When paleontologists only have so many clues to infer a fossil’s original form, it’s all too easy to make honest mistakes. Sometimes, supposedly reasonable assumptions set researchers on the wrong path—as demonstrated by a “rediscovered” creature sporting an unlikely mix of reptilian features. A Nature paper published today introduced to the world Breugnathair elgolensis, a […]
Prehistoric Skull Found Fused to Cave Wall May Have Belonged to Mysterious Ancient Hominid
In 1960, a villager found something terrifyingly creepy in Greece’s Petralona cave—a humanoid cranium with a protrusion on its forehead, fused to the cave wall. Since then, researchers have been trying to date the strange specimen and understand how it got there, but these efforts so far have yielded only a frustratingly broad age range […]
This Ancient Roman Artifact Is Also a 453 Million-Year-Old Fossil
Despite how Ross’ paleontology career is treated by his companions in Friends, there’s something special about finding the remains of creatures that lived millions if not billions of years before us. In fact, humanity’s interest in paleontology isn’t a modern development. Ancient Romans were just as fascinated by fossils. According to the ancient Roman historian […]
An Even Scarier Predator Hunted Giant ‘Terror Birds’ in South America
Sometime between 16 and 11.6 million years ago, a young caiman came upon a tasty snack in modern-day South America. The meal, however, turned out to be rather ambitious, because the croc hadn’t come upon just any old prey. It was a phorusrhacid, a large carnivore in its own right, aptly known as a “terror […]
Adorable Triassic Reptile Used its Freaky Back Fin to Communicate
Technological advancements have brought us many things. For paleontologists, it’s introduced the ability to probe softer material—skin, feathers, scales, and hair—found on fossilized creatures. And that’s resulting in some strange new findings about long-extinct animals, showing us that they’re even weirder than we imagined. A paper published today in Nature offers a re-analysis of a […]
Sprinting Crocs With ‘Legs Like Greyhounds’ Once Ruled the Caribbean
Over the past three decades, paleontologists have been uncovering sharp, serrated, prehistoric teeth on Caribbean islands. The strange part? According to scientists, the owners of such teeth—large land predators—were never supposed to exist there. But an international team of researchers has found that millions of years ago, a freakishly tall crocodile-like land predator called a […]
The Oldest Known Ant Specimen Held Its Prey With Weird Mandibles, Researchers Claim
When you think of predators, you likely imagine big animals with sharp claws or teeth, like tigers or sharks. Over 100 million years ago, however, a tiny yet freakishly fearsome predator impaled its prey with scythe-like jaws. While investigating a large collection of fossil insects at the Museum of Zoology at the University of São […]
Dinosaurs Weren’t Fading Before the Asteroid—We Just Suck at Finding Their Fossils
Diversity is central to one of the biggest questions paleontologists have about dinosaurs. Namely, were these ancient creatures already on the decline when that fateful asteroid came crashing out of the sky? A group of Earth scientists believes they probably were not. While it’s true that fossils from the final dinosaur era are comparatively rare […]
Giant, Ancient Life Form Doesn’t Fit Into Any Known Branch of Life
Hundreds of millions of years ago, mysterious life forms called Prototaxites towered toward the sky. Believed to be the first giant organisms to thrive on dry land, some species of Prototaxites grew up to 26 feet (8 meters) in height and resembled tree trunks composed of tiny interconnected tubes. Their position in the greater tree […]
Paleontologists Claim to Have Discovered Terrifying New Dinosaur Species in Pre-WWII Photographs
Paleontologists might have discovered a new dinosaur species—even though its fossil doesn’t exist anymore. Researchers in Munich, Germany, claim to have identified a new species of large predatory dinosaur from modern day Egypt in a surprising way. As detailed in a January 14 study published in the journal PLOS one, the researchers studied the 95-million-year-old […]