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59+ min ago (707+ words) Paleontologists have unearthed a dense assemblage of dugong remains at the site of Al Maszhabiya in the Early Miocene Dam Formation of Qatar. This fossil site shows that the Arabian Gulf has repeatedly evolved sea cow communities with different species over the past 20 million years. One of these species, named Salwasiren qatarensis, is new to science. An artistic reconstruction of a herd of Salwasiren qatarensis foraging on the seafloor. Image credit: Alex Boersma. With a burly build and a downturned snout lined with sensitive bristles, dugongs (Dugong dugon) today resemble their relatives, manatees. The one key difference between these aquatic herbivores, which are often called sea cows, is their tails: a manatee's tail is rounded like a paddle while a dugong's fluked tail is more similar to that of a dolphin. Dugongs inhabit coastal waters from western Africa through the…...

1+ hour, 13+ min ago (316+ words) The discovery in the Stelvio National Park was striking for the sheer number of footprints, estimated at as many as 20,000 over some five kilometres, and the location near the Swiss border, once a prehistoric coastal area, that has never previously yielded dinosaur tracks, experts said. The dinosaur prints are believed to have been made by long-necked bipedal herbivores that were up to 10 metres (33 feet) long, weighing up to four tons, similar to a Plateosaurus, Dal Sasso said. Some of the tracks were 40 centimetres wide, with visible claws. The footprints indicated that the dinosaurs travelled in packs and they sometimes stopped in circular formations, possibly as a protective measure. "There are very obvious traces of individuals that have walked at a slow, calm, quiet rhythmic pace, without running," Dal Sasso told a press conference. The location, some 2,400 to 2,800 metres (7,900-9,200 feet) above…...

1+ hour, 43+ min ago (749+ words) Home " Science " Anthropology New research suggests the famous Little Foot fossil may belong to a previously unknown hominin species. When paleoanthropologists finally freed the skeleton called Little Foot from its stone prison in South Africa, they believed they were meeting an old acquaintance. Instead, they may have uncovered a stranger. After decades of excavation and debate, a new analysis argues that Little Foot " one of the most complete hominin fossils ever found " does not belong to any known species. If the claim holds, it suggests that early human evolution in southern Africa was even more crowded, and more surprising, than scientists assumed. "This fossil remains one of the most important discoveries in the hominin record and its true identity is key to understanding our evolutionary past," said Dr. Jesse Martin of La Trobe University, who led the new study. Little…...

1+ hour, 50+ min ago (658+ words) December 16, 2025 / 1:25 PM EST / CBS/AFP Hundreds of yards of dinosaur tracks with toes and claws have been found in the Italian Alps in a region that will host the 2026 Winter Olympics, authorities said Tuesday. "This set of dinosaur footprints is one of the largest collections in all of Europe, in the whole world," Attilio Fontana, head of the Lombardy region in northern Italy, said during a news conference. The tracks, which are over 200 million years old, were discovered in the Stelvio National Park, in an area between the towns of Bormio and Livigno, which host part of the Games. Some measured up to 16 inches in diameter. The collection "extends for hundreds of meters and also represents a series of animal behaviors, because in addition to seeing animals walking together, there are also places where these animals meet," Fontana said. Della…...

1+ hour, 57+ min ago (554+ words) CT scans uncovered a fish hook that likely killed a sacred crocodile thousands of years ago. This ancient crocodile never finished its last meal. More than 2,000 years after it died, researchers can still make out a small fish inside its stomach'its body intact, still caught on a bronze hook. That detail, uncovered through modern imaging, offers the clearest clue yet to how this reptile met its end. The 2.2-meter crocodile, now held at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and cataloged as 2005.335, has become an unlikely source of insight. New scanning techniques have revealed what it ate, how it was captured by ancient Egyptians, and details about its eventual mummification. When researchers at the University of Manchester placed the mummy into a CT scanner, they expected to see the usual: bones, soft tissue, perhaps a few gastroliths (the stones crocodiles…...

