The Archive

The first thing that the expedition team found in peeking from the rocks and sands of the Gobi Desert was a tiny tip of a large pelvis. The international team descended on the exposed fossil, and chipped and brushed away to reveal more and more bones. Eventually, they exposed an exceptionally rare find: the virtually complete skeleton of a new dinosaur species.

Nearly a quarter billion years ago an otter-sized, armored, platypus-faced, marine reptile paddled in tropical lagoons on the shores of islands that would become southern China. This weird species is part of a diverse lineage that was restricted to a few million years and those tropical lagoons.

Wadi Al Hitan, the Valley of the Whales, is a site that’s yielded dozens of skeletons of the early predatory whales Basilosaurus and Dorudon over the last hundred years. Newly uncovered specimens support the idea that it was a calving ground for the dolphin-sized Dorudon, and that those calves were hunted by the much larger Basilosaurus.

Extraordinarily well-preserved fossils discovered from the 1970s to the present day show that all pterosaurs were covered in hair-like fibers known as pycnofibers. Two new pterosaur specimens described by Zixiao Yang and colleagues show that some pycnofibers were actually brush- or tuft-shaped and probably share an evolutionary origin with feathers.

An incredible new specimen of the Early Jurassic genus Stenopterygius found in Germany was studied by Johan Lindgren and colleagues. It preserves skin in detail not previously seen in other ichthyosaur fossils. The team of researchers have learned new details of how ichthyosaurs looked in life, as well as details of their physiology.

Since their discovery and subsequent naming almost 200 years ago plesiosaurs have captured the imagination of people around the world with their dramatic appearance and incredible anatomy. An extremely successful group, plesiosaurs ruled the Mesozoic oceans for millions of years, exploring a wide range of habitats and niches. Despite their iconic nature we still lack a solid understanding about many aspects of their lifestyle. At the center of this discussion is the lingering question of what exactly they used their necks for.

Both hump-nosed species were part of a large radiation of chewing plant-eaters. Detailed comparison of the two species shows that their similarities were superficial.

Firefighters battled an enormous blaze for hours at one of the world’s largest natural history museums, housed in Rio de Janeiro’s former Imperial Palace. Museum staff even ran into the building to salvage some of the millions of objects from the natural world and human civilization in Brazil. Their combined efforts were not enough and by most accounts, nearly the entire collection was lost.

In 2015, what was thought to be a dinosaur’s egg by a passerby was discovered 25 miles (40 km) south of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The meter-long “black scaly shell” was later identified as the carapace, the hard upper shell, of an extinct armored animal called a glyptodont.

The recent discovery of a dinosaur trackway site on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, provides insight into “a day in the life of a bunch of dinosaurs just loitering about, 170 million years ago” according to paleontologist Dr. Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh School of Geosciences.

Scientists have found a relative of the famous “dream maker” of the Cambrian Explosion, Hallucigenia. Instead of a back covered in spines, it was covered in a carpet of flower-shaped ornaments.

The Hobbit shrimp joins the rank of crustaceans with intriguing names like the so-called ‘sexy shrimp’ Thor amboinensis — also found in the same waters — and the ‘Pink Floyd’ pistol shrimp Synalpheus pinkfloydi.

Far more than bumpy black blobs scuttling on the ocean floor, trilobites could be found throughout the water column, even venturing out on the beach at low tide. Their own excellent eyesight and need to camouflage against predators probably meant trilobites came in a variety of colors and patterns, like today’s crustaceans.

A study involving slices of bones from South America’s extinct marine sloth reveals how their body adapted to the underwater environment.

A Brazilian spinosaur’s leg bone shows aquatic adaptation ten million years before Morocco’s iconic Spinosaurus.

Over the past few months the team here at Earth Archives and Pteros has been working hard on something special, and we couldn’t be more proud. This week marks the opening of a new museum exhibit, “Pterosaurs: Ancient Rulers of the Sky,” at ScienceWorks Hands-on Museum in Ashland, Oregon.

Soils from an ancient meadow on a small island on the central coast of British Columbia preserve footprints of early Native Americans. Although most of the northern Pacific Coast was a wall of glacial ice at the time, pockets of forested land accessible by boat allowed early migrants to survive and thrive.

Discovered nearly 50 years ago, Arkansas’s state dinosaur, Arkansaurus, is officially named.

Two Moroccan phosphate mines have yielded dozens of specimens from at least seven different pterosaur species in three different families. The high diversity of sizes and ecological roles found there suggests that pterosaurs remained competitive with birds at medium and large body sizes until the mass extinction at the close of the Mesozoic Era.

From Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos to Disney’s Ursula and Nintendo’s Splatoon, squid and their squad continue to captivate people throughout the ages. They’re survivors, both in nature and in human consciousness. Over the course of 500 million years of their history, cephalopods have left us plenty of traces of their presence.

In 2012, scientists mapped the genome of largest marsupial carnivore alive today, the Tasmanian devil. This effort helps scientists pin down the origin of the facial tumor the species is struggling against.

By comparing 286 different animals, living and extinct, researchers have identified traits that seem related to the appearance of weaponized tail.

Comparing a Late Carboniferous fossil locality in Portugal with its North American and European counterparts shows how plants dispersed and diversified during Pangaea’s early days.

Paleontologists around the world published some incredible new finds and research in 2017. We count down the year’s most amazing, surprising, thought-provoking, and important stories.

One year after a bizarre act of local fossil vandalism on Scotland’s Dinosaur Isle let us consider the value of footprints in the sand and the implications for U.S. Government cuts to national monuments of global paleontological importance.

Sometimes in a toy dinosaur set you’ll find Dimetrodon, the one with the massive sail on its back. But Dimetrodon doesn’t belong with the dinosaurs. In fact, it’s not even a reptile. Although misidentified, Dimetrodon ranks as one of the most recognizable of extinct animals because the form of its sail is quite memorable. But it’s the sail’s function that is the real mystery.

Halszkaraptor was an ancient cormorant-mimicking raptor. This long-necked fish-eating dinosaur is thought to have used its wings to maneuver while diving.

Recent discoveries in Montana and Idaho have uncovered a previously unknown behavior in dinosaurs: digging. These creatures, known as orodromines, had robust and muscular arms, shoulders, and hips that were well-suited to digging out burrows. Fossil remains of adults and juveniles suggest that these peculiar dinosaurs took care of their young.

The ability to disorient is a powerful weapon. In nature, animals use it to survive, scaring predators and buying a precious few seconds to escape.

A fossil whale collected by a group of undergrads from a drainage ditch two decades ago has turned out to be an important transition from archaic to modern species. This and three other newly discovered specimens of Albertocetus, an early dolphin-like species, provide important anatomical information about the earliest ancestors of the living toothed whale lineage.

Big, fearsome, and dangerous. Dinosaurs remind many people of fantastic combat scenes that result in grave injuries, or a painful death. In reality, fighting is no more than just a tiny slice of any animal’s life. However, fossils found with evidence of injuries tell a tale of how the extinct animals interacted with one another.

Rhabdodontids are known from Cretaceous rocks in Europe. They evolved a unique way to break down fibrous plants: scissor-like jaws and teeth. Individual teeth lined up and worked together to form blade-like surfaces capable of slicing tough palm leaves.

Known from fossils found in Eocene-aged rocks in Europe and Africa, this ancient bat didn’t eat fruit or insects, like most living bats. Instead its teeth show it focused on larger targets.

Bats’ echolocation seems like a mysterious, stealthy weapon to us. But to moths, they are a siren of death, loud as a jet engine. As the moths adapt to disrupt the bat’s sonar, the graceful aerial hunter has moved its dining table closer to the ground.

It’s hard to imagine a life without a jaw—we need one to eat and interact with one another through speech. Yet like every other part in our body, it didn’t always exist back in life’s evolutionary history.

Over 20 specimens of Ichthyosaurus from the 1700s and 1800s were misidentified due to fabricated body parts. A study suggests they belong to a sister genus, Protoichthyosaurus.

The robust forelimbs of saber-toothed cats are thought to have helped wrestle struggling prey to the ground before using their long teeth to slash a killing blow. This burly build was needed to ensure the long teeth weren’t broken by struggling prey.

Detailed examination of fossilized dung, technically known as coprolites, from plant-eating dinosaurs revealed two surprising things: large amounts of rotten wood, and crab shells. The coprolite producers, probably duck-billed dinosaurs are usually considered to be herbivores, and this behavior might have been related to egg-laying.

Ichthyosaurs, meaning ‘fish lizards’, are a bizarre group of ancient marine reptiles that went extinct around 90 million years ago. They looked suspiciously similar to dolphins, but are only very, very distantly related to the modern mammals. They captivated the attention of scientists and the public alike due to numerous discoveries by Victorian palaeontologist, Mary Anning, who collected dozens of skeletons from the Dorset coast in the UK.

Fossils as we know them are preserved remains that rarely tell the full story of the creatures that lived in the past. Softer details like skin, feathers, or internal tissues are typically lost due to decomposition. Follow paleontologist Mary Schweitzer as she discovered how soft tissues were preserved inside a dinosaur bone for tens of millions of years.

Researchers examining the pattern and rate of growth in the mysterious “quilted” organism Dickinsonia have shown that new segments appear to grow from a wedge-shaped section at the blunt end. This adds to a growing body of data showing that Dickinsonia, and possibly other “quilted” Ediacaran organisms were among the earliest animals.

