Paleo in the News

A team of palaeontologists has discovered a fossil of a gigantic flying reptile from the Jurassic period with an estimated wingspan of more than three metres -- making it one of the largest pterosaurs ever found from that era.

In recent years, China recalled pandas from three out of four US zoos that had the bears, signalling diplomatic tensions between the two countries – but this year China has offered two new pairs of giant pandas

A rare sighting of a giant pangolin revives hopes for the species' survival in West Africa, despite threats from poaching and deforestation

The sharks we know today as the open ocean's top predators evolved from stubby bottom dwellers during a dramatic episode of global warming millions of years ago.

A rare fossil skull provides strong evidence that the Dromornithidae, an extinct group of Australian flightless birds, were related to geese and ducks

Efforts to remove animal traps and discourage poaching in Vietnamese protected areas have been partly effective, but conservationists say other approaches are needed to safeguard threatened species

One of Earth's most consequential bursts of biodiversity -- a 30-million-year period of explosive evolutionary changes spawning innumerable new species -- may have the most modest of creatures to thank for the vital stage in life's history: worms.

Queen Asian hornets found in East Sussex this year are a genetic match to a 2023 nest, suggesting the invasive species is becoming established in the UK

A small fern found only on a few Pacific islands has more than 100 metres of DNA in every single cell, more than any other organism that we know of

This fossil looks like a lumpy, rounded rock with a couple of exposed teeth that are a little worse for wear, having been submerged and tumbled along the floor of the Gulf of Mexico for thousands of years before washing up on a beach. But when it was X-rayed a doctoral student saw there was more to the fossil that met the eye: a hidden canine tooth that had not yet erupted from the jaw bone. It was just what researchers needed to identify the fossil as belonging to a Homotherium, a genus of large cat that roamed much of the Earth for millions of years.

This fossil looks like a lumpy, rounded rock with a couple of exposed teeth that are a little worse for wear, having been submerged and tumbled along the floor of the Gulf of Mexico for thousands of years before washing up on a beach. But when it was X-rayed a doctoral student saw there was more to the fossil that met the eye: a hidden canine tooth that had not yet erupted from the jaw bone. It was just what researchers needed to identify the fossil as belonging to a Homotherium, a genus of large cat that roamed much of the Earth for millions of years.

A large fossil discovery has helped shed light on the history of dinosaurs in Wales.

A large fossil discovery has helped shed light on the history of dinosaurs in Wales.

A large fossil discovery has helped shed light on the history of dinosaurs in Wales.

Fossils found on the shoreline of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe represent a completely new dinosaur species. This remarkable find, named Musankwa sanyatiensis, marks only the fourth dinosaur species named from Zimbabwe.

Fossils found on the shoreline of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe represent a completely new dinosaur species. This remarkable find, named Musankwa sanyatiensis, marks only the fourth dinosaur species named from Zimbabwe.

Fossils found on the shoreline of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe represent a completely new dinosaur species. This remarkable find, named Musankwa sanyatiensis, marks only the fourth dinosaur species named from Zimbabwe.

Humans from many cultures tend to associate the nonsense words “bouba” and “kiki” with different shapes – and now it seems that 3-day-old chicks have the same inclinations

Feedback wonders if previous research into 'courtship behaviours of ostriches' in the UK will be taken into account by the owner of a new ostrich farm in New Hampshire

Ponds have long been neglected by science, but we can't overlook these diverse and important nature hotspots any more, say Jeremy Biggs and Penny Williams