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Researchers have identified a 3D fragment of fossilized skin that is at least 21 million years than previously described skin fossils. The skin, which belonged to an early species of Paleozoic reptile, has a pebbled surface and most closely resembles crocodile skin. It's the oldest example of preserved epidermis, the outermost layer of skin in terrestrial reptiles, birds, and mammals, which was an important evolutionary adaptation in the transition to life on land. The fossil is described on January 11 in the journal Current Biology along with several other specimens that were collected from the Richards Spur limestone cave system...

Researchers unveiled 1.63-billion-year-old multicellular fossils from North China, marking the oldest record of multicellular eukaryotes and pushing back the timeline for the emergence of multicellularity in eukaryotes by about 70 million years. This discovery highlights the complexity of early life forms and supports the early appearance of the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA) in the evolutionary history. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Researchers have discovered the oldest multicellular eukaryotic fossils, dated at 1.63 billion years, in North China, revealing early complex life forms and suggesting an earlier emergence of multicellularity. In a study published in Science Advances on January 24,...

A walk on a northeastern Prince Edward Island beach has turned into a quest for answers for an Island man and his friends. Ron Howse spotted a bin full of bones when he was finishing up a walk along the beach in Souris in August 2023. The town had placed the bin there for people to throw debris into, and someone had tossed in the bones. These were not just any bones, though: Their darkening colour indicated that they were in the process of fossilizing, or turning into rock-hard minerals, and there were at least 50 of them. Howse was...

BUENOS AIRES (AFP) – Scientists have found fossil remains of an omnivorous dinosaur in Argentina -- a missing link to the carnivores, a researcher said Monday. "It is an omnivore -- in other words it ate everything (plants and meat) -- which is the missing link between carnivorous dinosaurs and giant four-footed herbivores," said Oscar Alcober, also director of the Natural Sciences Museum in San Juan, 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) west of Buenos Aires. "This is a very important piece of the puzzle on the origin of dinosaurs," said Alcober. Alcober and Ricardo Martinez, chief of the museum's paleontology division,...

AP - In an undated photo provided by Professor Rodolfo Coria, a dog sits by a replica of the head of a Mapusaurus roseae at the Carmen Funes Museum in Plaza Huincul, Argentina. The dinosaur was discovered in the Patagonia region of Argentina and appears to be one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs known. (AP Photo/HO/Prof. Rodolfo Coria) Scientists are learning more about what appears to be one of the biggest meat-eating dinosaurs known, a two-legged beast whose bones were found several years ago in the fossil-rich Patagonia region of Argentina. One expert called the discovery the first substantial...

BUENOS AIRES (AFP) - Argentine paleontologists have discovered the largely intact skeleton of a young titanosaurus that lived 71 million years ago. "What's extraordinary about this is that the remains were articulated, as if the animal had fallen or lain down and remained that way. There were no signs that it was preyed on," local media reported geologist and paleontologist Bernardo Gonzalez Riga as saying. Scientists discovered the remains of a foot "with all its toes and claws in an exceptional state of preservation," as well as the complete rear bones, tail, "and part of the pelvis," Gonzalez said. Such...

BUENOS AIRES -- Remains of a new species of dinosaur, christened 'bonitasaura', were discovered in southern Argentina after scientists were led to them by a 98-year-old woman, who said that she was aware of the bones since her childhood. Scientists were taken to the bones of the nine-meter (30 foot) giant, by Filomena Avila, also called Dona Tica, after convincing her that they were not fossil thieves. "Dona Tica believed we were fossil traffickers and, at first, she lied to us, saying that there are not any bones here," said Sebastian Apesteguia, leader of the paleontologists who made the discovery....

Fort Myers, Fla. (WSVN) — A fossil enthusiast near Fort Myers stumbled upon an extraordinary find, unearthing a fully intact mammoth jaw believed to be around 10,000 years old from the waters teeming with alligators. John Kreatsoulas, the fossil finder from Fossil Junkies Dig and Dive Charters, expressed his amazement. “I grabbed onto it just to hold on for a second and I realized ‘Wait a second, that’s not a tree, that was a mammoth,'” he said. The remarkable discovery was made in an area known for its alligator presence. Currently working to restore the ancient jaw, Kreatsoulas plans to...

A spate of cultural vandalism continued earlier this year when part of a buried Stone Age monument in Wales was crudely excavated and left to the elements. Julian Baker, a 52-year-old man from Abertridwr, Caerphilly, filmed himself unearthing the 4,500-year-old relic on Eglwysilan mountain and posted the video to Facebook, according to local heritage officials. In a first prosecution of its sort in Wales, Baker has been ordered to pay £4,400 (roughly $5,600) for its restoration. Additionally, he was given a four-month custodial sentence, suspended for two years, at the Magistrates Court in Wales, according to the BBC. Ancient Roman...

The sea bed in the deep ocean during the Cambrian period was thought to have been inhospitable to animal life because it lacked enough oxygen to sustain it. But research published in the scientific journal Geology reveals the existence of fossilized worm tunnels dating back to the Cambrian period­­ 270 million years before the evolution of dinosaurs. The discovery, by USask professor Brian Pratt, suggests that animal life in the sediment at that time was more widespread than previously thought. The worm tunnels—burrows where worms lived and munched through the sediment—are invisible to the naked eye. But Pratt “had a...

