Ammonites are a tale of two textures. The prehistoric cephalopods were composed of fleshy soft tissue (the living bit of the animals) and hard external shells, which, according to a paper published this week in Scientific Reports, may have helped the animals control their buoyancy.
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…
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…