Throughout Earth’s history, some animals were thought to have gone completely extinct — only to show up again alive and well. This video by PBS Eons covers what scientists call Lazarus taxa. These groups of animals seem to “cheat death” by eluding our detection after their presumed extinction.

A recent examination of the skull of the elasmosaurid Morturneria seymourensis shows that its unusual teeth were used to strain food from the muddy sea bottom. Morturneria, and its closest relatives, show a remarkable similarity to early toothed baleen whales which fed in the same way.

A large plant-eating reptile fossil from the Middle of Triassic of India shows that some adults had brow horns and some didn’t. Researchers have suggested that the horned individuals were males who used their horns in combat trying to woo females.

Twenty million years after the Age of Dinosaurs ended, an island that would become part of Turkey had a unique animal community, including a cat-like marsupial predator named Anatoliadelphys.

Chitons have thousands of tiny lenses all over their shells that may work together to form a compound eye.

After the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana millions of years ago members of a unique group of arachnids became separated. Today these spider-like critters hide in the corners of only tropical Africa and the Americas.

Mosasaurs were the real leviathans of the Mesozoic Era, gigantic marine lizards that grew as large as whales. Some were wide-ranging hunters of large prey while others snacked on shellfish at the bottom of shallow seas. They became the biggest predators of the Cretaceous oceans in just 25 million years, a short period in geologic time.

A genetic analysis of two species of tardigrade, or water bear, has given great insight into the genetic mechanisms that help them survive extreme conditions. Although tardigrades look similar to arthropods like insects and spiders, their genes show a much closer relationship to round worms.

Baleen whales underwent a number of evolutionary transitions on the journey from small hunters to giant filter-feeders. Recent research shows that there were a large number of experimental methods of feeding, including the origin of filter feeding long before the origin of baleen.

The badlands outside of Drumheller, Alberta is a famous graveyard of giant Late Cretaceous dinosaurs. A detailed study of skull bones has revealed a new species of small predatory dinosaur.

Detailed examination of this cousin of Iguanodon shows that its big sail evolved to show off to mates and rivals.

Cambaytherium, a little fossil from India may have rewritten the history of hoofed animals. Despite looking almost nothing alike, we’ve known that rhinos, horses, and tapirs are cousins since the 19th century. But how did scientists found that out, and where did these animals come from?

As Canada celebrates its 150th birthday, we’re taking the summer to cover some of the most incredible fossils that Canada has contributed to paleontology. To start it off, we’re looking at the Pierre Shale of southern Manitoba, an under-appreciated location that has produced world record-holding sea monsters.

Two small bone fragments found in Athens represent the last known monitor lizard in Europe. This small lizard lived at the onset of the last Ice Age in the last warm refuge in Europe.

There is something about dinosaurs that inspires sensational news stories. It’s not uncommon to see a trove of articles coming out about whether or not Tyrannosaurus and its relatives had feathers or scales. The problem with these articles is that they are claiming a lot more certainty about Tyrannosaurus than what we actually know.

Micro-CT scanning showed that meat-eating dinosaurs, known as theropods, had numerous pits on their jaws which are thought to be passages for nerves or blood vessels. Until now, this feature had received little-detailed attention except in semi-aquatic spinosaurs and giant tyrannosaurs.

Ever since the dawn of life on Earth more than three billion years ago, the world has periodically undergone catastrophic changes. One era ends, another begins, and living things in all corners of the globe suffer and die on a vast scale. In between, stability allows life to recover, even flourish, in new conditions.

A nugget of amber from Myanmar has been found with a nearly complete baby bird inside. The specimen is one of the several recently discovered amber nuggets with entombed body parts of feathered dinosaurs.

Even though only two kinds of elephant are alive today the history of their family, scientifically known as Proboscideans, is one of success. They managed to live on most continents around the globe, from Southeast Asia to South America, and adapted to different climates and habitats. And few species were so successful as Stegodon.

We live on a green planet. Today we may take them for granted, but plants are the most important living things on Earth. Their colonization of land made it possible for all animal life to survive, from the smallest ants to the biggest dinosaurs. Their landscape once again changed when the grasses appeared, an incredible revolution in the history of life. How did they rise to dominance and conquer the Earth? And how did they manage to engineer the lives of the animals around them, ourselves included?

Most modern mammals are either placentals or marsupials. These two lineages (and their extinct relatives) are collectively known as therian mammals, and achieved global dominance during the Cenozoic. Earlier mammal groups (including most therians outside of Placentalia or Marsupialia) became extinct along with the dinosaurs, thus rendering the term “Age of the Mammals” somewhat ironic.

Abelisaurids were a family of strange, short-faced carnivores that, after millions of years living in the shadows of larger predatory dinosaurs, suddenly spread across Gondwana, the southern hemisphere, in the late Cretaceous Period to become the dominant predators across four continents. A fossil discovered in north Africa gives additional insights into how these animals managed to disperse across so great a distance.

We live on a green planet. Today we may take them for granted, but plants are the most important living things on Earth. Their colonization of land made it possible for all animal life to survive, from the smallest ants to the biggest dinosaurs. After evolving into green-topped giants, how would plants ensure that their future generations were protected? What new ingenious systems of reproduction would they use?

This Late Cretaceous armored dinosaur is known from an amazingly preserved specimen that shows fossilized skin tissue.

This oddball of the horned dinosaur family had a lumpy mass of bone where Triceratops flaunted its famous triple horns.

One fossil dinosaur from China shows that modern asymmetrical feathers, normally associated with flight, also evolved in grounded dinosaur groups.

We live on a green planet. Today we may take them for granted, but plants are the most important living things on Earth. Their initial colonization of land made it possible for all animal life to survive, and once the Devonian ended, the forests grew bigger and stranger. How would plants change their own bodies and the environment in this golden age?

Extensive archaeological and anthropological data suggest that the first humans entered the Americas about 15,000 years ago from Asia to Alaska. A 130,000-year-old mastodon skeleton discovered in suburban San Diego shows signs of butchery only associated with ancient humans.

Lurdusaurus was a burly, barrel-chested iguanodont that may have been semi-aquatic, living in and around the rivers of an ancient tropical forest. It moved slowly on land, measuring eight meters long (26 feet) and weighing more than five tons.

While sea scorpions are not true scorpions, they might have weaponized their tail like one. One fossil with a curved tail suggests how they might have moved their tail around.

We live on a green planet. Today we may take them for granted, but plants are the most important living things on Earth. Their colonization of land made it possible for all animal life to survive, from the smallest ants to the biggest dinosaurs. After their first foray onto land, how did they turn into nature’s skyscrapers?

Dromaeosaurs, feathered predators nicknamed raptors, hunted with retractable sickle-shaped claws on their feet. Most dromaeosaurs had short and stocky legs, but this roadrunner-sized raptor walked on stilt-legs. It was part of the microraptorian lineage, famous for being four-winged gliders.

A fossil-bearing cave in northeastern Spain that has yielded the most complete skeleton of the extinct cave hyena yet known, greatly improving on partial remains found elsewhere. The deposits in the cave, known as Las Aprendices, have been dated to approximately 144,000 years ago. The cave offers a snapshot of the environment and wildlife encountered by the first humans moving into Europe.

Paleontologists have published a description of one of the best collections of dinosaur footprints on Earth from a stretch of beach on the northern coast of Western Australia. They include one of the largest dinosaur footprints known, as well as the first fossil evidence of stegosaurs in Australia.

We live on a green planet. Today we may take them for granted, but plants are the most important living things on Earth. Their colonization of land made it possible for all animal life to survive, from the smallest ants to the largest dinosaurs. What were the first of these tough, green pioneers? And how did they find their way onto land in the first place?

Unlike its turkey-sized Mongolian cousin Velociraptor, Utahraptor is an elusive beast. Despite people's great interest in them, dromaeosaur fossils are pretty scarce in North America. The secrets of the raptors, however, may lie hidden inside a slab of sandstone. It is not an exaggeration to call this block one of the most important dinosaur discoveries ever.

For over a century, it has been agreed that the long-necked sauropods are cousins of the carnivorous theropods based on features of the vertebrae and hands. One study suggests that this is incorrect. The theropods seem to be related to the beaked herbivorous ornithischians instead.

For many decades, it was believed that the group of dinosaurs known as theropods (“beast-footed”) were all carnivores that filled the role of apex predators in prehistoric ecosystems. Now we know that things weren’t that simple. While herbivorous dinosaurs haven't been known to evolve carnivory, paleontologists have found multiple meat-eaters that gave up on their habit.

Exceptionally well-preserved fossils of red algae living in a shallow equatorial sea have been discovered in central India. These fossils represent the oldest known multicellular organisms and push back the origin of complex life by hundreds of millions of years.

The last populations of woolly mammoths lived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Siberia. Comparison of specimens from Wrangel Island and the Siberian mainland show that the island populations accumulated a number of genetic mutations that would adversely affect the last living mammoths.

Tyrannosaurus has never been found with feathers preserved, but its cousins tell us it wasn't the green scaly giant of our childhood.

During the late Cretaceous, Transylvania was an island that hosted one of the largest pterosaurs of all time. Now, scientists think that this giraffe-sized stork-like reptile might have also been the island’s arch-predator.

One dinosaur discovered in Argentina was found with a gut full of toxic seeds. This discovery offers researchers an insight on how dinosaurs and plants depended on each other for survival.

In 1965, a pair of arms as long as a full-grown ostrich's height were discovered in Mongolia. For more than 40 years, the rest of the animal remained a mystery.

