Fossils are the remains or traces left behind by life forms that existed long ago and are normally found in sedimentary rocks. They are usually very small, like micro shells or pollen, and sometimes ...

Exceptionally preserved fossils from the Ediacaran period challenge what scientists thought was possible in sandstone. In the fossil record, creatures without hard shells or skeletons, such as ...

In Earth's fossil record, soft-bodied organisms like jellyfish rarely stand the test of time. What's more, it's hard for any ...

In the fossil record, trees typically are preserved with only their trunks. They don't usually include any leaves to show what their canopies and overall forms may have looked like. In a new study, ...

About 66 million years ago, just before the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs, a fish chewed up and spit out some sea creatures. Unbeknownst to that fish, its rejected meal was preserved in ...

In a world that looked nothing like today’s, long before the rise of the dinosaurs or even the first trees, giant living towers stretched skyward from the Earth’s surface. Some reached heights of 26 ...

Who were the earliest ancestors of scorpions, spiders and horseshoe crabs? A Ph.D. student from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), with the support of a CNRS researcher, has identified a fossil ...

Scientists have made a groundbreaking discovery by unearthing giant magnetofossils in ancient ocean sediments, revealing structures that may have served as a built-in GPS system for prehistoric marine ...

One of the most extraordinary fossil beds of Cretaceous creatures in the world formed about 125 million years ago, in what’s now northeastern China. Researchers have thought that the diverse members ...