GizModo VR

AUGUST 27, 2021

Paleolithic hunters built mammoth traps in what is now Mexico some 14,700 years ago. An unknown sea creature left footprints in sand some 550 million years ago, making them the oldest known footprints on Earth. The mysterious Denisovan humans reached southeast Asia 160,000 years ago, as evidenced by a jawbone found on… Read more.

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Mexico Asia California Technology 111

GizModo VR

OCTOBER 25, 2020

Someone—maybe an adolescent, maybe someone older—rushed across the edge of Lake Otero, slipping as they walked but moving steadily ahead. Evidence suggests this person was carrying a child approximately 3 years old, setting the child down for just a moment in at least three separate places along the journey before… Read more.

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New Mexico Mexico 145

GizModo VR

AUGUST 20, 2020

As the Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn once said, “There’s always a bigger fish.” Or in the case of the Triassic Period, there’s always a bigger aquatic reptile, as this incredible fossil demonstrates. Read more.

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GizModo VR

OCTOBER 24, 2020

Amber fossils are like a time capsule, preserving the three-dimensional structure of animals, plants, and other prehistoric items of interest. Every once in a while, however, paleontologists stumble upon some particularly bizarre specimens and scenes. Read more.

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GizModo VR

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

A new paper published today offers surprising insight into the American mastodon and its reactions to a changing environment. This stocky megafauna—whose tusks, trunk, and four legs echo today’s elephant—is thought to have lived predominantly within forests and marshy environments throughout ancient North America… Read more.

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North America Study America 143

GizModo VR

AUGUST 4, 2020

A genetic analysis of ice age cave lions shows this species to be distinct from modern lions, ending a long-standing mystery. What’s more, the new evidence suggests these fearsome creatures diverged into two distinct lineages. Read more.

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GizModo VR

AUGUST 27, 2020

A rare egg fossil containing an unhatched dinosaur suggests baby sauropods were not miniaturized versions of the four-legged, long-necked behemoths we all know and love, exhibiting a unique set of physical characteristics that included a little rhino-like horn. Read more.

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GizModo VR

NOVEMBER 28, 2020

Paleontologists are lucky to find complete sets of fossilized bones. Sometimes, they get even luckier, finding preserved impressions of delicate features like feathers. Beyond those clues, though, most of the biology of extinct species—their DNA, internal organs, and unique chemistry—has been totally destroyed by the… Read more.

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GizModo VR

APRIL 21, 2022

A team of researchers studying 22.5-million-year-old million-year-old spider fossils from Aix-en-Provence were taken aback when the petrified pests glowed under a fluorescent microscope. The fluorescence was likely due to the circumstances of the fossilization, the group said. Read more.

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France Study Groups 98

GizModo VR

DECEMBER 14, 2020

The re-analysis of an old fossil has revealed features never seen before in a dinosaur, including a long, fur-like mane along its back and a pair of stiff structures jutting out from its shoulders. Scientists say these elaborate decorations were likely used for display, in what is a very early version of peacocking. Read more.

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GizModo VR

AUGUST 24, 2020

The oldest fossilized vertebrate footprints ever discovered in the Grand Canyon were found embedded in a recently fallen boulder located in plain sight. Read more.

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GizModo VR

AUGUST 6, 2020

The authors of a high-profile study published earlier this year, in which the scientists claimed to have discovered the world’s smallest dinosaur, have now retracted the paper in response to new fossil evidence. Read more.

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Study 137

GizModo VR

DECEMBER 17, 2020

A trove of elephant tusks found in the cargo hold of an old Portuguese shipwreck is yielding new insights into the 16th-century ivory trade and lost African elephants. Read more.

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GizModo VR

AUGUST 18, 2021

Paleontologists have found a bed of ancient mammal bones amid the dry, brush-covered landscape of Southern Wyoming. Three of those fossil finds belong to previously unknown species, and all the animals on the site paint a different picture about mammalian evolution in the wake of the dinosaurs’ demise after the… Read more.

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Wyoming Survey 105

GizModo VR

DECEMBER 10, 2020

A thorough re-analysis of a skeleton belonging to a 2-year-old Neanderthal and the archaeological site in which it was discovered some 50 years ago is providing some of the strongest evidence yet that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead. Read more.

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GizModo VR

AUGUST 3, 2020

A re-analysis of a shin bone belonging to a horned dinosaur from the Cretaceous period has revealed signs of a malignant tumor, in what’s considered a first for dinosaur paleontology. Read more.

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GizModo VR

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

A fossilized feather found 159 years ago in Germany has returned to the paleontological spotlight, with new research declaring the feather as having come from the bird-like Archaeopteryx , much to the chagrin of dissenting scientists. Read more.

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Germany 119

GizModo VR

JANUARY 13, 2021

Dire wolves menaced Pleistocene landscapes for tens of thousands of years, eventually going extinct at the end of the last ice age. Despite the long success of this species, very little is known about them, including their origins and reasons for their demise. New research is helping to fill these gaps. Read more.

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GizModo VR

JUNE 17, 2020

New research suggests early dinosaurs laid eggs with soft shells, and mosasaurs—gigantic marine reptiles—did so, too, laying soft-shelled eggs of massive proportions. Read more.

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GizModo VR

JULY 9, 2020

Archaeologists in Kazakhstan have discovered the well-preserved remains of a cat that died over 1,000 years ago along the Silk Road. The feline lived a tough life but was apparently cared for by pastoralists, in an unheard of practice given their nomadic lifestyles. Read more.

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Kazakhstan 111

GizModo VR

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

Reindeer herders working on Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island in arctic Russia have stumbled upon an incredibly well-preserved cave bear, in what scientists say is a discovery of “world importance.” Read more.

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Russia 98

GizModo VR

JUNE 30, 2020

Fossils rarely retain evidence of an organism’s original color, but these 99-million-year-old amber fossils found in Myanmar are revealing the vibrant hues of another world. Read more.

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Myanmar 98

GizModo VR

AUGUST 13, 2020

New genetic evidence suggests it was a warming climate—not human overhunting—that killed off woolly rhinos at the end of the last ice age. Read more.

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GizModo VR

OCTOBER 15, 2020

Scientists have mapped the entire nuclear genome of a saber-toothed cat species known as Homotherium latidens , also called the scimitar-toothed cat. The resulting DNA analysis suggests these Pleistocene predators were fearsome pack hunters capable of running for long distances as they chased their prey to exhaustion. Read more.

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Study 89

GizModo VR

OCTOBER 28, 2020

A re-analysis of two fossils found in the 1980s has led to the discovery of an absolutely enormous Antarctic seabird. Read more.

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