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Scientists Uncover Human-Like Species

Boys find fossilized skeleton in South Africa

(Newser) - A paleoanthropologist, his 9-year-old son, and his dog have uncovered a fossil that's generating a lot of "missing link" headlines. (Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post explains why those headlines are wrong here .) The boy was playing on a hill in South Africa, near where his father was...

Dino-Eating Snake Makes Hiss-tory

Serpent preyed on titanosaur babies

(Newser) - Hundred-ton dinosaurs may have been just as scared of snakes as humans are. The recent discovery of a fossilized snake wrapped around a baby titanosaur offers the first-ever direct evidence that prehistoric snakes fed on dinosaur hatchlings. Researchers believe the snake was attacking a baby dinosaur as it hatched; a...

Sea Once Filled With 'Dino Fish'

Giant fish prowled oceans in dinosaur age

(Newser) - Scientists have discovered a "missing link" in evolutionary history: evidence that prehistoric seas were filled with enormous, plankton-eating fish. The dino-sized fish existed between 66 and 172 million years ago, dying out around the the same time as the dinosaurs. It was only after they vanished that mammals and...

Dinosaurs Arose in S. America
 Dinosaurs 
 Arose in 
 S. America 
meet tawa hallae
Dec 10, 2009 7:59 PM CST

Dinosaurs Arose in S. America

Fossil of T. rex cousin helps fill in the puzzle

(Newser) - The fossil of a feisty little ancestor of T. rex lends credence to the theory that dinosaurs emerged in South America. More precisely, they likely arose about 230 million years ago in Pangaea, which was then the single joined continent of the Americas. The development follow the discovery of a...

Fossil Hunter Finds Giant Sea Monster

Colossal pliosaur was big enough to snack on T. Rex

(Newser) - A sea monster big enough to have munched on T. Rex has been found by an amateur fossil collector scouring Britain's south coast. The collector gathered chunks of the prehistoric beast's 8-foot-long skull as they fell from a cliff face over several years. Paleontologists believe the pliosaur skull is the...

Scientists Unearth Fossils of 'Missing Link' Flying Reptiles

Researchers believe Darwinopterus is proof of modular evolution

(Newser) - Scientists have discovered the remains of a flying reptile in China that they believe represents the "missing link" in a controversial theory of evolution. The reptile—named Darwinopterus in honor of Charles Darwin—lived some 160 million years ago and has features from both early, short-tailed pterodactyls and their...

'Ballerina-Like' T. Rex Cousin Discovered

Size, light skeleton and delicate teeth suggest different prey from larger relative

(Newser) - A smaller, more agile cousin of the Tyrannosaurus rex has been identified. The skull and a nearly complete skeleton of Alioramus altai was discovered in Mongolia in 2001, and has features that distinguish it from its more lumbering cousin. Unlike its “big bad boy” relatives, a study author tells...

Fossil Find Shakes Up Evolution Timeline

Ardipithecus ramidus lived in trees and walked upright

(Newser) - A primate fossil found in Africa in 1994 predates the famous “Lucy” skeleton by 1 million years and offers clues to human evolution, researchers say. “This is huge,” a paleoanthropologist tells the Washington Post. “This is the biggest discovery really since” Lucy. The researchers believe “...

Pint-Size T-Rex Surprises Scientists

'Raptorex' was 1/100th the weight of its descendant

(Newser) - Paleontologists have unearthed a miniature predecessor of Tyrannosaurus Rex, a finding that may rewrite the origins of the most iconic of dinosaurs. “Raptorex,” discovered in China, has all the distinctive features of a Tyrannosaurus—large head and jaws, long legs, and small arms—but it weighed only 150...

Giant Dinos 'Held Heads High'

Study suggests museums wrongly show sauropods slouching forward

(Newser) - Giant dinosaurs like Diplodicus and Apatosaurus spent most of their time with their incredibly lengthy necks held tall like giraffes instead of slouching forward as seen in most museum reconstructions, according to a new study. Reseachers compared the bones of sauropods with mammals and birds, the only modern animals that...

