An international team of researchers has uncovered a 324-million-year-old fossil species in Texas, named Chosha praecursor, that bridges the evolutionary gap between aquatic and terrestrial life by displaying both walking legs and swimming lobes. According to the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the discovery provides direct fossil evidence … Read more
Using lasers, computer models, and machine learning, researchers have reconstructed the 165-million-year-old calls of Jurassic insects from fossilized wing fragments unearthed in China, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings reveal that an extinct bush-cricket species called at frequencies beyond human hearing, proving that ultrasonic communication … Read more
Researchers have discovered the earliest known cephalopod fossil in southern Shaanxi Province, pushing the origin of the predatory mollusc back roughly 30 million years to the early Cambrian period about 520 million years ago, according to a study published in Nature. Unearthing the Earliest Cephalopod Fossil in Shaanxi A research team led by Guo Junfeng … Read more
Paleontologists have identified a new species of neosauropod, Ceratocaudia antiqua, from the Middle Jurassic rocks of India’s Kachchh Basin. This discovery, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, provides evidence that this dinosaur lineage achieved a global distribution significantly earlier than previously established, potentially dating back 190 million years. Rewriting the Evolutionary Timeline of Neosauropods … Read more
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