Science Daily - Fossils

The surprising discovery of a new species of extinct crocodile relative from the Triassic Favret Formation of Nevada, USA, rewrites the story of life along the coasts during the first act of the Age of Dinosaurs. The new species Benggwigwishingasuchus eremicarminis reveals that while giant ichthyosaurs ruled the oceans, the ancient crocodile kin known as pseudosuchian archosaurs ruled the shores across the Middle Triassic globe between 247.2 and 237 million years ago.

The most complete dinosaur discovered in the UK in the last 100 years, with a pubic hip bone the size of a 'dinner plate', has been described in a new article.

Ancient DNA from bones and teeth hints at a role of the plague in Stone Age population collapse. Contrary to previous beliefs, the plague may have diminished Europe's populations long before the major plague outbreaks of the Middle Ages, new research shows.

A type of extinct kangaroo that lived during the Pleistocene around two and a half million to ten thousand years ago, known as the 'giant wallaby', was a poor hopper, a study has found.

A study of ancient dingo DNA revealed that the distribution of modern dingoes across Australia, including those on K'gari (formerly Fraser Island), pre-dates European colonization and interventions like the dingo-proof fence.

Meet Gaiasia jennyae, the swamp creature with a toilet seat-shaped head. It lived 40 million years before the first dinosaurs, and it was the top predator in its ecosystem.

Bone remains found in a Tibetan cave 3,280 m above sea level indicate an ancient group of humans survived here for many millennia.

Scientists discovered the oldest fossil grapes in the Western Hemisphere, which help show how after the death of the dinosaurs, grapes spread across the world.

Ammonites were not in decline before their extinction, scientists have found.

Researchers have described some of the best-preserved three-dimensional trilobite fossils ever discovered. The fossils, which are more than 500 million years old, were collected in the High Atlas of Morocco and are being referred to by scientists as 'Pompeii' trilobites due to their remarkable preservation in ash.

Why did multicellularity arise? Solving that mystery may help pinpoint life on other planets and explain the vast diversity and complexity seen on Earth today, from sea sponges to redwoods to human society. A new article shows how specific physical conditions -- especially ocean viscosity and resource deprivation -- during the global glaciation period known as Snowball Earth could have driven eukaryotes to turn multicellular.

Researchers have identified the likeliest timeline of the famous Hellenistic-era Kyrenia shipwreck, discovered and recovered off the north coast of Cyprus in the 1960s.

For centuries, scientists thought they knew where the griffin legend came from. A new study takes a closer look at the data and folklore's influence on science.

A new dinosaur has been identified and named. The dinosaur's name, Lokiceratops rangiformis, translates roughly to 'Loki's horned face that looks like a caribou.'

A white wine over 2,000 years old, of Andalusian origin, is the oldest wine ever discovered.

An international team of scientists has identified the oldest fossil of a sea-going reptile from the Southern Hemisphere -- a nothosaur vertebra found on New Zealand's South Island. 246 million years ago, at the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs, New Zealand was located on the southern polar coast of a vast super-ocean called Panthalassa. 'The nothosaur found in New Zealand is over 40 million years older than the previously oldest known sauropterygian fossils from the Southern Hemisphere.

New research has found that sharks retained high levels of functional diversity for most of the last 66 million years, before steadily declining over the last 10 million years to its lowest value in the present day.

Paleontologists have identified a new genus of fossil goby, revealing evolutionary secrets of a lineage that stretches back millions of years.

When it comes to the ocean's response to global warming, we're not in entirely uncharted waters. A new study shows that episodes of extreme heat in Earth's past caused the exchange of waters from the surface to the deep ocean to decline.

New research has identified 100-million-year-old fossilized bones discovered in western Queensland as belonging to a newly identified species of pterosaur, which was a formidable flying reptile that lived among the dinosaurs.