Dinosaurs & Fossils News

Undated handout photo shows the 3D reconstruction of the skull of Toumai. A fresh storm has broken out over an ancient fossil presented by its defenders as a forebear of humanity and dismissed by its critics as the remains of a vulgar chimp.(AFP/MPFT/File)

Finder of key hominid fossil disputes 7-million-year dating

AFP - Mon Sep 1, 7:58 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - A fresh storm has broken out over an ancient fossil presented by its defenders as a forebear of humanity and dismissed by its critics as the remains of a vulgar chimp.

  • Fossil of Ancient Pregnant Turtle Discovered LiveScience.com - Wed Aug 27, 2:33 PM ET

    A turtle that toddled alongside the dinosaurs died just days before laying a clutch of eggs. Now, about 75 million years later, paleontologists are announcing their find of the fossilized mother-to-be and the eggs tucked inside her body.

  • In this undated photo released by Ascanio Rincon, a fossil of a type of saber-toothed cat is seen. An ancient tar pit exposed when state oil workers laid a pipeline has yielded a rich trove of fossils, including a type of saber-toothed cat that paleontologists never found in South America before, and scientists say it holds the promise of many discoveries to come.(AP Photo/Ascanio Rincon)
    Saber-toothed cat fossils discovered in Venezuela AP - Thu Aug 21, 6:08 PM ET

    CARACAS, Venezuela - An ancient tar pit exposed when Venezuelan oil workers laid a pipeline has yielded a rich trove of fossils, including a type of saber-toothed cat that paleontologists had never found before in South America. Scientists say the find holds the promise of many discoveries to come.

  • The cover of a US magazine National Geographic. US archaeologists have discovered the largest known burial ground of the Stone Age in the Sahara desert, in Niger, that besides human remains has also yielded fossils of huge crocodiles and dinosaurs, National Geographic magazine said.(AFP/File/Liu Jin)
    US scientists find stone age burial ground in Sahara AFP - Thu Aug 14, 1:26 PM ET

    WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US-led team of archaeologists said Thursday they had discovered by chance what is believed to be the largest find of Stone Age-era remains ever uncovered in the Sahara Desert.

  • This 2002 handout photo shows the skeleton of a giant marsupial 'lion' found in a cave in Australia containing the skeletons of giant lions, kangaroos and wombats. A new study has revealed that the chance discovery of the remains of a prehistoric giant kangaroo has cast doubts on the long-held view that climate change drove it and other mega-fauna to extinction.(AFP/WA Museum/File/Clay Bryce)
    Prehistoric giant animals killed by man, not climate: study AFP - Tue Aug 12, 5:23 AM ET

    SYDNEY (AFP) - The chance discovery of the remains of a prehistoric giant kangaroo has cast doubts on the long-held view that climate change drove it and other mega-fauna to extinction, a new study reveals.

  • The skull of a saber-toothed tiger. Venezuela has found the first fossils of an extinct scimitar cat -- of the saber-toothed cat genus -- in South America, during oil prospecting activities southeast of Caracas, paleontologists announced(AFP/File)
    Ancient big cat fossils found in South America AFP - Mon Aug 11, 10:28 PM ET

    CARACAS (AFP) - Venezuela has found the first fossils of an extinct scimitar cat -- of the saber-toothed cat genus -- in South America, during oil prospecting activities southeast of Caracas, paleontologists announced.

  • Polish palaeontologist Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki holds up an excavated bone that will now need to be identified, in a brickyard in Lipie Slaskie, near Lisowice, southern Poland, August 5, 2008. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters)
    Poland to open museum for cousin of T-Rex Reuters - Wed Aug 6, 11:23 AM ET

    LISOWICE, Poland (Reuters) - Poland opens a museum on Thursday to exhibit the remains of a previously unknown dinosaur, an ancestor of Tyrannosaurus Rex, which have attracted scientists from around the world to this small southern village.