Paleontologists in Patagonia, Argentina, have unearthed a portion of a postcranial skeleton that belonged to a previously unknown rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur.
Life reconstruction of Astigmasaura genuflexa. Image credit: Mattia Yuri…
Category: Paleontology
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Paleontologists Discover First Evidence of Multispecies Dinosaur Herding
Paleontologists say they have discovered the 76-million-year-old footprints of a ceratopsian dinosaur-dominated herd in Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada. The discovery provides the first evidence of mixed-species herding behavior in…
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Cambrian Nectocaridids are Early Descendants of Arrow Worms, New Fossil Shows
Nectocaridids are enigmatic Paleozoic animals with a controversial position. These creatures were adapted for swimming, having fins, a head region with stalked camera eyes, and paired tentacles. Previous hypotheses have placed them in their…
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A dusty fossil drawer held a 300-million-year-old evolutionary game-changer
In a twist worthy of a detective novel, a long-misidentified fossil at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) has emerged as a key discovery in early animal evolution. Originally described in 1865 as a caterpillar, Palaeocampa anthrax…
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A 500-million-year-old fossil just rewrote the spider origin story
A new analysis of an exquisitely preserved fossil that lived half a billion years ago suggests that arachnids – spiders and their close kin – evolved in the ocean, challenging the widely held belief that their diversification happened only after…
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Enlargement of sternum traits facilitated the evolution of powered flight in birds
Hou, L., Martin, L. D., Zhou, Z. & Feduccia, A. Early adaptive radiation of birds: evidence from fossils from northeastern China. Science 274, 1164–1167 (1996).
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Crested Diapsid Reptile from Middle Triassic Shakes Up Feather Evolution Theories
Paleontologists have described a new genus and species of Triassic drepanosauromorph diapsid with striking integumentary appendages — which are neither feathers nor skin — based on two well-preserved skeletons and associated specimens….
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Long-Misidentified Fossil is First Known Nonmarine Lobopodian, Paleontologists Say
First published in 1865 as a caterpillar, nearly fifty years before the discovery of Canada’s Burgess Shale, Palaeocampa anthrax shuffled between classifications — worm, millipede, and marine polychaete — until 130 years later, when…
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A new Early Jurassic dinosaur represents the earliest-diverging and oldest sauropodomorph of East Asia
Systematic palaeontology
Dinosauria Owen, 1842.
Saurischia Seeley, 1887.
Sauropodomorpha Huene, 1932.
Massopoda Yates, 2007.
Wudingloong wui gen. et sp. nov.
Etymology
The genus name, Wudingloong, “Wuding” refers to Wuding County where the fossil…
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Palaeocampa anthrax, an armored freshwater lobopodian with chemical defenses from the Carboniferous
Budd, G. E. A Cambrian gilled lobopod from Greenland. Nature 364, 709–711 (1993).
Wu, R., Pisani, D. & Donoghue, P. C. J. The unbearable uncertainty of panarthropod relationships. Biol. Lett.…
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