Paleontology

Investigating the shape and evolution of animal joints

The fossilized remains of more than 450 whales have amassed along a 750-mile-long stretch of the Indian Ocean floor

More than 5,300 years after Ötzi’s death, researchers identified yeasts in his gut microbiome that continue to be active—and they used it to make bread

Like modern crocodiles, this bizarre ancient reptile was likely a carnivore, but otherwise it bears little resemblance to them

New trove of fossils reveals that ancestral animals likely emerged in the deep sea

Earth’s ancient climate is written in... ostrich eggshells and stomach oil?

Fossil jaws from colossal octopuses place them at the top of a prehistoric marine food chain

Laying eggs may have helped mammal ancestors thrive after Earth’s worst mass extinction

Fossils show exceptionally rare evidence of a cloacal vent—the slit that most vertebrates use to excrete, have sex and lay egg—which could shed light on the evolution of the orifice

Spinosaurus mirabilis was a force to be reckoned with

Vomit is gross—but 290-million-year-old vomit is a scientific marvel

A newfound site in the Italian Alps holds one of the largest collections of Triassic dinosaur footprints ever seen