South America’s maned wolves are some of the most evolutionarily distinct and morphologically quirky canids around. Unfortunately, their favorite habitat is being destroyed at twice the rate of the Amazon Rainforest.

A suspension feeding “worm” from the Cambrian Burgess Shale held on to the ground with its rear legs and used its feather-like front legs to capture food out of the water.

Hyoliths, an enigmatic group of Paleozoic invertebrates have long puzzled paleontologists. A new analysis of hundreds of specimens shows that they are close relatives of brachiopods or lamp shells.

Since the 1990s, more and more dinosaur fossils with evidence of feathers have burst onto the scene. But recent discoveries are only the latest salvo in a long list of bombshells linking them to birds.

Animals don’t just put on costumes to scamper away from predators. With the right disguise, these impostors turn the tables on an unwitting victim.

Ever since their discovery, the huge back plates and tail spikes on stegosaurs have inspired wonder, but also puzzlement about their purpose.

Ever wonder what leafcutter ants do with all those leaves? Turns out, they’re not for eating (at least, not directly). The leaves serve as the raw organic material on which to grow the real prize – a crop of delicious fungus.

Amphicyonids were a family of carnivores that lived in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa for about 45 million years. They were part of a group of mammals called “Caniformia”, which includes animals such as seals, raccoons, weasels, skunks, otters, bears and dogs. The similarities of Amphicyonids and these last two are what gave them the colloquial name of “bear-dogs”.

Beavers, bees, birds, it is known that many members of the animal kingdom build intricate structures as a part of their life cycle. But what about spiders?

For ages, life on Earth and its origin has been a big fascination for mankind. The ancestry of most animals can be traced back to 541 million years ago – when an event called the Cambrian Explosion abruptly birthed a myriad of familiar creatures in the sea. It was a time when the ancestors of crabs, clams, and jellyfishes dominated the oceans. Little did people know, there was a time before the Cambrian where life looked like nothing that exists today.

The discovery of an armored, aquatic predator increases the known diversity of Triassic reptiles. Comparison to other reptiles, living and extinct, shows that it was an ambush predator and most closely related to an armored predator from New Mexico.

This is a list of the most scientifically influential fossil stories of 2016. Not only do we have new species turning up at a breakneck pace, like a “three-eyed” Triassic reptile and an invertebrate that carried its young like kites, but we have also gained a new perspective of how life on Earth even began with the oldest fossil remains of all time.

As pieces of fossils steadily flow from the ground to museums and institutions worldwide, studies on old specimens are just as important as the new ones. Century-old collections often yield untold stories, lying in wait for someone to sit down and uncover their secrets.

In Yellowstone National Park, gray wolves have been recorded risking injury and death to help pack mates escape during aggressive attacks by neighboring packs. Why would any wild animal take such a risk? This ability to relate to another’s pain and distress, to feel empathy, is rarely attributed to any creature except for modern humans. While we cannot know the details of the lives of past Homo sapiens such as hunter-gatherers, we can look to gray wolves and think about just how much we had – hopefully still have – in common.

North America's Late Cretaceous dinosaur fauna is familiar and well studied. The dinosaurs unearthed from the North Slope of Alaska are at once familiar, but also unique, and preserve evidence of troodontids twice the size of their contemporaries from Montana and Alberta.

Powered flight evolved three times in vertebrates, all converting their forelimbs into wings. The body plan modifications among gliders however are far more diverse, including a new Triassic reptile with long legs bearing a wing membrane.

A 120-million-year-old fossil bird specimen has been discovered in Lower Cretaceous rocks of northeastern China with traces of the original feather pigments. Analysis of the feathers and comparison to modern birds indicates that this bird was largely iridescent on its head, neck, and body.

While human and cephalopod evolution diverged hundreds of millions of years ago, their eyes share a remarkable similarity with our own. One of the most intriguing examples of convergent evolution, cephalopod eyes are a window into the evolution of sight – and how the most intelligent invertebrates on the planet perceive the world.

Although living sperm whales focus on squid, ten-million-year-old fossils from Peru show that ancient sperm whales were top predators. They ate primarily marine mammals, and filled niches once occupied by mosasaurs and currently filled by orcas.

Although they share their name with a Eurasian nation-state, turkeys are thoroughly American birds. Turkeys are large, flamboyent members of an American lineage of gamebirds that also includes grouse and ptarmigans.

Imagine that you are walking through a forest and see a great beast among the trees. It has a horse-like face, a big belly, short hoofed back legs and much longer arms with sharp claws on its “hands”. What you’re seeing is not a mythological creature or a hybrid monster, it’s an extinct chalicothere.

With holiday season coming up, science-themed gifts have started popping up all over the internet. Meet the siblings behind Permia, who aim to spread their love of paleontology through their line of apparel.

Studio 252MYA hopes to bring scientifically up-to-date paleoart to the masses. Where has paleoart come from and where is it going?

For millions of years, dinosaurs dominated the conifer forests and plains of ancient Mexico. They were also on ground zero during the earth-shattering cataclysm that ended their 165-million-year reign.

While we can try to convince you that these are not in fact plush toy centipedes, velvet worms certainly look like them. These small invertebrates are neither insects nor worms, and for a long time were considered the ‘missing link’ between them. Even with the knowledge that this is not the case, velvet worms are still remarkable creatures, and unusual in almost every way.

Of all the prehistoric reptile groups, few are given as much disservice as the sphenodonts. Currently represented only by New Zealand’s iconic tuatara, these animals were once widespread, living on most continents. Some, like Homoeosaurus, are even a darling of prehistory books, almost always portrayed as tuatara clones.

Huge predatory dinosaurs were everywhere during the Late Cretaceous. And now, it is Brazil’s turn to reveal its monster. Called Pycnonemosaurus, this forgotten predator was the largest of the abelisaurs, a family of decidedly strange and poorly known predators.

A strange reptile called Triopticus primus increases the known diversity of reptiles from the dawn of the Age of Dinosaurs and helps scientists understand the repeated evolution of body types across the Mesozoic.

Australia’s superb lyrebird is aptly named. Originally valued only for its long, lyre-like tail feathers, the lyrebird has surprised and delighted modern listeners with its unique ability to parrot just about any sound it hears.

Excavated in 1953 by paleontologist Llewellyn Ivor Price, the specimen is now known as Austroposeidon magnificus.

Two species of early mammals show transitional features of the teeth and jaw bones that came to define living mammals. Both fossils help further our understanding of members of the mammalian lineage in the Late Triassic.

Of the five mass extinction events on Earth, the one 252 million years ago during the Permian Period was the most devastating. The Permian mass extinction, or “Great Dying,” killed 9 out of every 10 species on the planet and its effects are still seen today.

Unexpectedly, some shrimp prefer the cohabitation with other living things, known as symbiosis. Symbiotic shrimp are heavily understudied – for every species of “jumbo” shrimp on your plate, there are dozens of tiny shrimp yet to be discovered living inside and on other animals.

A re-examination of an ornithomimid specimen collected in 1934 reveals that it's a previously unknown species.

Ninety-five million years ago, a gigantic predatory dinosaur roamed the swamps and riversides of the prehistoric Sahara. For more than a century, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus took on many forms as scientists struggled to reconstruct it. Now with new material, there might be a chance to end it.

Paleontologists announced the discovery of a species of rauisuchid from the Ghost Ranch locality in northern New Mexico in rocks from the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation.

Pterosaurs, or flying reptiles, came in all shapes and sizes. Some were as big as a single engine Cessna while some others were as small as sparrows. And one of the cutest of all flying reptiles was the big-eyed Anurognathus.

Researchers in Germany formally described a new theropod found in Middle Jurassic deposits. The theropod, named Wiehenvenator albati (VEE-hen-VEN-uh-tor), was discovered almost 20 years ago in rocks of the Ornatenton Formation in the northwestern part of Germany near the town of Minden.

Dinocrocuta gigantea, a hyena-like predator was one of the biggest and strongest carnivores to stalk the ancient grasslands of China. Its bite was strong enough to crush bones and it dominated its contemporary herbivores. One fossil shows us that it was clearly unafraid to take on animals much bigger than itself: Tooth marks in the skull of a massive tusked rhinoceros.

Think of ten animals that you know are endangered – go on, we’ll wait. Now, cross out every animal on that list that has fur, hair, feathers, or scales. Do you have many left on that list? Do you have any left at all?

Deep in the jungle of Papua New Guinea, lives a small creature, bright as an emerald. The attractive sheen of the home on its back is a double-edged sword for this slow-moving creature.

Somewhere in northern Chile, lies three valleys famous for their fertile and narrow oasis. One of them, close to Arica City is Azapa Valley, known for its olive production; at the south of the region are Vitor and Camarones Valley. In these three oases, a brilliantly plumaged hummingbird takes refuge.

A rare and endangered conifer from Australia, first discovered in 1994, has a lineage stretching back to the time of dinosaurs.

They are hunted for their bodies, trawled from the bottom of the sea, and captured for personal amusement. Although we are starting to understand the consequences of our actions, we still have a lot to do to mitigate our impact to the environment.

Imagine a world unshaped by the evolution of mammals. What kind of creatures would live there? Looking like something straight out of medieval legend, the tuatara’s unlikely existence and unusual traits weave a narrative of what might have been.

How will humanity cope with the sixth great extinction in our planet’s history – and is there anything we can do to stop it?

