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1+ hour, 59+ min ago (548+ words) Learn how a unique combination of anatomical traits and CT-scan data led researchers to classify Chromeornis as a new dinosaur species " and reconstruct the behavior behind its unusual death. In the early Cretaceous, a palm-sized bird made a fatal mistake. Its fossil shows a tight mass of tiny stones jammed in its throat " a snapshot of a creature caught in its final moments. The cluster includes more than 800 rocks, far more than any known bird uses for digestion, and packed so high in the throat that scientists say the animal likely choked. The fossil belongs to Chromeornis funkyi, a newly identified dinosaur species described in Palaeontologica Electronica that offers a window into early-bird evolution. CT scans showed its throat stones weren't used for digestion, suggesting the fossil preserves an unusual moment that hints at the quirks and vulnerabilities of this…...

3+ hour, 41+ min ago (583+ words) The tracks indicate how many animals were traveling via the ancient coastline. Paleontologists have found tens of thousands of dinosaur tracks in South America, which offers evidence as to which species were traveling via an ancient coastline. A total of nearly 18,000 tracks -- including 16,600 footprints as well as 1,378 swim tracks and several tail traces -- have been located along the Carreras Pampa track site, an ancient coastline located in Torotoro National Park in central Bolivia, according to a paper published in the journal PLOS One on Wednesday. The ripple marks extend in a northwest-southeast direction, which probably indicate how the dinosaurs and other animals moved along the paleocoastline, according to the paper. Most of the tracks belong to theropods -- a clade of dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period known for their bipedal mode of walking that includes the Tyrannosaurus rex, according to the…...

6+ hour, 5+ min ago (542+ words) Researchers have found that a 75-million-year-old fossil classified as a different dinosaur is a duck-billed... Researchers have found that a 75-million-year-old fossil classified as a different dinosaur is a duck-billed species. The team named the newly identified species Ahshiselsaurus wimani as a nod to the area in which the fossil was originally found in 1916. The newly identified species is part of the herbivorous duck-billed hadrosaurid family that includes numerous other species. The team conducted an anatomical and morphological comparison of the specimens against other fossils in the hadrosaurid genera and species to make this determination. A family of large herbivorous dinosaurs "Hadrosauridae, a family of large herbivorous dinosaurs, were among the most abundant dinosaurs of Late Cretaceous terrestrial ecosystems of the Western Interior Basin of North America for about 20 million years," said Sebastian Dalman, a paleontologist at Montana State University…...

10+ hour, 36+ min ago (453+ words) Rocky cliffs run into the Adriatic Sea near Ancona, Italy. There, above the pebbly coast in 2019, rock climbers explored steep slabs of limestone " remnants of an ancient seabed. They found thousands of curious imprints in the rock: moon-shaped marks that appeared in pairs and round divots. Now, researchers have surveyed the marks and suggest that they may be the traces of an ancient sea turtle stampede from some 80 million years ago. The limestone slabs are in a " totally forbidden" part of the park because of the danger of rockfall, said Alessandro Montanari, a geologist at Geological Observatory of Coldigioco. "But these guys went anyway," he said of the rock climbers. They figured the imprints were made by fins paddling on the seafloor. That excluded fishes and left three reptilian options: giant mosasaurs, long-necked plesiosaurs and sea turtles. Mosasaurs and plesiosaurs…...

10+ hour, 54+ min ago (266+ words) What if this small, fearsome dinosaur isn't just a baby T. rex, but an entirely new species? For years, scientists have debated whether Nanotyrannus was simply a juvenile version of the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaurs. A new study, however, puts this argument to rest. Researchers have now concluded that Nanotyrannus is a distinct species, not just a smaller, younger version of T. rex. This breakthrough has significant implications for our understanding of dinosaur evolution. For many years, the idea that Nanotyrannus was just a young T. rex seemed plausible. After all, the two dinosaurs had nearly identical bone structures. But this study challenged that assumption. "Everything that I had heard when we started the project was that most experts agreed the skull was a juvenile'T. rex," said Caitlin Colleary, a paleontologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. "So I went into it…...

