Where did it start? How did it grow complex? Why did it get big? Three moments in Earth’s early history when evolution suddenly, inexplicably turned up the dial.
About 70 million years ago, in what is now Alberta, Canada, a young Albertosaurus—a relative of T. rex—ended up as food for another dinosaur. The key lies in bite marks preserved on its jaw. The study, published in the Journal of Paleontology, suggests that the culprit was probably a dromaeosaurid, the group of dinosaurs popularly […]
The Great Sphinx has been without a nose for centuries. Now a fossil crocodile skull taken from the same rock turns out to be missing the tip of its snout too. The coincidence has put a name on a species science did not know it had, Herugavialis cairensis, which spent almost a hundred years in […]
Around 30 million years ago, a heavily built animal prowled the area that is now Vallbona de les Monges, in Lleida province (Catalonia, northeastern Spain). It had a long head, prominent cheekbones and formidable jaws lined with large, sharp teeth. Paleontologists call it the hell pig. The nickname misleads. Its kinship with modern pigs is […]
In 2016, paleontologist David DeMar Jr. was crawling across a rocky outcrop in northeastern Montana, hunting for fish fossils, when he spotted a dark, reddish-brown nodule about half the size of a golf ball. He picked it up and looked at it through his hand lens. On its surface was something he didn’t expect: a […]
Before 2025, paleontologists had confirmed exactly two footprints anywhere in the world made by an adult Tyrannosaurus rex — one in New Mexico, one in Montana. Isolated prints, each capturing a single instant, with no way to tell how the animal that made them actually moved. That changed with a discovery in the badlands of […]
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