Fossils

An illustration of Diamantinasaurus matildae

Rare 95-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Skull Uncovered in Australia

The first-of-its-kind find reveals how sauropods may have moved between Australia and South America during the mid-Cretaceous

Many giant animals roamed the Earth after non-avian dinosaurs went extinct.

After Dinosaurs Went Extinct, These Ten Giant Creatures Roamed the Earth

Though we often think of the “terrible lizards” as behemoths, many later reptiles and mammals also grew to massive sizes

The fossil of Icaronycteris gunnelli

Paleontologists Discover 52-Million-Year-Old Bat

The fossil represents the earliest-known species of the flying mammal

The Tyrannosaurus rex may have had lips.

T. Rex Had Lips That Concealed Its Teeth, Study Says

Paleontologists say popular, toothy depictions of the dinosaur may have missed the mark

An artist’s reconstruction of Rhinesuchus, a rhinesuchid temnospondyl

Paleontologists Uncover Fossil Impressions of Giant, Alligator-Like Amphibians

The find reveals how the creatures swam and relaxed in prehistoric waterways

A rendering of Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum dinosaurs with their 50-foot-long necks.

This Dinosaur Had a 50-Foot-Long Neck, Scientists Say

They compared vertebrae discovered in 1987 to more complete remains to make this new estimate

An illustration of Tillyardembia, an earwig-like insect that may have pollinated non-flowering plants some 280 million years ago.

Scientists Discover Oldest Known Fossils of Pollen-Carrying Insects

It’s unclear whether the creatures were pollinating prehistoric plants or just getting a snack

An artist's depiction of Macronectes tinae, a newly identified extinct species of giant petrel that lived in New Zealand.

Amateur Fossil Hunter Discovers New Species of Giant Petrel in New Zealand

The now-extinct birds, which lived roughly three million years ago, likely used their hooked bills to feast on seal carcasses

Stories of the enslaved people who helped kick-start paleontology and the Native American guides who led naturalists to fossils around the continent have long been suppressed.

The First Fossil Finders in North America Were Enslaved and Indigenous People

Decades before paleontology’s formal establishment, Black and Native Americans discovered—and correctly identified—millennia-old fossils

An artist's representation of the dinosaur that left the footprint

Squatting Dinosaur Left Behind a Huge Footprint in England

An archaeologist accidentally came across the fossil that was preserved for 166 million years

An artist's concept of Kumimanu fordycei and Petradyptes stonehousei

Fossils of a 340-Pound Giant Penguin Found in New Zealand

Paleontologists unearthed the bones of two new penguin species that lived 50 million years ago

A fossil hippo skeleton and associated Oldowan artifacts were exposed at the Nyayanga site.

Who Made the First Stone Tool Kits?

A nearly three-million-year-old butchering site packed with animal bones, stone implements and molars from our early ancestors reignites the debate

Commuters behind frozen bus windows in Yakutsk, known as the coldest city in the world

Just How Chilly Is the World's Coldest City?

The temperature in Yakutsk, Russia, dropped to a record-breaking minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit this month

An artist’s reconstruction of Ignacius dawsonae surviving in the warm but dark forests of Ellesmere Island

Primate-Like Critters Survived in the Arctic When It Was a Lush, Warm Swamp

Even as darkness gripped the forests for months, two small species made it home

Five images display (A) an unhatched egg, (B) a circular outline of a possibly unhatched egg, (C) a compressed egg showing hatching window (arrow) and eggshells collected around the hatching window (circled), (D) an egg showing a curved outline, and (E) a deformed egg showing egg surfaces slipping past each other.

Scientists Uncover Nearly 100 Dinosaur Nests in Fossilized Hatchery

The find reveals that plant-eating titanosaurs had reproductive similarities to both birds and crocodiles

The stunning Sydney Modern Project is the modern leg of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia.

The Most Anticipated Museum Openings of 2023

Scheduled to launch this year are new institutions dedicated to punk rock, Amelia Earhart and robots

Tyrannosaur fossils show the animals squared off and bit each other in the face.

Busted and Broken Fossils Show How Dinosaurs Fought

From locking horns to biting each other in the face, this is how dinos of the same species battled

A team led by Laurits Skov and Benjamin Peter from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology sequenced nuclear, mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA of 13 Neanderthal individuals. From these sequences, they determined that two of the Neanderthals represent a father-daughter pair and that another two are cousins.

Fourteen Discoveries Made About Human Evolution in 2022

Smithsonian paleoanthropologists reveal the year’s most riveting findings about our close relatives and ancestors

The small mammal's foot in the fossil of the microraptor.

This 120-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Fossil Had a Mammal Hiding in Its Stomach

The finding represents only the second recorded instance of a dinosaur consuming a mammal

A reconstruction of adult and newly born Triassic ichthyosaurs Shonisaurus

Paleontologists May Have Solved the Mystery Behind a Prehistoric Reptile Graveyard

Ichthyosaur mothers likely migrated to the site to give birth

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