Popular Paleontology

Modern birds are completely toothless, yet the vast majority of their ancestors possessed teeth. As a result, the evolutionary transition from toothed jaws to edentulous beaks is often regarded as one of the most representative examples of trait loss in evolution. However, tooth evolution in Mesozoic birds was far more diverse than is often appreciated. Different groups varied considerably in the number of teeth on the premaxilla, maxilla, and dentary. Some species were compl

During the Early Cretaceous, numerous exceptionally preserved fossil localities formed around the world. In addition to skeletal remains, these deposits preserve soft tissues such as skin and muscles, providing valuable evidence for reconstructing the appearance and ecology of ancient organisms. However, most exceptionally preserved fossil sites are located in temperate or subtropical regions. Comparable records from low-latitude regions, particularly northern South America,

Sexual selection has long been regarded as one of the major drivers of evolution alongside natural selection. It primarily influences differences in morphology and behavior among species and has contributed to the remarkable diversity of biological forms. Ornamental structures found in males or females are generally considered products of sexual selection. However, sexual selection does not act independently; it often interacts with natural selection, together shaping the for

Modern non-mammalian amniotes, such as reptiles and birds, have relatively limited kidney function. As a result, species living in high-salinity environments have evolved salt glands that remove excess salt from the body. These glands can occur in different parts of the head, including the nasal cavity, orbit, and oral cavity. Sea turtles excrete excess salt through their salt glands, making them appear to be crying.（Image source：Matthias Scholz， CC BY 2.5 。） In some birds an

Most Ediacaran animals had soft bodies and lacked hard skeletons, which means that their preservation as fossils was already an unusual event. For this reason, any well-preserved fossil community of the Ediacara Biota represents a major discovery. In the lower Blueflower Formation near Sekwi Brook in the Mackenzie Mountains of the Northwest Territories, Canada, researchers have identified an Ediacaran fossil community belonging to the White Sea assemblage. Here, "assemblage"

The fossil record has long preserved a puzzling gap. The Ediacaran Period contains an array of strange organisms unlike most animals alive today, whereas the Cambrian Period suddenly reveals many forms that seem much closer to the ancestral members of modern animal groups. How these two worlds were connected has remained difficult to resolve, largely because clear body-fossil evidence from this critical interval has been scarce. The Jiangchuan Biota of eastern Yunnan, China,

In the deep sea floor of the southeastern Indian Ocean, the Diamantina Zone lies off southwestern Australia, extending for about 1,200 km along the seabed at depths ranging from 4,616 to 7,001 m. Its deepest area is close to the Dordrecht Deep in the northwestern section. In 2023, after a research team explored this region aboard the human-occupied vehicle Fendouzhe, they discovered that this stretch of sea floor preserves a remarkable deep-sea whale necropolis. Location of t

In many shallow marine environments today, the upper layers of the seafloor are shaped by the burrowing, feeding, and movement of worms, crustaceans, mollusks, and other benthic animals. These activities produce a constantly disturbed layer of surficial sediment. Before the Cambrian, however, many shallow marine seafloors were dominated by microbial mats. These layered microbial communities acted like a living net spread across the sediment surface. Microbial filaments bound

Mesozoic mammals are often imagined as small, nocturnal animals living in the shadows, doing their best to avoid becoming food for large reptiles. That picture is not without fossil support: small mammalian remains have previously been found in the gut contents of dinosaur fossils. Yet one fossil from west of Lujiatun Village, Beipiao City, Liaoning Province, China, captures a very different moment: a Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis and a Repenomamus robustus entangled with one

In modern birds, feathers are highly specialized and complex structures. In addition to providing the aerodynamic surfaces required for flight, feathers are involved in insulation, waterproofing, camouflage, courtship displays, nest building, incubation, and sensing external stimuli. It can be said that feathers are an indispensable part of birds. For a long time, scientists generally regarded feathers as a unique characteristic of birds and even considered them one of the de

