1+ hour, 38+ min ago   (431+ words) Paleontologists have identified the earliest-known cephalopod equipped with a siphuncle — a tubular extension of the mantle found in shelled cephalopods — pushing back the fossil record of this key evolutionary feature to the Early Cambrian, roughly 520 million years ago. Life reconstruction…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago   (530+ words) A new genus and species of cryptobranchid salamander that lived in lakes in Japan about 3.5 million years ago has been identified from three fossil vertebrae, filling a major gap in the fossil record of one of the world’s oldest amphibian…...

2+ mon, 1+ day ago   (277+ words) “Paleontologists have wondered whether this time of markedly less diversity of life could be linked to ocean chemistry, cooling climates or environmental instability,” said Flinders University’s Dr. Russell Bicknell. “But perhaps we haven’t been looking at the right sedimentary rocks…...

2+ mon, 1+ week ago   (587+ words) Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of pan-shinisaur lizard from a partial upper jaw discovered in southern France, pushing the presence of its lineage in Europe back by at least 30 million years. Paleoartistic reconstruction of Acutodon villeveyracensis, the…...

2+ mon, 2+ week ago   (676+ words) Unusual gases rising from geothermal springs within the Kafue Rift of Zambia suggest a deep fracture in Earth’s crust could mark the early stages of a new tectonic boundary. Location map of the extensional zone within the Central African Plateau…...

3+ mon, 3+ week ago   (470+ words) Paleontologists have examined 289-million-year-old specimens of the early reptile Captorhinus aguti that preserve a covering of three-dimensional skin, a complete shoulder girdle and ribcage with cartilages, and — most astonishingly — protein remnants that predate the previous oldest-known example by nearly 100 million…...

3+ mon, 4+ week ago   (485+ words) Paleontologists at Harvard University have described a large predatory arthropod from the Middle Cambrian of Utah featuring massive three-segmented chelicerae. Named Megachelicerax cousteaui, this soft-bodied animal represents the earliest known member of the chelicerates, pushing back the origins of spiders,…...

4+ mon, 3+ week ago   (416+ words) Paleontologists at the University of Toronto Mississauga have found dozens of tooth marks on the fossilized bones of three juveniles of Diadectes, one of the earliest large plant-eating vertebrates to walk on land. The scars offer what the researchers say…...

5+ mon, 3+ week ago   (576+ words) Known non-biological sources, from meteorites to surface chemistry, fall short of accounting for organic compounds detected by NASA’s Curiosity rover, according to a new study published in the journal Astrobiology. This graphic shows the long-chain organic molecules decane, undecane, and…...

7+ mon, 3+ week ago   (559+ words) Anacondas are among the largest living snakes in the world. They are usually 4 to 5 m long and in rare cases can reach 7 m. In new research, paleontologists analyzed giant anaconda fossils from South America to deduce that these tropical snakes reached…...