Paleontology & Fossils

According to a new University of Michigan-led study, the first direct evidence that adult males experienced musth, a testosterone-driven episode of heightened aggression against rival males, is provided by traces of sex hormones extracted from a woolly mammoth's tusk. Blood and urine tests had previously shown that male elephants' musth consumption was associated with elevated testosterone levels. Skeletal injuries, broken tusk tips, and other indirect evidence have been used to infer musth battles in modern-day relatives of elephants. Yet, the new review, booked for online distribution May 3 in the journal Nature, is quick to show that testosterone levels are

Meet Crassigyrinus scoticus, also known as the "tadpole from hell" species. This ancient predator that looked like a crocodile has been better understood thanks to digital reconstructions of broken fossils. With enormous teeth, huge eyes, and a scope of tactile variations, Crassigyrinus scoticus was appropriate to hunting prey in Carboniferous marshes quite a while back. For nearly a century, researchers have attempted to comprehend this 330 million-year-old species, which is related to some of the earliest animals to walk on land. However, this has been particularly challenging due to the severe crushing of all known fossils of the Carboniferous carnivore.

A team led by the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) discovered an unusually well-preserved "Marine Dwarf World" from 462 million years ago at Castle Bank, Wales. Over 150 species can be found at the site, many of which have bodies that are smaller than life. It is one of the most surprising fossil sites in the world. The review is distributed in Nature, Environment, and Advancement on May 1. One of the very few places where complete organisms and soft tissue are preserved, Castle Bank in Powys offers an unparalleled perspective on

In Wyoming, where it is now, dinosaurs, alligators, and birds' ancestors once roamed the range. A reptile-like animal with a nose that ate plants around quite a while ago has been depicted in a paper distributed in the journal Variety. "A New Rhynchosaur Taxon from the Popo Agie Formation, Wyoming" describes the new taxon. Previously, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison discovered "Implications for a Northern Pangean Early-Late Triassic (Carnian) Fauna," but the surface texture and morphological characteristics of the initial specimens were too eroded for comparison. Paleontologists were able to confirm it as a brand-new Rhynchosauria by utilizing the

An important discovery about the past of Antarctica, the planet's most inhospitable continent, has been made by paleontologists from Brazil and Chile. Currently covered in snow, the location was not like this in the past. The study, which was led by Brazilian paleobotanist Dr. Joseline Manfroi and her colleagues, demonstrates that active volcanic events at the end of the dinosaur era, 75 million years ago, were directly linked to frequent forest fires that disturbed Antarctica. Paleontological samples from the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) and the Brazilian Antarctic Program (Proantar) scientific expeditions on King George Island in the Shetland Islands archipelago

We presently know about the eating regimen of an ancient animal that grew up to over two meters in length and lived in Australian waters during the age of the dinosaurs because of the force of X-beams and a group of researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) and the Australian Historical Center Exploration Foundation (AMRI). Micro-CT scans were used to look inside the fossilized stomach of a small marine reptile, a plesiosaur named "Eric" after a song by the comedy group Monty Python, to find out what the animal ate before dying. In support of previous research from 2006,

Human evolution is closely related to the environment and landscape of Africa, from which our ancestors first emerged. According to traditional scientific narratives, Africa was once a verdant idyll of vast forests stretching from coast to coast. About 21 million years ago, in these green habitats, the early ancestors of apes and humans developed traits that differed from their ape relatives, including an upright posture. But as the story unfolded, Earth's climate grew colder and drier, and the forests shrank. About 10 million years ago, grasses and shrubs that could tolerate drought conditions began to invade East Africa and replace

Troodon, a dinosaur closely related to contemporary birds, was found to be a warm-blooded (endothermic) creature with a reproductive system resembling that of contemporary reptiles by an international research team headed by Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. The temperature at which the carbonate shell of the egg formed could be precisely determined thanks to the scientists' use of a novel technique. The study's findings also revealed that Troodon produced 4 to 6 eggs per clutch. The researchers draw the conclusion that several Troodon females laid their eggs in collective nests because they have discovered nests with up to 24 Troodon eggs.

A little group of archeologists, helped by a huge gathering of workers, has uncovered what might be proof of an old state of pterosaurs living in what is currently a focal district in Oregon. In their paper distributed in the diary Lethaia, the specialists portray a fourteen-day dig held in the midyear of 2021 at the green breccia bed in the Hudspeth Development, found upper east of Mitchell in Oregon. In 2018, one more group of archeologists uncovered what has come to be known as the Mitchell ornithopod — a fossilized toe that once belonged to an animal residing during

A sauropod from China might have had the longest neck of any known dinosaur. The disclosure was made thirty years after the species was first revealed as researchers attempted to learn more about how sauropods advanced in what is now eastern Asia. Around quite a while back, towards the later piece of the Jurassic Period, an unconventional kind of dinosaur wandered the scene in China. Sauropods are notable for their long necks, however Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum overshadowed the scene with an unusually lengthy neck measuring 15 meters. "It appears that these necks were presumably for increased feeding, like in other sauropods,