13-08-14 A radical shortening of their bony tails over 100 million years ago enabled the earliest birds to develop versatile（多才多艺的） legs that gave them an evolutionary edge, a new study shows. A team led by Oxford University scientists examined fossil...

13-05-14 A new study, led by a Binghamton University anthropologist（人类学家） and published this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could shed new light on the earliest existence of humans. The study analyzed the tiny ear bones, t...

13-04-08 Research from New Zealand's University of Otago detailing the fossil of a dwarf baleen（鲸须） whale from Northern California reveals that it avoided extinction far longer than previously thought. Otago Department of Geology PhD student Robert Boess...

13-03-06 University of Florida paleontologists（古生物学者） have discovered remarkably well-preserved fossils of two crocodilians（鳄目动物） and a mammal previously unknown to science during recent Panama Canal excavations that began in 2009. The two new a...

13-01-07 A University of Alberta researcher's examination of fossilized dinosaur tail bones has led to a breakthrough finding: some feathered dinosaurs used tail plumage（翅膀，羽毛） to attract mates, much like modern-day peacocks and turkeys. U of A Paleon...

12-03-29 A team of scientists has announced the discovery of a 3.4 million-year-old partial foot from the Woranso-Mille area of the Afar region of Ethiopia. The fossil foot did not belong to a member of Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, the famous...

11-09-09 Researchers have confirmed the age of possibly our oldest direct human ancestor at 1.98 million years old. The discovery was made after researchers conducted further dating of the early human fossils, Australopithecus sediba（南方古猿人） , found in...

11-07-20 German scientists at the Stuttgart Natural History Museum were leading in the discovery of a new insect order from the Lower Cretaceous of South America. The spectacular fossils were named Coxoplectoptera by their discoverers and their findings were...

11-05-26 Paleontologists（古生物学家） have discovered that a group of remarkable ancient sea creatures existed for much longer and grew to much larger sizes than previously thought, thanks to extraordinarily well-preserved fossils discovered in Morocco. The...

10-05-14 Paleontologists（古生物学者） have discovered a rich array of exceptionally preserved（保藏的，腌制的） fossils of marine animals that lived between 480 million and 472 million years ago, during the early part of a period known as the Ordovician（奥...