When Tyrannosaurus Ran Like a Bird: Rethinking the Locomotion of the Tyrant King For decades, one of the most famous debates in paleontology has centered on whether Tyrannosaurus was an active apex predator or primarily a scavenger. At the heart of this debate lies a fundamental question: how well could Tyrannosaurus actually move? Could such a gigantic animal run fast enough to chase down prey, or was it too massive for effective pursuit? Because Tyrannosaurus was enormous—a

A fossil made up of only a few teeth and part of a lower jaw can sometimes be enough to rewrite the evolutionary record of an entire animal group. This is precisely the case with a small mustelid fossil discovered at the Las Casiones fossil locality in Spain. The animal has been named Galanthis baskini, and it is regarded as the oldest known member of the subfamily Mustelinae. Until now, most palaeontologists had considered the earliest true weasels to come from the Pliocene

Many people’s strongest impression of Tyrannosaurus is its pair of disproportionately tiny forelimbs. These short arms not only became one of the most iconic features of Tyrannosaurus, but have also long fascinated both scientists and the public: why would such a gigantic predator possess such reduced forelimbs? Tyrannosaurus（Image source：Steveoc 86， CC BY-SA 4.0 。） However, when we broaden our perspective to the entire Mesozoic Era, it becomes clear that forelimb reduction w

In the Early Cretaceous of northeastern China, lakes, forested wetlands, and a seasonal temperate climate formed the world of the Jehol Biota. This region has yielded an extraordinary record of early bird fossils, many of which preserve not only bones, but also feathers, skin, and other traces of soft tissue. These delicate remains allow paleontologists to look beyond skeletal anatomy and begin reconstructing how early birds may have lived. One of the most remarkable birds de

A dinosaur with long feathers and wing-like forelimbs was not necessarily capable of flight. Anchiornis huxleyi, which lived approximately 160 million years ago during the Late Jurassic and was recovered from the Tiaojishan Formation of northeastern China, offers a particularly complex example. Its body was covered in feathers, and both the forelimbs and hindlimbs bore long feathers, giving it an appearance strikingly reminiscent of early birds. For many years, however, resea

Insects of the beetle order Coleoptera and the family Dermestidae are common in modern ecosystems. Often known as skin, larder, and carpet beetles, many species occur in dried animal remains, leather, feathers, natural history collections, stored products, and other organic materials. From a human perspective, they can sometimes be troublesome pests. Ecologically, however, they are an important part of decomposer networks. By feeding on animal and plant remains, they help ret

Jurassic Park imagined that humans could recover dinosaur blood from a mosquito sealed in amber and reopen the door to a lost dinosaur world. In reality, that door cannot be opened in that way. Dinosaur bones can lie in rock strata for hundreds of millions of years; teeth can preserve traces of biting and wear; footprints can record the brief moment when an animal crossed a muddy surface. Double-stranded DNA, however, is a polymer made of two long chains of four nucleotides p

The oceans of the Cretaceous usually bring to mind apex predatory vertebrates such as Mosasaurus, plesiosaurs, giant fishes, and large sharks. These animals held an advantage in predation and competition through immense body size, powerful locomotion, sharp sensory abilities, and advanced cognition. In contrast, invertebrates across this long interval have often been regarded as smaller prey animals, with many groups gradually developing hard external shells as protection aga

Archaeopteryx was an early-diverging member of Avialae, known from fossils preserved in the Solnhofen Limestone of southern Germany. It lived roughly 150 million years ago, during the Tithonian stage of the Late Jurassic, in a warm, predominantly dry archipelago that was seasonally wet. Its habitat was probably a semi-arid landscape of bushy conifers, cycads, ferns, and low vegetation. For Archaeopteryx, flight, climbing, terrestrial locomotion, and feeding behavior all have

Prior to the Carboniferous, insects were terrestrial arthropods lacking both flight muscles and articulated wing joints. With the onset of the Carboniferous, winged insects began to appear, and the earliest known fossil representative is Delitzschala bitterfeldensis, a member of the extinct order Palaeodictyoptera from the Serpukhovian stage, approximately 325 million years ago. Reconstruction of the hypothetical ancestral winged insect（Courtesy of A.G. Ponomarenko） Fossil of