Paleontology

What's In A Dinosaur's Stomach?

Analysis of the abdominal contents of two dinosaur fossil specimens reveals new information about their hunting and eating behavior, according to a new report.  They may have been stealth hunters. ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 29 2012 - 5:43pm

Citizen Scientist Finds World’s Smallest Fossil Footprints In Nova Scotia

A set of fossil footprints in Joggins, Nova Scotia have been identified as the world’s smallest- among vertebrates to-date, anyway. The footprints were found at Joggins Fossil Cliffs. A fossil specimen of the ichnogenus Batrachichnus salamandroides was col ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 11 2012 - 5:12pm

Duck Bills For The Herbivore Win, Even 85 Million Years Ago

Duck-billed dinosaurs, also known as hadrosaurids, had an amazing capacity to chew tough and abrasive plants with grinding teeth more complex than those of cows, horses, and other modern grazers.  ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 4 2012 - 4:54pm

Eternal Terror: 100 Million-Year-Old Spider Fossilized In Amber While Attacking A Wasp

Researchers have found what they say is the only fossil ever discovered of a spider attacking prey caught in its web – and it dates back 100 million years.  ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 10 2012 - 8:34am

Bones Of Contention: Dinosaur Cells Survived Millions Of Years Trapped In Bone

Twenty years ago Mary Schweitzer found herself the closest that anyone has ever been to a living dinosaur. As she examined a thin slice of a T. Rex bone fragment under a microscope, she realized she was looking at what appeared to be preserved red blood ce ...

Article - Eve Hardy - Oct 24 2012 - 6:17am

Reidus Hilli: New 100 Million-Year-Old Fish Species Discovered In Texas

The coelacanth has one of the longest lineages, 400 million years, of any animal and is the closest living fish to all vertebrates alive on land. Now it has a new member. Pieces of tiny fossil skull found in Fort Worth have been identified as 100 million-y ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 24 2012 - 5:13pm

1,800 Jurassic Turtle Remains Discovered In China

A spectacular find of some 1,800 fossilized mesa chelonia turtles from the Jurassic era has been uncovered in China’s northwest province of Xinjiang. Today one of the world’s driest regions, 160 million years ago Xinjiang was a green place of lakes and riv ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 29 2012 - 5:09pm

Cope's Rule And The Dinosaur Test

Small critters tend to evolve into bigger beasts, according to paleontologist Edward Cope, what is now known as Cope's Rule. Using statistical modeling methods, a new test of this rule as it applies dinosaurs says that Cope was right-- sometimes.  Whi ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 2 2012 - 5:34pm

Lazarus Effect: “Grave Robber” Fossil No Longer A Paleontological Enigma

An international team of researchers has resolved the evolutionary relationships of Necrolestes patagonensis,   the so-called “grave robber” because of its burrowing and underground lifestyle. This much-debated fossil mammal from South America has been a ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 19 2012 - 2:38pm

Pygmarrhopalites Maestrazgoensis And More New Arthropod Species Found In Spanish Caves

Three new collembolan species have been discovered in the Maestrazgo caves in Teruel, Spain. Their description has been published in the Zootaxa journal and belong to one of the most ancient animal species on the planet.  The Maestrazgo caves in Teruel ar ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 27 2012 - 12:30pm