Sir Attenborough really liked the name.
#FossilFriday: 34-million-year old wasp fossil
It’s as beautiful as it likely was annoying.
Paleontologists find ‘incredibly rare’ 52 million year-old fossilized berry
Geoscientists working in South America have uncovered an ancient berry.
Fossil Friday: the first dino brain (we’ve ever found)
We didn’t even think it was possible to find one up to now.
#FossilFriday: The scent of a 54-million-year-old insect
An ancient pheromone spray.
Fossil Friday: the earliest known shells from 809 million years ago
Shifting ocean chemistry and predatory pressure made organisms bunker up for the first time.
Fossil Friday: the bug inside the lizard inside the snake
Always go for a meal before you fossilize.
Fossil Friday: C. Megalodon, the true Jaws
The biggest fish in the pond.
#FossilFriday: opalized belemnite
Belemnites were extinct cephalopods with a squid-like body.
Fossil Friday: Sciurumimus albersdoerferi, the single-fossil theropod
There’s only one fossil of this dinosaur that we ever found — and you’re looking at it.
#FossilFriday: Geode Fossil
This is a beautiful geodized fossil – a sea snail fossil filled up by a yellowish calcite geode. The fossil is part of the Busycon genus – a genus of large, generally edible sea snails. These snails are commonly known in the United States as whelks or Busycon whelks. This fossil was reportedly taken from the Anastasia Formation in Florida, USA — a
Fossil friday: Platycrinus saffordi, the sea lily
Though they’re known as sea lilies, crinoids are animals not plants. Think of them as starfish-on-a-stick: they are filter-feeding sea floor echinoderms, and relatively common as fossils go. Crinoids as a group aren’t extinct, but are relatively uncommon in modern oceans.
Fossil Friday: Zaphrentis phrygia
Kinda looks like the Sarlacc, doesn’t it? Well take your geek hat off cause it isn’t a sarlacc. Now put your paleontology geek hats on because this is Fossil Friday and we’re talking about Zaphrentis phrygia.
Fossil Friday: Diptera brachycera in amber
Diptera are still alive and kickin’ today, and some of them are getting coated in amber as we speak! A nice reminder that fossils are still being formed for future paleontologists to uncover.
Fossil Friday: Dicranurus monstrosus
When a species almost one hundred times bigger than you, who has access to nukes and can go to space, discovers your remains a few million years after you die and still decides to call you “monstrosus” you must be doing something very right survival-wise.
Fossil Friday: Helicoprion
Helicoprion is an extinct genus of shark-like, cartilaginous fish that lived from the early Permian (~290 m.y. ago) all through to the massive Permian-Triassic extinction episode (roughly 250 m.y. ago.)
FossilFriday: Ammonite Growth Chambers
Ammonite fossils are among the most common in the world, with their characteristic shape and chambered shell. But did you ever wonder what the deal is with those chambers? Ammonites are a group of cephalopod animals that lived as swimmers in the shallow parts of the ancient oceans. They were extremely successful, emerging in the early Devonian 400 million years ago
Fossil Friday: looks like a squirrel, tastes like chicken, is actually a dinosaur
This is without a doubt one of the most complete and one of the most spectacular dinosaur fossils ever found. It’s a small theropod dinosaur, a group of ancestral predators from the Mesozoic. Oliver Rauhut, who was one of the authors of the study that described the dinosaurs, writes: “It is a small theropod dinosaur (total length c. 70 cm)
#FossilFriday: Dunkleosteus
Dunkleosteus is an extinct placoderm fish that lived some 380 to 360 million years ago, during the late Devonian. It’s called a “placoderm” because its head and thorax was covered in armored plates – this was generally how fish were built in that time. The largest species, D. terrelli, measured up to 10 meters (33 feet). They were probably slow,
#Fossil Friday: Ordovician Edrioasteroidea
This is Streptaster vorticellatus, a member of the Edrioasteroidea class. The Edrioasteroidea is an extinct class of echinoderms that lived all the way on from the Ediacaran period 600 million years ago! However, Streptaster vorticellatus lived “only” 450 million years ago, during a period called the Ordovician. The body plan for this class was simple: a main body (theca), composed of many small plates, a peripheral rim