Tag: Paleontology/Geobiology
May 29, 2025
Long Shot Science Leads to Revised Age for Land-Animal Ancestor
In 1984, an amateur paleontologist in Scotland found a remarkable specimen: a nearly complete fossil of what looked to be a lizard or salamander. Rather…
Read MoreApril 29, 2025
New Study Shows How ‘Marine Revolution’ Shaped Ocean Life
Between 252 and 66 million years ago, the ocean underwent a revolution. That’s when plankton with calcium carbonate skeletons colonized the open ocean. When they…
Read MoreApril 7, 2025
Research Sheds Light on Life and Times of ‘Fiona’ the Pregnant Ichthyosaur
About 131 million years ago, an 11-foot-long ichthyosaur slammed snout first into the seafloor and was rapidly buried by sediments — a sequence of events…
Read MoreFebruary 7, 2025
Rare Bird Skull from the Age of Dinosaurs Helps Illuminate Avian Evolution
A new study in Nature describing a fossil of a nearly complete and intact bird skull from Antarctica is shedding light on the early evolution…
Read MoreOctober 1, 2024
Scientists Closing in on Answers About ‘Lost’ Prehistoric Cats of Natural Bridge Caverns
Last January, a team of cavers led by a paleontologist from The University of Texas at Austin rappelled into two deep chambers at Natural Bridge…
Read MoreApril 3, 2024
Skull of Bizarre Worm- Lizard is Analyzed for First Time
Amphisbaenians are the strangest creatures you’ve never heard of. Like worms with vertebrae, scales, a large central tooth and sometimes small forearms, these reptiles…
Read MoreApril 3, 2024
A Jurassic Texas First
A team led by scientists at the Jackson School of Geosciences has discovered the first known Jurassic vertebrate fossils in Texas. The bone fragments are…
Read MoreMarch 18, 2024
Tanks of the Triassic: New Crocodile Ancestor Identified
Dinosaurs get all the glory. But aetosaurs, a heavily armored cousin of modern crocodiles, ruled the world before dinosaurs did. These tanks of the Triassic…
Read MoreMarch 6, 2024
Thousands of CT-Scans from UT Austin Now Part of Online Archive
Natural history museums have entered a new stage of scientific discovery and accessibility with the completion of openVertebrate (oVert), a free online archive of 3D…
Read MoreFebruary 12, 2024
Bizarre Worm-Lizard’s Secrets Revealed in CT Scans
Amphisbaenians are strange creatures. Like worms with vertebrae, scales, a large central tooth and sometimes small forearms, these reptiles live underground, burrowing tunnels and preying…
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