Paleontogly

Ediacaran Animals

The oldest animals appear in the fossil record among Ediacaran biota communities. In new research, paleontologists from the Australian National University and elsewhere examined the gut contents of three Ediacaran species — the 558-million-year-old tube worm-like Calyptrina and the mollusk-like Kimberella as well as one of the key Ediacaran animals, …

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New Bird Like Dinosaur

More than 120 million years ago in what is now China, a hungry dromaeosaurid dinosaur ate a small frog. Daurlong wangi holotype: (a) whole specimen, (b) skull, (c) detail of orbit region, (d) feather remains associated to the thoracic vertebrae, (e) frog skeleton. Scale bars – 20 mm in (b), …

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Gigantic Turtle Species

Aside from being the largest marine turtle species ever discovered in Europe, and one of the largest worldwide, the discovery of Leviathanochelys aenigmatica suggests that gigantism in marine turtles was acquired independently, by different lineages over time. An artist’s impression of Archelon ischyros. Image credit: Nobu Tamura, spinops.blogspot.com. Leviathanochelys aenigmatica …

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Armored Worm Fossil Found

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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New Plant Eating Dinosaur Uncovered in Nevada

Paleontologists from the Nevada Science Center, Idaho State University and Montana State University have described a new genus and species of thescelosaurine dinosaur from the fossilized remains found in southern Nevada, the United States. Life reconstruction of the thescelosaurine dinosaur Parksosaurus warreni, a close relative of Nevadadromeus schmitti. Image credit: …

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Early Devonian Fish

Paleoichthyologists in China have re-described Nochelaspis maeandrine, a species of large-sized eugaleaspiform fish that lived 415 million years ago (Devonian period). Life restoration of Nochelaspis maeandrine. Image credit: Dinghua Yang. Nochelaspis maeandrine was first described in 1987 from a nearly complete head shield found in the Xishancun Formation near Qujing …

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Giant Pterosaurs

Pterosaurs reached only modest sizes in the Triassic and Jurassic periods. By contrast, the Cretaceous period saw a trend toward large to giant size (2 m to over 6 m wingspans), and while small-medium (less than 1 m to 2 m wingspans) sized forms are known from the Early Cretaceous …

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Paleontologists Find Fossils

Two new species — the small skink Sciroseps pawhuskai and the pycnodontiform fish Anomoeodus caddoi — that lived during the Early Cretaceous epoch have been identified from fossils found in the Holly Creek Formation in southwest Arkansas. An illustration of Sciroseps pawhuskai. Image credit: Brian Engh. While Arkansas is not …

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Crab In Burmese Amber

The new fossil from the Cretaceous of Myanmar preserves large compound eyes, delicate mouthparts, and even gills. Cretapsara athanata, a modern-looking eubrachyuran crab in Burmese amber. Image credit: Luque et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abj5689. True crabs (members of the infraorder Brachyura) are an iconic group of crustaceans whose remarkable diversity of …

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Rapid Climate Change

In a large-scale environmental DNA metagenomic study of ancient plant and mammal communities, an international team of researchers have analyzed 535 permafrost and lake sediment samples from across the Arctic spanning the past 50,000 years. A trio of woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) trudges over snow covered hills; behind them, mountains …

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