Tyrannosaurus rex scavenged on Edmontosaurus annectens carcasses in the Late Cretaceous, according to a study published in PLoS ONE. Researchers from Loma Linda University identified specific tooth traces on 12 out of 3,013 fossilized bones from a Wyoming bonebed, concluding the lack of bone healing indicates scavenging rather than active predation. Precision Mapping of T-Rex … Read more
Paleontologists have identified a new fossil jaw from southern Brazil that clarifies the evolutionary position of Cargninia enigmatica, a 225-million-year-old reptile. According to a study published in The Anatomical Record by Dr. Lísie Vitória Soares Damke and colleagues, the specimen confirms that this tiny creature was a non-lepidosaur lepidosauromorph, representing a branch that diverged before … Read more
A fossilized tail vertebra collected in Antarctica in 1985 has been identified as a titanosaurian sauropod, marking the first dinosaur bone ever recovered from the continent. Researchers confirmed in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica that the specimen, cataloged as BAS D.8621.25, dates back 83 million years to the Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous. How was the … Read more
The discovery of Changzhousaurus sinensis, a four-winged dinosaur unearthed in China’s Jiufotang Formation, provides new evidence that the transition from earthbound theropods to birds involved complex, overlapping evolutionary traits. According to Dr. Xing Xu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, this 120-million-year-old specimen measures 34 cm in length and exhibits a unique combination of flight-related … Read more
Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of duck-billed dinosaur, Kryptohadros kallaiae, discovered in the Hațeg Basin of Romania. This herbivorous hadrosauroid lived approximately 70 million years ago during the Maastrichtian age. According to research published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, the discovery helps define the Telmatosauridae, an endemic evolutionary lineage that thrived … Read more
Paleontologists have identified a new species of meiolaniform turtle, Patagoniaemys aeschyli, which inhabited northern Patagonia during the Maastrichtian age, approximately 72 to 67 million years ago. According to research published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, this discovery provides critical evidence that certain turtle lineages in South America survived the asteroid-triggered mass extinction event that … Read more
The Missing Piece: How Ancient Bryozoans Are Rewriting the History of Life For decades, paleontologists have wrestled with a glaring hole in the story of evolution. During the “Cambrian Explosion”—a burst of biological innovation roughly 530 million years ago—nearly every major animal group burst onto the scene. Yet, one group remained conspicuously absent: the bryozoans. … Read more
The Rise and Fall of Nature’s Original Apex Predators Long before dogs, cats, and bears dominated the food chain, a group of terrifying, hyper-specialized mammalian predators ruled the Earth: the hyaenodonts. Recent paleontological discoveries in the Siwalik hills of Pakistan have shed new light on these forgotten beasts, revealing how they once roamed vast territories … Read more
The “Witch Croc”: Redefining Triassic Diversity For decades, the image of a crocodile relative has been fixed in our minds: a low-slung, four-legged predator with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. But the discovery of Labrujasuchus expectatus—the “expected witch croc”—is shattering those prehistoric stereotypes. Unearthed in the fossil-rich Hayden Quarry of New Mexico, this bipedal, toothless … Read more
A Rare Discovery: Unlocking the Secrets of Canada’s Ancient Pacific Coast For decades, the fossil record of North America’s ancient Pacific coastline has remained largely a mystery, overshadowed by the massive dinosaur graveyards of the interior. However, a groundbreaking discovery on British Columbia’s Denman Island is changing the narrative. Paleontologists have identified a tail vertebra … Read more