fossils

Enlarge / A great white shark.wildestanimal / Getty Images Gigantic extinct sharks have something to tell us from millions of years ago, and paleontologists are only just beginning to unravel that message. In a series of firsts, paleontologists have identified a growing number of paleo-nurseries, ancient sanctuaries where young sharks may have been born and…

Aurich Lawson/T. Clements et al. Sometimes science can be a messy endeavor—not to mention "disgusting and smelly." That's how British researchers described their experiments monitoring dead sea bass carcasses as they rotted over the course of 70 days. In the process, they gained some fascinating insights into how (and why) the soft tissues of internal…

Julius Csotonyi A group of researchers has recently made an astounding discovery. Using an innovative imaging technique, an international team of scientists has uncovered remarkable details of a pterosaur's soft tissue. Despite an age of approximately 145–163 million years, the wing membrane and the webbing between both feet managed to survive fossilization. Armed with new…

Júlia d'Oliveira They were the largest land creatures the Earth has ever known. But what survived millions of years of fossilization in one specific area of the Ponte Alta region of Brazil was not their massive bones, rather, it was their rare and relatively tiny eggs. And many of them! The first titanosaur nesting site…

Enlarge / View of the fossilized skull of an extinct species of stargazer fish, showing preserved fecal pellets in the brain.Calvert Marine Museum A fossilized cranium of an extinct species of stargazer fish was stuffed with tiny fecal pellets known as coprolites, according to a recent paper published in the journal Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia…

Lesley Cherns et al. Researchers created a highly detailed 3D model of a 365-million-year-old ammonite fossil from the Jurassic period by combining advanced imaging techniques, revealing internal muscles that have never been previously observed, according to a paper published last month in the journal Geology. Another paper published last month in the journal Papers in…

Photo: Lina-photo (Shutterstock)Not all dinosaurs have fearsome names. Take the Pantydraco. Fossils of this stupid dinosaur were discovered in Wales in 2003. These wee jerks were only three meters long. “Ugh, look at this useless species of dinosaurs we discovered. I’ll bet they were really lame,” Paleontologists did not say. “Let’s give it a dumb…

Once upon a time, during the Cretaceous period, a tiny crab wandered out of the water onto land and somehow got trapped in amber, which preserved it for 100 million years. At least that's what a team of scientists hypothesize might have happened in a new paper announcing their discovery of the oldest known modern-looking crab…

Not to toot my own horn, but I know a thing or two about bizarre animals. And I can tell you without a hint of doubt that the bobbit worm is by far the most bizarre. Growing to 10 feet long, the worm digs a burrow in the seafloor, leaving only its bear trap of…

Enlarge / Artist's depiction of Falcatakely forsterae. Given the unusual attention granted to turkeys this week, let’s talk dinosaurs. Today’s birds are, of course, descendants of the only branch of the dino tree that made it through the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. In the dinosaurs’ halcyon days, the early birds were a bit different, still retaining…