All known ankylosaurs, like Edmontonia and Euoplocephalus, were all large, heavily armored, and solely plant eaters. At least that was the case before the discovery of new specimens of Liaoningosaurus.

These soft-bodied creatures lived in shallow waters 560 million years ago in what is now Argentina.

Quetzalcoatlus dominated the skies of North America at the end of the Dinosaur Age and flew high over such famous creatures as Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops. As tall as a giraffe, the biggest Quetzalcoatlus species were also the largest of all flying creatures. They were the ultimate in pterosaur evolution.

What has a mouth that falls off, lives on an animal's facial hair, and is pregnant before it's even born? While it sounds like the the beginning of a terrible joke, such a creature does exist, and they're just as strange as you'd expect them to be.

A father and son team of fossil hunters have discovered a tooth from a sauropod dinosaur near the town of Katsuura on the Japanese island of Shikoku. The fossil, measuring 2.3 cm in length was discovered in Lower Cretaceous rocks dating to approximately 130 million years ago.

Arguably the scientifically best-known dinosaur in the fossil record, Edmontosaurus is known from countless remains that range from single vertebrae to exquisitely preserved natural mummies. Through finds like this we have an incredible view of one of America’s biggest and most successful herbivores.

A large Tasmanian devil relative has been discovered from a new fossil locality in the outback of northwestern Queensland.

Duck-billed dinosaurs were chewing machines. Detailed examination of teeth and jaws shows how they evolved one of the most sophisticated dental batteries in vertebrate history.

While clothing moths are well known for their unusual diets, one subgroup takes fussy eating to the next level – living solely on a diet of animal horns, nails, and shells.

Purussaurus is one of the biggest, yet most poorly understood of all massive crocodilians. For a while not much was known about it besides its size and strength. Recently though, new scientific research is uncovering its most lethal secret: Its monstrous seven-ton bite.

New fossils tell us that previously known giant “ducks” lived farther north than ever before. More than 53 million years ago, the Arctic was warm, and covered with extensive jungles and swamps. It was a far cry from the icy carpet that covers the region today.

The largest known insect of all time was a predator resembling a dragonfly but was only distantly related to them. Its name is Meganeuropsis, and it ruled the skies before pterosaurs, birds and bats had even evolved.

The most complete specimen of the poorly known dryosaurid Valdosaurus canaliculatus has been discovered in Lower Cretaceous rocks on the Isle of Wight. This new discovery helps flesh out the anatomy of this dinosaur and is one of the most complete dinosaur specimens known from England.

Paleontologists have discovered the footprint of a giant carnivorous dinosaur nearly matching Tyrannosaurus in size.

A newly described specimen of a tiny plant-eating dinosaur shows features indicating that it may have been able to climb around in branches -- an ability so far unknown in any dinosaurs except birds.

At the end of the dinosaur age, gigantic beasts roamed the southern half of the North American continent. From Utah to Texas and New Mexico, these giants shook the earth under their immense weight, towering above predators and neighbors alike. It was the reign of Alamosaurus, America’s biggest dinosaur.

Theropods are some of the most famous and successful of all dinosaur groups. These bipeds include every known carnivorous dinosaur (and quite a few that were not carnivores), and range in size from giants like Tyrannosaurus and Giganotosaurus, to diminutive wrens and hummingbirds. Many theropods are known to have been feathered, and they still live among us as birds.

Two decades after its birth, Pokémon continues to draw inspiration from an extensive array of fossil animals.

The vaquita (Phocoena sinus), spanish word for little cow, inherited the title of the most endangered cetacean in the world from the baiji or Yangtze river dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer) which is believed to have gone extinct by 2006.

Scientists have discovered a new two-fingered theropod from Upper Cretaceous rocks of Patagonia. Despite superficial similarities to tyrannosaurs, a detailed comparison to many other meat-eaters has shown that Gualicho's relationships are more complex.

Modern fish make up a huge part of Earth’s ecosystems, and cover a lot of niches. Predators, omnivores and herbivores are all found in this diverse group. Millions of years of adaptation has sculpted their bodies into the various forms and shapes we see today.

While most leeches live in fresh or salt water, a small fraction of the blood-sucking parasites are terrestrial. The so-called land leeches are a distinct group of annelid worms native to the rainforests found around the Indo-Pacific.

The aptly-named titanosaurs were the biggest creatures to walk the Earth yet they had to grow up from rather tiny beginnings. From group nesting in Argentina to fast-growing babies that succumbed to Madagascan droughts, these fossils have left their mark and are helping scientists to uncover the secrets of these little giants.

A newly discovered turtle named Inaechelys pernambucensis managed to survive not long after a mass extinction wiped out non-avian dinosaurs.

A tiny new plant-eating dinosaur discovered in Northern Spain has helped paleontologists answer big questions about the evolution and migration of ornithopods.

The Yellowstone Supervolcano is one of the most geologically active locations on the planet. It was the site of numerous lava flows and minor volcanic eruptions as well as three of the largest and most catastrophic eruptions in Earth’s history.

In one small corner of Burma, scientists have discovered something incredible: The whole wings of two tiny birds preserved in amber. These fossils give us another important glimpse into Cretaceous forest ecosystems.

A new discovery suggests a completely different diet for Platybelodon, the strange “shovel-tusked” elephant relative.

We may never resurrect a living dinosaur from DNA in amber. But we can accurately reconstruct the anatomy of other beautiful little creatures lying trapped for the past 99 million years. Scientists are doing this now, with a set of unfortunate Burmese lizards.

Ammonites existed all over the world's oceans between 400 and 66 million years ago. Some reached immense sizes. The biggest of their kind, Parapuzosia, were the veritable krakens of the ancient seas.

Battles between big carnivores are a rarity in the fossil record. One find from Triassic rocks in New Mexico reveals something incredible. It is a life-and-death duel between two of the era’s most powerful hunters.

One trap-jaw ant from 99 million-year-old Burmese amber is found with an elaborate head structure, specialized to trap oversized prey.

Sharovipteryx, from the Mid Triassic of Kyrgyzstan had the oddest "wings" of any fossil reptile, stuck to its hind limbs. This unique delta-winged creature glided effortlessly between the trees of its forest home. It was a design that would never again reappear in nature.

The armored Pawpawsaurus was a powerful animal, well-built for defense against formidable predators. CT scans of the skulls of these creatures has revealed the finely-tuned features that helped to guide this dinosaur’s bodies and senses.

Longisquama insignis is one of the most enigmatic reptiles in the fossil record. Scientists thought it was a tree-dwelling animal with weird back appendages and then a tiny flying relative of birds, and back again. Nobody is as yet sure how it used its defining features: The elongated “skin appendages” on its back.

Roughly 252 million years ago, occurred the most severe mass extinction known to ever happen on Earth. The event, likely caused by multiple meteor impacts, volcanic eruptions, and the subsequent climate change, devastated more than half of species living at that time.

The horned dinosaur group of ceratopsians is known for their elaborate head ornamentation. One new species from Utah is remarkable for its two peculiarly forward-curving spikes on the far end of its frills.

Many varieties of armored predators ruled the oceans long before the Age of Dinosaurs. Among the most unusual were the eurypterids, the so-called “sea scorpions.” Some were the size of a human hand while others grew bigger than a man and were among the largest arthropods on Earth.

Sometimes the least expected people make the most interesting fossil discoveries. One such surprise was the beautifully preserved skeleton of a new frilled dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Montana. Named Spiclypeus, it was the find of a lifetime for a former nuclear physicist.

The ozone layer, primarily known today for its role in shielding us from harmful ultraviolet radiation that causes sunburns, may have played an important role in the colonization of life on land.

It is an image familiar to anyone involved in paleontology: a dinosaur fossil, discovered with neck arched backwards – nearly touching the body, and mouth wide open.

As paleontologists find more and more feathered dinosaur fossils, the evidence continues to mount for the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs. Despite this, the quarrel between researchers with two very different ideas rages on.

Assassin spiders, or sometimes called “pelican spiders” are a rather rare group of spider-eating spiders. Their highly modified anatomy causes them to look like alien creatures, however these modifications do have a purpose: to catch and kill other spiders.

This question is actually surprisingly complicated and depends on what, exactly, you think makes a bird a bird.

A local government in Spain reports that the footprint of a large carnivorous reptile called Isochirotherium has been found in Catalonia.

Dozens of fossilized whales, seals, aquatic sloths, and other marine animals have been found in an ancient tidal flat in northern Chile.

The evolution of novel traits such as wings, flowers, horns, or limbs, is known to be important to drive biodiversity. However, it is not easy to understand how such changes happen at the genetic level.

Atopodentatus caused a stir online when it was described scientifically two years ago. It was reconstructed with a split in its upper jaw, using this weird apparatus to sift through the sand like a walrus. Yet new discoveries have shown that it was more like a spoon-billed marine iguana in its feeding habits.

A humpback whale got awfully close to a marina in Alaska. What you will see in the following video is an example of bubble-net feeding in a humpback whale. The hunting technique generally allows groups of humpbacks to eat their prey with less effort.

The long-necked, big-bodied sauropod dinosaurs are known in popular culture for their often immense size, with some being the biggest animals to have ever walked the Earth. Yet while the huge thighs and necks of these behemoths are well-known, very few are known for their skulls. With Sarmientosaurus though, we have an exception.

The monito del monte is a South American marsupial which has no close living relatives in its home range. By assessing anatomical and genetic features of museum specimens, researchers were able to describe two new species of the marsupials in Chile and Argentina.

