Fossils
Let’s learn about dinosaur extinction
Dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous. What made them go extinct?
Fossils
More Stories in Fossils
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AnimalsBlood vessels in their heads kept big dinos from overheating
Giant dinosaurs evolved several ways to cool their blood and avoid heatstroke.
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FossilsFossils show mammals’ rise to dominance after the dino-killing asteroid
What happened to mammals after an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs? Newfound fossils show how they grew in size, eventually dominating much of life on Earth.
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FossilsScientists Say: Paleontology
This is the study of prehistoric life based on fossils of microbes, plants, and animals found in rock.
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FossilsA flexible bone that aids mammals in chewing arose during the Jurassic
A flexible bony structure that helps with chewing may have helped give rise to the Age of Mammals, a new fossil suggests.
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AnimalsAncient crocodiles may have preferred chomping plants, not meat
Fossil teeth of ancient crocodilians suggest that some ate plants and that such green diets evolved in crocs at least three times more than 60 million years ago.
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EarthReliving the last day of the dinosaurs
The Chicxulub crater is helping reveal what happened on the day a 12-kilometer-wide asteroid slammed into the Gulf of Mexico, 66 million years ago.
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FossilsThis tiny dinosaur is officially T. rex’s cousin
A newly identified dinosaur species fills a gap in the tyrannosaur family tree.
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FossilsPaleontologists find the first fossilized egg inside an ancient bird
For the first time, paleontologists have found an unlaid egg inside an ancient bird fossil. That egg may have caused its mother’s death.
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FossilsMini tyrannosaur fills big evolutionary gap
A newfound dinosaur named “omen of doom” fills a gap in tyrannosaur evolution. It helps to narrow when the group sized up.