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#FossilFriday: This 250-million-year-old animal could enter hibernation-like states

Lystrosaurus may be the oldest hibernating vertebrate in the fossil record.

Rare bone cancer found in 240-million-year-old turtle

We're not all that different from the creatures with whom we share and have shared this planet.

New Antarctic Dinosaurs on Display at Field Museum

It's a great way to spend an afternoon or a day off.

Fossil Friday: Helicoprion

Helicoprion is an extinct genus of shark-like, cartilaginous fish that lived from the early Permian (~290 m.y. ago) all through to the massive Permian-Triassic extinction episode (roughly 250 m.y. ago.)

Dinosaurs were warm-blooded, new study finds

New controversial research concluded that dinosaurs weren't the cold blooded lizards we tend to see them today - instead, they had much in common with mammals, and were warm blooded.

Car-sized Salamander roamed Portugal 230 million years ago

Paleontologists have found the remains of a "super salamander" - a previously unknown car-sized species of early amphibian. The predatory salamander likely feasted on fish and even small dinosaurs.

Croc ancestor was the top two-legged predator on Earth, long before T. Rex and other dinosaurs

Long before T-rex claimed the top dog spot among terrestrial predators, a vicious crocodile ancestor that walked on its hind legs was at the top of the food chain during the Triassic. The fossils of the Carnufex carolinensis, also known as the the “Carolina Butcher,” were discovered decades ago in the Pekin Formation, a geological formation in North Carolina's Chatham County. It was only recently that researchers reanalyzed the fossils and concluded they were dealing with an all new predator that roamed the Earth several million years before dinosaurs were even around.

How some dinosaurs got enormously long necks

The longest creatures to ever walk the Earth were the long-necked, long-tailed dinosaurs known as the sauropods. But why did these huge vegetarians grow such huge necks, reaching up to 15 meters? That’s six times longer than that of the current world-record holder, the giraffe.   “They were really stupidly, absurdly oversized,” said researcher Michael […]

Bus sized Triassic marine monster sheds light on ecosystems

A new species of “sea monster” was unearther in Nevada – a predator so fierce that it often hunted prey as big or bigger than itself. Thalattoarchon saurophagis translates into “lizard-eating sovereign of the sea” – and boy is that a good name. It measured well over 8 meters and lived some 244 million years […]