paleontology
Elephant-Sized Apes That Once Roamed the Land Mysteriously Vanished. Now, Scientists Have an Answer.
The sudden extinction of giant apes is an "enigma in paleontology," one scientist said, but new research proposes an answer to why they disappeared.
Remains of Ancient Giant Sea Creatures Found In Swiss Alps
“Those that we find in the Alps are really kind of ghosts,” said the study's lead author. “We know they are there. We know they're giant."
Glowing Ancient Spider Fossils Offer Rare Glimpse of Extinct Life
"It was just an amazing rainbow of autofluorescence," said the lead author of a study on the spider fossils.
The Biggest Flying Animal in the Jurassic Has Been Discovered in Scotland
With an eight-foot wingspan, the "spectacularly preserved" animal fills “a frustrating gap in the pterosaur record," reports a new study.
Ancient Penis Worms Shrank Into a Shell When Threatened, Study Finds
Life’s hard when you’re a wee penis worm roaming a seabed full of predators, unless you snag yourself a protective shell.
A Police Raid Uncovered an 'Unprecedented' Pterosaur Fossil
With its massive head crest and eight-foot wingspan, the pterosaur is one of the most “impressive” species in its family.
Italian Customs Authorities Seized a Dinosaur Egg Hidden In a Package
The fossil was found in a package sent from Malaysia and once belonged to a Shunosaur, a sauropod that lived millions of years ago, authorities said.
Scientists Found a New Jurassic Reptile and It Looks Like a Pokémon
The little creature had a frog-like mouth and bat-like wings.
Scientists Find 20 Million-Year-Old Giant Predatory Nightmare Worm
Trace fossils reveal an “life and death struggle between predator and prey” that played in what is now Taiwan.
Scientists Have Finally Found a Dinosaur's Butthole, and It's Pooping
Scientists were able to describe the cloaca, which included a fossilized piece of dinosaur poo, in detail for the first time.
Scientists Discover 24-Million-Year-Old Megashark Hunting Ground in South Carolina
The site, where young prehistoric megasharks ate their fill to grow large, is the first ancient shark nursery in the U.S. to be confirmed with fossils.
A Profanity Filter Banned the Word 'Bone' at a Paleontology Conference
“Words like ‘bone,’ ‘pubic,’ and ‘stream’ are frankly ridiculous to ban in a field where we regularly find pubic bones in streams,” one participant said of the filter, which organizers had to thwart.