Paleontology

  1. Paleontology

    310-million-year-old fossil blobs might not be jellyfish after all

    An ancient animal called Essexella may have been a type of burrowing sea anemone, a new study proposes.

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  2. Paleontology

    520-million-year-old animal fossils might not be animals after all

    Newly described fossils of Protomelission gatehousei suggest that the species, once thought to be the oldest example of bryozoans, is actually a type of colony-forming algae.

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  3. Paleontology

    The oldest known pollen-carrying insects lived about 280 million years ago

    Pollen stuck to fossils of earwig-like Tillyardembia pushes back the earliest record of potential insect pollinators by about 120 million years.

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  4. Paleontology

    Insect bites in plant fossils reveal leaves could fold shut millions of years ago

    The 252-million-year-old fossil leaves have symmetrical holes, which suggest an insect bit through the leaves when they were folded.

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  5. Paleontology

    This dinosaur might have used its feet to snag prey in midair like modern hawks

    Fossilized toe pads suggest a hawklike hunting style in Microraptor, a dinosaur that some scientists think could hunt while flying.

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  6. Paleontology

    In the wake of history’s deadliest mass extinction, ocean life may have flourished

    Ocean life may have recovered in just a million years after the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, fossils from South China suggest.

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  7. Life

    Fossils suggest early primates lived in a once-swampy Arctic

    Teeth and jawbones found on Ellesmere Island, Canada, suggest that two early primate species migrated there 52 million years ago.

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  8. Paleontology

    A bird with a T. rex head may help reveal how dinosaurs became birds

    The 120-million-year-old Cratonavis zhui, newly discovered in China, had a head like a theropod and body like a modern bird.

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  9. Paleontology

    Mysterious ichthyosaur graveyard may have been a breeding ground

    Some 230 million years ago, massive dolphinlike reptiles gathered to breed in safe waters — just like many modern whales do, a study finds.

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  10. Paleontology

    Katydids had the earliest known insect ears 160 million years ago

    Fossils from the Jurassic Period show katydid ears looked identical to those of modern katydids and could pick up short-range calls.

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  11. Paleontology

    Armored dinos may have used their tail clubs to bludgeon each other

    Broken and healed spikes on Zuul's flanks are consistent with the armored beast receiving a mighty blow from the tail club of another ankylosaur.

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  12. Paleontology

    Why the sale of a T. rex fossil could be a big loss for science

    At least half of the roughly 120 known T. rex fossils are owned privately and not available to the public. “Maximus” may join them.

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