Ancient DNA News

June 9, 2025

Top Headlines

Dinosaurs Could Hold Key to Cancer Discoveries

May 29, 2025 — New techniques used to analyze soft tissue in dinosaur fossils may hold the key to new cancer discoveries. Researchers have analyzed dinosaur fossils using advanced paleoproteomic techniques, a method that holds promise for uncovering molecular data ...

Long Shot Science Leads to Revised Age for Land-Animal Ancestor

May 29, 2025 — The fossils of ancient salamander-like creatures in Scotland are among the most well-preserved examples of early stem tetrapods -- some of the first animals to make the transition from water to land. Thanks to new research, scientists believe that ...

Birds Nested in Arctic Alongside Dinosaurs

May 29, 2025 — Spring in the Arctic brings forth a plethora of peeps and downy hatchlings as millions of birds gather to raise their young. The same was true 73 million years ago, according to a new article. The paper documents the earliest-known example of birds ...

Europe's Most Complete Stegosaurian Skull Unearthed in Teruel, Spain

May 28, 2025 — Palaeontologists have analyzed the most complete stegosaurian skull ever found in Europe and rewritten the evolutionary history of this iconic group of ...

Mystery of 'Very Odd' Elasmosaur Finally Solved: Fiercely Predatory Marine Reptile Is New Species

May 23, 2025 — A group of fossils of elasmosaurs -- some of the most famous in North America -- have just been formally identified as belonging to a 'very odd' new genus of the sea monster, unlike any previously ...

Toothache from Eating Something Cold? Blame These Ancient Fish

May 21, 2025 — New research shows that dentine, the inner layer of teeth that transmits sensory information to nerves inside the pulp, first evolved as sensory tissue in the armored exoskeletons of ancient ...

Digital Reconstruction Reveals 80 Steps of Prehistoric Life

May 15, 2025 — A dinosaur's 40-second journey more than 120 million years ago has been brought back to life by a research team using advanced digital modelling ...

Australia's Oldest Prehistoric Tree Frog Hops 22 Million Years Back in Time

May 14, 2025 — Scientists have now discovered the oldest ancestor for all the Australian tree frogs, with distant links to the tree frogs of South ...

Fossil Tracks Show Reptiles Appeared on Earth Up to 40 Million Years Earlier

May 14, 2025 — The origin of reptiles on Earth has been shown to be up to 40 million years earlier than previously thought -- thanks to evidence discovered at an Australian fossil site that represents a critical ...

CT Scanning Helps Reveal Path from Rotten Fish to Fossil

May 13, 2025 — Scientists confirm CT scanning doesn't interfere with natural decomposition processes, opening new windows into understanding how fossils ...

UV Light and CT Scans Helped Scientists Unlock Hidden Details in a Beautifully-Preserved Fossil Archaeopteryx

May 14, 2025 — Archaeopteryx is the fossil that clearly demonstrated Darwin's views. It's the oldest known fossil bird, and it helps show that all birds -- including the ones alive today -- emerged from dinosaurs. ...

Palaeontologists Discover 506-Million-Year-Old Predator

May 13, 2025 — Palaeontologists have discovered a remarkable new 506-million-year-old predator from the Burgess Shale of Canada. Mosura fentoni was about the size of your index finger and had three eyes, spiny jointed claws, a circular mouth lined with teeth and a ...

Latest Headlines

updated 1:30pm EDT

New Ancient Fish Species Earliest Known Salmon Ancestor

May 9, 2025 — The Arctic landscape during the Cretaceous Period may have been dominated by the dinosaurs, but the rivers and streams held something more familiar. Alaska's fresh waters 73 million years ago were ...

New Drone-Assisted 3D Model Offers a More Accurate Way to Date Dinosaur Fossils

May 6, 2025 — A new study is reshaping how scientists date dinosaur fossils in Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park (DPP). Using advanced drone-assisted 3D mapping, ...

Why Did Some Ancient Animals Fossilize While Others Vanished?

May 1, 2025 — Why do some ancient animals become fossils while others disappear without a trace? A new study reveals that part of the answer lies in the body itself. The research shows that an animal's size and ...

Ptero Firma: Footprints Pinpoint When Ancient Flying Reptiles Conquered the Ground

May 1, 2025 — A new study links fossilized flying reptile tracks to animals that made them. Fossilized footprints reveal a 160-million-year-old invasion as ...

The Oldest Ant Ever Discovered Found Fossilized in Brazil

Apr. 24, 2025 — A 113-million-year-old hell ant that once lived in northeastern Brazil is now the oldest ant specimen known to science, finds a new report. The hell ant, which was preserved in limestone, is a member ...

Footprints Reveal Prehistoric Scottish Lagoons Were Stomping Grounds for Giant Jurassic Dinosaurs

Apr. 2, 2025 — Jurassic dinosaurs milled about ancient Scottish lagoons, leaving up to 131 footprints at a newly discovered stomping ground on the Isle of Skye in ...

Ancient Amphibians as Big as Alligators Died in Mass Mortality Event in Triassic Wyoming

Apr. 2, 2025 — Dozens of amphibians perished together on an ancient floodplain around 230 million years ago, according to a new ...

Mammoth Genetic Diversity Throughout the Last Million Years

Apr. 9, 2025 — A new genomic study has uncovered long-lost genetic diversity in mammoth lineages spanning over a million years, providing new insights into the evolutionary history of these ...

Dinosaurs' Apparent Decline Prior to Asteroid May Be Due to Poor Fossil Record

Apr. 8, 2025 — The idea that dinosaurs were already in decline before an asteroid wiped most of them out 66 million years ago may be explained by a worsening fossil ...