Scientists Find 500-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Brain The discovery of new evidence supports the previous speculation on 520 million-year-old human-old brain systems, provoking thoughts about the nature of brains, life, and intelligence in the cosmos. Soft, squishy, and delicate; brain and nervous system tissues maybe some of the worst candidates for preservation in the fossil record. In past years the best examples of the ancient brain and nerve structures have come from creatures trapped and preserved in amber that was a couple of hundred million years old. But a few years ago paleontologists claimed to have found evidence of brain structures in...

A federal grand jury in Utah has indicted four people for attempting to illegally sell $1 million worth of paleontological resources, including to buyers in China. The stolen goods include 150,000 pounds of paleontological resources, including dinosaur bones, removed from federal and state lands in southeastern Utah, in violation of the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act (PRPA). Vint Wade, 65, and Donna Wade, 67, of Moab; Steven Willing, 67, of Los Angeles, California; and Jordan Willing, 40 of Ashland, Oregon, have been charged with causing $3 million in damages by stealing more than $1 million in paleontological resources, which included dinosaur...

An illustration of early humans hunting an elephant using spears. (courtesy Tel Aviv University) When elephants started disappearing from the Middle East some 400,000 years ago, it was a major crisis, and not just for the ancient elephants. Early humans across the region, including in what is now Israel, depended on elephants for their diet. Eventually, humans adapted, learning how to hunt smaller prey such as bison, deer and gazelles, until those, too, disappeared from the landscape or their numbers were too small to hunt. This forced humans to adapt to even smaller prey such as rabbits and birds, and,...

A newly described fossil suggests that the ancestor of humans and apes arose in Europe, not in Africa...In the new study, the researchers analyzed a newly identified ape fossil from the 8.7 million-year-old site of Çorakyerler in central Anatolia. They dubbed the species Anadoluvius turkae. "Anadolu" is the modern Turkish word for Anatolia, and "turk" refers to Turkey.The fossil suggests that A. turkae likely weighed about 110 to 130 pounds (50 to 60 kilograms), or about the weight of a large male chimpanzee.Based on the fossils of other animals found alongside it — such as giraffes, warthogs, rhinos, antelope, zebras,...

Prof. Begun said: "Our findings further suggest that hominines [bonobos, chimpanzees, and gorillas] not only evolved in western and central Europe - but spent over five million years evolving there and spreading to the eastern Mediterranean before eventually dispersing into Africa."....This migration, he added, was "probably a consequence of changing environments and diminishing forests."

It's like something out of science fiction. Research led by Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences has revealed that a group of microbes, which feed off chemical reactions triggered by radioactivity, have been at an evolutionary standstill for millions of years. The discovery could have significant implications for biotechnology applications and scientific understanding of microbial evolution. "This discovery shows that we must be careful when making assumptions about the speed of evolution and how we interpret the tree of life," said Eric Becraft, the lead author on the paper. "It is possible that some organisms go into an evolutionary full-sprint, while...

When did something like us first appear on the planet? It turns out there’s remarkably little agreement on this question. Fossils and DNA suggest people looking like us, anatomically modern Homo sapiens, evolved around 300,000 years ago. Surprisingly, archaeology—tools, artifacts, cave art—suggest that complex technology and cultures, “behavioral modernity,” evolved more recently: 50,000 to 65,000 years ago. Some scientists interpret this as suggesting the earliest Homo sapiens weren’t entirely modern. Yet the different data tracks different things. Skulls and genes tell us about brains, artifacts about culture. Our brains probably became modern before our cultures.Key physical and cultural milestones in...

Fossils from two giant rhinos dating back about 22 million years have been unearthed in China, according to a study published Thursday. They are among the latest relics of the gigantic animal, which was discovered amid great fanfare early last century. Much larger than modern rhinos, giant rhinos often stood more than 20 feet tall at the shoulder and weighed more than 20 tons, making them bigger than mammoths and the largest land mammal that ever lived.One fossil consists of a skull, jawbone and teeth, and the atlas vertebra — where the head connects to the spine — while the...

The ancient bones and teeth of a previously unknown human relative — one that was even smaller than the so-called Hobbit — have been discovered deep in a cave on an island in the Philippines. The newfound species is named Homo luzonensis in honor of Luzon, the island where the mysterious beings lived during the late Pleistocene epoch, more than 50,000 years ago. At less than 4 feet (1.2 meters) tall, H. luzonensis is the second known dwarf human on record, the first being Homo floresiensis, also known as the Hobbit, whose remains were found on the Indonesian island of...

When Mike Poben, an opal buyer and and fossil fanatic, bought a bucket of opal from an Australian mine, he was surprised to find to find what looked like an ancient tooth in the pile. Later, he also found a fossilized jaw piece — one that was shiny and glistening with opal. After showing the two opalized specimens to paleontologists in 2014, Poben learned that they were part of a previously unknown dog-size dinosaur species, a new study finds. This dino lived about 100 million years ago in Australia, back when the landscape was lush and dotted with lakes. The...