fossil news stories on Newser

'Illegal' Dinosaur Skeleton Sells for Over $1M

Neal Colgrass — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:48:23 CDT

A New York auction house sold off a dinosaur skeleton for $1 million yesterday despite a restraining order from the Mongolian government, which said the find had been illegally exported, New Scientist reports. Heritage Auctions kept mum about the seller and winning bidder, and said it had "legal assurances" that...

Whale Graveyard Puzzles Experts

Neal Colgrass — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 16:50:35 CST

A newly discovered graveyard of ancient whales in Peru has scientists wondering how on Earth the bus-sized mammals all ended up dying in the same place. "That's the top question," says the director of a nearby museum. Their current location—the middle of a highway under construction on a desert...

Apeman Fossil Could Be Missing Link

Mary Papenfuss — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 04:54:00 CDT

Have scientists finally found the "missing link" connecting human-like apes to the first human? A South African researcher is convinced he may have tracked down the creature after an exhaustive examination of the partial skeletons of a young female adult and a male child of a hominin that lived some...

Fossil Shows Meteor Wiped Out Dinosaurs

Kevin Spak — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:30:05 CDT

It’s just one horn, not quite a foot and a half long, but scientists say a newly discovered fossil could clinch the theory that a falling asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. Skeptics of the scenario have always pointed out that we’ve found no dinosaur fossils dated within the 3 million...

‘Monstrously Big’ Ants Once Roamed America

Rob Quinn — Wed, 04 May 2011 07:45:00 CDT

The fossil of an ant queen the size of a hummingbird has been found in lake sediments in Wyoming. The 2-inch-long ant is the biggest ever found in the US, and the newly identified species is one of the largest to have ever lived, reports LiveScience . Researchers say the "monstrously...

Shark Jaw Found in Kentucky Mine

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:06:05 CDT

A large 300-million-year-old shark jawbone was discovered in February in a place you might not expect: a Kentucky mine. Jay Wright was 700 feet underground, adding supports to a roof in the Dotiki Mine, when a rock fell and he saw "a bunch of teeth" above him. He pulled the...

Giant Bunny Fossils Discovered Off Spain

Rob Quinn — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 04:50:00 CDT

On the Spanish island of Minorca up to 5 million years ago, the rabbit was king. Researchers there have discovered fossils belonging to the biggest-ever member of the bunny family, LiveScience reports. Nuralagus rex, weighing in at some 26 pounds—about six times the size of modern rabbits—had largely...

Scientists Find Fossil of World's Largest Bear

Nick McMaster — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:53:51 CST

Scientists have uncovered the fossilized remains of the largest bear known to walk the Earth, LiveScience reports. Unearthed in Argentina, the giant short-faced bear was at least 11 feet tall when standing on its hind legs and weighed between 3,500 and 3,855 pounds—almost twice as big as...

High Tech Paints 3D Image of Ancient Beast of the Deep

Nick McMaster — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 17:47:10 CST

The 50-foot monster was the terror of the Earth's oceans some 150 million years ago, with its giant head packing a crocodile-esque jaw and razor sharp teeth that savaged anything in its way. Or at least that's the picture that's emerging of the pliosaur, as imaging scientists and paleontologists use...