Paleontologists from the Royal Ontario Museum and the University of Toronto have found and examined the fossilized remains of two subadult and one adult saber-toothed tigers (Smilodon fatalis) — likely a mother and two adolescents — in the Pleistocene coastal deposits in Ecuador. Their results show that saber-toothed tigers had …
Read More »Giant Bony Toothed Birds
Paleontologists have described new fossils of pelagornithid birds from the middle Eocene Submeseta Formation on Seymour Island, Antarctica. An artist’s depiction of ancient albatrosses harassing a pelagornithid as penguins frolic in the oceans around Antarctica 50 million years ago. Image credit: Brian Choo. Pelagornithids are an extinct group of large …
Read More »Extinct Scimitar Toothed Cat
An international team of scientists has sequenced and analyzed the entire nuclear genome of the scimitar-toothed cat Homotherium latidens. Their results demonstrate that this extinct species was highly divergent from all living cat species and did not undergo any detectable gene flow with living cat species after their initial diversification …
Read More »Tingmiatornis arctica: Large, Toothed Water Bird Lived in High Arctic 90 Million Years Ago
A team of paleontologists has found the remains of a prehistoric bird that lived 90 million years ago (Cretaceous period) in the Canadian Arctic. An artist’s conception of Tingmiatornis arctica’s possible environment 90 million years ago, characterized by volcanic activity, a freshwater bay, turtles, fish, and champsosaurs. Image credit: Michael …
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