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Paleontology

An artist's reconstruction of Spinosaurus, showing a paddle-like tail that would have helped it swim.

Groundbreaking Fossil Suggests Spinosaurus Is First Known Swimming Dinosaur

Its paddle-like tail, unearthed in Morocco, suggests the Cretaceous carnivore ventured into the water to hunt

Artist's impression of the Chicxulub impact.

After the Dinosaur-Killing Impact, Soot Played a Remarkable Role in Extinction

The famous impact 66 million years ago kicked up soot into the atmosphere that played an even bigger role in blocking sunlight than experts had realized

Cracked-open and burnt fragments of crab pincers, found in the cave of Figueira Brava.

Neanderthals Really Liked Seafood

A rare cache of aquatic animal remains suggests that like early humans, Neanderthals were exploiting marine resources

Stromatolites at Lake Thetis, Western Australia

Why It’s So Difficult to Find Earth’s Earliest Life

Debate over Earth’s oldest fossils fuels the search for our deepest origins

Reconstruction of Dineobellator notohesperus and other dinosaurs from the Ojo Alamo Formation at the end of the Cretaceous Period in New Mexico by Sergey Krasovskiy. This reconstruction shows three Dineobellator near a water source, with the ceratopsid Ojoceratops and sauropod Alamosaurus in the background.

New Feathered Carnivorous Dinosaur Found in New Mexico

Dineobellator was a formidable predator and boasts the battle scars to prove it.

Asteriornis maastrichtensis, the world's oldest known modern bird, had a mashup of chicken-, turkey- and duck-like features.

At 67 Million Years Old, Oldest Modern Bird Ever Found Is Natural ‘Turducken’

Remarkable fossil hints at the traits birds evolved just before an asteroid wiped their nonavian dinosaur kin

An artist’s depiction of Gunakadeit joseeae

215-Million-Year-Old, Sharp-Nosed Sea Creature Was Among the Last of Its Kind

Researchers gave the marine reptile the genus name Gunakadeit in honor of a sea monster from Tlingit oral history

Mulleriblattina bowangi, a cockroach that lived in caves during the Cretaceous

Oldest Known Cave-Dwellers Are 99-Million-Year-Old Cockroaches

The pale-bodied pests belong to a family that’s still around today

The new dinosaur is called Thanatotheristes degrootorum.

Newly Discovered Tyrannosaur Was Key to the Rise of Giant Meat-Eaters

A partial skull found in Alberta helps put a timer on when the ‘tyrant lizards’ got big

An artist's impression of a pterosaur trying and failing to snag a cephalopod from the ocean

Pterosaur Tooth Found in Rare Ancient Squid Fossil

A tooth embedded in prehistoric cephalopod offers a glimpse into predator-prey interactions from 150 million years ago

An artist's illustration of Allosaurus jimmadseni, a newly described species of Jurassic carnivore

Newly Described Meat-Eating Dinosaur Dominated During the Jurassic Period

The new species is the oldest Allosaurus described yet and was a top predator of its time

A fossil of Parioscorpio venator, a 437-million-year-old scorpion that resembles modern species.

World’s Oldest Scorpions May Have Moved From Sea to Land 437 Million Years Ago

A pair of pristinely preserved fossils suggest scorpions have looked mostly the same since they first crawled onto land

To 17th-century scholars, it made perfect sense that fossils on mountain sides and deep in the ground had been left there in the wake of the biblical flood (above The Subsiding of the Waters of the Deluge by Thomas Cole, 1829).

Why This 18th-Century Naturalist Believed He’d Discovered an Eyewitness to the Biblical Flood

Smithsonian paleontologist Hans Sues recounts a colossal tale of mistaken identity

An artist's illustration of juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex, which were more fleet-footed than their adult counterparts

Teenage T. Rex Fossils Reveal Haphazard Growth Spurts

A new study reaffirms that two debated dinosaur fossils named Jane and Petey weren’t a separate species

These are ten of the biggest strides made by scientists in the last ten years.

The Top Ten Scientific Discoveries of the Decade

Breakthroughs include measuring the true nature of the universe, finding new species of human ancestors, and unlocking new ways to fight disease

Presenting Smithsonian magazine's top ten stories of 2019

Our Top Ten Stories of 2019

From a 16-million-year-old tree to Confederate soldiers’ diaries, voracious snakes and England’s warrior king, these were the most-read stories of 2019

An artist's illustration of Dendromaia unamakiensis, a 310-million-year old land-dwelling vertebrate that looked a like a modern monitor lizard, pictured here with its offspring

Lizard-Like Fossil May Represent 306-Million-Year-Old Evidence of Animal Parenting

Shortly after transitioning from sea to land, our egg-laying ancestors may have started parenting their young

Several Homo erectus skulls were recently identified as the youngest known fossils of the species, some 108,000 to 117,000 years old. These fossil replicas are housed at the University of Iowa.

Fossils From Some of the Last Homo Erectus Hint at the End of the Long-Lived Species

Homo erectus, one of the first species of the Homo genus, survived for longer than any other close human ancestor

Short-finned pilot whale, Globicephala macrorhynchus, underwater off Isla San Marcos, Baja California Sur, Mexico.

Ancient Whale Fossil Helps Detail How the Mammals Took From Land to Sea

A 39-million-year-old whale with floppy feet, which may not have been very good for walking, helps illuminate the massive animals’ transition to the oceans

Artist‘s reconstruction of Mesophthirus engeli of elder development stage feeding on the dinosaur feathers from mid-Cretaceous amber.

Lice-Filled Dinosaur Feathers Found Trapped in 100-Million-Year-Old Amber

Prehistoric insects that resemble modern lice infested animals as early as the mid-Cretaceous, living and evolving along with dinosaurs and early birds

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