Palaeontology 🦖

Scientists have discovered the oldest fossilized evidence of sexual reproduction and locomotion in animals at a remote site in Canada’s Northwest Territories that dates back 567 million years to the Ediacaran period, according to a study published on Wednesday in Science Advances. According to researchers, the finding pushes the origins of animal sex back by 5-10 million years.

The remains of a previously unknown dinosaur species, dubbed Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, has been excavated in Thailand, according to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. Scientists estimate the long-necked herbivore weighed as much as nine adult Asian elephants and is the largest ever found in Southeast Asia.

The ancient cephalopod, Nanaimoteuthis haggarti, appears to have been an apex predator that rivaled mosasaurs to rule prehistoric seas.

A close inspection of 27 fossil jaws from finned octopuses challenge the longstanding belief that the apex oceanic predators of the Cretaceous were all vertebrates.

New rhynchosaur species described.

Study

At a remote and barren Sahara desert site in Niger, scientists have unearthed fossils of a new species of Spinosaurus, among the biggest of the meat-eating dinosaurs, notable for its large blade-shaped head crest and jaws bearing interlocking teeth for snaring slippery fish.

A fossil on display at Montana State University’s Museum of the Rockies reveals how dinosaurs in the Tyrannosaurus genus may have subdued prey, and the specimen is the focus of a new collaborative research publication between scientists at MSU and the University of Alberta in Canada. The giant carnivorous dinosaur Tyrannosaurus roamed the region that is now Montana at the end of the Age of Dinosaurs, about 66 million years ago. It lived alongside other large dinosaurs, including plant-eaters like Triceratops and the duck-billed Edmontosaurus.

Australian and New Zealand scientists have unearthed the remains of ancient wildlife in a cave near Waitomo on Aotearoa’s North Island, the first time a large number of million-year-old fossils have been found—including an ancestor of the large flightless Kākāpō parrot.

What a title!

My son and I found this next to a reservoir in a super crumbly wall. We gave it to the rangers (we weren’t allowed to keep, since it was on public land).

The fossilised remains of two dinosaurs locked in combat have unleashed a fresh drama, suggesting diminutive specimens thought to be Tyrannosaurus rex teenagers could instead be separate, smaller species.

A near-complete skeleton found on Dorset’s Jurassic coast has been identified as a new species of ichthyosaur, a type of prehistoric marine reptile that once ruled the oceans.

A newly described fossil reveals that leeches are at least 200 million years older than scientists previously thought, and that their earliest ancestors may have feasted not on blood, but on smaller marine creatures.

New research has uncovered a species of hook-toothed lizard that lived about 167 million years ago and has a confusing set of features seen in snakes and geckos—two very distant relatives. One of the oldest relatively complete fossil lizards yet discovered, the Jurassic specimen is described in a study, published today in the journal Nature, from a multinational collaboration between the American Museum of Natural History and scientists in the United Kingdom, including University College London and the National Museums Scotland, France, and South Africa.

The Dutch government has agreed to return the historically significant Dubois Collection of over 28,000 fossils, including the “Java Man” (Homo erectus), to Indonesia. This act of restitution is based on a commission’s finding that the fossils were removed unjustly and “against the will of the people” during the colonial era.

The new find was possibly 23 feet (7 meters) long and hailed from a mysterious group of dinosaurs called megaraptorans. They prowled across what’s now South America, Australia and parts of Asia, splitting off into different species over millions of years.

Scientists have discovered prehistoric insects preserved in amber for the first time in South America, providing a fresh glimpse into life on Earth at a time when flowering plants were just beginning to diversify and spread around the world.

The oldest known relative of lizards has been uncovered in the UK.

Tiny bones locked in stone for millions of years have finally told their sad story.

Last year, a Stegosaurus nicknamed “Apex” sold at auction for US$40.5 million. A juvenile Ceratosaurus fetched US$30.5 million just last month.

Named Huashanosaurus qini, the new dinosaur species is estimated to have been around 12 m (39 feet) long.