Paleontology
- Paleontology
Turn Your Head and Roar
The analysis of fossils that preserve evidence of diseases that appear to be similar or identical to afflictions that strike modern animals, including humans, could help scientists better grasp the causes and courses of today's ailments.
- Paleontology
New fossils threaten an extinction theory
Recent discoveries of long-dead marine invertebrates call into question the occurrence of a catastrophic global extinction during the Late Devonian period, between 385 and 375 million years ago.
- Paleontology
Fossils Indicate. . .Wow, What a Croc!
Newly discovered fossils of an ancient cousin of modern crocodiles suggest that adults of the species may have been dinosaur-munching behemoths that grew to the length of a school bus and weighed as much as 8 metric tons.
- Paleontology
Even flossing wouldn’t have helped
Small particles trapped in minuscule cracks or pits in the teeth of plant-eating dinosaurs could give scientists a way to identify the types of greenery the ancient herbivores were munching.
- Paleontology
CT scan unscrambles rare, ancient egg
A tangled heap of bones and bone fragments in the bottom of an unhatched elephant bird egg may soon be reassembled into a model of the long-dead embryo, thanks to high technology—and scientists won't even have to crack open the egg to do it.
- Paleontology
How did Triceratops grow its horns?
Newly discovered fossil skulls of juvenile Triceratops may help reveal how the dinosaurs grew their three trademark horns.
- Paleontology
Fossils found under tons of Kitty Litter
Excavations at North America's largest Kitter Litter mine have yielded fossils of ancient aquatic reptiles, as well as evidence of a tsunami generated by the extraterrestrial impact that killed off the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago.
- Paleontology
Lemurs reveal clues to ancient Asian roots
A diminutive lemur species inhabited what is now central Pakistan about 30 million years ago, a new fossil find suggests.
- Paleontology
Large shadows fell on Cretaceous landscape
Paleontologists have unearthed the remains of what they believe could be the largest flying creature yet discovered—a 12-meter-wingspan pterosaur.
- Paleontology
New Fossils Resolve Whale’s Origin
The first discovery of early whale fossils with key ankle bones intact provides compelling paleontological evidence that whales are closely related to many living ungulates, a relationship already supported by molecular data.
- Paleontology
New fossil sheds light on dinosaurs’ diet
Vestiges of soft tissue preserved in a 70-million-year-old Mongolian fossil suggest that some dinosaurs could have strained small bits of food from the water and mud of streams and ponds, just like some modern aquatic birds do.
- Paleontology
Completing a titan by getting a head
When paleontologists unearthed the skeleton of a 70-million-year-old titanosaur in Madagascar in the late 1990s, they also recovered something that had been missing from previous such finds: a skull that matched the body.