47M-Year-Old Fossil Evolutionary 'Aunt' to Humans

(Newser) - Scientists have discovered the oldest intact primate fossil on record, ABC News reports. Nicknamed “Ida,” the 47-million-year-old lemur-like creature had opposable thumbs, fingernails instead of claws, and legs that could have evolved to walk upright. Scientists don’t think Ida is a direct ancestor of humans, though. “...

Scientists Find Fossil of 'Mother of All Primates'

(Newser) - Scientists have discovered a 47 million-year-old primate fossil that they believe represents the common ancestor of all later monkeys, apes, and humans, reports the Wall Street Journal. The find supports a theory that humans' ancient ape-like ancestor was an adapid, which is also believed to be linked to lemurs. The...

Meet the First European

Forensic artist reconstructs face of first modern human found in Europe

(Newser) - Meet the first modern European. His face—or hers, as researchers have been unable to determine the sex—was reconstructed by a forensic artist based on a partial skull and jawbone discovered in a Romanian cave. The facial features linked to the 35,000-year-old bones recall the continent's immediate African...

'Hobbit' Fossils Mesmerize Scientists

Number of supporters grow for 'distinct' hominid species theory

(Newser) - Six years after their discovery on an Indonesian island, fossils of 3-foot-tall people creatures nicknamed "hobbits" continue to captivate researchers, reports the New York Times. So far, they haven't been clearly linked to other known human fossils. They may be descendants of Homo erectus who migrated from Africa earlier,...

Fossil of 'Missing Link' Walking Seal Found

Arctic creature's existence was predicted by Charles Darwin

(Newser) - The fossil of a semi-aquatic creature unearthed in northern Canada may hold the key to how seals and walruses evolved, the BBC reports. The carnivore—which resembles a cross between an otter and a seal—had feet that were webbed but weren't flippers. Scientists believe the animals walked on land...

Sea Monster Makes T-Rex Look Wimpy

50-ft Jurassic creature had crushing jaws

(Newser) - A fossil sea monster dug up last year had a bite far more crushing than T-Rex’s, scientists in Norway have found. The jaws of the 50-foot Jurassic reptile, known as "Predator X," carried a force of 33,000 pounds per square inch, 10 times more than that...

Ancient Footprints Reveal Path to Humanity

Tracks in Kenya are 1.5 million years old

(Newser) - Scientists have unearthed ancient footprints that reveal humanity's ancestors walked with a modern stride as long as 1.5 million years ago, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. Researchers believe the tracks—left beside a muddy river bank in Kenya and preserved when the river changed course—belong to human ancestor Homo ...

LA Unearths Mammoth Fossil Stash

Giant cache of Ice Age fossils unearthed from under city park

(Newser) - Workers digging up an underground Los Angeles parking garage have unearthed the biggest cache of fossils from the last Ice Age ever discovered, including a nearly intact mammoth skeleton, reports the Los Angeles Times. Researchers have lifted huge chunks of earth from the site adjacent to the La Brea tar...

World's Largest Dinosaur Trove Found in China

7,600 fossils dug up, including biggest hadrosaur on record

(Newser) - Scientists in eastern China have uncovered the largest collection of dinosaur fossils in the world, they say. They’ve pulled some 7,600 fossils from a 980-foot-long pit over the past 7 months, including what could be the biggest duck-billed hadrosaur ever discovered, at more than 65 feet long, state...

Dino Dads: Original Mr. Mom
 Dino Dads: Original Mr. Mom
Dec 19, 2008 7:43 AM CST

Dino Dads: Original Mr. Mom

Male raptors sat on the eggs while females went out foraging

(Newser) - Some of the fearsome birdlike predators of the Cretaceous and Jurassic ages had a softer side as stay-at-home dads, a team of paleontologists says. The researchers analyzed leg bones found on nests of unhatched eggs and concluded that in at least three dinosaur genuses, it was the males who guarded...

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