News
This 215-Million-Year-Old Crocodile-like Reptile Ran Like a Greyhound on Long Legs
17+ min ago (1051+ words) A fast-moving ancient crocodile ancestor gets a name honoring the physics teacher who inspired its discoverer. In the Late Triassic, some 215 million years ago, the region we now know as the southwestern United Kingdom looked nothing like the rolling green…...
Where Did Dinosaurs Come From? New Evidence Points to the Equator
6+ hour, 45+ min ago (682+ words) Home " Science " Paleontology One fossil's teeth are forcing scientists to rethink where dinosaurs began. A small fossil jaw rests in Argentina's national natural science museum in Buenos Aires. The fossil, only six inches long, carries backward-curving teeth shaped for gripping…...
Triceratops Had a Giant Nose Because It Worked Like a Radiator for Its Brain
2+ day, 1+ hour ago (662+ words) Home " Science " Paleontology New research reveals the hidden cooling system inside the horned dinosaur's massive skull. To build an absolute unit like Triceratops, nature had to get creative with the plumbing. While the dinosaur is famous for its three-horned combat…...
This 300 Million Year Old Fossil Is the First Land Animal Known To Eat Its Veggies
3+ day, 8+ hour ago (664+ words) Home " Science " Paleontology An ancient skull pushes herbivory deeper into vertebrate history "This is one of the oldest known four-legged animals to eat its veggies," said Arjan Mann of the Field Museum in Chicago, a co-lead author of the study....
Scientists Built an AI That Matches Dinosaurs to Their Footprints Like the Prince in Cinderella
1+ week, 2+ hour ago (625+ words) Home " Science " Paleontology An artificial intelligence system taught itself to identify dinosaur tracks without any human input. Fossilized footprints are among the most abundant traces dinosaurs left behind. But linking a track to its corresponding animal has been challenging for…...
Goethe’s 200-Year-Old Forgotten Amber Collection Shows Ancient Ant Was a Forest Dominator
1+ week, 2+ day ago (561+ words) In a largely-ignored amber collection, researchers found an ant fossil remarkable enough to settle a debate. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is one of the most renowned thinkers in history. He's Germany's greatest literary figure, famous for 18th century masterpieces like Faust…...
Over 500 Million Years Ago, Early Vertebrates Had Four Eyes That Could See 360 Degrees
2+ week, 6+ day ago (576+ words) They used four high-tech eyes to survive the Cambrian. Every mammal, every fish, every vertebrate (creatures that have a spine) has two eyes. It's been that way for millions and millions of years. But maybe it wasn't like that forever....
Great white sharks grow a whole new kind of tooth for slicing bone as they age
3+ week, 2+ hour ago (898+ words) So you thought great white sharks aren't awesome enough? A great white shark is a masterwork of evolutionary engineering. These beautiful predators glide effortlessly through the water, each slow, deliberate sweep of the powerful tail driving a body specialised for…...
Scientists Finally Think They Know Why This Fish Has a Hole in Its Head
1+ mon, 12+ hour ago (763+ words) For over a century, biologists were baffled by the rockhead poacher's skull. Evolution has created some pretty crazy things, and the head of this fish is definitely one of them. The rockhead poacher (Bothragonus swanii) is small, armored, and shaped…...
The World’s Oldest Armored Dinosaur Looked Like a Walking Fortress Covered in Spikes
1+ mon, 2+ week ago (532+ words) The earliest ankylosaur flaunted metre-long spikes and a tail weapon. In the rugged badlands of Morocco's Middle Atlas Mountains, a dinosaur bristling with spikes once lumbered across the Jurassic floodplains. It was not the squat, club-tailed Ankylosaurus of textbooks, but…...