New Species Revealed After 25 Years of Study on 'Inside Out' Fossil -- And Named After Discoverer's Mum

Mar. 26, 2025 — A new species of fossil is 444 million years-old with soft insides perfectly preserved. Research 'ultramarathon' saw palaeontologist puzzled by ...

New Fossil Discovery Reveals How Volcanic Deposits Can Preserve the Microscopic Details of Animal Tissues

Mar. 18, 2025 — An analysis of a 30,000-year-old fossil vulture from Central Italy has revealed for the first time that volcanic rock can preserve microscopic details in feathers -- the first ever record of such a ...

Dozens of 3-Toed Dinosaurs Leave Their Mark in Australia

Mar. 13, 2025 — A researcher has confirmed a boulder at a regional school contains one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur footprints per square meter ever documented in ...

When Birds Lose the Ability to Fly, Their Bodies Change Faster Than Their Feathers

Feb. 27, 2025 — Researchers examined dozens of bird species in museum collections looking for differences in the feathers and bodies between birds that can fly and birds that can't. They found that when birds ...

New Study Reveals Neanderthals Experienced Population Crash 110,000 Years Ago

Feb. 25, 2025 — A new study suggests that Neanderthals experienced a dramatic loss of genetic variation during the course of their evolution, foreshadowing their eventual extinction. Examination of semicircular ...

Ancient Egyptian Mummified Bodies Smell 'Woody,' 'Spicy' and 'Sweet'

Feb. 14, 2025 — Ancient Egyptian mummified bodies smell 'woody,' 'spicy' and 'sweet', finds a new study, revealing new details about mumification ...

Underwater Fossil Bed Discovered by Collectors Preserves Rare Slice of Florida's Past

Feb. 12, 2025 — Fossil collectors in Florida have discovered an ancient sinkhole, now at the bottom of a river, which holds the remains of animals rarely seen in the state, including a type of giant armadillo, giant ...

New Twist in Mystery of Dinosaurs' Origin

Jan. 23, 2025 — The remains of the earliest dinosaurs may lie undiscovered in the Amazon and other equatorial regions of South America and Africa, suggests a new ...

Rare Pterosaur Fossil Reveals Crocodilian Bite 76m Years Ago

Jan. 23, 2025 — The fossilized neck bone of a flying reptile unearthed in Canada shows tell-tale signs of being bitten by a crocodile-like creature 76 million years ago, according to a new ...

Fossil Discovery in the Geiseltal Collection: Researchers Identify Unique Bird Skull

Jan. 22, 2025 — Around 45 million years ago, a 4.6 feet-tall (1.40 meters) flightless bird called Diatryma roamed the Geiseltal region in southern Saxony-Anhalt. An international team of researchers report on the ...

New Fossil Discovery Sheds Light on the Early Evolution of Animal Nervous Systems

Jan. 10, 2025 — An international team of scientists has uncovered a fascinating piece of the evolutionary puzzle: how the ventral nerve cord, a key component of the central nervous system, evolved in ecdysozoan ...

Discovery of 'Punk' and 'Emo' Fossils Challenges Our Understanding of Ancient Molluscs

Jan. 8, 2025 — Researchers have unearthed two fossils, named Punk and Emo, revealing that ancient molluscs were more complex and adaptable than previously ...

Dinosaurs Roamed the Northern Hemisphere Millions of Years Earlier Than Previously Thought, According to New Analysis of the Oldest North American Fossils

Jan. 7, 2025 — A newly described dinosaur whose fossils were recently uncovered is challenging the existing narrative, with evidence that the reptiles were present in the northern hemisphere millions of years ...

Researchers Identify a Mysterious Fossil Seed to Reveal New Chapters in Climate History of Los Angeles

Dec. 19, 2024 — Scientists have successfully identified a previously unknown species to Southern California from fossilized seeds, revealing a drought-fueled dance between two species of juniper with lessons for the ...

Tyrannosaur Teeth Discovered in Bexhill-on-Sea, England

Dec. 5, 2024 — Research has revealed that several groups of meat-eating dinosaur stalked the Bexhill-on-Sea region of coastal East Sussex 135 million years ...

Insect Fossil Find 'Extremely Rare'

Dec. 2, 2024 — Newly discovered insect fossils are so small they can barely be seen by the human eye but have been preserved in an 'extraordinary' ...

Tiny Worm Makes for Big Evolutionary Discovery

Nov. 18, 2024 — The history of a major animal group, composed of millions of species of insects, arachnids, and nemotodes, has been elusive -- until now. A team has now identified the oldest known ecdysozoan in the ...

Did the World's Best-Preserved Dinosaurs Really Die in 'Pompeii-Type' Events?

Nov. 4, 2024 — Extraordinarily well preserved fossils of feathered dinosaurs and other creatures got that way after being frozen in time by by volcanic eruptions, researchers have long suggested. Not so fast, says ...

Fossil Hunters Strike Gold With New Species

Oct. 29, 2024 — Paleontologists have identified fossils of an ancient species of bug that spent the past 450 million years covered in fool's gold in central New York. The new species, Lomankus edgecombei, is a ...

Fossils Unveil How Southern Europe's Ecosystem Changed Through Glacial-Interglacial Stages

Oct. 23, 2024 — Fossils from more than 600,000 years ago reveal how Southern Europe's animal community shifted between warm and cold climate fluctuations, according to a new ...

'Paleo-Robots' to Help Scientists Understand How Fish Started to Walk on Land

Oct. 23, 2024 — The transition from water to land is one of the most significant events in the history of life on Earth. Now, a team of roboticists, palaeontologists and biologists is using robots to study how the ...