New research led by Field Museum of Natural History paleontologists suggests that Archaeopteryx, the oldest known bird, had a feeding apparatus shaped by early flight pressures, hinting that its diet and aerodynamics evolved together in the…
Category: Paleontology
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Organic periostracum preserved in Cretaceous ammonoids from the Andean Neuquén Basin
Saleuddin, A. S. M. & Petit, H. P. The mode of formation and the structure of the periostracum in The Mollusca, Vol. 4: Physiology Part 1 (eds. Wilbur, K. M. & Saleuddin, A. S. M.) 199–234 (Academic Press, 1983).
Dunachie, J. F. The periostracum…
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Cellular-level preservation of cutaneous spikes in an Early Cretaceous iguanodontian dinosaur
Bell, P. R. Standardized terminology and potential taxonomic utility for hadrosaurid skin impressions: a case study for Saurolophus from Canada and Mongolia. PLoS ONE 7, e31295 (2012).
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Inside the Mouth of Earth’s Oldest Bird
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If you’ve ever had the misfortune of staring down the gullet of a screaming…
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Giant Pythons Once Lived in Taiwan
A fossil trunk vertebra from the Chiting Formation of Taiwan reveals that nearly 4-m-long pythons roamed the island during the Middle Pleistocene.
An artistic reconstruction of the possible ecological interaction between Python and…
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Enigmatic Fossils Fill Missing Chapters in Story of Earth’s First Fishes
In two separate studies, paleontologists in Australia and China examined the fossilized remains of enigmatic Devonian lungfish with cutting-edge imaging, revealing overlooked anatomical details and deepening our understanding of early…
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This strange little dinosaur is forcing a rethink of evolution
An international research team has identified a new dinosaur species, Foskeia pelendonum, a tiny plant-eating dinosaur that lived during the Early Cretaceous in what is now Vegagete (Burgos, Spain). At just about half a meter long, Foskeia ranks…
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230-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Footprint is Australia’s Oldest: Study
A footprint unearthed by a teenage fossil hunter at Albion in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, in 1958 has now been formally identified as the continent’s earliest confirmed dinosaur trace, dating back some 230 million years (Late Triassic…
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Weird bird mouths go all the way back to the first avian dinosaur
The Archaeopteryx is one of evolution’s most infamous species—but it’s…
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Baby Sauropods Were the Potato Chips of the Jurassic Era
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The closest thing we have to a real-life Jurassic Park is the Morrison…
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