With a name as pretty as Gynaephora groenlandica, you’d imagine this moth to be a frail creature with no defenses at all. But it is one of the hardiest insects in the world, surviving the Arctic winter frozen and still alive as a caterpillar. The Arctic woolly bear is a true survivor in every sense of the word and has even wormed its way into our culture.

A pelagic lifestyle is rarely found in marine gastropods, but the sea butterflies have evolved to swim in open ocean. These highly specialized snails play a big part in understanding the acidification of Earth’s oceans.

The so-called “buzzsaw shark” Helicoprion was a prominent feature of the oceans roughly 290 to 250 million years ago. Known mostly for its strange spiral set of teeth, it was also a titanic marine monster that sometimes stretched more than 12 meters in length and was the biggest marine animal of its day.

Playing dead is a common defense behavior in several animal species. When threatened, some animals will stay still to avoid predation.

Mariana Trench of the Pacific is known to be deepest part of the world’s oceans. As with many other unexplored corners of the oceans, the poorly studied area has so much to reveal to visiting scientists.

Therizinosaurs are among the most unorthodox of dinosaurs. They have a big belly, short legs and tail, a long neck and a set of immense flattened claws to help them manipulate branches. Despite the majority being from Asia, tantalizing remains have surfaced from the unlikeliest of places.

Mammoths, among the largest proboscideans to ever roam the northern hemisphere, hailed from modern day’s Africa. The giants branched out from the relatively smaller African mammoth (Mammuthus africanavus), and adapted to live in many different environments.

For peacocks, a successful courtship requires more than an oversized appendage. The well-endowed males of the avian world need to know how to work the spectacle.

We pride ourselves on being the world’s greatest predators but once in our long history, we were the hunted and not the hunters. Bones from Morocco reveal the shocking tale of how some human ancestors met their match at the hands of bone-crushing teeth.

Tritylodontids—a small, highly specialized group of animals, were previously thought to had gone extinct in Late Jurassic, as they shared the same niche with the more adaptable early mammals.

For millions of years, a wide variety of dinosaurs battled harsh, wintry conditions as the Southern Lights flickered above their heads. These unique pioneer discoveries of paleontology, some gigantic and some petite, have all left their remains in opal and rock in the “Land Down Under.”

Baby animals, out of all things, are known for their characteristic proportions. One infant dinosaur fossil was found to resemble its adult form.

It is a common idea that an asteroid impact spelled the doom for most non-avian dinosaurs at the end of Late Cretaceous. In the past two decades, researchers are shifting the question to how birds managed to survive the calamity.

The highly endangered and long-snouted gharial lives in the Indian Subcontinent. But millions of years ago, these creatures ruled the waterways of the world, including the Amazonian region. And it is here that we can further unravel the secrets behind their long evolution. Enter “the storyteller.”

Following last month’s report of the reef’s most severe bleaching ever recorded, Australian scientists have just revealed the full extent of the damage today.

It has been a regular in the hood since it was a chick. Last week, it boldly went where no cassowary has gone before.

Every so often, something incredibly beautiful and delicate comes out of the fossil record. It can be the microscopic fossil of extinct plankton or the near-complete skeleton of a massive dinosaur. Then there are those fossils which show a surprising degree of completeness, presenting real snapshots of a long-lost age. They are the top 10 finest amber fossils ever.

The most recent addition to the ranks of the vertebrates is the famed “Tully Monster”, state fossil of Illinois. This oddly-shaped aquatic beast, with its squid-like body and pincered mouth-on-a-trunk also had another secret. This time, it was its stalk-like “blobs.”

Over 201 million years ago, lifeforms in late Triassic period faced a great change, causing the fourth known mass extinction which eliminated more than 70% of species existing at that time.

Somewhere in the Merendon mountains of northwest Honduras, shrouded by the clouds, exists a region noted for its richness in plants and animal species.

New Zealand’s flightless national bird is far from helpless. The males are known to be territorial, and will fiercely defend their turf.

Many of the ancestors of the earliest dinosaurs were small, active and lizard-like animals. Yet their growth patterns have been somewhat of a mystery. Recent studies of their bones suggest that size is not always a good determinant of skeletal maturity.

Frog eggs are typically known for their distinctive gelatinous appearance and the large quantity they are laid in. The mimic poison frogs (Ranitomeya imitator), however, decided to trade in numbers in exchange for parental care.

One of the best mothers in nature was not a devoted mammal or bird but rather a spineless, hard-shelled and somewhat spiky ancient arthropod that swam the oceans 430 million years ago. Nicknamed the “Kite Runner”, the odd beast held onto its young with thread-like bodily tendrils.

Previously found only in deeper waters, one new species of zombie worm is found in the temperate, shallow waters off the coast of Spain. This finding expands current knowledge of the peculiar worms’ lifestyle and diversity.

It’s dead, it’s a –saur, it’s a dinosaur. Or is it? An extinct animal’s true identity is not always what it says on the tin. Without understanding the basic relationship between extinct reptiles, it’s easy to fall prey to the false impression their names bring.

The strange extinct avian rulers of New Caledonia named Sylviornis, were among the oddest large birds ever to exist. For a long time we puzzled about what they were, only to find out that were indeed real “giant chickens”.

These dragons, clad with armors of spine-like projections, can produce hydrogen cyanide to repel unwanted intruders.

In 2002, the Iberian lynx was declared the most endangered cat in the world. Recent census shows the highest number of cats recorded since.

Ethinyl estradiol (EE2), a synthetic estrogen commonly used in birth control pills, may be found polluting water bodies. Male frogs exposed to the compound might undergo sex reversal, threatening reproduction rate in the long run.

They arose millions of years before the first dinosaurs and dominated the seas in a vast array of finned fish-like and dolphin-like forms. Some were hardly the size of a small porpoise while some were as vast and gentle as today’s biggest whales and still others terrorized their kin with vicious jaws and teeth. They were the spectacular ichthyosaurs, among the most specialized of all marine reptiles.

For years, paleontologists speculated why the famous 18 meter (59 foot) long shark disappeared from the oceans around 2.6 million years ago. New evidence suggests competition and lack of food may have been the causes.

Just like every other organism on earth, Pachycephalosaurus started out tiny. And just like most other dinosaurs known to the general public, it is associated with the adult specimens of the animal. It doesn’t help that remains of Pachycephalosaurus and its relatives are often fragmentary, complicating efforts to identify and classify the dinosaurs.

The relationship between dog and man is an ancient love that has carried on for thousands of years. Now we have a few secrets that may shed some light on the origins of this bond – puppies dug up from the Ice Age permafrosts of Yakutia, Russia.

The Cambrian is remembered as a time when there was nothing on land and all life existed in the oceans. Gone were the days of simple one-celled organisms for an evolutionary explosion had just occurred and animal life had mushroomed into hundreds of new forms. It was a time of change, when the seas were ruled by creatures seemingly straight out of science fiction.

Whales are mammals! While that simple concept is a platitude to 21st century readers, it was not for most people throughout human history. Even those who were intimately familiar with the shape and behavior of whales, the whalers who hunted them, thought of whales as fish.

Scientists never expected to find remains of saber-toothed cats in the grasslands of Argentina's Pampas region. But research indicates these animals hunted the plains of South America during the last ice age.

Gigantic one-horned beasts once roamed the frozen steppes and tundra of Siberia. They were a species of rhino, more than two meters at the shoulder who grazed these areas in huge numbers during the last Ice Age. That is, until their extinction.

A toothy beast the size of a large lizard roamed Brazil over 250 million years ago. Armed with large teeth and powerful jaws, this predator’s wonderfully preserved skull may hold clues to the origins of some of the biggest creatures that ever existed on Earth.

One lucky bird’s narrow escape from its hunter refines our knowledge about predatory behavior in Late Cretaceous waters. Researchers matched the bite marks with a predator’s teeth to figure out how it all happened.

The 300-million-year-old enigma looks like a sci-fi squid with claw. Scientists have finally figured out its place on the tree of life.

We all know and love Tyrannosaurus rex for its raw power, awe-inspiring charisma and predatory prowess. However, there has also been a massive and mysterious gap in the tyrannosaur evolutionary tree for a long time. That is, until the discovery of the not-so-little Timurlengia.

The genus Rafflesia is widely known for at least two reasons—its gigantic bloom and repulsive stench. One newly discovered member of the group is the smallest of its kind and gives off a fruity fragrance.

Tiny elephants are far from a new scientific discovery. Many species have been found on some of the smallest and most remote parts of the world. And none were smaller than those at Spinagallo Cave, Sicily.

Smaller than a grain of rice, it’s easy to overlook this creature. Despite its resemblance, the microwhip scorpion is not a true scorpion, although it is indeed an arachnid.

The limbs of the earliest four-legged vertebrates from 360 million years ago were not as structurally diverse as previously thought.

One study suggests that the uneventful decline of crocodyliforms coincided with the diversification of modern marine turtles.

Around 56 million years ago, several groups of primitive primates mysteriously disappeared from the North American forests. Rodents have been considered a major cause of their extinction due to competition for food, but a new study says that’s unlikely.

For more than 100 million years, a group of fish-like reptiles called ichthyosaurs dwelled the oceans of the Mesozoic. They were among the earliest reptiles to dominate the seas when they diversified in the early Triassic.

Every Jurassic Park movie seems to be building up to the big question of whether we will ever see a living dinosaur again. While the likelihood of reviving extinct creatures from amber is almost zero, some scientists think an alternate route is possible – by genetically engineering a chicken and creating a “chickensaurus.”

