Rhinolike mammals called brontotheres repeatedly evolved into bigger and smaller species, a fossil analysis shows. The bigger ones won out over time.
An ancient animal called Essexella may have been a type of burrowing sea anemone, a new study proposes.
Newly described fossils of Protomelission gatehousei suggest that the species, once thought to be the oldest example of bryozoans, is actually a type of colony-forming algae.
Pollen stuck to fossils of earwig-like Tillyardembia pushes back the earliest record of potential insect pollinators by about 120 million years.
The 252-million-year-old fossil leaves have symmetrical holes, which suggest an insect bit through the leaves when they were folded.
Fossilized toe pads suggest a hawklike hunting style in Microraptor, a dinosaur that some scientists think could hunt while flying.
Ocean life may have recovered in just a million years after the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, fossils from South China suggest.
Teeth and jawbones found on Ellesmere Island, Canada, suggest that two early primate species migrated there 52 million years ago.
The 120-million-year-old Cratonavis zhui, newly discovered in China, had a head like a theropod and body like a modern bird.
Some 230 million years ago, massive dolphinlike reptiles gathered to breed in safe waters — just like many modern whales do, a study finds.