Paleo in the News

A new study has recovered a 3.7-billion-year-old record of Earth's magnetic field, and found that it appears remarkably similar to the field surrounding Earth today.

A set of large, distinctive footprints suggest a raptor dinosaur that lived in East Asia 96 million years ago grew to a length of 5 metres

Bioluminescence first evolved in animals at least 540 million years ago in a group of marine invertebrates called octocorals, according to the results of a new study. The study focuses on an ancient group of marine invertebrates that includes soft corals, pushes back the previous oldest dated example of trait by nearly 300 million years.

Six full-body fossils of Ptychodus sharks have been formally analysed for the first time, revealing that they were fast swimmers that preyed on shelled creatures

Palaeontologists have solved a hundred-year-old mystery of how some fossil frogs preserve their fleshy parts -- it's all down to their skin. Palaeontologists studied 45-million-year-old fossil frogs from the Geiseltal site in central Germany. Remarkably, the fossils show full body outlines of the soft tissues. The team discovered that the excellent condition of the fossil frogs is due to preservation of ancient skin remnants.

Palaeontologists have solved a hundred-year-old mystery of how some fossil frogs preserve their fleshy parts -- it's all down to their skin. Palaeontologists studied 45-million-year-old fossil frogs from the Geiseltal site in central Germany. Remarkably, the fossils show full body outlines of the soft tissues. The team discovered that the excellent condition of the fossil frogs is due to preservation of ancient skin remnants.

A group of around 40 scientists signed a declaration calling for formal acknowledgement of consciousness in a range of animals, including insects and fish – but the evidence is still lacking

An Australian bull ant is the first animal known to use the patterns produced by polarised moonlight to navigate its environment

By measuring how birds’ vocal muscles move while they are asleep and using a physical model for how those muscles produce sound, researchers have pulled songs from the minds of sleeping birds

The vertebrae of Vasuki indicus, a snake that lived 47 million years ago, suggest it could have been as long as 15 metres

New research has highlighted an area in Arabia that once acted as a key point for cultural exchanges and trades amongst ancient people -- and it all took place in vast caves and lava tubes that have remained largely untapped reservoirs of archaeological abundance in Arabia. Through meticulous excavation and analysis, the international team uncovered a wealth of evidence at Umm Jirsan, spanning from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic/Bronze Age periods (~10,000-3,500 years ago).

A detailed reconstruction of climate during the most recent ice age, when a large swath of North America was covered in ice, provides information on the relationship between CO2 and global temperature. Results show that while most future warming estimates remain unchanged, the absolute worst-case scenario is unlikely.

The fossilized remains of a second gigantic jawbone measuring more than two meters long has been found on a beach in Somerset, UK.

The fossilized remains of a second gigantic jawbone measuring more than two meters long has been found on a beach in Somerset, UK.

The jawbone of an ichthyosaur uncovered in south-west England has been identified as a new species, and researchers estimate that the whole animal was 20 to 25 metres long

Marine communities migrated to Antarctica during the Earth's warmest period in 66 million years long before a mass-extinction event.

Researchers have identified a variant in the gene TBX1 as key in the development of the unique morphology at the base of the skull. TBX1 is present at higher levels in humans than in closely related hominins. Low TBX1 also occurs in certain genetic conditions causing altered skull base morphology. This study provides a greater understanding of human disease and evolution.

Competition between species played a major role in the rise and fall of hominins -- and produced a 'bizarre' evolutionary pattern for the Homo lineage -- according to a new study that revises the start and end dates for many of our early ancestors.

Weeding robots can sometimes struggle to tell weeds from crops, but genetically modifying the plants we want to keep to make them brightly coloured would make the job easier, suggest a group of researchers

Up to 17 US states could be peppered with more than a trillion cicadas this spring, and though it has been a while since these two specific broods emerged at once, double broods are not that rare