Tag Archives: Fossil

The Grand Canyon is known as a world-renowned tourist destination for its breathtaking vistas and outdoor adventures. But within the striated canyon walls, a hidden world of microscopic marvels reveals the region’s role as an evolutionary hotbed teeming with prehistoric life. In a study published in July, researchers from the University of Cambridge announced a first-of-its-kind discovery of thousands of …

A 225-million-year-old fossil discovered in Africa is rewriting the story of how dinosaurs first emerged. The fossilized leg bone, belonging to a little-known group of reptiles called silesaurs, challenges long-standing beliefs about the size and evolution of the earliest dinosaurs and their closest relatives. A Forgotten Fossil Resurfaces The fossil was first unearthed in 1963 in what is now Zambia …

In a groundbreaking study published in the Journal of Human Evolution, researchers have uncovered fascinating details about human evolution in ancient Asia through fossilized teeth discovered at the Hualongdong site in Anhui Province, China. The findings, led by Professor Wu Xiujie, director of the Hualongdong excavations, challenge established theories of Homo evolution, particularly in Asia during the Middle Pleistocene era. …

Credit, Richard M. Wicker – Denver Museum of Nature and Science For the staff at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, examining this newly found vertebrae from a 67-million-year old plant-eating dinosaur was just another day in the office. The surprise came in the form of its discovery—from right under the museum itself, which seems appropriate. Months ago, the …

Despite how Ross’ paleontology career is treated by his companions in Friends, there’s something special about finding the remains of creatures that lived millions if not billions of years before us. In fact, humanity’s interest in paleontology isn’t a modern development. Ancient Romans were just as fascinated by fossils. According to the ancient Roman historian Suetonius, Emperor Augustus established the …

Image credits: X/@PondManUK While many are understandably scared of snakes, what most seem to be terrified of are little, crawling creatures called spiders. Now it seems these crawlers were swimming in good ole waters before adapting to land and engaging in a never-ending game of I-spy with humans.According to the analysis of an “exquisitely preserved” fossil that existed 500 million …

In a fascinating study published in Current Biology, researchers have turned our understanding of arachnid evolution on its head. For years, scientists assumed that spiders, scorpions, and their kin evolved from land-dwelling ancestors. However, a fresh analysis of a 500-million-year-old fossil suggests that these creatures might have actually come from the oceans. Meet Mollisonia Symmetrica The star of this groundbreaking …

Archaeologists in Galicia, Spain, have uncovered a significant discovery: a trilobite fossil, millions of years old, transformed into a Roman-era amulet. The fossil, believed to have been used as a protective object, is an example of how ancient remains were repurposed by the Romans. Trilobites, now-extinct marine arthropods, lived long before the rise of the Roman Empire. According to Popular …

Scientists have uncovered an extraordinary collection of half-a-billion-year-old fossils in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA. The discovery is the first of its kind from the famous canyon and includes exquisitely preserved remains of ancient animals such as rock-scraping molluscs, filter-feeding crustaceans and toothed worms – as well as the food they likely consumed. The fossils date back to a key …

A groundbreaking discovery has recently reshaped our understanding of early animal evolution. A long-misidentified fossil at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, initially described in 1865 as a caterpillar, is now recognized as the oldest known nonmarine lobopodian. This extraordinary fossil, Palaeocampa anthrax, bridges the gap between worms and modern arthropods, providing new insights into the early diversification of life. Published …