Paleontology

A baby rusty-spotted cat, born at a French zoo in 2010. The newly discovered fossil is thought to belong to the same genus as modern rusty-spotted cats, which are among the smallest felines in the world.

Rare Jaw Fossil Found in China Might Belong to the World's Smallest Cat

Scientists placed the extinct species, which may date back more than 300,000 years, in the same genus as modern leopard cats in Asia

Two newly discovered, spiky creatures from the Silurian period—nicknamed Punk and Emo—are helping scientists reveal the early history of mollusks.

Meet Punk and Emo, Two Angsty-Looking Fossils From 430 Million Years Ago That Shed Light on Early Mollusk Evolution

The prehistoric creatures look to be sporting a punk hairstyle and emo bangs, and one of them seemingly moved like an inchworm

Early 20th-century paleontologists wondered whether the small arms of Tyrannosaurus rex were used for grasping when the dinosaurs mated.

Everything You Want to Know About the Sex Lives of Dinosaurs, From Scratching the Ground to Battling With Horns

By evaluating fossils, scientists are learning what creature features may have been used to attract mates and fight off sexual competitors

Paleontologists and volunteers excavate dinosaur trackways in Oxfordshire, England, uncovering the biggest find of its kind in the United Kingdom.

A Quarry Worker Felt Strange Bumps While Digging. They Turned Out to Be the Largest Dinosaur Trackway in the U.K.

The five sets of tracks represent four-legged sauropods and a three-toed carnivore that might have crossed paths on a prehistoric landscape

A recently excavated mastodon tooth found in a backyard, still embedded in the jaw

A Homeowner Found Huge, Fossil Teeth While Mowing the Lawn. Then, Excavations Revealed a Complete Mastodon Jaw

The new discovery is the first of its kind in New York state for at least 11 years and appeared in a county rich with mastodon remains

Paleontologists made discoveries about a wide variety of dinosaurs over the past 12 months.

The Top Ten Dinosaur Discoveries of 2024

From the realization that paleontologists still haven’t found the biggest dinosaurs to the unearthing of a small burrowing dino, the year has been marked by awe-inspiring finds

A fossil skull of a prehistoric amphibian, found in a 230-million-year-old burrow in Wyoming, turned out to be from an unknown species.

A Paleontologist Cracked Open a Rock and Discovered a Prehistoric Amphibian With a Clever Survival Strategy

Named "Ninumbeehan dookoodukah" by Eastern Shoshone students and elders, the creature burrowed in riverbeds to stay moist during extreme droughts

The Stegosaurus named Apex is on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

You Can Now See Apex, the World's Most Expensive Dinosaur Fossil, on Display at a New York City Museum

The largest and most complete Stegosaurus specimen sold for a record-setting price in July, and it is currently on loan to the American Museum of Natural History for four years

An artist's depiction of two sauropodomorphs in a wet Early Jurassic environment, eating the newly evolved plants.

The Secret to the Rise of Dinosaurs Could Be Hidden in an Unlikely Place: Their Poop

In a new study, scientists examined bromalites, including fossilized feces and vomit, to reveal prehistoric diets and reconstruct the timeline of how dinosaurs established dominion over the world

Researchers hypothesize that this footprint was made by a member of the hominin species Paranthropus boisei.

Footprints Reveal Two Early Human Species Walked the Same Lakeshore in Kenya 1.5 Million Years Ago

A new, “mind-blowing” discovery reveals evidence that Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei stepped at the same site within days—or hours—of each other

An illustration of two Skiphosoura bavarica in flight shows how the reptiles might have appeared in Jurassic skies.

Paleontologists Discover a New Pterosaur, Filling a Key Gap on the Evolutionary Timeline for These Flying Reptiles

Revealed by a German fossil, the newly described species sheds light on questions that scientists have been puzzling over for nearly two centuries

This rock contains the first of the newly discovered fossils: It is a portion of a fossil lake shore that preserves very fine details of ripples produced by waves, on which a small reptile left behind footprints of its legs and tail.

Italian Hiker Discovers Animal Tracks From a Time Before Dinosaurs, Hinting at a Prehistoric Ecosystem

Revealed by melting snow in the Alps, the imprints in rock were left by reptiles and amphibians during the Permian period, which ended with the world’s largest mass extinction

By examining the fossils of ancient creatures, scientists are able to see the origins of features that make mammals different from other animals.

How to Make a Mammal in Nine Evolutionary Steps

From the formation of inner ear bones to the rise of hair to cover our bodies, these developments made us distinct from other animals

This fragment of a terror bird’s left tibiotarsus, a lower leg bone in birds equivalent to that of a human tibia or shin bone, dates to around 12 million years ago during the Miocene epoch.

Rare 'Terror Bird' Fossil Found in Colombia Reveals the Enormous Size of a Prehistoric Predator

The bone, described two decades after its discovery, suggests the species might have grown up to 20 percent bigger than other terror birds

Silesaurids—including Silesaurus opolensis (pictured above) and the newly described fossil from Brazil (not pictured)—are usually considered non-dinosaurs. Some researchers are suggesting they might be more closely related to certain dinosaurs than previously thought.

A Rare Triassic Fossil Found in Brazil Could Shed Light on the Origin of Dinosaurs

The 237-million-year-old remains are among the oldest silesaurid fossils ever found, adding to paleontologists' understanding of this still-mysterious group of prehistoric reptiles

The arthropod fossil used to describe a new species (left) and CT scans of the specimen (right)

Scientists Reveal Rare 450-Million-Year-Old Arthropod Fossil Preserved in Glittering Fool’s Gold

The critter found in New York represents a new, extinct species of arthropod that could shed light on the evolution of today's insects, crustaceans and spiders

An artist depicts the tadpole and frog individuals of the Notobatrachus degiustoi species. The oldest known tadpole fossil, which belongs to this species, was found in the Patagonia region of Argentina.

Scientists Unearth the Oldest Tadpole Fossil Ever Found, and It's a 161-Million-Year-Old 'Giant'

Found in a rock in Argentina, the six-inch-long tadpole sheds light on the history of frog metamorphosis

The first dinosaur fossils discovered in Hong Kong went on display last week.

Paleontologists Discover Dinosaur Fossils in Hong Kong for the First Time

The metropolis is an important center for paleontological research, but until now, fossils of plants and fish were the only remains of dinosaur-era life found there

Allosaurus

This Captivating Guide Uncovers the History and Mystery of Dinosaurs in 50 Fossils

A paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London chronicles the age of the famous and fascinating massive reptiles

A visualization of Tiktaalik roseae, an extinct aquatic animal with fossils that shed light on the evolution of land animals from marine animals millions of years ago.

New 'Paleo-Robots' Could Shed Light on Animal Evolution, Revealing How Some Fish Evolved to 'Walk' on Land

A team of roboticists, paleontologists and biologists are building robots to simulate crucial evolutionary developments that can’t be tested with static fossils

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