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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

An international team of paleontologists has spent more than 15 years excavating and studying fossils from Africa to expand our understanding of the Permian, a period of Earth's history that began 299 ...

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 ...