3+ hour, 23+ min ago   (712+ words) For nearly two centuries, a pangolin specimen sat quietly in a museum collection, its true identity hidden in plain sight. Today, scientists have used DNA preserved within that 190-year-old specimen to resolve a long-standing taxonomic mystery, confirming that the Himalayan…...

5+ day, 11+ hour ago   (360+ words) A researcher discovered a previously unknown amphibian that lived during the Ice Age in what is now Los Angeles. This extinct spadefoot toad species, named Spea labreae, is the first new amphibian species discovered from the La Brea Tar Pits....

2+ week, 3+ day ago   (409+ words) Visitors to the Museum of the Rockies in Montana are greeted by a fossil unlike most others. Nestled in the Hall of Horns and Teeth, an Edmontosaurus skull has become a window into a dramatic prehistoric encounter, thanks to an…...

2+ week, 5+ day ago   (247+ words) If you have arachnophobia, you’re not alone. It turns out you might share a fear that spans approximately 518 million years. Scientists have finally discovered the earliest known evidence of arachnids thanks to a fossil that was determined to be equally…...

3+ week, 11+ hour ago   (637+ words) More than 300 million years ago, a small ray-finned fish died in what is now northwest England and settled into the sediments of a prehistoric swamp. Over immense spans of time, the remains of that fish — now known as Trawdenia planti…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago   (472+ words) Pterosaurs were a broad group of ancient flying reptiles and are known as the first vertebrates with powered flight. Well-known pterosaurs include Pterodactylus, Nemicolopterus, and Quetzalcoatlus. Quetzalcoatlus was one of the largest, if not the largest, flying animals of all…...

3+ mon, 3+ week ago   (233+ words) Alabama’s state amphibian just got a whole lot comfier in its native habitat. The Red Hills salamander (Phaeognathus hubrichti) is one of the rarest of its species in the U.S. It’s found only in six counties throughout the state, and…...

4+ mon, 2+ week ago   (726+ words) The Silurian period was defined by warmer waters that allowed marine life to thrive. Although some scientists argue that bony fishes diverged into ray-finned and lobe-finned fish during the late Silurian period, the general consensus is that the divergence occurred…...

5+ mon, 2+ week ago   (420+ words) A-Z Animals Quick Take In 2025, a new sail-backed iguanodontian was discovered from fossils on the Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight is one of Europe’s most important Early Cretaceous dinosaur sites Istiorachis macarthurae was a plant-eater with an…...

5+ mon, 2+ week ago   (336+ words) Imagine sprinting full-speed into a solid oak tree at 15 miles per hour — and then doing it again and again, 20 times per second. For almost any vertebrate, this would be fatal — but for a woodpecker, it’s just breakfast. While its reinforced…...