Fossils
- Animals
Picture This: Plesiosaurs swam like penguins
A computer model suggests plesiosaurs — ancient marine reptiles — swam like penguins, using front flippers for power and back flippers for steering.
- Earth
Bubbles may have sheltered Earth’s early life
For Earth’s earliest inhabitants, a bubble on the beach would have been the next best thing to a safety blanket.
- Fossils
Predatory dinos were truly big-mouths
Large meat-eating dinosaurs could open their mouths wide to grab big prey. Vegetarians would have had a more limited gape, a new study suggests.
- Microbes
Fossils show sign of ancient vampire microbes
Scientists have found 750-million-year-old fossils of cells with puncture wounds. This appears to offer evidence that vampirelike creatures sucked them dry.
- Fossils
Clues to the Great Dying
Millions of years ago, nearly all life on Earth vanished. Scientists are now starting to figure out what happened.
- Fossils
This prehistoric meat eater preferred surf to turf
For years, paleontologists thought the fierce, sharp-toothed Dimetrodon made a meal of land-based plant eaters. Not anymore. New fossils suggest aquatic animals were its meals of choice.
- Fossils
Fossils: Is this new species a human relative?
Fossils found in an underground cave in South Africa may be from a previously unknown species of the human genus, Homo.
- Fossils
Remains of ancient primate found in Oregon
Scientists have found a few teeth and a fossil jaw of an ancient species of primate. It may be related to modern lemurs or tarsiers.
- Animals
More dinosaur bones yield traces of blood, soft tissue
More dinosaur bones are found to contain residues of blood and soft tissue. The discovery could help point to when dinosaurs turned into warm-blooded creatures.
- Fossils
The real sea monsters
No known dinosaurs lived in the oceans. But there were lots of big aquatic reptiles that were every bit as ferocious and awesome.
- Fossils
New analysis halves massive dino’s weight
No question about it, Dreadnoughtus schrani was enormous. But a new estimate concludes this dino weighed just half as much as first thought.
- Fossils
That’s no dino!
Not all ancient reptiles were dinosaurs. Some soared, many swam the seas and still others looked like dinos—but actually weren’t.
