Horse fossils are abundant and widespread across North America. Scientists often use their long history to illustrate how species evolve in response to a changing environment.
Ancient microbes likely produced natural products their descendants today do not. Tapping into this lost chemical diversity could offer a potential source of new drugs.
Our ancient ancestors didn’t have clothes or houses – but that constant exposure to the sun helped their skin protect itself from the worst sun damage.
Thanks to our new technique using fossilised tracks, we have been able to learn more about the locomotion of the largest creatures ever to have roamed this planet.
By looking at the eye bones and ear canals of extinct dinosaurs, researchers show that a small ancient predator likely hunted at night and had senses as good as a modern barn owl.
Scientists asked young people to draw what they would like the natural world to look like when they’re older. Their imagination could help make conservationists more ambitious.
Death is inevitable for individuals and also for species. With help from the fossil record, paleontologists are piecing together what might make one creature more vulnerable than another.
Strange frond-like sea creatures are among the planet’s earliest animals, but new research dates them and the entire animal kingdom to much earlier than first thought.
With no identifiable body parts, it’s hard to know how these fossilized creatures lived. A new approach models how the ocean’s water would interact with their unique shapes – hinting at their lifestyle.