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5+ day, 4+ hour ago  (797+ words) The story of Earth’s first animals may need rewriting after ancient fossils revealed an earlier start to complex life. From butterflies to blue whales, corals, and worms, Earth is home to an incredible diversity of animals. How all of these…...

1+ week, 5+ hour ago  (927+ words) A rare 450-million-year-old fossil with preserved soft tissue is revealing how some of Earth’s earliest reef animals lived and evolved. More than 450 million years ago, long before dinosaurs appeared or forests covered the continents, Earth’s shallow seas were already filled…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago  (330+ words) Ancient deep-sea organisms suggest movement, sexual reproduction, and complex animal life began earlier than previously thought. Every animal alive today, from jellyfish to humans, traces its ancestry back to a pivotal moment when complex life first emerged from a world…...

2+ week, 2+ day ago  (467+ words) Ancient microbes may have helped preserve a pterosaur fossil and its chemical clues for more than 100 million years. An international study led by Curtin University has shed new light on how a prehistoric flying reptile fossil remained exceptionally well preserved…...

2+ week, 3+ day ago  (610+ words) Tiny fossil teeth from Alaska are changing how scientists view mammal life and migration in the ancient Arctic. Today’s Arctic is one of the harshest and least biodiverse places on Earth, but during the age of dinosaurs it was home…...

2+ week, 3+ day ago  (886+ words) New research uncovers a lost world of strange crocodile relatives that once thrived across Australasia alongside early humans. The sight of a saltwater crocodile basking on a mudbank is one of the most iconic and intimidating images of northern Australia....

2+ week, 3+ day ago  (430+ words) Exceptionally preserved fossils from China reveal that bryozoans were already thriving during the Cambrian explosion. Now, exceptionally preserved fossils from southern China have filled that gap. Dating to about 520 million years ago, the fossils show that bryozoans were already thriving…...

2+ week, 5+ day ago  (977+ words) The discovery of a new branch on the marsupial family tree suggests that the history of Australia’s unique mammals is more complex and less understood than previously thought. Since marsupials reached Australia more than 55 million years ago, they have diversified…...

2+ week, 5+ day ago  (540+ words) Researchers have identified a previously unknown fossil ape from Egypt that could alter long-held ideas about the origins of modern apes. The evolutionary story of apes has long contained a major geographic gap. While fossil discoveries from East Africa, Europe,…...