A quarter of a billion years ago, long before dinosaurs or mammals evolved, the predator Dinogorgon, whose skull is shown here, hunted floodplains in the heart of today's South Africa. In less than a ...

What was the Permian Period like? What creatures thrived there before the period came to an abrupt end? Thanks to efforts by an international research team, 17 years of fossils collected in Africa may ...

The Permian period was one of the most extreme and hostile chapters in Earth’s history. Vast environmental changes transformed the planet into a place where survival became increasingly rare. Rising ...

A cataclysm engulfed the planet some 252 million years ago, wiping out more than 90% of all life. Known as the Great Dying, the mass extinction that ended the Permian geological period was the worst ...

A land predator that lived during the ill-fated Permian Period functioned like a “big cat,” such as a tiger or lion, that dominated its local food chain, according to the scientists behind a new ...

A new study reveals that a region in China's Turpan-Hami Basin served as a refugium, or "life oasis," for terrestrial plants during the end-Permian mass extinction, the most severe biological crisis ...

Learn more about the new species uncovered from the Permian Period and what they can tell us about the world during the Great Dying. What was the Permian Period like? What creatures thrived there ...