Exploring Prehistoric Life

Wed, 2021-04-14

Opposed thumbs are adaptations to arboreal life and rare for non-mammal vertebrates; Kunpengopterus antipollicatus, a newly-discovered species of arboreal pterosaur that inhabited a unique forest ecosystem in what is now China during the...

Tue, 2021-04-13

Gray wolves (Canis lupus) from the Yukon Territory, Canada, survived the extinction at the end of the last Ice Age by adapting their diet over thousands of years — from a primary reliance on ...

Fri, 2021-04-09

A fossil of a skunk-like mammal that lived during the age of dinosaurs has been discovered in Chilean Patagonia, adding further proof to recent evidence that mammals roamed that part of South America a lot earlier than previously thought.

Fri, 2021-04-09

Fossiomanus sinensis and Jueconodon cheni, two distantly related species of mammaliamorphs that lived some 120 million years ago (Early...

Thu, 2021-04-08

 120-million-year-old animals evolved "scratch-digging" traits independently.

Wed, 2021-04-07

Fossil discoveries often help answer long-standing questions about how our modern world came to be. However, sometimes they only deepen the mystery -- as a recent discovery of four new species of ancient insects in British Columbia and Washington state is proving...

Sat, 2021-04-03

Trilobites had well-developed gill-like structures in their upper leg branches, according to a new imaging study led by the University of...

Sat, 2021-03-27

Many of us, at some point or another, dreamed of hunting for dinosaur fossils when we grew up. Paleontology—the study of natural history through fossils—is the scientific reality of this. It encompasses all ancient lifeforms that left their trace in the earth,...

Fri, 2021-03-26

Paleontologists from Flinders University have examined the brains of four species of extinct giant mihirungs (dromornithid birds): Ilbandornis woodburnei and three species of the genus Dromornis.

Fri, 2021-03-26

Congruus kitcheneri, an extinct species of kangaroo that lived in Australia between 2.6 million and 12,000 years ago, was adapted for climbing trees, although it was larger and not as specialized for arboreal living as the tree-...

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