Palaeontology

A new carnivorous dinosaur species named Dracoraptor hanigani uncovered in the south of Wales is possibly the oldest known Jurassic dinosaur from the UK, according to a study published January 20, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by David Martill from the University of Portsmouth, England, and colleagues from National Museum Wales and University of Manchester.

A five-foot-long skull discovered in war-torn Tunisia has led to the identification of a new species.

The discovery of a juvenile Chasmosaurus—one of the rarest dinosaur discoveries—made headlines around the world in late 2013. Professor Philip Currie from the University of Alberta and his colleagues have now published the results of their scientific findings in an alpha-level taxonomic description in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Just outside the tiny town of Glenrock, Wyoming the footprints of a 66 million-year-old monster are cemented in stone. This fossil trackway was brought to light with the help of University of Alberta paleontologist Scott Persons, who first viewed the tracks as a 13-year-old while visiting the Glenrock Paleon Museum.

Large ornamental structures in dinosaurs, such as horns and head crests are likely to have been used in sexual displays and to assert social dominance, according to a new analysis of Protoceratops carried out by scientists at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).

On an arid plateau in the Andes Mountains of southern Bolivia, a Case Western Reserve University researcher flagged what turned out to be the fossil remains of a tortoise nearly five feet long -- a find indicating this highland was likely less than a kilometer above sea level 13 million years ago.

A new analysis of the fossil record shows that a deep pattern in nature remained the same for 300 million years. Then, 6,000 years ago, the pattern was disrupted — at about the same time that agriculture spread across North America.

New analysis of the fossil record shows that placental mammals, the group that today includes nearly 5000 species including humans, became more varied in anatomy during the Paleocene epoch – the 10 million years immediately following the event.

Nearly 100 fossil species pulled from a flooded cave in the Bahamas reveal a true story of persistence against all odds -- at least until the time humans stepped foot on the islands.

Researchers know dinosaurs once ruled the earth, but they know very little about how these animals performed the basic task of balancing their energy intake and output--how their metabolisms worked.

Chemical clues about weaning age embedded in the tusks of juvenile Siberian woolly mammoths suggest that hunting, rather than climate change, was the primary cause of the elephant-like animal's extinction.

Found with associated shell fragments, Saurolophus dino likely from nest, in earliest stages of development.

An international team of researchers, together with participation from the University of Bonn, has investigated a stunning fossil finding from the Cretaceous period.

Were dinosaurs really fast, aggressive hunters like the ones depicted in the movie "Jurassic World"? Or did they have lower metabolic rates that made them move more like today's alligators and crocodiles?

A 48 million year-old horse-like equoid fetus has been discovered at the Messel pit near Frankfurt, Germany according to a study published October 7, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.