Maybe the Earth had a ring like Saturn once…
Science Direct, or really, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, has a study of very old craters that suggests that in the Ordovician period, around 460 […]
paleontology
Science Art: Almeö Dog Skeleton, by Gunnar Creutz.
A prehistoric pet. This is a mesolithic dog, same dog we know today more or less, Canis lupus familiaris, but about 9,300 years old. It […]
“Hobbits” got smaller on their island.
Scientific American has new information on very old remains of Homo floresiensis, the diminutive prehistoric humans who lived on the island of Flores around 700,000 […]
Science Art: Skull reconstruction of Utahceratops gettyi, 2010.
Here’s a horned dinosaur, or what’s left of one. I found it on Wikimedia Commons, but it was originally found in Utah, then written up […]
New species of horned, plant-eating dinosaur unveiled
Yellowstone Public Radio has a piece on the grand-looking Lokiceratops rangiformes, unearthed in Montana and “unveiled” at the Natural History Museum of Utah: Mark Loewen […]
Science Art: Main floristic types from the Maastrichtian, F. Guillén, 2012.
This is a likeness of the southern bit of South America as it was near the end of the Cretaceous, right before the event that […]
Damned big ichthyosaur.
Science Daily has news of a child — child! — of 11 who discovered the fossilized bones, during a seaside walk in England, of a […]
Science Art: Styxosaurus and Xiphactinus/i>, by ABelov2014.
Styxosaurus is, or was, an elasmosaur – an undersea predator with a long neck and sharp teeth, all the better for grabbing ammonites and prehistoric […]
Chinese dragon fossil discovered.
NPR, among other outlets, has reported on the discovery of a real Chinese dragon in this, the Year of the Dragon. At least, it’s certainly […]
How the Bigfoot candidate went extinct.
Triops Galaxy reports on paleontological research into the biggest primate ever to walk the planet, the 600-pound Gigantopithecus blackii… without mentioning Bigfoot. Instead, they focus […]
Science Art: Nyctodactlyus, by F. John, c. 1915
This glimpse into a prehistoric world (which we now know should probably have at least a few more feathers in it) is part of the […]
Giant, ancient predator worms discovered in Arctic Greenland
PhysOrg has another delightful story about prehistoric invertebrates. This time, researchers have discovered a half-a-billion-year-old enormous predator worm from the icy reaches of Northern Greenland: […]
Fossil preserves the soft parts of a 75 million-year-old crab.
PhysOrg has the story of a crab whose gills and other soft tissues were preserved against all odds for 75 million years: In a paper […]
Japanese high schooler discovers beetle species.
The Japan Times covers a brand new (to us) prehistoric dung beetle that a high school student discovered while breaking rocks in class: During a […]
Science Art: Outdated drawing of a torosaurus, 1905
I was looking these particular dinosaurs up because I recently came across a news story about the world’s largest dinosaur skull being displayed somewhere new […]