Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advances and more. An ancient insect-like sea creature with a fan-shaped tail and a shell covering its body swam upside down and resembled a taco—only this taco could bite. Newly discovered fossils of the extinct arthropod Odaraia alata… Read More »
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advances and more. More than 20,000 years ago, in what is now Argentina, some of the first humans in the Americas encountered and dismembered a giant armadillo-like creature with stone tools, according to a new study. The discovery,… Read More »
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. For more than a century, scientists have been unsuccessful in finding skull fossils of the thunderbird species Genyornis newtoni. About 50,000 years ago, these titans, also known as mihirungs, from the Aboriginal term meaning “giant… Read More »
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. For more than a century, scientists have been unsuccessful in finding skull fossils of the thunderbird species Genyornis newtoni. About 50,000 years ago, these titans, also known as mihirungs, from the Aboriginal term meaning “giant… Read More »
About 100 million years ago, in what is now Australia’s opal field, a strange, furry, egg-laying, rabbit-sized mammal glided through a puddle along a massive polar floodplain. This mammal – Opalius is magnificent But this creature, which scientists thankfully nicknamed “echidnapus,” was among the ancient descendants of the monotremes, one of the planet’s most unique… Read More »
The Cooper River, which runs through the lowlands of South Carolina, is a reed-lined haven for sport fish and shorebirds. The waterway originates from Berkeley County’s Lake Moultrie. From there, it progresses to Charleston and merges with Ashley and Wando to form the city’s world-famous port. (Ever heard of Fort Sumter?) The Cooper River is… Read More »
By Will Dunham (Reuters) – On February 20, 1824, British naturalist and theologian William Buckland, addressing the Geological Society of London, described massive jaw and limb bones unearthed in a slate quarry in the village of Stonesfield, near Oxford. Buckland recognized that these fossils belonged to a giant reptile from the past and gave it… Read More »
Forrest Sheperd is a teenager walking on the beach near where he found an ancient walrus skull.Forrest Shepherd A 13-year-old fossil enthusiast found a walrus skull in a rock in Northern California in 2011. Eleven years later, a paleontologist named a previously unknown, now extinct species after him. The toothless walrus probably lived near temperate… Read More »
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Trees are believed to have appeared hundreds of millions of years ago. Since then, evidence for these ancient plant protectors has been scant. Now, the new discovery of unique 3D tree fossils has expanded our… Read More »