The discovery of Zhongyuansaurus junchangi, an new species of ankylosaurid from the Henan Province of China, adds a new dimension to the history of armored dinosaurs. It was an herbivore, as well as heavily armored, and lived during the Early Cretaceous period roughly 113-100 million years ago. Its evolutionary peculiarities included a bizzare ‘swallowtail’ tail ...
A fossil hunter’s accidental discovery in a quiet Scottish quarry in 1984 has challenged our knowledge of one of evolution’s biggest leaps the moment life crawled from water onto land. Dubbed “Lizzie,” the small, lizard-like creature proved to be Westlothiana lizziae, a key species bridging the divide between fish and land animals. Now, ground-breaking studies ...
For decades, the story of human evolution has been pieced together from fragments of fossilized bones, stone tools, and, more recently, ancient DNA. But what happens when DNA degrades beyond recovery, leaving scientists with only enamel and dentin to decode the secrets of our ancestors? A groundbreaking new study has cracked the code, using proteins ...
For nearly four decades, a set of enigmatic fossils from British Columbia puzzled scientists so much so that they became the province’s official fossil emblem before anyone could definitively identify them. Now, after years of debate, paleontologists have finally unveiled the creature behind the mystery: Traskasaura sandrae, a bizarre 12-meter-long elasmosaurus with a Frankensteinian mix ...
For decades, an enigmatic fossil sat quietly in Japan’s Museum of Unique Insect Fossils its origins a mystery. Discovered in 1988 in Hyogo Prefecture, the delicate imprint of a butterfly’s wing and body was labeled merely as an “extremely rare” specimen. Now, over thirty years later, researchers have unlocked its secret: it is the fossil ...
In a revolutionary find along South Africa’s Cape coast, researchers have identified the world’s earliest fossilized pangolin tracks, dating to as much as 140,000 years ago. But here’s the twist: The prehistoric trail was cracked not with high-tech imaging or artificial intelligence, but through the traditional know-how of Namibia’s Indigenous Master Trackers, whose age-old expertise ...
