Paleontology

How To Determine The Color Of The Ancient Archaeopteryx Wing

Reconstructing ancient life has long required a certain amount of inference and imagination- especially speculative is the coloration of long-extinct organisms. New methods of investigation are being incorporated into paleontology that may shed light (and ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 7 2014 - 8:30am

Not The Loch Ness Monster, But A Jurassic Sea Reptile Has Been Found In Scotland

Dearcmhara shawcrossi, Scottish dino-fish. Todd Marshall By Stephen Brusatte, University of Edinburgh Today my colleagues and I had the great privilege to announce a remarkable new discovery: a dolphin-like reptile that prowled the Middle Jurassic waters ...

Article - The Conversation - Jan 12 2015 - 7:00pm

Dinosaurs In Europe Died Quickly Too

Dinosaurs once flourished in Europe but when an asteroid hit 66 million years ago, they died quickly, according to a new study. That an asteroid killed off the dinosaurs is widely held, but until recently dinosaur fossils from the late Cretaceous, the fin ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 15 2015 - 9:00am

Ancient DNA Extracted From 45,000 Year Old Extinct Giant Roos

Scientists have extracted DNA from mysterious marsupial megafauna that roamed Australia over 40,000 years ago-  Australia's extinct giant kangaroos. The team extracted DNA sequences from two species: a giant short-faced kangaroo (Simosthenurus occiden ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 15 2015 - 10:25am

Nundasuchus Songeaensis: The Scary Predator Crocodile That Preceded Dinosaurs

A new species of dinosaur has turned out not to be a dinosaur at all, it is instead one of the large reptiles that lived before dinosaurs took over the world. But like many dinosaurs, it looked fearsome.  Nundasuchus songeaensis was a 9-foot-long carnivoro ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 20 2015 - 12:57pm

Qijianglong: Long-necked Dragon Roamed China 160 Million Years Ago

Paleontologists have discovered a new species of a long-necked dinosaur.  Qijianglong (pronounced "CHI-jyang-lon") was about 45 feet long and lived about 160 million years ago in the Late Jurassic. The name means "dragon of Qijiang," fo ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 28 2015 - 4:40pm

Want To Help Solve An Ancient Riddle In Paleontology?

The origin of curious ring-like structures that formed half a billion years ago on a seabed in Wisconsin is an ancient unsolved riddle and academics would like you to help them figure it out. It makes sense, since it was citizen scientist paleontologists t ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 19 2015 - 9:00am

Why Early Triassic Swimming Reptile Fossil Tracks Preserved So Well

Fossil "swim tracks," a type of vertebrate trace fossil gaining recognition in the field of paleontology, is  made by various tetrapods (four-footed land-living vertebrates) as they traveled through water under buoyant or semibuoyant conditions. ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 1 2015 - 5:49pm

Earliest Homo Fossil Dates Back To 2.75 Million Years Ago

The earliest known record of the genus Homo dates to between 2.8 and 2.75 million years ago, according to an international team. ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 4 2015 - 4:37pm

Yawunik Kootenayi- Lobster With Two Sets Of Eyes From 500,000,000 B.C.

What do butterflies, spiders and lobsters share in common? Yawunik kootenayi, a marine creature with two pairs of eyes and prominent grasping appendages that lived 250 million years before the first dinosaur. The fossil recently identified is the first new ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 27 2015 - 2:41pm