Scientists at the Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, have studied an extremely well preserved fossil insect found in the Green River Formation in Colorado, a rock layer consisting of many layers of fine grained shales, dated as 50 million years old. The fossil is a katydid – an insect with long slender legs […]
Palaeontologists at the American Museum of Natural History and Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in the Netherlands have studied two bat skeletons found in the Green River Formation in Wyoming, USA, and claim to have found a new species of fossil bat. Nearly 30 bat fossils have been found in the Green River formation, representing two species. […]
Horseshoe crab brains haven’t changed, according to a report in Science Alert 28 July 2021, Natural History Museum (NHM) Science News 5 August 2021, and Geology, doi: 10.1130/G49193.1, published online 26 July 2021. An international group of scientists from Australia, UK and USA have studied an “exceptionally preserved” fossil horseshoe crab named Euproops danae, found […]
Oldest horned dinosaur found, according to reports in ScienceDaily 11 May 2021 and SciTech Daily 14 May 2021 and PalZ, 10 May 2021, doi: 10.1007/s12542-021-00555-w. Scientists in from the University of Pennsylvania and New Mexico Museum of Natural History have studied the fossil of a horned dinosaur originally found in 1966 in the Menefee Formation […]
Oldest cephalopods may have been found, claim scientists via reports in ScienceDaily 23 March 2021, Science Alert 25 March2021 and Communications Biology 23 March 2021, doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-01885-w. Scientists at the University of Heidelberg have studied fossils from the Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland, Canada, and identified them as fossil cephalopods. Living cephalopods include octopuses, squid, cuttlefish and […]
Oldest rapid-fire tongue found, according to reports in. ScienceDaily 5 November 2020, BBC Science Focus and Science Perspectives 6 November 2020, and Science 6 November 2020, doi: 10.1126/science.abb6005. An international team of scientists have studied a small amphibian preserved in amber and were surprised to find it had an entoglossal bone – a bone found […]
Fungus unchanged for 400 million years, as reported in Botany One 29 June 2020, and Annals of Botany 24 June 2020, doi: 10.1093/aob/mcaa113. Scientists have studied thin sections of the fossil bearing Lower Devonian Rhynie chert in Scotland, which is dated as 410 million years old. They found exquisitely preserved reproductive structures, known as spore-saccule […]
Oldest mahogany found, according to ScienceDaily and University of Kansas News 15 April 2020, and American Journal of Botany 5 January 2020 doi: 10.1002/ajb2.1416. Brian Atkinson of University of Kansa has studied a fossilised fruit found in a rock collected on Shelter Point on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, and identified it as belonging to […]
Oldest non-stromatolites found, according to Nature News and Views, vol. 563, pp190-191 8 November 2018. In 2016 scientists claim to have identified fossilised algal mats, knowns as stromatolites, in rocks of the Isua Supracrustal Belt, Greenland, dated as 3.7 billion years. This made them the oldest stromatolites ever found, displacing 3.45 billion year dated rocks […]
Oldest pterosaur found, as reported in Science (AAAS) News 13 August 2018, BBC News 14 August 2018, and Nature Ecology & Evolution 13 August 2018 doi: 10.1038/s41559-018-0627-y. Palaeontologists excavating a fossil site in Utah, USA have found remains of a pterosaur, an extinct flying reptile. The fossil site where it was found has yielded over […]