6+ hour, 11+ min ago   (661+ words) If you thought that snakes were always slithering, limbless creatures, then you'd be mistaken; hundreds of millions of years ago, snakes crawled before they slithered. However, deep in the Patagonia badlands of Argentina, one fossil has been undoing decades of…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago   (665+ words) By the early 20th century, the takah" had seemingly disappeared forever. It was considered a lost relic of New Zealand's prehistoric avifauna, remembered only in museum specimens and fossil bones " until it reappeared almost half a century later. On November 20th, 1948, there…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago   (734+ words) The Lord Howe stick insect (Dryococelus australis) was presumed extinct for decades. It was once abundant on Lord Howe Island, hence its name. It was so abundant, in fact, that local fishermen reportedly used them as bait. However, the species…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago   (536+ words) But beyond its immense size alone, Titanoboa also teaches us how the Earth's climate shaped evolution, during a time when it was recovering from the greatest mass extinction since the dinosaurs disappeared. Titanoboa was first discovered in 2009, when scientists excavating…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago   (664+ words) There has been a long-standing controversy about whether or not the first people to arrive in Australia were responsible for, or contributed through hunting to, the extinction of Australia's megafauna. In a new study, a research team led by paleontologist…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago   (1221+ words) Melissa Cristina M'rquez is a science communicator, author, wildlife educator, and marine scientist. She specializes in marine biology, conservation, and ocean exploration, with a particular focus on sharks and other marine predators. Since joining Forbes in 2018, M'rquez has written extensively…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago   (683+ words) Through a study conducted at Nagoya University, scientists have uncovered how the frogfish's nervous system underwent neural rewiring to enable its astonishing "fishing" behavior. Thanks to their remarkable anatomical advantages, anglerfish are considered apex predators of the deep sea. Despite…...

1+ mon, 3+ week ago   (815+ words) Despite the progress evolution has offered to lifeforms on Earth, some of the most astonishing organisms are, ironically, the ones that have barely changed at all. Turtles are among the oldest surviving vertebrate groups, with ancestral species dating back more…...

1+ mon, 3+ week ago   (316+ words) The oldest undisputed signs of life on Earth were found in 3.48-billion-year-old rocks from the Dresser Formation in Western Australia's Pilbara region, where hot spring deposits preserved what many believe to be cell membranes. But this fossil site is a…...

1+ mon, 3+ week ago   (484+ words) If a scientist used the word "zombie" to describe a fossil, know that they aren't trying to be poetic. Usually, they mean that it looks so fresh and intact that it could easily have stepped straight out of the past....