September 13, 2016
New species of uniquely horned dinosaur identified
The Triceratops family tree just got a little spikier. A decade ago, a retired nuclear physicist uncovered the large skull, legs, hips and …
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Paleo
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252 articles · Page 6 of 11
September 13, 2016
Hammerhead herbivore pioneered vegetarianism in Triassic seas
New fossils found in southern China hint that the earliest herbivorous marine reptiles got off to a bizarre start: Atopodentatus unicus, which …
September 13, 2016
Humans, megafauna coexisted in Patagonia before extinction
During the last ice age, giant mammals roamed the wide-open steppes of what is now Patagonia. Around the time that humans were making their way …
August 17, 2016
The new kid on the block
In 2013, cave explorers discovered a trove of human-like fossils in the Rising Star Cave in South Africa. Since then, more than 1,500 fossils …
August 17, 2016
Hominid vs. hominin
Before genetics came along and revealed just how closely modern humans and chimpanzees are related, humans were classified in their own family, …
August 16, 2016
Redefining Homo: Does our family tree need more branches?
As the sole surviving species of the genus Homo, we Homo sapiens are one of the most taxonomically lonely species living on Earth today. But dig …
August 16, 2016
Scaling up: Mega-dino babies were mini adults
Even the largest dinosaurs to walk the planet had to start out small, hatching out of eggs, but whether these were miniature versions of adults …
August 16, 2016
Ancient dinosaur migrations analyzed
Many studies have sought to track the movements of dinosaurs as they migrated across the supercontinent Pangea before and during its breakup. …
August 15, 2016
New dating of 'hobbit' sheds light on when it lived
Since 2004, when scientists first announced the discovery of fossil remains of a new species of hominin from Indonesia — dubbed Homo floresiensis …
July 20, 2016
Seeds may have saved bird-like dinosaurs from extinction
About 66 million years ago, nearly three-quarters of life on Earth, including all species of nonavian dinosaurs, were wiped out. However, a few …
July 20, 2016
Teeth hold clues to human success, Neanderthal decline
During the Upper Paleolithic, modern humans and Neanderthals coexisted until about 40,000 years ago, when Neanderthals went extinct for unknown …
July 14, 2016
Tully monster mystery solved
In 1958, an amateur fossil collector named Francis Tully found a strange fossil in a quarry near Morris, Ill., southwest of Chicago. Thousands …
June 24, 2016
Saving Mongolian wildlife, 80 million years after extinction
In the time of_ Velociraptor_, 80 million years ago, southern Mongolia looked surprisingly like the Gobi Desert that exists there today. Animals …
June 16, 2016
Cretaceous amber suggests societal behavior in insects is at least 100 million years old
Many insects are social animals. Some, including ants, form colonies with complex social hierarchies, wherein specific roles like reproduction …
June 16, 2016
Could early Homo pass the sniff test?
Like modern humans, early hominins walked upright and had opposable thumbs, but their faces were more ape-like, with flattened noses and …
June 15, 2016
Giant armadillo look-alikes really were giant armadillos
Due to coincidences of evolution, extinct creatures sometimes resemble living animals, even if they’re not actually related. But in a new study …
June 15, 2016
Fossil dinosaur illuminates evolution of tyrannosauroid body sizes
Tyrannosauroid dinosaurs were the dominant predators of the terrestrial ecosystems in which they roamed for much of the Late Cretaceous, from …
June 15, 2016
Statistics shine light on T. rex family tree
Tyrannosaurus rex is one of the most recognizable dinosaurs, but the tyrannosauroid family tree is also occupied by many lesser-known cousins — …
June 8, 2016
New fossils illuminate 'hobbit' evolutionary history
Scientists first discovered fossils of Homo floresiensis — a species of extinct 1-meter-tall hominins nicknamed “hobbits” — in Liang Bua cave on …
May 19, 2016
Ancient Indonesian tools made by mysterious inhabitants
The island of Sulawesi is one link in a chain of islands between mainland Asia and Australia, and was likely an important stepping stone in human …
May 13, 2016
Underwater archaeology reveals pre-Clovis people butchered mastodon in Florida
Following the discovery of stone tool artifacts uncovered near Clovis, N.M., in 1932, archaeologists have thought that the people who made the …
May 10, 2016
Burgess Shale fossil find offers glimpse of early parenting
Parenting behaviors of many modern animals are well known. Marsupials, like kangaroos, keep their young in pouches, and brown bear mothers are …
April 22, 2016
Benchmarks: May 12, 1905: Andrew Carnegie donates 'Dippy the Dino'
As one of the world’s wealthiest philanthropists, Andrew Carnegie had come to expect that people would praise and honor him, but May 12, 1905, …
April 21, 2016
Travels in Geology: Discovering Denver's dinosaurs
Since 1877, when Arthur Lakes, a professor at the Colorado School of Mines, spotted an enormous vertebra embedded in a block of sandstone on a …