Miniature deer, about the size of a beagle, once strolled around an island off the coast of Panama. Yet they are no longer with us today. When did these Ice Age leftovers die, and what killed them?

We all love kangaroos for their athletic abilities, charm and charisma. Before you can hop though, you need to scurry. And there was one roo that did just that, more than 20 million years ago. It was small, innocuous and rat-like, and shared the ancient Australian forests with its bigger fanged cousins.

Straddling the finger of this human being is a terrifying beast, the likes of which we rarely see in the flesh. It is a mighty red octopus juvenile. And it’s the size of a man’s thumbnail.

The Jurassic skies were once ruled by tiny dragons. These furry-bodied fliers are wonders in paleontology, true 21st-Century milestones that changed what we thought we knew about the flying reptiles. Soar through the forests of the Mid Jurassic as Earth Archives teams up with Pteros to bring you the weird and wonderful wukongopterids!

One of the most unusual marine mammals of all time was Kolponomos, the “otter-bear”. Details of this enigmatic animal have remained quite a mystery for many years since its discovery. Now, scientists have finally figured out the secret behind the otter-bear’s deadly bite, and just how it managed to survive.

We all know Tyrannosaurus rex as North America's biggest and most terrifying land predator. It ruled the continent 66 million years ago, dominating its prey and rivals with its 9-ton bulk and bone-crushing jaws. However T. rex was not exactly as American as we once thought.

The olm, the blind cave salamander of Southern Europe is one of the most interesting amphibians in the world. It is rare, pinkish-white and blind, and reproduces just once or twice a decade during its entire lifetime.

Mysterious objects have been commonplace in the fossil record for centuries. However, none have been more mysterious than the so-called “Devil’s Corkscrews” unearthed in the Badlands of North America. The reality behind these rather daunting objects though, is nothing short of surprising.

Japan has merely seven dinosaurs altogether. This one was small, omnivorous and related to the famous raptor dinosaurs. It is also the country’s most complete dinosaur to date.

A study of 12,000-year-old DNA shows that the car-sized, club-tailed glyptodonts were cousins of modern armadillos. Source: BBC News

If an island is large enough and isolated from land-based predators for enough time, one thing invariably happens: giant birds evolve.

There were once hoofed animals that did not just graze and run in herds. Among their ranks were gigantic beasts with bone-crushing jaws that were the most powerful predators of their time. They ruled the earliest grasslands, taking prey up to the size of rhinos while contending with other deadly hunters. They are the entelodonts, the aptly named ‘terminator pigs’.

A study done in January 2017 involving 30 fish fossils from Middle Triassic China revealed anatomical differences that helped scientists set apart male from female fish.

Interbreeding with our species may have been one of many factors that drove the Neanderthals to extinction, with traces of their DNA in our own. But for a while we never really knew of any Homo sapiens genetic material in a Neanderthal fossil. That is, until recently with a new fossil from Denisova Cave.

The heaviest flying bird of all time dominated the skies of Patagonia with iron wings. It strode overland while on the hunt, swallowing its prey in one mouthful. It was certainly pushing the limit of heavy, feathered flying creatures but was still able to patrol immense distances of grassland bordered by the young Andes. How did a bird with such a huge wingspan even manage to get off the ground?

While filter feeding nowadays is seen in many invertebrates, fish and sharks, the fossil record of this feeding behavior is patchy. The discovery of two more skulls add to the diversity of animals that swam through the Mesozoic oceans like a whale shark.

Pterosaurs are the most iconic and arguably beautiful of all extinct animals. They have inspired awe in all who discovered their fossils and now they have come to life like never before through the Pteros project, an online encyclopedia of pterosaurs.

It was a time when the oceans and rivers of the world were ruled by aliens with armored bodies and slicing bony blades in their mouths. Welcome to the Devonian, the Age of Fishes, when these creatures were at the height of their strangeness.

It may not be the biggest marine monster of the Jurassic but the mammoth eyes of Dollocaris certainly make it the most adorable.

The biggest creature to have ever chewed a cud was a gigantic and bulky relative of giraffes and okapis. It had none of the balletic grace but instead got all the weight and brawn.

Throughout most of the Mesozoic, the seas were inhabited by various groups of marine reptiles, one of them being the long-necked plesiosaurs. One sub-group of the reptiles called the pliosaurs, known for their relatively shorter necks, were apex predators during the Middle to Late Jurassic.

Approximately 201.3 million years ago the Triassic Period ended, taking most of the large land animals with it in a large extinction event. This mass extinction kickstarted the Jurassic Period and the diversification of dinosaurs, which spread out to fill the niches emptied by the extinction.

Spadefoot toads (Pelobatoidea) are a group of toads which posses a bony “spade” on their foot that they use to burrow underground. A fossil found in Mongolia from the Paleocene suggests that burrowing did not evolve as a response to aridity as previously thought.

These gigantic stick insects, once a common species on its home land, were wiped out in just two years by an invasive species. 80 years later, the last living population of the species is discovered in an unlikely place across the waters.

The gigantic salmon, reaching 2 meters (6.5 ft) in length and weighing just shy of half a ton, had teeth that resembled a saber-toothed cat. Or so they thought.

One of the most mysterious huge animals in the fossil record is the ape Gigantopithecus. Only a few bones have ever been found, and we still do not know the secrets to its existence. One thing though, is quite clear: Thanks to a team from the Seckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, we finally know why it is no longer among us today.

Eggs thought to belong to the giant bird Genyornis were likely laid by a much smaller extinct bird from another branch of the family tree.

An ancient fourteen-foot tall camel was excavated by paleontologists at the University of Louisiana. This specimen is the most complete giant camel fossil to date.

In Late Cretaceous Asia and Western North America lived a group of smaller relatives of the horned dinosaurs, otherwise known as ceratopsians. Members of the primitive group of Leptoceratopsidae only grew to 2 m (6.5 ft) each, had no horns, and sported smaller frills than their better-known counterparts.

Around 120 million years ago, there lived a monstrous marine crocodile relative named Machimosaurus rex. Its massive jaws could crush turtle shells and it terrorized the warm seas that covered what are now the deserts of Tunisia.

They once shared our world, some as recently as a few years ago. From the lions that fought at the Colosseum to the blind dolphins of China, they were exceptional in life and remain iconic in death. They are the most memorable of all recently extinct animals.

Many species of birds today exhibit elaborate displays for attracting mates. We now have evidence that at least some of their long-dead relatives did the same.

Racing across the plains of Argentina were strange feathery shapes, taller than a man. They pecked their prey to death with hooked beaks mounted on heads as big as that of a horse’s. These were the terror birds, the dominant predators of their day and age.

A passer-by on Christmas Day found a meter-long shell on a riverbank in Argentina which may be from a glyptodont, a prehistoric kind of giant armadillo, experts said Tuesday. A local man thought the black scaly shell was a dinosaur egg when he saw it lying in the mud, his wife Reina Coronel told AFP. Source: Yahoo News

From the tiny dragon dinosaur to the largest land mammal ever, these beasts stand head and shoulders above the rest. The paleo countdown begins! These are the top ten fossil discoveries of 2015.

Have you ever seen a lace bug? Don’t let their pretty name fool you—even though they’re dainty as a doily, they’re tough little bugs. You may have encountered lace bugs in your garden or on houseplants, since they’re herbivorous sap-drinkers. Though they only feed on plants, their bite can sting! Source: EveryONE

They were once entombed within frozen soil, lying buried for sixty-nine million years. Only now are we beginning to discover Dinosaur Age Alaska, from its perilous seas with veritable leviathans, to snowy forests ruled by pygmy tyrants. Alaska’s prehistoric past comes to life like never before, and in detail more spectacular than ever imaginable.

508-million-year-old fossils of the shrimp-like Waptia is the first evidence of an animal caring for their offspring.

New evidence from Argentina reveals that dinosaur ancestors, known as dinosauromorphs, gave rise to their famous descendants much earlier than once thought. It could have been as few as 5 million years.

Scientists have long speculated that pterosaurs, the first backboned animals to take flight, were able to cross the world's continents by air. Now, fossils of a pterosaur named Cimoliopterus offer definitive proof.

The giant invertebrates of the deep ocean enjoy fame and fortune on the everlasting internet. But no matter how big and terrifying many may be, none will be as adored as much as the one and only giant isopod, the crustacean darling of the deep ocean.

A tiny new species of whale is filling the gaps of the family tree, providing clues to how baleen evolved and how they became the giants they are today.

In the middle of the city of Los Angeles lies one of the most important fossil sites in all the world. The La Brea tar pits preserve an Ice Age eden beyond the grip of the huge glaciers that leveled North America.

Naming a new species is a serious business. Each given name has to be unique, descriptive, and follow certain “grammatical” rules. Despite the strict rules regarding the naming of new organisms, some scientists find ways to geek out on the job.

A brinicle is a finger-like formation that grows underneath sea ice. The formation process of this ‘ice finger of death’ has been captured for the first time on camera.

Few would venture underneath the ice of Russia's Lake Baikal, largest and most ancient freshwater lake in the world. Strange creatures exist beneath the frozen surface, creatures straight out of science fiction. But one woman dares to hunt for them, armed with SCUBA gear, a camera and a good dose of persistence.

