An animal that could be mistaken for a spiky fruit is giving scientists a peek into what mollusks looked like around 500 million years ago. Fossils of an ancient invertebrate…
Category: Paleontology
The last woolly mammoths offer new clues to why the species went extinct
Four thousand years ago, on an island off the coast of what is now Siberia, the world’s last woolly mammoth took its final breath. Living on that island, isolated from…
How did an ancient shark parasite end up fossilized in tree resin?
During its lifetime nearly 100 million years ago, a newfound parasitic worm likely made its home in the bellies of fish. So how one ended up preserved in amber, fossilized…
A rare 3-D tree fossil may be the earliest glimpse at a forest understory
With its fluffed, spiraling top and thin trunk, the Sanfordiacaulis densifolia tree looks like it came straight out of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. But this isn’t a truffula come to…
A one-of-a-kind trilobite fossil hints at what and how these creatures ate
A mysterious, prehistoric marine creature has spilled its guts. For the first time, scientists have unearthed a fossilized trilobite whose final meals were preserved within its digestive system. Paleontologist Valéria…
