Paleontogly

A fossilized dinosaur foot believed to be the largest in the world has been unearthed in Weston County, Wyoming, the United States. This illustration shows a Brachiosaurus eating from an Araucaria tree. These dinosaurs had enormous necks and relatively short tails. The animal to which the foot belongs was nearly …

Paleontologists have discovered the first North American co-occurrence of hadrosaur and therizinosaur tracks, providing more evidence that Alaska was the ‘superhighway’ for dinosaurs between Asia and western North America 65-70 million years ago (Late Cretaceous epoch). Life reconstruction of hadrosaur-therizinosaur co-occurrence based on tracks described in this study. Image credit: …

A Middle Pleistocene cave bear, also known as the Deninger’s bear (Ursus deningeri), is generally regarded as the direct ancestor of the mostly vegetarian cave bear (Ursus spelaeus), and the transition between the two species took place around the Middle-Late Pleistocene boundary, about 126,000 years ago. Until now, very little …

Paleontologists have discovered what they say is a completely unexpected desert-dwelling pterosaur that lived in what is now Utah, the United States, about 210 million years ago. The discovery of this early pterosaur, reported in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, sheds new light on early pterosaur anatomy and development. …

Citizen scientist Philip Mullaly and professional paleontologists have found a very rare set of fossilized shark teeth at Jan Juc, a renowned fossil site along Victoria’s Surf Coast. Carcharocles angustidens teeth. Image credit: Museums Victoria. “I was walking along the beach looking for fossils, turned and saw this shining glint …

Paleontologists in China have found fossil fragments from two new dinosaur species — named Xiyunykus pengi and Bannykus wulatensis — that walked the Earth approximately 120 million years ago (Cretaceous period). Xu et al report two new Early Cretaceous alvarezsaurian theropods representing transitional stages in alvarezsaurian evolution. The analyses indicate …

Paleontologists in China have discovered a 228-million-year-old extinct species of turtle, known for its weird disc-like body without a shell and its toothless beak. An artist’s depiction of Eorhynchochelys sinensis as it would have appeared in life 228 million years ago in China. Image credit: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and …

Paleontologists at the University of Texas at Austin have identified three new species of omomyine primates that lived between 42 and 46 million years ago (Eocene epoch). Artist’s rendering of what Ekwiiyemakius walshi, Gunnelltarsius randalli and Brontomomys cerutti might have looked like. Image credit: Randy Kirk, University of Texas at …

A research team led by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology scientist Thomas van de Kamp has found ancient parasitoid wasps lurking inside 55 mineralized fly pupae from the Paleogene period (66-23 million years ago). Illustration of a female Xenomorphia resurrecta ovipositing into a puparium. Image credit: van de Kamp et al, …

A team of paleontologists from the University of Texas at Austin has uncovered fossils of an adult female Kayentatherium wellesi — an extinct tritylodontid cynodont that lived alongside dinosaurs about 185 million years ago (Jurassic period) — and her babies (at least 38 individuals). The find is among the best …