Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of mid-sized pareiasaur from two fossilized specimes found in China in 2018.
An artist’s reconstruction of Yinshanosaurus angustus. Image credit: X.-C. Guo, Institute of Vertebrate…
Category: Paleontology
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Buried for 23,000 years: These footprints are rewriting American history
Vance Holliday jumped at the invitation to go do geology at New Mexico’s White Sands. The landscape, just west of Alamogordo, looks surreal – endless, rolling dunes of fine beige gypsum, left behind by ancient seas. It’s one of the most unique…
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A dinosaur ‘tombstone’ lurks underneath New Jersey
The big sky country of the western North America is a world-renowned dinosaur…
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19-Million-Year-Old Currawong Fossil Found in New Zealand
Paleontologists have desribed a new species of large passerine bird based the fossilized remains from the Bannockburn Formation near St Bathans in Otago, New Zealand.
Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen), adult and juvenile, at Taveuni,…
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Two Species of Parasitic Fungi Found in 99-Million-Year-Old Amber
These fossil fungi from mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber are from the same family as the zombie-ant fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, which has gained widespread recognition as the inspiration behind the popular post-apocalyptic video game and TV…
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Dog-Sized Neornithischian Dinosaur Unearthed in Colorado
A remarkable new genus and species of neornithischian dinosaur being named Enigmacursor mollyborthwickae has been identified from a three-dimensionally preserved postcranial skeleton found in the Morrison Formation of Colorado, the United…
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Scientists finally know why early human migrations out of Africa failed
Today, all non-Africans are known to have descended from a small group of people that ventured into Eurasia after around 50 thousand years ago. However, fossil evidence shows that there were numerous failed dispersals before this time that left…
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Farming without famine: Ancient Andean innovation rewrites agricultural origins
In the Andes, the rise of agriculture to replace foraging was not the result of hardship and resource scarcity, but instead a time of economic resilience and innovation, according to a study published June 25, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS…
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Mammals didn’t walk upright until late—here’s what fossils reveal
For over a century, scientists have puzzled over a fundamental mystery in our evolutionary history: how did mammals go from sprawling like lizards to striding like cats and dogs? This transition — from a sprawled stance (like a lizard) to an…
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New Species of Metatherian Mammal Unearthed in Texas
Members of the metatherian genus Swaindelphys were previously known from Swain Quarry in south-central Wyoming and the Nacimiento Formation in the San Juan Basin, New Mexico, and now, from the Black Peaks Formation of west Texas.
Life…
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