Move Back
ADVERTISEMENT
Skip- Published38 Images
All that remains: Fossil finds
Fossilized remains are all that's left of the once mighty dinosaurs that dominated our planet. Here, the most recent finds from these ancient beasts.
- Sept. 14, 2013: A Nevada paleontologist said Monday that he thinks apparent dinosaur bone fossils found at a state park about 20 miles west of the Las Vegas Strip could date to the late Triassic period and might be the oldest land animal ever found in the state. Josh Bonde, a geoscience teacher and paleontology research associate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said in a brief telephone interview that the fossilized backbone vertebrae come from a layer of rock some 220 million to 230 million years old. There's no positive identification yet, but Bonde told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the fossils found at Spring Mountain Ranch could predate 190-million-year-old dinosaur footprints spotted in 2010 in nearby red rock sandstone. Read moreread moreAP Photo/Las Vegas Review-Journal, David BeckerShare
- Dec. 4, 2012: A new bone analysis of fossils collected in Tanzania in the 1930s reveal that Nyasasaurus parringtoni -- a creature the size of a Labrador retriever with a five-foot-long tail -- may be the earliest dinosaur on Earth, plodding across the planet some 243 million years ago. The fossilized humerus of the oldest dinosaur yet discovered is about 5 inches long, and scientist estimate it would have been about 6 inches long in the living animal.read moreNatural History MuseumShare
- Nov. 26, 2012: An Archaeopteryx fossil discovered in Germany. Modern flying birds have a single primary layer of easily separated long feathers covered with short ones a design that helps them overcome drag when taking flight. A new analysis of the fossils of two of their ancestors shows that the arrangement of feathers for primitive birds was quite different, which may have made flying difficult.read moreHUMBOLDT MUSEUM FÜR NATURKUNDE BERLINShare
- Nov. 23, 2012: The fact that bones have curves has now thrown a curveball into calculations of dinosaur weight, researchers say. New estimates suggest dinosaurs may have been lighter than once thought, scientists explain. By simplifying leg bones down to basic columns, previous studies could have underestimated the stresses experienced in animal limbs by up to 142 percent. Stress shown here in the common hedgehog's femur (a), and a tibia of a large bird, Uria (b).read moreCHARLOTTE BRASSEYShare
- Oct. 30, 2012: Archaeologists in France have unearthed a rather hairy fossil -- a nearly complete skeleton of a mammoth. The bones -- thought to belong to a creature that roamed the earth between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago -- were discovered by accident during the excavation of an ancient Roman site 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Paris. They included four connected vertebrae and a complete pelvis.read moreAPShare
- A new fossil discovery could be the world's smallest known dinosaur — a feathered, birdlike creature that lived more than 100 million years ago and grew no more than 15.7 inches (40 centimeters) long. The fossil, a tiny neck bone found in the southern U.K., is a mere quarter-inch (7.1 millimeters) in length. It belongs to an adult dinosaur that lived in the Cretaceous period 145 million to 100 million years ago. Read moreread moreSteve Sweetman/Darren Naish/University of PortsmouthShare
- A newfound carnivore whose name means "the evil spirit reptile with outstanding teeth" suggests the dinosaur lineage that included the mighty T. rex experimented with its skull shape more than thought, researchers said. The dinosaur in question, Daemonosaurus chauliodus, dates back to the end of the Triassic Period, approximately 205 million years ago. This makes it an early member of the theropods, or "beast-footed" dinosaurs, the lineage later comprising all the carnivores, including T.rex. Read moreread moreNational Museum of Natural HistoryShare
- Some dinosaurs didn't go to sleep when the sun went down. Like many living animals, some paleo-beasts stayed awake or woke up to forage or begin the hunt for prey. This discovery, which relied on evidence within fossilized remains of dinosaur eyes, challenges the conventional wisdom that early mammals were nocturnal, or active at night, because dinosaurs had already taken the day shift. Read moreread moreLars SchmitzShare
- Two fearsome, newfound species of saber-toothed cats might once have stalked the earliest ancestors of humanity, researchers suggest. However, the feline predators might have also proven to be a boon to these distant forerunners by leaving behind meat from which our ancient relatives could have scavenged, scientists added. Read moreread moreMPFT-IPHEP 2011Share
- As birdlike as the extinct winged reptiles known as pterosaurs might have seemed as they soared through prehistoric skies, it turns out their eggs and nests might have been like their more grounded lizard cousins than any feathered rival, scientists find. These insights, based on the fossils of a female pterosaur named "Mrs. T" and her egg, shed light on bygone creatures that once ruled the skies for more than 150 million years, whose home life we are only beginning to understand. Read moreread moreL Junchang, Institute of Geology, BeijingShare
- The cut marks show that the animals were gutted, just like the many deer, horses, bison, and other common prey animals found at the site, according to study leader Ruth Blasco of Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain. The gutted remains also show that the early humans might have had first crack at the corpse by killing it themselves, Blasco said. Read more.read moreBlasco et al.Share
- A 95 million-year-old fossilized jaw discovered in Texas has been identified as a new genus and species of flying reptile, Aetodactylus halli, says paleontologist Timothy S. Myers, who identified and named Aetodactylus halli. The rare pterosaur (literally winged lizard) is also one of the youngest members of the pterosaur family Ornithocheiridae in the world -- and the second ornithocheirid ever documented in North America.read moreSouthern Methodist UniversityShare
- Four million years ago, a shark took a mortal bite out of a dolphin abdomen from the rear and right, just as living white shark do today. It followed up with a second, less strong bite to the dorsal area as the dolphin, mortally injured, rolled to the left. Then the shark released its prey, dead or dying, and other sharks or fishes scavenged the torn body of the dolphin. All this and more scientists have gleaned from the careful, forensic-style analysis of a four-million-year-old dolphin fossil found off the coast of Italy. As paleontologists reconstructed the killing, they uncovered an abundance of evidence of just how those ancient shark attacked and killed their prey.read moreGiovanni BianucciShare
- A meter-long skull of the holotype of Bistahieversor sealeyi or "Bisti Beast," a new genus and species of Tyrannosaur from the Late Cretaceous of New Mexico. The discovery of dinosaur bones in the Bisti Wilderness area in 1998 was a significant find for paleontologists. But 12 years later, the scientific community isn't just looking at more dinosaur bones in a museum. Rather, a new species of Tyrannosaur.read moreAP Photo/Courtesy of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & ScienceShare
- Photo of recently discovered dinosaur shark tooth close-up. Although the tooth represents a fraction of the entire body of the shark, it is significant because the preserved teeth contain those in the maximum range of tooth sizes for the species.read moreK Shimada, DePaul University and Sternberg Museum of Natural History.Share
- Published38 Images
All that remains: Fossil finds
Fossilized remains are all that's left of the once mighty dinosaurs that dominated our planet. Here, the most recent finds from these ancient beasts.
Move Forward
- All that remains: Fossil finds
Thumbnail View
Image 0 of 38