Analysis of the fossil record shows a mysterious mass extinction that decimated the diversity of sharks in the world’s oceans, and they’ve never fully recovered.
Tag: Fossils
Neanderthals Listened to the World Much Like Us
A reconstructed Neanderthal ear adds a new piece to the puzzle of whether the early humans could speak.
Million-Year-Old DNA Rewrites the Mammoth Family Tree
Genomic data — the oldest ever recovered from a fossil — reveals the origin and evolution of the Columbian mammoth.
This Ammonite Was Fossilized Outside Its Shell
The bizarre fossil is one of very few records of soft tissue in a creature better known as a whorled shell.
First Frog Fossil Found on Antarctica
The specimen is some 40 million years old, and is probably related to species currently living in South America.
Neanderthal Genes Hint at Much Earlier Human Migration From Africa
Modern humans may have left the continent as long 200,000 years ago, a new analysis suggests.
These Giant Parrots Once Roamed New Zealand
It was three feet tall, likely flightless and weighed as much as some bowling balls.
Russian Land of Permafrost and Mammoths Is Thawing
Global warming is shrinking the permanently frozen ground across Siberia, disrupting everyday life in one of the coldest inhabited places on earth.
Why Did This Extinct Bird Have Such a Weird, Long Toe?
The Cretaceous Period flier, trapped in amber 99 million years ago, had features unlike any bird living today.
A Skull Bone Discovered in Greece May Alter the Story of Human Prehistory
The bone, found in a cave, is the oldest modern human fossil ever discovered in Europe. It hints that humans began leaving Africa far earlier than once thought.