2+ hour, 8+ min ago (342+ words) LOCAL ALERT: At-Large Council Member Kenyan McDuffie says he is resigning from the DC Council December 16, 2025, 1:07 PM The discovery in the Stelvio National Park was striking for the sheer number of footprints, estimated at as many as 20,000 over some five kilometers (three miles), and the location near the Swiss border, once a prehistoric coastal area, that has never previously yielded dinosaur tracks, experts said. The dinosaur prints are believed to have been made by long-necked bipedal herbivores that were up to 10 meters (33 feet) long, weighing up to four tons, similar to a Plateosaurus, Dal Sasso said. Some of the tracks were 40 centimeters wide, with visible claws. The footprints indicated that the dinosaurs traveled in packs and they sometimes stopped in circular formations, possibly as a protective measure. "There are very obvious traces of individuals that have walked at a slow,…...

2+ hour, 8+ min ago (459+ words) New research led by scientists from the University of Cambridge and Latrobe University challenges the classification of the Little Foot fossil as Australopithecus prometheus. The Little Foot fossil in the Sterkfontein cave, central South Africa. Image credit: Purdue University. The Little Foot fossil was discovered in 1994 in a cave at Sterkfontein in central South Africa. Also known as StW 573, the specimen was named for four small foot bones found in a box of animal fossils that led to the skeleton's discovery. In the 2010s, paleoanthropologist Ronald Clarke attributed Little Foot to a species of hominin called Australopithecus prometheus. Others maintained it was Australopithecus africanus, a hominin species first described by Australian anatomist Raymond Dart in 1925 and which was already known from the same site and South Africa more broadly. But in the new study, La Trobe University researcher Dr. Jesse Martin…...

3+ hour, 15+ min ago (486+ words) A team of Australian researchers have posited that Little Foot represents a new species of Australopithecus As reported by the Guardian on December 14, one of the world's most famous hominin fossils may be a previously unidentified species of human ancestor. Nicknamed "Little Foot," the skeleton was discovered between 1994 and 1998 in the Sterkfontein cave system in South Africa. It is the most complete specimen ever found of the genus Australopithecus, from which humans are descended. Little Foot was a bipedal like humans, but likely foraged and slept in trees like primates, while the shape of the hand is more human than primate. Dating of the specimen has been difficult, with estimates ranging from 2.2 million years to 3.67 million years old. Roland J. Clarke, a paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand who led the 20-year excavation of Little Foot, first identified it as…...

3+ hour, 24+ min ago (495+ words) Authorities on Tuesday announced the discovery of hundreds of meters of well-preserved dinosaur tracks with visible toes and claws in the Italian Alps, in a region preparing to host the 2026 Winter Olympics. "This set of dinosaur footprints is one of the largest collections in all of Europe, in the whole world," Attilio Fontana, head of the Lombardy region in northern Italy, told a press conference. The tracks, which are over 200 million years old, were discovered in the Stelvio National Park, in an area between the towns of Bormio and Livigno, which host part of the games. Some measured up to 40 centimeters (16 inches) in diameter. The collection "extends for hundreds of metres and also represents a series of animal behaviours, because in addition to seeing animals walking together, there are also places where these animals meet," Fontana said. Della Ferrera called…...

4+ hour, 8+ min ago (255+ words) Published Dec 16, 2025 11:07 AM EST According to the study's authors, the rate at which they use carbon shows the impressive efficiency of" these microbial mats, taking the dissolved carbon out of their environment and moving it off into a stable mineral deposit. Scientists have long struggled to understand how microbial communities like these interact with their environment. Part of the difficulty is that the data on these interactions comes from the fossilized remains of microbialites, some of which are billions of years old. Fortunately, living microbialites are still widely distributed in salty marine environments around the world. Sipler and the team also looked at the underlying geochemical processes at play. Over several years, they conducted multiple field expeditions, examining four microbialite systems in southeastern South Africa. Here, calcium-rich hard water seeps out of coastal sand dunes. "The systems here are growing…...