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Is it free woolly? Scientists were flabbergasted after discovering that the mammoth backbones that had been housed in an Alaskan museum for 70 years actually belonged to a whale, per a study published in the Journal of Quaternary Science. This archaeological case of mistaken identity began way back in the 1950s, when archaeologist Otto Geist happened upon some bones while traveling through the Alaskan interior, roughly 10 miles North of Fairbanks in a region formerly known as Beringia, The Smithsonian Magazine reported. He assumed the remnants, a pair of growth plates, belonged to the plush pachyderm mammoth based on their...

A Kansas boy found something historic during an educational field trip. Corbin Bullard, 12, is already a geology fan, especially dinosaurs. He is also a part of the 4-H Geology Club in Sedgwick County. “4-H is definitely meant to help kids find what they’re interested in and do amazing things,” Stephanie Hays, the Sedgwick County 4-H agent, said. And it was on one of the 4-H trips in Jewell County where Corbin stumbled across something unexpected. “He said, ‘Whoa.’ So, we looked down and found what I think was seven or eight large vertebrae,” Wendy Bullard, Corbin’s mother, recalled. The...

T. rex’s famously tiny arms may have been the result of one terrifying evolutionary upgrade: an enormous skull built for crushing prey. Credit: Shutterstock A new study suggests T. rex and other giant predators evolved tiny arms because their massive skulls took over as the primary hunting weapon. As their bites became more powerful, their forelimbs may have gradually faded into evolutionary leftovers. Why T. Rex and Other Giant Predators Evolved Tiny Arms The famously tiny arms of Tyrannosaurus rex may have evolved because these giant predators increasingly relied on massive skulls and powerful jaws to attack prey, according to...

A newly identified species of ancient snake, Vasuki indicus, may rank among the largest snakes to ever exist. The massive reptile lived around 47 million years ago in what is now Gujarat, India, according to research published in Scientific Reports. Scientists estimate it reached an extraordinary length of about 11 to 15 meters (36 to 49 feet). While it belonged to the extinct madtsoiidae family, researchers say it represents a unique lineage that originated on the Indian subcontinent.

It was more than it was Kraken-ed up to be. An octopus the size of the Hollywood Sign might seem like a monster from Greek mythology. However, new fossil evidence reveals that massive “kraken”-like cephalopods ruled the seas during the Cretaceous period, possibly preying on massive sea reptiles and other so-called apex predators, per a study published Thursday in the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This massive mollusk “had among the largest body sizes of all organisms in the Cretaceous oceans,” wrote the researchers, who hailed from Hokkaido University. Indeed, at 62-feet-long, this colossal octopus could grow up...

According to a statement released by the University of Tübingen, an international team of researchers who evaluated a fossil femur unearthed at the site of Azmaka in southern Bulgaria suggests that it could belong to a human ancestor. “At 7.2 million years old, this ancestor, which we classify as belonging to the genus Graecopithecus, could be the oldest known human,” said paleoanthropologist David Begun of the University of Toronto. Graecopithecus was first identified by a fragment of a lower jaw unearthed near Athens. The researchers examined the shape of the tooth roots from the jaw and concluded that Graecopithecus could...

Deep within the frozen ground of Devon Island in Canada’s High Arctic, researchers found the nearly complete skeleton of a rhinoceros, Epiaceratherium itjilik, that lived there around 23 million years ago. The discovery, made by a team from the Canadian Museum of Nature, reveals that rhinos once roamed much farther north than anyone imagined. The fossils were found inside Haughton Crater, a 23-kilometer-wide impact site now locked in ice and silence. Millions of years ago, this same place held forests, lakes, and life. The team named the new species Epiaceratherium itjilik, or “frosty rhino,” combining Latin and Inuktitut to reflect...

At a remote and barren Sahara desert site in Niger, scientists have unearthed fossils of a new species of Spinosaurus, among the biggest of the meat-eating dinosaurs, notable for its large blade-shaped head crest and jaws bearing interlocking teeth for snaring slippery fish. It prowled a forested inland environment and strode into rivers to catch sizable fish like a modern-day wading bird — a “hell heron,” as one of the researchers put it, considering it was about 40 feet long and weighed 5-7 tons. The dinosaur presented a striking profile on the Cretaceous Period landscape of Africa some 95 million...

According to a Phys.org report, Victory Nery of the University of São Paulo and his colleagues suggest that fossils discovered at the site of Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia between 1999 and 2005 represent two distinct species. The hundreds of fossils in the group, including five skulls, have been dated to between 1.85 and 1.77 million years ago. Homo erectus is thought to have migrated out of Africa some 1.8 million years ago. Did other species migrate out of Africa as well at this time? The Dmanisi skulls differ from Homo erectus, do not all resemble each other, and...

Fossil fragments of a face as well as teeth were reassembled to produce the most complete cranium of a human ancestor from this time in the Horn of Africa. (Credit: Karen L. Baab. Scans provided by National Museum of Ethiopia. Photographs courtesy of M. Rogers and G. Suwa.) ================================================================= 1.6-Million-Year-Old Fossil Combines Homo habilis Face With Homo erectus Brow In A Nutshell * What did researchers find? A 1.6-to-1.5-million-year-old skull from Ethiopia combines features from two different stages of human evolution. The braincase and brow ridge match Homo erectus, but the face, teeth, and brain size look more like the...