Giraffes are one of the world’s most iconic animals, thanks to their unusually long neck. It is a trait not seen in another living member of the family Giraffidae, the okapi. One fossil animal from the island of Samos, Greece, had a neck that is somewhere in-between its living relatives.

380-million-year-old fossilized forests help to tell a story about ancient climate change.

Crocodylomorphs are amazing animals. They've been around for about 250 million years, and throughout this time have survived two mass extinctions, and at least twice decided to hitch up and take to the seas. Now we have new evidence that may change our entire view of modern-style croc evolution. Meet Loheucosuchus! Source: Phys.org

For the first time ever, paleontologists have found evidence for a filter-feeding marine reptile. The animal, a plesiosaur, is hardly a new find but one that has been sitting right under our noses for quite a while.

The largest dinosaur population growth study comes back with exceptional results, with the famous ‘good mother lizard’ being right at the center. Maiasaura peeblesorum is one of the best-known duckbill dinosaurs and the animal that solidified the idea of the sociable, caring and warm-blooded non-avian dinosaur.

The cave lion was a highly successful and adaptable predator that ruled the steppes of Ice Age Eurasia with an iron paw. Now, with the discovery of two cubs in the Siberian permafrost there is talk of bringing this magnificent creature to life. But should we?

With faces pretty enough to turn you to stone, and a pair of saber-teeth to slash at their prey, the gorgonopsians truly lived up to their frightful name. They were the lords of the Late Permian, a time when every single continent was beginning to drift together, forming the supercontinent of Pangaea.

Territorial species, like gray wolves living in Yellowstone National Park, will often fight if they encounter a neighboring group. Observational research over the course of 20 years has allowed scientists in Yellowstone to examine the roles of each individual in a wolf pack during these fights over territory and resources. They have discovered that old wolves are the most important in pack versus pack fights as the experience and leadership provided by an old wolf often allows a pack to win even if they are outnumbered.

With an estimated weight of 10 metric tons, this giant herbivore is the largest animal ever found in South Africa’s Karoo.

According to new research led by the University of Pennsylvania's Lauren Sallan, a mass extinction 359 million years ago known as the Hangenberg event triggered a drastic and lasting transformation of Earth's vertebrate community. //media.eurekalert.org/multimedia_prod/pub/media/103072_web.mp4

Seven species of giant rats from East Timor have been discovered by a team of archeologists. The largest one grew ten times as big as modern-day rats.

About 270 million years ago, life on land flourished in high-latitude regions following the continental glaciation in the Late Carboniferous. Despite 150 years of study, however, the origin of this diversification is unclear. New fossil discoveries from northeastern Brazil shed a light on this mystery.

Ophiacodon was a reptile-like cousin of mammals that lived around 300 million years ago, but surprisingly an analysis of its bones indicates that it was already warm-blooded long before true mammals evolved.

The tiny fossil of a tree-climbing bird shows they evolved and radiated quicker than previously thought after the asteroid impact that killed off the non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

For 130 years a giant tree-like stump had baffled paleontologists. Was it a plant, an alga, a lichen or something entirely different? A fossil dug up in Saudi Arabia gave the last word in a new study – it was a humongous fungus.

The huge fish, dubbed “Texas supershark”, measured more than 26 feet (8 meters) long and lived well before the age of dinosaurs.

It wasn’t until 2003 that Japanese scientists officially named Omura’s whale on the basis of nine carcasses hauled in by ships. No one had ever seen a live Omura’s whale in the wild – that is, until recently.

While adult megaherbivores were too large for predators to take down, juvenile mammoths, mastodons, and ground sloths might have fallen prey to packs of sabretooth cats, cave lions and giant hyenas. This balance made sure there was enough plant matter for smaller animals to thrive on during Ice Age North America.

The giraffe’s long neck must have evolved from a short-necked ancestor. For the first time ever, scientists have used fossil evidence to explain this transformation.

Just when you thought modern ruminants like the kudu, ibex, and blackbuck had crazy horns, a trip back in time to look at the extinct mammals with the craziest headgear might change your perspective.

It all started in mid '90s when Nathan Myhrvold, a computer scientist, wondered if the tails of Diplodocid sauropods could have made a cracking noise similar to a bullwhip.

By chemically analyzing fossilized eggshells and comparing them to the surrounding environment, scientists could take a glimpse at some dinosaurs’ body temperatures. They found them to be unlike both reptiles and birds, but rather something in between.

A cooling, drying climate over the last 40 million years turned North America from a warm and wooded place into the drier, open plains we know today. A new study shows how dogs evolved in response to those changes, demonstrating that predators are sensitive to climate change because it alters the hunting opportunities in their habitat.

The identification of a new species belonging to the marine mammal group Desmostylia has intensified the rare animal's brief mysterious journey through prehistoric time, finds a new study.

Researchers in Germany have unveiled the results of their analysis of a remarkable fossil – a female horse-like mammal called Eurohippus that contains a very well-preserved fetus.

After the Chicxulub meteor hit the Earth and dinosaurs vanished from the planet, a group of small mammals hiding for millions of years emerged from the shadows. This is the story of one of those mammals called Kimbetopsalis. Source: The Conversation

Despite being one of the most forbidding places on Earth, the area now occupied by the Gobi Desert was once host to a dizzying array of plants and animals. Some of the most unexpected dinosaurs have been found locked in the red rocks of this arid corner of Mongolia.

Wandering an arid region of the ancient supercontinent of Pangea about 260 million years ago, the pre-reptile Bunostegos akokanensis is the oldest known creature to have walked upright on all fours, according to a newly published study.

Back in April this year, the Internet was abuzz about a newly announced dinosaur that looked like something straight out of a Tolkien book. It’s been called the “dragon dinosaur” or the “batwing dinosaur” and its wings are truly something we’ve never seen before. But what is it?

Today’s beaked whales (Ziphiidae) dive hundreds of meters to chase after their prey: seafloor-living squids, fishes, and crustaceans. However, one remarkable fossil suggests an ancestral species of these whales found its food near the water’s surface.

One study explains how 270 million years ago, two different mammal relatives could have exhibited interspecies combat behaviors similar to today’s deer.

The discovery of a 168 million year old jaw fragment on the Isle of Skye in Scotland provides new information on the evolution of “dwarf crocodiles” and other crocodilians.

University of Otago paleontology researchers are continuing to rewrite the history of New Zealand’s ancient whales by describing two further genera and three species of fossil baleen whales.

This species, called Homo naledi, is the largest discovery of hominin fossils in Africa. So far, over 1,500 fossils have been found, and at least 15 individuals identified. This is the largest discovery of a single hominin species in ever found in Africa. H. naledi contains a mixture of ape-like characteristics, including a small brain, mixed in with more modern, human-like traits.

Paleontologists have discovered the largest known carnivorous dinosaur ever found in Australia. “Lightning Claw,” as it has come to be known, had large, grappling hook-like claws that it used to ensnare its prey.

An early relative of long-necked dinosaurs like Brontosaurus from South Africa has now been described. Pulanesaura is helping paleontologists rewrite the early history of sauropods.

An in-depth study of fossils from Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, has revealed temperature fluctuation and unstable environment during the Triassic Period. This likely prevented the diversification of larger dinosaurs until 30 million years after their appearance.

In 2015, paleontologists reported the discovery of a new lizard species in southern Brazil. Gueragama sulamericana is the first known acrodontan lizard found in the New World, otherwise dominated by other lizards. G. sulamericana’s discovery overturns long-held hypotheses of and provides insights into the early evolution of lizards in South America.

Scientists use DNA analysis on Megaloceros (or Irish Elk) bones to determine that the Giant Deer survived well past the peak of the Ice Age in Southern Germany.

Scientists at The Field Museum have identified a new species of pre-mammal in what is now Zambia. Thanks to a unique groove on the animal’s upper jaw, it was dubbed Ichibengops (Itchy-BEN-gops), which combines the local Bemba word for scar (ichibenga), and the common Greek suffix for face (ops). Put simply: Scarface.

Even though it has no obvious petals, Montsechia is thought to have been one of the earliest flowering plants that appeared on Earth.

Scientists have uncovered a 10 million year old walrus fossil in Japan. Despite lacking the tusks that modern walruses are famous for, the fossil is still part of the same family as present-day walruses.

It has long been believed that the hearing bone called the stapes, one of the smallest bones in the ancestors of mammals, shows no differences between species.

An international team led by researchers from the Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, has obtained an age from rocks of the Great Karoo that shed light on the timing of a mass extinction event that occurred around 260 million years ago.

Russian scientists caught some extremely rare footage of a colossal squid off the coast of Antarctica.

It’s not an underwater rabbit, it’s a marine animal called a nudibranch. And the Japanese are going crazy for them.

Modern comb jellies are jellyfish-like invertebrates that look like floating plastic bags and often sport trailing tentacles. But their prehistoric relatives traded their arms for heavy armor.

Wendiceratops becomes the second horned dinosaur unveiled this year. It is the oldest relative of Triceratops and the oldest dinosaur of its group with a big nose horn.

Amargasaurus is the weirdest of the long-necked dinosaurs, and among the strangest of all dinosaurs. It had high rows of spines that projected from the top of its neck and back, the equivalent of a dino mohawk. Its bony mane would make the band members of The Misfits melt with jealousy.

Paleontologists studying Smilodon fatalis, or the saber-toothed cat, have discovered that its dagger-like teeth grew at twice the rate of living big cats.

On the scale from normal to weird, a little worm called Collinsium is off the charts. Hailing from the Cambrian Period of China, it joins a strange menagerie of sea life from long ago.

