Paleontology

This cave bear probably lived between 22,000 and 39,500 years ago, and researchers hope to get a better estimate with closer study.

Ice Age Cave Bear Found Preserved in Permafrost on Siberian Island

According to preliminary analysis, the bear is between 22,000 and 39,500 years old

A great spotted woodpecker eats a hazelnut. Bird beaks may have allowed the animals to eat seeds and nuts after an asteroid hit the earth, wiping out many forms of life.

Why Birds Survived, and Dinosaurs Went Extinct, After an Asteroid Hit Earth

Paleontologists think that beaks may have given birds an advantage over other creatures

How would you calculate the weight of a T. Rex based only on its bones? There's at least two ways to find the answer, experts found.

How to Weigh a Dinosaur

A new study reveals the proper technique to weigh these extinct creatures

An artist's rendering of the 250-million-year-old animal Lystrosaurus in a hibernation-like state.

Hibernation May Be a 250-Million-Year-Old Survival Trick

Paleontologists studying this strange creature’s tusks say they’ve found evidence the animal slowed its metabolism during hard times

Paleontologist David Schmidt (left) and a crew of student volunteers worked together to find and excavate a huge Triceratops skull in South Dakota.

College Students Unearth Massive Triceratops Skull

On an annual summer fossil collecting trip, the undergraduates struck it big in South Dakota

Kate Winslet plays Mary Anning in 'Ammonite'

'Ammonite' Is Historical Fan Fiction About the World's First Great Fossil Hunter

A new trailer previews the period drama featuring Kate Winslet as pioneering paleontologist Mary Anning

Geologist Allan Krill spotted these markings on a boulder the side of the Bright Angel Trail in 2016. The boulder weighs several hundred pounds.

Fallen Boulder at the Grand Canyon Reveals Prehistoric Reptile Footprints

313 million years ago, two reptilian creatures crept over this boulder's surface

The stomach of a 15-foot fossil ichthyosaur excavated in China contained this massive chunk of another large marine reptile. The ichthyosaur swallowed its prey shortly before it died and was fossilized.

This 15-Foot Ichthyosaur Died With a 13-Foot Meal in Its Stomach

The shocking size of the marine predator’s quarry may force paleontologists to rethink the marine reptile’s role in the Triassic ecosystem

About 70 miles south of the Natural History Museum, Westmoreland State Park’s Fossil Beach is a hotbed for prehistoric shark teeth.

Five Places Where You Can Collect Fossils in the D.C. Area

You don’t have to venture far to make awesome finds

An illustration of the 30-foot-long, dinosaur eating crocodilian Deinosuchus.

30-Foot 'Terror Crocodile' Ambushed Dinosaurs at Water’s Edge

Study says the five-ton extinct reptiles had teeth the size of bananas

A lifelike restoration using the remains of a baby woolly rhinoceros recovered from the Siberian permafrost. The specimen was nicknamed Sasha after the hunter who discovered it.

Climate Change, Not Hunting, May Have Doomed the Woolly Rhinoceros

Populations of the Ice Age icon were healthy right up until their extinction, suggesting they crashed precipitously as the planet warmed

An artist's illustration of the Triassic reptile Tanystropheus hydroides hunting with its long neck.

Study Reveals This Mysterious, Super Long-Necked Triassic Reptile Was a Marine Hunter

The creature’s neck was stiff like a giraffe’s and was nearly three times the length of its torso

A 99-million-year-old piece of amber trapped this worker hell ant grasping an ancient relative of modern cockroaches in its unique jaws, which swung upwards unlike all modern ants.

Amber Fossil Shows 'Hell Ant' Was Unlike Anything Alive Today

The 99-million-year-old ant had scythe-like jaws that swung upward to pin prey against a horn-like head appendage

A Centrosaurus skeleton in the mass dearth assemblage at the Royal Tyrrell Museum

Dinosaurs Suffered From Cancer, Too

A bone containing signs of cancer is the first of its kind found in the fossil record

Side-by-side renderings of the marsupial saber-tooth Thylacosmilus atrox (left) and the saber-tooth cat Smilodon fatalis (right).

This Marsupial Sabertooth Was No Killer Cat

Long fangs caused many to assume Thylacosmilus was a slashing predator, but new research suggests it was a scavenger with a preference for leftovers

On the shores of Pechevalavato Lake in Russia's Yamalo-Nenets region, people dig for more pieces of a mammoth skeleton first found by reindeer herders.

Woolly Mammoth Skeleton With Intact Ligaments Found in Siberian Lake

Part of the extinct animal's foot was recovered from the water with well-preserved, millennia-old soft tissue

The Crocodylus checchiai skull analyzed in the new paper came from an approximately 10-foot-long reptile.

New Evidence Suggests Ancient Crocodiles Swam From Africa to America

The prehistoric reptiles would have gotten some help from ocean currents

Baby sauropod on a nest, taken at the American Museum of Natural History's World's Largest Dinosaurs exhibit.

How Dinosaurs Raised Their Young

New research into eggshells and nesting sites help paleontologists unravel the family lives of the Mesozoic

An illustration approximates a pod of Ankylorhiza tiedemani hunting diving birds.

Giant Extinct Dolphin May Have Hunted Other Whales

The nearly 16-foot species may have been an apex predator like modern killer whales, researchers say

An artist's rendering of Kongonaphon kely, a newly described 4-inch-tall reptile that lived in southwestern Madagascar some 237 million years ago. Researchers think the Triassic creature may be closely related to the common ancestor of dinosaurs and pterosaurs.

Giant Dinosaurs and Pterosaurs May Have Evolved From This Four-Inch-Tall Reptile

In Madagascar some 237 million years ago, the tiny <em>Kongonaphon kely</em> was chasing down insects on two legs

Page 12 of 30