For the first time, a stunningly well-preserved fossil of a genuine cicada has been found at the Messel Pit in Germany, providing an unprecedented insight into the old world of these buzzing insects. The newly discovered species, Eoplatypleura messelensis, is 47 million years old and is one of the most ancient recorded ancestors of contemporary ...
The coelacanth is often dubbed a “living fossil” due to its striking resemblance to fossils dating back 400 million years. Discovered alive in the 1930s, it defied the belief that it went extinct 66 million years ago. Paleontologists are actively investigating its ancestors to understand how the coelacanth managed to survive multiple mass extinctions, as ...
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 ...
Far out in the dry badlands of South Africa’s Karoo Basin, fossils have been unearthed by paleontologists that rewrite the book on prehistoric survival and extinction. The fossils are those of Inostrancevia, a giant saber-toothed predator known to science only through Russian fossils until now. The tiger-sized gorgonopsian proto-mammal with reptilian traits somehow traveled an ...
Newly discovered 140-million-year-old tracks rewrite the history of African dinosaurs and reveal how earthquakes preserved their footsteps. A Coastal Walk Frozen in Time Along South Africa’s Robberg Peninsula, a geological detective story has unfolded. What were once thought to be earthquake cracks in ancient estuary rocks are now recognized as: “We’re seeing the literal footsteps ...
New research reveals mammals were abandoning trees millions of years before the asteroid hit changing everything we know about their survival. The Great Mammal Migration: From Trees to Terrain For decades, scientists believed mammals only flourished after dinosaurs went extinct. But a groundbreaking 2025 study analyzing fragmentary limb bones from Late Cretaceous mammals reveals a ...
In the misty crags of the Canadian Rockies, a set of ancient footprints has surfaced, each one a whisper from a creature that last walked the Earth 100 million years ago. But these are no ordinary dinosaur tracks. They’re the first of their kind, offering unprecedented insight into a club-tailed tank of a dinosaur never ...
