Brigid Lynch was working along a wooded creek in a mountainous part of the San Francisco Bay Area when something that didn't look like the rocks she'd been studying caught her eye. It turned out to be the fossilized tooth of a Pacific mastodon.

Brigid Lynch was working along a wooded creek in a mountainous part of the San Francisco Bay Area when something that didn't look like the rocks she'd been studying caught her eye. It turned out to be the fossilized tooth of a Pacific mastodon.

Finding a fossilized dinosaur egg is exceptionally rare, but finding a stash of more than 250 shell fragments in the chilly southern reaches of the planet is even more surprising. The discoveries come from southernmost Patagonia in Argentina, where giant, long-necked titanosaurs roamed toward the end of the dinosaur era. Previous egg discoveries suggested that these massive beasts usually nested much farther north.

Finding a fossilized dinosaur egg is exceptionally rare, but finding a stash of more than 250 shell fragments in the chilly southern reaches of the planet is even more surprising. The discoveries come from southernmost Patagonia in Argentina, where giant, long-necked titanosaurs roamed toward the end of the dinosaur era. Previous egg discoveries suggested that these massive beasts usually nested much farther north.

Scientists have discovered various Denisovan remains in Southwest China dating to the late Middle Pleistocene, including the first Denisovan radius—one of two long bones in the forearm.

Scientists have discovered various Denisovan remains in Southwest China dating to the late Middle Pleistocene, including the first Denisovan radius—one of two long bones in the forearm.

Scientists from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and Liverpool John Moores University in England have discovered the first adult T. rex trackway, providing insights into how this emblematic predator moved. The findings are published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Scientists from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and Liverpool John Moores University in England have discovered the first adult T. rex trackway, providing insights into how this emblematic predator moved. The findings are published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

One of the oldest known 3D fossils of an animal has been discovered in a sheep field in the Norwegian Arctic, the first new major site of its kind anywhere in Europe in decades.

Nearly 80 years ago, a British expedition discovered the battered remains of a giant fossil on the peak of an Arctic island. Unable to take it with them, they snapped some pictures, took some bones and left the fossil to be ravaged by the icy winds and rain. Little did they know it would be found again decades later and turn out to be the first of its kind and a giant among its peers.

The dodo has been extinct for more than 300 years, wiped out within decades of humans arriving on its home island of Mauritius, but it lives on in the public imagination.