Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for about 180 million years. But around 66 million years ago, a huge rock from outer space (called an asteroid) smashed into the Earth. Then things got worse for dinosaurs.
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Articles on Paleontology
Displaying 61 - 80 of 145 articles
A series of new studies sheds light on the population crash and extinction of the giant birds, lemurs and more that roamed the island until around A.D. 700-1000.
Exceptionally well preserved 500m year old fossils show Cambrian seas were more diverse than scientists had thought.
Palaeontological finds offer a compelling and profound way to think about our place in nature.
Twenty-two years ago, President Clinton established Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument for paleontological conservation. As the Trump administration shrinks its borders, that mission is jeopardized.
A tiny percentage of museums’ natural history holdings are on display. Very little of these vast archives is digitized and available online. But museums are working to change that.
They hovered in the skies of the Earth 300 million years ago… The giant dragonflies will soon be the stars of the paleontology gallery of France’s Natural History Museum in Paris.
Death is inevitable for individuals and also for species. With help from the fossil record, paleontologists are piecing together what might make one creature more vulnerable than another.
Megalodons are the latest Hollywood monster to leap out of the fossil record, but what else is lurking in prehistoric seas?
Strange frond-like sea creatures are among the planet’s earliest animals, but new research dates them and the entire animal kingdom to much earlier than first thought.
We know of about 900 valid dinosaur species that existed. ‘Valid’ means scientists know the dinosaur from enough of the skeleton bones to feel pretty sure that it differs from other known dinosaurs.
New research uses pathology in dinosaur bones to look at predator-prey interactions in the fossil record.
You might recognise Spinosaurus, from Jurassic Park 3, but did you realise it is 100% an African dinosaur?
This new research offers compelling proof that the naysayers were right. “Mrs” Ples was actually a “Mr”.
With no identifiable body parts, it’s hard to know how these fossilized creatures lived. A new approach models how the ocean’s water would interact with their unique shapes – hinting at their lifestyle.
We can’t observe the brain activity of extinct human species. But we can observe modern brains doing the things that our distant ancestors did, looking for clues about how ancient brains worked.
A century-old case of scientific fraud illustrates how hard it is to untangle the truth when access to new discoveries is limited.
Anthropologists gather clues about how our ancient ancestors lived from their teeth. What will future anthropologists make of us based on the fossilized pearly whites we’ll leave behind?
Good science isn’t rooted in chance. It’s based on people with expertise being in the right place at the right time, equipped with enough knowledge to know what they’re looking at.
One of paleontology’s most notorious hoaxes has long been blamed on a serial forger named Charles Dawson. But might a Jesuit priest have been in on a joke that went wrong ?
Top contributors
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Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of Bristol
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Strategic Professor in Palaeontology, Flinders University
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Chancellor's Fellow in Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of Edinburgh
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Adjunct professor, UNSW Sydney
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Palaeontologist, University of Southampton
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Senior Researcher in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand
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Postdoctoral researcher, Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH)
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Chercheur à l’Institut de systématique, évolution, biodiversité (ISYEB), Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (MNHN)
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Senior Lecturer in Ancient DNA, University of Otago
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Honorary Research Associate, Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand
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Project Officer – Office of the Queensland Chief Scientist
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Professor in Evolutionary Biology (jointly appointed with South Australian Museum), Flinders University
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John Curtin Distinguished Professor, Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University
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Palaeontologist, Earth Science Faculty, University of New England
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Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney
