Jutting out of rock in a hiking area of Alaska's Talkeetna Mountains were the bones of an ancient, long-necked swimmer. A fossil-finder recently ran across them.
A new, near-complete fossil of a velociraptor relative tells a lot about film dinosaurs versus the very large banty-rooster truth.
Our writer James Sullivan talks about how a wooly mammoth could potentially roam Siberia, and the ethics of such cases.
As far as scientists know, there have been a grand total of five mass extinctions over the last 500-million years - world-changing events during which the great majority of Earth's life was eliminated to make way for new organisms and evolutionary paths. However, for several decades, some experts have suspected that a 6th mass extinction existed among these "Big Five." Now researchers are claiming to have found extremely compelling proof of its existence.
Meat-eaters and plant-eaters roamed the Kamitaki region in Japan's Hyogo prefecture, dinosaur eggs indicate.
No, you can't actually go and become a velociraptor trainer, like Hollywood actor Christ Pratt does in the new blockbuster "Jurassic World." However, you can certainly learn to be a 'raptor tracker.' In a new and intriguing study, paleontologist Scott Persons details how he and his colleagues have learned to follow 75-million-year-old dinosaur trails.
This is bound to make any male cringe. Experts recently determined that the ancient 'penis worm,' Ottoia¬¬ - a phallus-like creature more than 500 million years old - boasted a throat lined with deadly razor and serrated teeth. In fact, these teeth were so varied and numerous that researchers crafted a "dentists' handbook" to help them identify new species in the genus.
Spelunking and traditional cave diving are both a lot of fun. There is danger in scuba-diving flooded caves, but experienced explorers will tell you that the unique sights that can be found just beneath waves and stone are worth the risk. Such was the case for Ryan Dart, an Australian diver who made the paleontological discovery of a lifetime after stumbling upon a "treasure trove" of ancient and massive lemur bones.
You definitely heard of the woolly mammoth, but did you know that 10,000 years ago, some particularly hairy rhinoceros were stomping around the Sleeping Lands as well? Researchers recently got their hands on an incredibly well-preserved carcass of a baby woolly rhino - one that had been trapped in ice for thousands upon thousands of years.
Researchers have now determined that hippos were likely some of the first large animals to migrate from Asia to Africa, swimming from one continent to the other roughly 35 million years ago. However, they certainly weren't the semi-aquatic giants they are today. Fossil evidence indicates that ancient hippos were no larger than modern sheep.
You may think that people were the original psychedelic sojourners, 'tripping' on acid and mushrooms in a time of spirituality and rock n' roll. However, fossil evidence now indicates that dinosaurs could have been tripping too, albeit indivertibly, 100 million years ago.
Paleontologists have unearthed the fossils of our modern day scorpions' most ancient forefathers - creatures that have long been suspected to stalk the ocean's depths hundreds of millions of years ago. Interestingly, the latest sample, however, appears to have legs that would have been ideal for steady strides on land as well.
Fossilized plaque, of all things, may have solved a mystery that has left archaeologists scratching their heads for years. Known for its iconic Moai statues, Easter Island is suspected to have been colonized around the 13th century. However palm trees, one of the only primary crops on the island, are believed to have become extinct not long after colonization. So how did the islanders survive?
It has long been suspected that most mammals, primates included, really started down the evolutionary fast-track after the majority of dinosaurs went extinct. However, new fossil finds from 66 million years ago suggest that primates may have started evolving earlier, with one primate boasting a particularly large body size during a time of exceptionally tiny mammals.