While not technically the grandfather of Brontosaurus, Sefapanosaurus becomes the newest dinosaur found in Africa. It is an ancestor of the well-known long-necked dinosaurs, the sauropods.

Triceratops, the three-horned frilled plant-eating dinosaur that everyone knows and loves, may have had a secret weapon in its 800 teeth. New research shows there was a lot more to Triceratops’ bite than meets the eyes.

Turtles are some of the most interesting animals on Earth. They are the most complex of animals with hard shells. But scientists have long puzzled about how they evolved.

Antarctica was once quite a warm continent, even tropical. Over the last few decades, paleontologists have found fossils there from four dinosaurs including the fearsome meat-eater Cryolophosaurus.

According to new research, miniature long-necked dinosaurs once inhabited a small island during the Jurassic Period in Germany until a meat-eating army of dinosaurs mounted a full-scale invasion.

A strange dog-sized dinosaur from Romania was once thought to be part of a group that includes Velociraptor. But a new study suggests a different identity.

Animals emerged from the water and clamored onto land more than 300 million years ago, but paleontologists are looking for even more details about the transition. A healed broken bone that later fossilized is offering some new and unexpected clues.

DNA extracted from bones collected in the Yukon show that North America's last camel was a close relative of Old World camels and not llamas as previously thought.

A new 205 million-year-old fossil reptile named after a spell cast by Severus Snape of the Harry Potter films, has been unearthed in Southwest England.

Named in 2015, Regaliceratops, meaning royal horned face, has numerous spade shaped horns on its frill, resembling a crown.

Three newly unearthed vertebrae from north-central Texas suggest the presence of an enormous shark during the Early Cretaceous Period in the region. This discovery provides further evidence that larger sharks had evolved prior to the Late Cretaceous.

New fossils from the Afar region of Ethiopia, named Australopithecus deyiremeda, suggest that Lucy’s species lived at the same time and place as at least one other hominin species. A team led by Yohannes Haile-Selassie discovered the 3.4 million year old jaw fragments less than 23 miles from sites where Au. afarensis fossils have been found.

A new study of lizards and snakes suggests that the iconic elongated body plan that snakes are famous for originated on land in the southern hemisphere approximately 128 million years ago.

The majority of living cockroaches are scavengers, feeding on detritus along the forest floor or inside our kitchens. But 100 million years ago, a terrifying roach hunted other insects with spiky limbs.

What is possibly the largest hoard of giant lemur remains has been discovered in an underwater cave in southwestern Madagascar. These remarkably preserved skulls and skeletons may just help researchers uncover the mystery shrouding Madagascar’s major plant and animal extinctions.

New research into the feeding habits of a long-extinct mysterious fish reveals that it may be the first animal ever known to use vertical thrashing of external teeth to kill its prey. And it had some seriously crazy teeth.

Friend of Earth Archives, Zach Coker, is about to do something no one has done before. He is designing a life-size Velociraptor skeleton to be 3D printed and loaned or sold to classrooms around the world. In order to accomplish this goal, Zach needs your help. Please read his description of Dinosaurs in the Classroom below and consider donating to his GoFundMe campaign.

Scientists in North Carolina have unearthed a new species of aetosaur, a group of armored relatives of crocodiles that lived around the world during the Triassic Period more than 200 million years ago.

A team of researchers from the University of Otago created a comprehensive guide to the history of baleen whales based on the most complete family tree ever made for the group.

How did whales become one of the few groups of mammals to go back into the sea? Ambulocetus bridges the gap between small terrestrial ancestors and the sea-faring behemoths more recognizable as whales.

Amber is surprisingly efficient at preserving soft tissue that would normally deteriorate under normal taphonomic conditions. Valuable information on the structure and evolution of feathers is discussed.

By consuming the bones of plesiosaurs, mosasaurs and other big marine animals when they died, Osedax worms quite literally ate their fossil record.

A very well-preserved fossil from Argentina offers some clues to these incredible birds’ vocal capabilities.

A strange, small cone-shaped fossil baffled scientists for a very long time. Now that it has found its family, you’ll never guess its closest living relative.

New ichthyosaur fossil discoveries in Arctic Russia indicate that these marine reptiles were adapted to life in icy polar regions.

For more than 100 years dust collected on fossils in Yale’s Peabody Museum marked as unidentified bird specimens. It wasn’t until recently that paleontologists discovered these were no bird fossils at all. They were baby marine reptiles called mosasaurs whose details hinted at an unexpected behavior.

The long-necked sauropods are a diverse group of dinosaurs. With the hundreds of known species there are, it’s no surprise that their taxonomy can be messy sometimes. How do you tell if specimen X is the same animal as specimen Y if you don’t have matching body parts to compare? How does one determine what should and should not be the same species if our sample of fossils is too low? Taxonomy is quite the unforgiving mistress.

Insects are resilient creatures. After a global apocalypse there may just be a showdown between the cockroaches and the beetles. New research suggests beetles could hold the edge in a fight to survive.

From the ichthyosaurs to the mosasaurs to the plesiosaurs, the marine reptiles of the Mesozoic were an interesting group of animals. Dolichorhynchops wasn’t the biggest but it sure packed a mean set of chompers.

A pair of bird-like dinosaurs that died and were buried together have successfully been identified as a male and female pair in one of the first cases of paleontologists identifying a dinosaur’s sex.

Originally mistaken for a flying reptile (pterosaur) when it was discovered in the 1800s, Tanystropheus had a neck that would put the Kayan giraffe women of Myanmar to shame.

How in the world did fish evolve into land-dwelling animals? Scientists knew that fish must have had to emerge from water on primitive feet but they couldn't find their missing link. Until they found Tiktaalik.

Two wonderfully weird animals from the last ice age of South America never had a real home in the mammal family tree. Through protein sequencing of fossil bones, scientists have found their closest living relatives.

In Triassic North Carolina, a 9-foot-tall bipedal crocodile relative ruled the land with a jaw full of knife-like teeth. Meet the "Butcher of Carolina."

Scientists described the fossil remains of a pterosaur from the Transylvania region of Romania. Its relatives include the biggest flying animals of all time.

Most flying reptiles are already bizarre. Nyctosaurus ups the ante with something approximating a huge deer antler on its head.

A brand new herbivorous dinosaur called Koshisaurus has been unearthed in Japan. It is only the sixth named species of dinosaur ever discovered on the archipelago.

Vandalism of natural treasures seems to be on the rise. Along with the "artist" who used eight national parks in the USA as her canvas and the person who stole a dinosaur bone from Dinosaur National Monument, charlatans who destroyed a dinosaur nest in Spain now join an incredible list of wreckers of civilization.

With a face that only an egg-laying mother could love (and then immediately leave), Atopodentatus is one of the weirdest reptiles ever to have lived.

Thirty-six million years ago, during the Eocene Epoch, a group of giant penguins swam the world's southern oceans.

A failed attack from a predatory fish on a pterosaur millions of years ago has resulted in a one-of-a-kind discovery.

Seven crocodile species found in single 13-million-year-old bone bed reveal the diversity of Peru before the formation of the Amazon.

Just when you thought Triceratops was cool, along comes another dinosaur with a crazy frill.

What's weirder than a hornless rhinoceros? A hornless rhinoceros that was the largest land mammal that ever lived.

Prehistoric fossils discovered in China show that tiny creatures resembling moles and monkeys lived in trees and below ground as dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Hearing underwater and through air require very different ear structures. Modern lungfish and salamanders can show us how our first land-living ancestors managed the transition 300 million years ago.

When we think of rodents, small animals come to mind. But the biggest rodent ever was the size of a buffalo and used its teeth like an elephant.

Measuring almost nine meters (30 feet), Qijianglong's neck was about half the animal's total length.

Four fossils previously identified as lizards now known to be dinosaur-age primitive snakes.

A fossil from China showing a 160-million-year-old mother with six babies around her suggests that several extinct reptile groups might have been good parents.

Nanuqsaurus hoglundi, the “polar bear lizard”, is barely two-thirds the size of Tyrannosaurus rex. It is the only tyrannosaur ever found outside temperate regions.

A 20-pound gopher-like mammal lived among dinosaurs in Madagascar around 66 million years ago, and its discovery shed some light on a very obscure group of animals.

This little pointy dinosaur with a sharp beak and spiky cheekbones shows how different waves of Triceratops’ relatives came from Asia.

For the first time in the country’s history, a complete fossil skeleton of a theropod dinosaur was found in South Korea. It was found in Hadong County in southern South Korea by a fisherman and was in near perfect condition. The rocks here are from around 110-120 million years ago.

Examination of museum collections has revealed Alberta was home to two horned dinosaurs previously found only in the southwestern United States.

The primitive crocodiles were efficient swimmers but were also capable of galloping across the plains

Twenty-five million year old rocks in New Zealand have yielded two species of archaic baleen whale. These whales, both members of the genus Tohoraata, retained teeth at the tips of their jaws in addition to baleen.

Cougars coexisted with five other big cats in North America during the last Ice Age, and while other species perished it managed to survive. The secret of its resilience may have been a lenient diet.

Thriving in biodiversity hotspots all over the globe, reef fishes have developed an astounding array of colors and shapes. One study suggests that their evolutionary history was divided into two major phases.

The discovery of two bat-winged dinosaurs changed what we knew about the whole animal family. Before we knew about the flaps of skin between its fingers, we thought it just had absurd spider-hands.