Paleontologists from the Field Museum of Natural History have described the fossilized remains of baby embolomeres, crocodile-like predators that prowled ancient rivers and swamps between 350 and 280 million years ago.
The post Earth’s First Land Animals May Never Have Been Amphibian-Like After All appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Exceptionally preserved skin of Montsecosuchus depereti, an extinct crocodylomorph no larger than a house cat that prowled the tropical wetlands of Early Cretaceous Spain, has allowed paleontologists to reconstruct details of its scales, sensory organs and even possible banded markings along its tail.
The post 125-Million-Year-Old Crocodile Relative Reveals Its True Colors appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
An international team of paleontologists from Romania, Hungary and Italy has identified a new genus and species of herbivorous, duck-billed dinosaur from an incomplete skeleton unearthed in the Hațeg Basin, a bowl-shaped depression in the Carpathians of present-day Romania.
The post New Duck-Billed Dinosaur Unearthed in Romania appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Deep inside a limestone cave in southern China, paleontologists have uncovered an assemblage of thirteen fossilized teeth belonging to Gigantopithecus blacki, the largest primate species ever known to have lived.
The post Fossils from Chinese Cave Fill Crucial Gap in History of Gigantopithecus blacki appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Paleontologists have described a new genus and three new species of small, insect-eating marsupials from the Early Miocene deposits of the Riversleigh World Heritage Area in northwestern Queensland, one of Australia’s richest fossil sites.
The post New Marsupial Lineage Emerges from Australian Fossils appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
They preceded vertebrates on land by about 80 million years
The post These Ancient Millipedes Paved the Way for Terrestrial Life appeared first on Nautilus.
A new study suggests evolution stayed stuck for millions of years until sexual reproduction helped unleash a burst of biodiversity. New research suggests that the earliest animals on Earth may have unintentionally slowed the pace of evolution for millions of years. Scientists have found that their reliance on asexual reproduction limited competition and reduced the [...]
A newly discovered feathered dinosaur from China may help solve a long-standing mystery surrounding a fossil bed filled with ancient bird remains. For years, one fossil site in northwestern China has posed a mystery. The area contains hundreds of fossilized birds, many remarkably well preserved. Mixed among them are strange clusters of shattered bones compressed [...]
The Ice Age rodents left behind a lot to study
The post The Surprising Things You Find Digging Through Frozen Prehistoric Squirrel Poop appeared first on Nautilus.
Paleontologists have identified a previously unknown species of amphicyonid -- the extinct family of carnivorous mammals popularly known as bear-dogs -- from two specimens unearthed at a rich fossil site in the Vallès-Penedès Basin near Barcelona, Spain.
The post New Species of Ancient Bear-Dog Identified in Spain appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
The extinct Eurasian cave lion (Panthera spelaea) and today’s African and Asian lions (Panthera leo) belong to separate evolutionary lineages that diverged roughly 1.7 million years ago -- far earlier than previously thought, according to an analysis of 12 cave lion genomes spanning more than 100,000 years.
The post Study: Cave Lions were Distinct Species that Occasionally Bred with Ancestors of Today’s Lions appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Fossils from some of the oldest-known animals on Earth, dating from 574 million years ago (Ediacaran period), suggest that cloning, not competition, dominated the Ediacaran seas, slowing evolution until environmental stress helped drive the rise of sexual reproduction and a burst of biodiversity.
The post Earth’s Earliest Animals May Have Thrived Too Easily to Evolve appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Paleontologists have identified a new species of meiolaniform turtle from northern Patagonia, Argentina, that lived during the Maastrichtian age, just before the asteroid-triggered mass extinction that wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs.
The post Fossil Discovery in Patagonia Reveals New Species of Horned Turtle appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Paleontologists have described an assemblage of marine fish fossils from the 62.2-million-year-old site of Qreiya 3 in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, providing a window into this transition.
The post Fish Fossils from Early Paleocene Fill 10-Million-Year Gap after Dinosaur Extinction appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Near-complete bovine skeletons unearthed the Early Pliocene site of Camp dels Ninots in northeastern Spain reveal that the ancestors of today’s buffalo and cattle were already growing to impressive sizes long before humans arrived on the continent.
The post Half-Ton Cattle Relatives Roamed Europe 4 Million Years Ago appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Jian changmaensis is the first non-avian dinosaur found at a paleontological site that has yielded more than 100 specimens of Early Cretaceous birds.
The post New Microraptorine Dinosaur Discovered in China appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
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