10+ hour, 58+ min ago (138+ words) The well-preserved nasal passages of a Neandertal skeleton are as narrow as our own The exceptionally well-preserved nasal cavity of this over 130,000 year old Neandertal skull wasn't specially adapted for cold and is similar to that of Homo sapiens, a new study finds. Proof that Neandertals hadn't adapted to cold was right under their noses. "What we found is that, yes, Neandertals had bigger noses, but that the inner structure of their noses was not so different from our own," says paleoanthropologist Constantino Buzi of the University of Perugia in Italy. "They were simply larger, and worked more efficiently." C. Buzi et al. The first preserved nasal cavity in the human fossil record: The Neanderthal from Altamura. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Published online November 17, 2025. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2426309122...

12+ hour, 54+ min ago (474+ words) What if baby stegosaurs didn't walk like adults? A tiny fossilized footprint has just rocked the world of paleontology. A newly discovered fossilized footprint in China has provided a surprising glimpse into the early life of a stegosaur. The 110-million-year-old track, measuring only 5.7 cm in length, belongs to a baby stegosaur that was no larger than a domestic cat. And here's the twist: the little guy probably walked differently than the adults. The footprint, identified as the smallest known stegosaur track, was found by a team of researchers led by Associate Professor Lida Xing from the China University of Geosciences. While adult stegosaurs could reach lengths of up to 9 meters (30 feet), this tiny fossil shows that the species began life in an unexpectedly compact form. Acording to the research, published in the journal Palaios, the footprint was found alongside much…...

13+ hour, 8+ min ago (138+ words) The well-preserved nasal passages of a Neandertal skeleton are as narrow as our own The exceptionally well-preserved nasal cavity of this over 130,000 year old Neandertal skull wasn't specially adapted for cold and is similar to that of Homo sapiens, a new study finds. Proof that Neandertals hadn't adapted to cold was right under their noses. "What we found is that, yes, Neandertals had bigger noses, but that the inner structure of their noses was not so different from our own," says paleoanthropologist Constantino Buzi of the University of Perugia in Italy. "They were simply larger, and worked more efficiently." C. Buzi et al. The first preserved nasal cavity in the human fossil record: The Neanderthal from Altamura. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Published online November 17, 2025. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2426309122...

15+ hour, 8+ min ago (831+ words) A prehistoric bird that lived and died 120 million years ago has presented forensic paleontologists with a baffling medical mystery. Somehow, it managed to die with more than 800 tiny pebbles in its throat " a situation that researchers think almost certainly caused its demise. But why was the sparrow-sized bird swallowing the stones in the first place? It's a discovery that raises some interesting questions about the diet, behavior, and physiology of prehistoric birds " especially since the mass of stones discovered in the esophagus of the newly discovered Chromeornis funkyi is unlike anything seen in modern birds. Related: Armour-Plated Dinosaur's Last Meal Found Beautifully Preserved, 110 Million Years Later "It's pretty rare to be able to know what caused the death of a specific individual in the fossil record," says paleontologist Jingmai O'Connor of the Field Museum in Chicago. "But even though we…...

15+ hour, 9+ min ago (606+ words) Published Dec 5, 2025 9:00 AM EST Fossils may reveal what type of animal died millions of years ago, but they rarely depict exactly how they perished. Even rarer are the examples that clearly showcase an animal's exact cause of death. In fact, a120-million-year-old bird specimen housed at China's Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature may be the only fossilized remains of its kind. "There are thousands of bird fossils at the Shandong Tianyu Museum, but on my last trip to visit their collections, this one really jumped out at me," Chicago's Field Museum associate curator of fossil reptiles Jingmai O'Connor said in a statement. "I immediately knew it was a new species." Although its physiology and large teeth resembled a larger bird known as Longipteryx, the mystery avian was only about as large as a present-day sparrow. And then there was also the…...