Paleontogly

An international team of paleontologists from the United Kingdom and Germany has shown that blue feather melanosomes are highly distinct from melanosomes that are from feathers expressing black, reddish-brown, brown and iridescent. Reconstruction of Eocoracias brachyptera with hypothesized plumage coloration. Image credit: Marta Zaher, University of Bristol. A pigment called …

Paleontologists have found two fossilized teeth of extinct cursorial hyenas (genus Chasmaporthetes) in the remote Old Crow River region in northern Yukon Territory, Canada. An artist’s rendering of ancient Arctic hyenas belonging to the genus Chasmaporthetes. Image credit: Julius T. Csotonyi. The newly-described fossil teeth of Chasmaporthetes hyenas are most …

In a new study published in the journal eLife, an international team of paleontologists looked for preserved collagen proteins and DNA in the fossilized bones of a horned dinosaur called Centrosaurus. They didn’t find the proteins or DNA, but they did find unusual communities of modern microbes living inside the …

Paleontologists have unearthed fossils of a giant trilobite species that inhabited Australian waters approximately 500 million years ago (Cambrian period). An artist’s impression of Redlichia rex on the Cambrian seafloor. Image credit: Katrina Kenny. Trilobites are a group of extinct marine arthropods that resemble modern-day horseshoe crabs and are related …

Pterosaurs were winged flying reptiles that lived at the same time as dinosaurs, between 210 million and 65 million years ago. Previously, they were thought to only be able to take to the air once they had grown to almost full size, just like birds or bats. This assumption was …

A new species of two-legged iguanodontian dinosaur has been identified from fossils discovered three decades ago in an opal mine in Australia. A paper describing the new species was published this week in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. An artist’s reconstruction of Fostoria dhimbangunmal. Image credit: James Kuether. The new …

Giant beavers (members of the genus Castoroides) inhabited North America throughout the mid- to late Pleistocene. They went extinct along with dozens of other megafaunal species at the end of the last Ice Age, approximately 10,000 years ago. Now a team of researchers in Canada has uncovered a possible reason …

Two new species of predatory megaraptoran dinosaurs have been identified from fossils found in Thailand. Phuwiangvenator yaemniyomi (left) and Vayuraptor nongbualamphuensis. Image credit: Adun Samathi / Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität Bonn. The two new species, named Phuwiangvenator yaemniyomi and Vayuraptor nongbualamphuensis, roamed the Earth approximately 125 million years ago (Cretaceous period). …

An international team of paleontologists has discovered 1,000- to 900-million-year-old microfossils of a fungus in estuarine shale of the Grassy Bay Formation in Arctic Canada. These multicellular organic-walled microfossils are more than half a billion years older than previously reported occurrences of fungi. Microphotograph of Ourasphaira giraldae. Image credit: Loron …

An international team of paleontologists has found a piece of amber containing the beautifully preserved ammonite, several marine and land organisms that lived 99 million years ago (Cretaceous period). The 99-million-year-old piece of amber from northern Myanmar. Image credit: Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology. The ammonite-bearing piece of amber …