Animals, features and articles | Educational Science

Aug 14, 2023

'Like swallowing a dinner plate': 180 million-year-old fish may have choked to death on its supersized supper

A dinosaur-era fish appears to have died after getting eyes too big for its stomach and ingesting a giant shell, researchers have found. The fish may have then choked to death on it, or the shell tore its stomach as it swallowed, the team said. Scientists in Germany found the...

Aug 16, 2023

'Edward Scissorhands' creature that lived 230 million years ago discovered in Brazil

An ancient reptile with massive hands and long, sword-like claws has been unearthed in southern Brazil. Its hands and claws, which look a bit like those of Edward Scissorhands, may have been used to catch prey or climb trees, Rodrigo Müller, a paleontologist at the Federal University of Santa Maria...

Aug 23, 2023

Ancient human-size sea lizard rewrites history of early armored marine reptiles

An extinct, 250 million-year-old marine reptile that was covered in bony armor and swam in the shallow waters of what is now south China could rewrite the family tree of armored marine reptiles and hint at why they first emerged, a new study shows. The newfound species, named Prosaurosphargis yingzishanensis,...

Sep 5, 2023

Teen unearths 34 million-year-old whale skull on her family's Alabama timber farm

An Alabama high school student and her teacher have discovered the fossilized remains of a whale that lived 34 million years ago. The creature is believed to be a carnivorous whale that lived during the Eocene epoch (56 million to 33.9 million years ago) — a time when sea levels...

Oct 1, 2023

'They seemed primed to take over': How the Great Dying doomed the 'beast tooth' and set the stage for the dawn of the dinosaurs

The excerpt below is taken from Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis (Hachette Book Group, 2023), by Michael Mann. It looks at how climate change following the Cambrian explosion caused the biggest mass extinction on Earth — dooming the creatures set...

Oct 13, 2023

Oldest evidence of Neanderthals hunting cave lions dates to 48,000 years ago, punctured bones reveal

Scientists have identified what could be the earliest evidence of Neanderthals killing a cave lion, likely by creeping up behind it while it was resting and stabbing it in the abdomen, ancient bones uncovered in Germany reveal. A puncture wound in one of the lion's ribs indicates the weapon pierced...

Oct 13, 2023

Low water levels in Lake Powell reveal 'extremely rare' fossils from extinct Jurassic mammal relative

Lake Powell's fluctuating shoreline has revealed extremely rare fossils belonging to a long-extinct mammal relative that roamed North America 180 million years ago, National Park Service (NPS) officials announced last week. Researchers discovered the bones earlier this year in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (NRA) in southern Utah while...

Oct 25, 2023

Ancient skeletons of largest-ever marsupial unearthed in Australia

A unique fossil site in Western Australia is revealing the elusive remains of the world's largest ever marsupial, a museum has announced. The skeletons belong to Diprotodon, which is related to wombats and koalas and lived during the Pleistocene epoch (about 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago). These megafauna were...

Oct 30, 2023

Girl discovers 100,000-year-old mammoth bones in Russian river while fishing with dad

An 8-year-old girl in Russia has discovered a set of mammoth leg bones, as well as a vertebra from a prehistoric bison while fishing with her father along the shores of the Oka River near Novinki, western Russia. According to translated Russian news reports, Maryam Mirsaitova noticed a series of...

Oct 31, 2023

Flesh-eating 'killer' lampreys that lived 160 million years ago unearthed in China

Scientists in China have unearthed two superbly preserved, 160 million-year-old lamprey fossils — including the largest found to date — shining a light on this group's obscure evolutionary history. Lampreys are one of two living jawless vertebrate groups that first appear in the fossil record around 360 million years ago,...

Nov 21, 2023

Huge mammoth jaw at least 10,000 years old pulled up from Florida river

A fossil hunter made an astonishing discovery while diving in a Florida river — the fossilized jawbone of a mammoth. John Kreatsoulas, who runs Fossil Junkies Dig and Dive Charters, an organization that runs fossil-hunting trips for the public, discovered the intact fossil while exploring a section of the Peace...

Dec 8, 2023

Teenage tyrannosaurs gorged on dino 'drumsticks,' 1st-of-their-kind fossils show

Paleontologists in Canada have uncovered a first-of-its-kind fossilized meal after finding dinosaur drumsticks in the belly of a teenage tyrannosaur. The unique fossils are the first direct evidence that these apex predators switched up their diets from early years to adulthood, a new study shows. Researchers discovered the partial remains...

Dec 23, 2023

11 jaw-dropping fossil discoveries that weren't dinosaurs in 2023

Dinosaurs often steal the limelight when it comes to fossils, but other prehistoric critters are just as deserving of our attention. As 2023 comes to a close, it's time to look back on some of the most jaw-dropping fossil discoveries that weren't all about T. rex. From a fish with...

Dec 24, 2023

Science news this week: An ancient 'blue dragon' and atom-size black holes

This week in science news, we discovered the near-complete remains of a never-before-seen mosasaur that dominated the ancient Pacific Ocean, learned of atom-size black holes that could be devouring stars from the inside out, and investigated no burp syndrome, which causes flatulence and awkward gurgling. The holiday season may be...

Jan 4, 2024

Megalodon tooth found on unexplored seamount 10,000 feet below the ocean's surface

A remotely operated submarine was collecting samples on a previously unexplored deep sea mountain when it scooped up a rare megalodon tooth. The gold-colored tooth, which is 2.7 inches (6.8 centimeters) long, was discovered more than 10,000 feet (3,090 meters) below the surface near the Johnston Atoll in the Pacific...