https://phys.org/biology-news/paleontology en-us News about paleontology, important paleontological discoveries and fossil studies The discovery of a new, ancient, predatory reptile dubbed Parvosuchus aurelioi—part of a group of crocodile-like reptiles called pseudosuchians—in Brazil is described in a paper in Scientific Reports. The specimen, which dates to approximately 237 million years ago, during the Middle-Late Triassic, is the first small predatory reptile of its kind to be found in this country. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-small-ancient-crocodile-reptile-brazil.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 20 Jun 2024 11:00:01 EDT news638091182 What do you get when you cross Norse mythology with a 78-million-year-old ancestor to the Triceratops? Answer: Lokiceratops rangiformis, a plant-eating dinosaur with a very fancy set of horns. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-ornate-horns-ancient-marvel-lokiceratops.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 20 Jun 2024 08:00:01 EDT news638027641 Details of an ancient cousin of modern-day mammals are being revealed for the first time. Hi-tech scanning of an ancient fossil, which was captured in sandstone around 252–254 million years ago, is giving experts valuable insight into the animal's anatomy and evolution. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-million-year-fossil-anew-modern.html Biotechnology Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 18 Jun 2024 10:27:03 EDT news637925221 An international team of scientists has identified the oldest fossil of a sea-going reptile from the Southern Hemisphere—a nothosaur vertebra found on New Zealand's South Island. 246 million years ago, at the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs, New Zealand was located on the southern polar coast of a vast super-ocean called Panthalassa. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-analysis-ancient-polar-sea-reptile.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 17 Jun 2024 11:00:01 EDT news637838542 A multidisciplinary team of scientists from several institutions in Japan, working with colleagues at the American Museum of Natural History, has found evidence that some types of ants that lived during the Cretaceous Period had sensory organs for communication similar to those used by many modern ant species. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-ants-millions-years-sensory-modern.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 17 Jun 2024 08:58:14 EDT news637833489 New research by Swansea University and the University of Zurich has found that sharks retained high levels of functional diversity for most of the last 66 million years, before steadily declining over the last 10 million years to its lowest value in the present day. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-sharks-depleted-functional-diversity-million.html Ecology Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 14 Jun 2024 12:17:04 EDT news637586222 Paleontologists from the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP), the University of Edinburgh (UK), the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (Brazil), and the University of Toronto in (Canada) have shown that the early South American rodent Incamys, a fossil relative to living chinchillas had a unique combination of endocranial brain features including expanded temporal lobes in the cerebrum and large caudal colliculi of the midbrain. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-million-year-cousin-chinchillas-groups.html Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 14 Jun 2024 10:41:05 EDT news637580461 Gobies or Gobioidei are one of the most species-rich groups of marine and freshwater fish in Europe. Spending most of their lives on the bottom of shallow waterbodies, they make substantial contributions to the functioning of many ecosystems. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-paleontologists-fossil-fish-genus.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 13 Jun 2024 10:56:03 EDT news637494961 A team of marine biologists, Earth scientists and evolutionary specialists affiliated with several institutions in the U.K., has found that prior researchers studying a fossil of an ancient sea creature called Pikaia were looking at it upside down. In their study, published in the journal Current Biology, the group found that a blood vessel running along what was reported to be its belly was actually a dorsal nerve cord. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-prior-ancient-sea-creature-pikaia.html Plants & Animals Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 12 Jun 2024 10:30:01 EDT news637406438 Fossils in Brazil indicate a more complex evolutionary history for ray-finned fish brains than previously anticipated, according to new research. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-rare-brazilian-fossil-fishes.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 12 Jun 2024 09:47:04 EDT news637404421 New Curtin University-led research has identified 100-million-year-old fossilized bones discovered in western Queensland, Australia as belonging to a newly identified species of pterosaur, which was a formidable flying reptile that lived among the dinosaurs. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-million-year-bones-reveal-species.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 12 Jun 2024 05:00:01 EDT news637335841 Woolly mammoths are evocative of a bygone era, when Earth was gripped within an Ice Age. Current knowledge places early mammoth ancestors in the Pliocene (2.58–5.33 million years ago, Ma) before their populations expanded in the Pleistocene (2.58 Ma–11,700 years ago, kyr). However, as climate changed, their numbers dwindled to isolated populations in modern Siberia and Alaska, until their last dated survival 4 kyr ago. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-siberia-mammoth-graveyard-reveals-year.html Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 10 Jun 2024 10:20:01 EDT news637231797 Ancient apes in Germany co-existed by partitioning resources in their environment, according to a study published June 7, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Madelaine Böhme of Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Germany and David R. Begun, of University of Toronto, Canada and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-ancient-ape-species-cohabiting-miocene.html Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 07 Jun 2024 14:00:01 EDT news636969642 At first, fossil-hunting diver Alex Lundberg thought the lengthy object on the sea floor off Florida's Gulf Coast was a piece of wood. It turned out to be something far rarer, Lundberg said, a large section of tusk from a long-extinct mastodon. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-fossil-diver-large-section-mastodon.