2+ day, 16+ hour ago   (267+ words) New research from the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo suggests ichthyosaurs’ rib cages may have done a job modern whale ribs don’t: acting as ballast to help them dive....

1+ week, 2+ day ago   (410+ words) For several decades, paleontologists have described Miracinonyx trumani -- an extinct species of cheetah-like felid that roamed the North American prairies and steppe terrains more than 13,000 years ago -- as North America’s answer to the African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)....

1+ week, 5+ day ago   (505+ words) Paleontologists studying a fossil unearthed in southern Manitoba, Canada, have identified what they believe are two bite marks on the internal skeleton of the ancient giant cephalopod Enchoteuthis, offering rare evidence of predator-prey interactions in the Cretaceous seas that once…...

2+ week, 2+ day ago   (115+ words) An incomplete fossilized skull that has sat in the collections of the Natural History Museum of Denmark since the 19th century has turned out to represent a previously unrecognized species of glyptodont (genus Glyptotherium) that once roamed South America....

3+ week, 3+ day ago   (388+ words) A new genus and species of sauropterygian reptile that lived during the Triassic period, some 245 million years ago, has been identified from a nearly complete skeleton found in China. Sauropterygians were a highly successful lineage of paddling marine reptiles that…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago   (579+ words) Dr. Ian Towle, a researcher with the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University, proposes folding nearly 5 million years of hominin fossils into the genus Homo, arguing that traits once used to separate species — big brains, tool use — no longer hold…...

3+ week, 6+ day ago   (296+ words) Archaeopteryx -- the first ever bird to inhabit the Earth -- may have hopped its way into the air, rather than launching with the single powerful leap modern birds use, according to a new biomechanical study published in the journal Developmental Biology....