Fossils
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A wealth of fossil evidence has pinpointed humanity’s homeland as somewhere in Africa, where Homo sapiens first diverged from earlier species about 300,000 years ago. Scientists have now identified the oldest known Homo sapiens footprints in South Africa.
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Dome-skulled dinosaurs may have looked less like Friar Tuck and more like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. New fossil finds suggest they may have had big bristly ornaments on their heads, and might not have butted heads like they do in the movies.
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Scientists have discovered a new species of mosasaur, a giant sea-dwelling lizard that dates back to the age of the dinosaurs, in Morocco. Stelladens mysteriosus differs from other mosasaurs because of its unique, star-shaped teeth.
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Paleontologists have discovered fossils from a gigantic marine predator that stalked the Jurassic seas. The creature could have grown to twice the size of an orca, and fed on pretty much anything else unlucky enough to be in the ocean at that time.
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Scientists have reconstructed the genomes of microbes from the Stone Age, and used them to produce new molecules. The complex puzzle was pieced together from DNA fragments of bacteria on the teeth of ancient humans and Neanderthals.
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Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered a new species of rhynchosaur, an ancient reptile, in central Wyoming and named it in the language of the First Nations people indigenous to the area where it was found.
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Fossilized plants can provide much information about the planet’s geography and evolution. Researchers have discovered an ancient chili pepper from Colorado that may upend our understanding of when and where the plant originated.
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It’s no secret that sauropods had really long necks, but now paleontologists claim to have identified the species that takes the crown. According to the team, Mamenchisaurus has the longest neck of any known animal ever, measuring 50 ft (over 15 m).
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Scientists have discovered the fossil remains of what may be the largest penguins that ever lived. The bones, found on a beach in New Zealand, belonged to a giant bird that was more than three times the size of the biggest living penguins today.
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Most of what we know about ancient extinct animals comes from their bones, since soft tissues don’t usually fossilize well. But now, scientists have discovered the oldest preserved vertebrate brain, in a fossilized fish almost 320 million years old.
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Back in 2021, we heard about a pterosaur that had a mouth full of big, sharp teeth. Well, scientists have now discovered a pterosaur that went to the other extreme, as it used over 400 small, hooked teeth to catch its prey.
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It has long been known that some of the earliest mammals coexisted with the later-period dinosaurs. Now, for just the second time ever, scientists have documented fossil evidence of a dinosaur having actually eaten one of those mammals.
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