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 06 Jun 2024 11:15:20 EDT news636891309 The early worm gets the arachnid, fossil research by an Oregon State University scientist has shown. In a parasitic first, a Baltic amber specimen has revealed that millions of years ago, tiny worms known as nematodes were living inside of and feeding on the outer protective layer of pseudoscorpions. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-tiny-roundworms-unique-parasitic-niche.html Ecology Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 06 Jun 2024 09:02:38 EDT news636883356 At first glance, the simple sea sponge is no creature of mystery. No brain. No gut. No problem dating it back 700 million years. Yet convincing sponge fossils only go back about 540 million years, leaving a 160 million-year gap in the fossil record. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-geobiologist-team-sea-sponges.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 05 Jun 2024 11:00:01 EDT news636798739 The identity of a local prehistoric marine reptile has finally been revealed after experts discovered that some of its remains actually belonged to fish. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-fishy-mystery-bristol-marine-reptile.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 05 Jun 2024 10:08:25 EDT news636800838 A team of paleontologists has discovered a fossil of a gigantic flying reptile from the Jurassic period with an estimated wingspan of more than three meters—making it one of the largest pterosaurs ever found from that era. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-gigantic-jurassic-pterosaur-fossil-unearthed.html Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 04 Jun 2024 11:47:03 EDT news636720421 New findings from an Idaho State University paleontologist are answering some questions about Idaho's State Dinosaur and raising a few more. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-analysis-idaho-state-dinosaur.html Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 04 Jun 2024 10:57:03 EDT news636717421 After 128 years of exploration, fossil excavation and investigation, Flinders University researchers have finally uncovered the skull of Australia's own giant and charismatic megafauna bird—Genyornis newtoni. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-giant-skull-australian-megafauna-bird.html Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 04 Jun 2024 10:30:09 EDT news636715804 Researchers have discovered sustained hunting by humans prevented the woolly rhinoceros from accessing favorable habitats as Earth warmed following the Last Ice Age. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-human-contributed-woolly-rhinoceros-extinction.html Ecology Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 04 Jun 2024 09:54:26 EDT news636713654 Two young brothers and their cousin were wandering through a fossil-rich stretch of the North Dakota badlands when they made a discovery that left them "completely speechless": a T. rex bone poking out of the ground. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-boys-rex-fossil-north-dakota.html Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 04 Jun 2024 04:01:10 EDT news636692448 A new study involving Christian Bartel and Jason Dunlop from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and Sonja Wedmann from the Senckenberg Forschungsstation Grube Messel describes several 48-million-year-old daddy longlegs (harvestmen) from the Messel mine near Darmstadt. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-discovery-million-year-daddy-longlegs.html Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 03 Jun 2024 10:54:02 EDT news636630841 A multi-institutional team of plant specialists, microbiologists and paleontologists in the Czech Republic and the University of Minnesota, in the U.S., has found evidence of a hot spring oasis during the last ice age in a part of central Europe. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-scientists-evidence-hot-oasis-ice.html Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 03 Jun 2024 09:47:26 EDT news636626840 50,000 years ago, North America was ruled by megafauna. Lumbering mammoths roamed the tundra, while forests were home to towering mastodons, fierce saber-toothed tigers and enormous wolves. Bison and extraordinarily tall camels moved in herds across the continent, while giant beavers plied its lakes and ponds. Immense ground sloths weighing over 1,000 kg were found across many regions east of the Rocky Mountains. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-clues-mysterious-north-america-large.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 31 May 2024 12:45:15 EDT news636378311 Important scientific finds don't always come in the biggest, buzziest packages. Sometimes new discoveries come in little ugly rocks. Such is the case of a 6-centimeter-wide, nondescript mass of bone and teeth that helped a scientist at The University of Texas at Austin expand the geographic footprint of a large cat that roamed the Earth tens of thousands of years ago. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-fossil-extinct-saber-toothed-cat.html Ecology Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 30 May 2024 13:24:03 EDT news636294242 A large fossil discovery has helped shed light on the history of dinosaurs in Wales. The find is reported in Proceedings of the Geologists' Association. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-large-fossil-discovery-exposes-welsh.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 30 May 2024 10:00:01 EDT news636281809 Fossils found on the shoreline of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe represent a completely new dinosaur species. This remarkable find, named Musankwa sanyatiensis, marks only the fourth dinosaur species named from Zimbabwe. The research detailing this significant discovery is published in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-musankwa-sanyatiensis-dinosaur-zimbabwe.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 30 May 2024 09:51:04 EDT news636281462 The new measure, termed "evolutionary heritage," highlights the importance of unique species traits—which include physiological adaptations, like beak variations in different birds—when assessing the richness and complexity of life. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-fossils-unique-ancient.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 29 May 2024 12:11:55 EDT news636203512 There's a longstanding debate simmering among biologists who study porcupines. There are 16 porcupine species in Central and South America, but only one in the United States and Canada. DNA evidence suggests North America's sole porcupine belongs to a group that originated 10 million years ago, but fossils seem to tell a different story. Some paleontologists think they may have evolved just 2.5 million years ago, at the beginning of the ice ages. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-florida-fossil-porcupine-dilemma-million.html Evolution Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 28 May 2024 12:10:24 EDT news636117019