News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
A suite of plant and animal fossils from a site in New South Wales date back about 16 million years to a time when the region was blanketed in lush rainforests Life 7 January 2022 By Chen Ly Fossil of a mygalomorph spider from the McGraths Flat, Australia Michael Frese An immaculately preserved fossil of … Read more
The arid heart of Australia may not easily support life now, but once, many aeons ago, it was lush and teeming. What is now arid desert and dry shrub- and grasslands was once thick with dense forests, alive with life. In one of these grasslands, in the Central Tablelands of NSW, paleontologists have found … Read more
We sort of take for granted the depictions of prehistoric beasties illustrated in the books of our childhood. But piecing together Earth’s murky past is a lot harder than it sounds. Scientists have to rely on fragmentary bones, weathered footprints, impressions in rock – these don’t always capture the fine details of the complex, … Read more
A newly discovered fossil shows that within just 3 million years of their first appearance on Earth, ichthyosaurs had evolved into 17-metre-long giants Life 23 December 2021 By Riley Black An artist’s impression of Cymbospondylus youngorum Stephanie Abramowicz Fossil remains of one of the ocean’s earliest giants have been unearthed in Nevada. Named Cymbospondylus youngorum, … Read more
If creepy crawlies make you uncomfortable, be glad you weren’t living in the Carboniferous period (around 100 million years before the dinosaurs arrived) in what is now Northumberland in the UK. Scientists have made an astonishing discovery along this part of the coast of northeast England: a 326 million-year-old fossil, showing traces of the … Read more
A 70 million-year-old oviraptorosaur egg that had been forgotten in a Chinese museum storeroom contains the most well-preserved dinosaur embryo ever discovered Life 21 December 2021 By Alice Klein The fossilised oviraptorosaur dinosaur embryo curled up in its egg Xing et al., 2021 A fossilised dinosaur embryo discovered in southern China may be the most … Read more
A rare and exquisitely preserved dinosaur embryo tucked inside an egg like a baby bird has been unearthed in southern China, providing an “unprecedented glimpse” into dinosaur development. With a posture that resembles modern bird embryos close to hatching, the fossilized embryo is a remarkable find which raises the possibility that evolutionary links between … Read more
Arthropleura was the largest millipede ever to live, and palaeontologists have just found the fossilised remains of the longest specimen yet on a beach in northern England Life 21 December 2021 By Chen Ly Reconstruction of the giant millipede Arthropleura, which lived 326 million years ago Neil Davies The remains of a 326-million-year-old giant millipede, … Read more
From Earth’s vantage point in one of the Milky Way’s spiral arms, the structure of our galaxy is pretty difficult to reconstruct. That’s because gauging the distance to something in space when you don’t know its intrinsic brightness is really, really hard. And there are a lot of objects in the Milky Way whose brightness … Read more
Stegouros elengassen, unearthed in Chile, had a strange flattened tail that looked like a fern frond – a feature never seen before in an ankylosaur dinosaur Life 1 December 2021 By Chen Ly An artist’s impression of Stegouros elengassen Lucas Jaymez A new species of ankylosaur found in Chile had a unique tail unseen in … Read more