MILAN (AP) — A wildlife photographer stumbled upon one of the oldest and largest known collections of dinosaur footprints, dating back about 210 million years to the Triassic Period, high in an Italian national park near the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympic venue of Bormio, officials announced Tuesday. The discovery in the Stelvio National Park was striking for the sheer number of footprints, estimated at as many as 20,000 over some five kilometers (three miles), and the location near the Swiss border, once a prehistoric coastal area, that has never previously yielded dinosaur tracks, experts said. “This time reality really...

The Burtele Foot with its elements in the anatomical position. (Photo by Yohannes Haile-Selassie/ASU) In A Nutshell * Scientists matched a mysterious 3.4-million-year-old fossil foot discovered in Ethiopia to Australopithecus deyiremeda, a human ancestor that lived alongside Lucy’s species but retained tree-climbing abilities. * The discovery shows human evolution wasn’t a straight path from trees to ground. While Lucy’s species evolved rigid feet for walking, A. deyiremeda kept feet that could both walk and climb, plus ate different foods from forest environments. * A juvenile jaw with distinctive teeth from the same site as the foot provided the missing link....

Artist’s impression of Spicomellus afer. Credit: Matt Dempsey Research on fossils reveals that ankylosaurs’ iconic tail weapons evolved much earlier than scientists had previously believed. =========================================================================== The world’s most unusual dinosaur is even stranger than scientists realized… A new study published in Nature reveals that Spicomellus afer possessed a tail weapon more than 30 million years earlier than any other known ankylosaur. It also featured a distinctive bony collar lined with meter-long spikes extending outward from each side of its neck. Spicomellus is recognized as the oldest ankylosaur ever discovered, dating back over 165 million years to the Middle Jurassic...

A well-preserved Caenagnathid dinosaur, affectionately known as Spike, is expected to headline Christie’s inaugural “Groundbreakers: Icons of Our Time” auction in London on December 11. At 68 million years old and counting, Spike is one of the most complete specimens of its kind, possibly representing a new species. Discovered in 2022, the sub-adult dinosaur has more than 100 preserved fossil bones and is believed to have once been heavily feathered. This is the first time a Caenagnathid Oviraptorosaur has been offered at auction. It is estimated to fetch between £3 million and £5 million ($4 million to $6.6 million). Related...

This ancient fossil holds the oldest intact brain ever discovered, and it looks strikingly like that of a spider, © Credit: Nicholas Strausfeld Share this post A fossil found in southern China has revealed something scientists rarely get to see: the incredibly well-preserved brain and nervous system of a 520-million-year-old creature. It belonged to a now-extinct marine animal with big front claws and a body that shares surprising similarities with today’s spiders and scorpions. The fossil, part of the Alalcomenaeus genus, offers a detailed snapshot of early arthropod evolution. Researchers discovered that its nervous system, especially the brain and nerve...

A cache of hundreds of eggs discovered in China sheds new light on the development and nesting behavior of prehistoric, winged reptiles called pterosaurs. Pterosaurs were fearsome-looking creatures that flew during the Lower Cretaceous period alongside dinosaurs. This particular species was believed to have a massive wingspan of up to 13 feet, and likely ate fish with their large teeth-filled jaws. Researchers working in the Turpan-Hami Basin in northwestern China collected the eggs over a 10-year span from 2006 to 2016. A single sandstone block held at least 215 well-preserved eggs that have mostly kept their shape. Sixteen of those...

Seventy-three million years ago, Alaska’s ancient rivers flowed with the early ancestors of today’s salmon and pike. Researchers have identified three new species, including Sivulliusalmo alaskensis, the oldest known salmonid. Credit: Shutterstock ================================================================ Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest salmon in Arctic Alaska’s Cretaceous fossil. During the Cretaceous Period, dinosaurs ruled the land, but the waterways of the Arctic were home to creatures that would seem surprisingly familiar today. About 73 million years ago, Alaska’s rivers and streams supported an abundance of ancient fish related to modern salmon, pike, and other northern species. According to a new study published in...

The hoof, preserved in section as a very thin clay layer, caps the end toe bone in the foot of an adult mummy of the duck-billed dinosaur Edmontosaurus annectens. Photograph courtesy of Tyler Keillor/UChicago Fossil Lab ========================================================= For the first time ever, we’ve been able to prove that some dinosaurs had hooves, thanks to two remarkably well-preserved mummified dinosaurs retrieved from Wyoming’s Badlands. The specimens are the duck-billed dinosaurs Edmontosaurus annectens that, thanks to a "fluke preservation event" are near-perfect 66 million years later. Known as “clay templating,” that process essentially encased the dinosaurs shortly after burial with a mask...

It was in egg-cellent condition. Argentine paleontologists found a real diamond in the rough after happening across a perfectly preserved 70-million-year-old dinosaur egg during an excavation. “It was a complete and utter surprise,” Gonzalo Leonel Muñoz, a Vertebrate paleontologist at the Bernardo Rivadavia Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences, told National Geographic of the “spectacular” find. “‘It’s not uncommon to find dinosaur fossils, but the issue with eggs is that they are much less common.” The team of paleontologists was reportedly conducting an excavation campaign in the fossil-rich region of Río Negro, when they stumbled across the primeval embryo. While dinosaur...

There's evidence to suggest the ancient creature survived, at least for a little while, with two heads. Image courtesy of Bob Nicholls =================================================================== In 2006, a study published in the journal Biology Letters described a fossil unlike any ever seen before. It captured a prehistoric reptile that lived around 125 million years ago. That, in itself, wasn’t terribly surprising, but the fact that it had two heads really, really was. Bicephalism describes a quirk in animal development that results in an individual with two heads. We’ve seen remarkable examples of it in wild animals, such as this southern black racer...