124-million-year-old raptor dinosaur from Liaoning, China.

Paleontology

Extinctions Tied to Impact from Space

Evidence trapped in 250-million-year-old sediments may help researchers pin the ultimate blame for the massive extinctions that occurred then on the impact of an extraterrestrial object about 9 kilometers across.

Paleontology

Did ancient superbees squash diversity?

The recent discovery of several dozen extinct bee species in ancient amber deposits has led one paleontologist to propose that the very success of some bees' social lifestyle led to today's dearth of hive-dwelling species.

Paleontology

Genes Seem to Link Unlikely Relatives

Genetic markers on three proteins suggest a common African ancestor for elephants, aardvarks, elephant shrews, golden moles, and other animals.