Wufengella bengtsoni, an extinct species of tommotiid worm that lived during the Cambrian period, resembles the ancestor of three major groups of living animals. A reconstruction of how Wufengella bengtsoni would have looked like in life. Image credit: Roberts Nicholls, Paleocreations.com. Wufengella bengtsoni lived in what is now China during …
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Again with the accidental discoveries! It’s the third unexpected find within six weeks. This time, the good news was born from debris in a hunk of Dominican amber. The researchers were studying ants from the Miocene period, trapped in a piece of amber. A closer look at the “debris” inclusions, …
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A new genus and species of extinct predatory bird has been identified from a fossilized partial skeleton unearthed in South Australia. Life reconstruction of Archaehierax sylvestris. Image credit: Jacob Blokland / Taylor & Francis Online. The newly-identified bird species lived during the Late Oligocene epoch approximately 25 million years ago. …
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The newly-discovered dinosaur species, Spicomellus afer, is the earliest-known ankylosaur and the first ankylosaur to be named from Africa. Life reconstruction of the armored dinosaur Borealopelta markmitchelli, which lived in what is now Alberta, Canada, some 110 million years ago, eating ferns. Image credit: Julius Csotonyi / Royal Tyrrell Museum. …
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A new genus and species of palaeoscolecid worm has been identified from two specimens found in the Burgess Shale-type deposits in Utah, the United States. Arrakiscolex aasei. Image credit: University of Missouri. Palaeoscolecida is a group of extinct ecdysozoan worms that existed from the Ealy Cambrian to the Late Silurian …
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Paleontologists have described a new species of kiwi that lived during the mid-Pleistocene period on the North Island of New Zealand. The little spotted kiwi (Apteryx owenii). Artwork by John Gerrard Keulemans, 1870s. “Kiwi are an enigmatic and threatened group of birds, unique to New Zealand, with six living species …
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A nearly complete skeleton of a tapejarid pterosaur that lived during the Cretaceous period was intercepted during a police raid at Santos Harbour in the Brazilian state of São Paulo and confiscated together with several other exceptionally well-preserved fossils. Living interpretative reconstruction of Tupandactylus navigans. Image credit: Beccari et al., …
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Paleontologists in Argentina have found a fossilized jaw of the extinct bat species Desmodus draculae inside an ancient burrow of a giant sloth. Desmodus draculae in a burrow of a giant sloth. Image credit: Daniel Boh / Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Miramar. Desmodus draculae is an extinct species of …
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Paleontologists have discovered what they say is the oldest macrofossil evidence of Paullinieae, a diverse group of tropical and subtropical climbing plants that belong to the soapberry family Sapindaceae. Transverse section of Ampelorhiza heteroxylon. Image credit: Jud et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248369. Paullinieae are tropical and subtropical woody vines, herbaceous climbers, …
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Paleontologists have identified a new fossil genus and species of primitive praying mantis from fore- and hind-wing imprints discovered in Labrador, Canada. Labradormantis guilbaulti. Image credit: Demers-Potvin et al., doi: 10.1111/syen.12457. Paleontologists know that most modern praying mantises, with their characteristic grasping forelegs, look very different from their oldest fossil …
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