How the Chosha praecursor insect may have looked. (Tihelka et al., Nature, 2026) As strange cases of mistaken identity go, ...

More than 500 million years ago, during what is known as the Cambrian period, the seas and oceans on Earth were filled with a myriad of marine animals, many of which have now become extinct. This ...

In early 2025, 12-year-old Ni Jingchen was out exploring with his parents in Beijing's Mentougou district when he noticed two tiny marks on a slab of exposed rock. Ni already loved fossils and knew ...

Nearly 400 fossils unearthed in France's Montagne Noire region, some with soft tissue intact, reveal a diverse marine ...

The fossil assemblage also includes Funisia, a stationary, tube-shaped organism found living in clusters. Researchers ...

Tiny dinosaur fossils that puzzled scientists for over 20 years have finally revealed their true identity. Rather than belonging to a miniature species, they are actually baby ankylosaurs—some less ...

Discover the top stories from June 27 to July 2, 2026, including the return of a long-lost Megalodon fossil and a new blood test that could detect cancer from a single sample. Missed some of our top ...

Jason Poole, Dinosaur Hall and Fossil Preparation Lab coordinator at the Academy of Natural Sciences, was mentioned in a June 24 Smithsonian story about the strange ways in which some fossils are ...