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Dr Valentina Rossi of University College Cork, Ireland, who led the research team which discovered that a 280-million-year-old lizard fossil is, in part, a forgery. (Image credit: Zixiao Yang) A 280-million-year-old fossil that has baffled researchers for decades has been shown to be, in part, a forgery following new examination of the remnants. The discovery has led the team led by Dr Valentina Rossi of University College Cork, Ireland (UCC) to urge caution in how the fossil is used in future research. Tridentinosaurus antiquus was discovered in the Italian alps in 1931 and was thought to be an important specimen...

Humans have maintained a very close relationship with aurochs... since their beginnings, first by hunting them and then by breeding and selecting them. This extinct species of mammal is little known in the Peninsula because its skeletal remains are difficult to distinguish from bison. In fact, there have been references to the presence of "large bovids" in many sites because they cannot be differentiated. At a European level, there is also a lack of genetic data.An international team of scientists... analysed the remains of B. primigenius from the Chan do Lindeiro cave (Lugo). These remains were found in a chasm...

The fearsome roar of Tyrannosaurus Rex as portrayed in film has left many a cinema-goer quaking in their seat. But new research suggests the king of the dinosaurs made a far more sinister sound. For a new BBC documentary, naturalist Chris Packham visited Julia Clarke, professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Texas, to test out a the theory that dinosaurs actually sounded more like birds and reptiles, than today’s predatory mammals. “The most chilling noises in the natural world today come from predators, the howl of the wolf, the roar of the tiger, but experts now doubt that...

Scientists have unearthed in Mongolia's Gobi Desert one of the biggest dinosaur footprints ever recorded, measuring over a metre in length. The enormous print, which measures 106cm (42 inches) in length and 77cm in width and dates back more than 70 million years, offers a fresh clue about the giant creatures that roamed the earth millions of years ago, scientists from the Okayama University of Science said.

A fossil, believed to be the oldest vertebrate ever found, has been uncovered in South Australia. The five-centimetre fossil, which looks like an elongated tadpole and is believed to be at least 560 million years old, was unearthed in sandstone by station owner Ross Fargher at a secret location in SA's Flinders Ranges. The SA Museum today said the fossil was part of a marine animal known as the Ediacara Chordate. The Ediacara Chordate discovered in South Australia.Photo: South Australian Museum A fin on its back, a set of inclined muscle bars and a head were clearly visible, the museum...

Paleontologists have discovered the fossilized remains of a new arthropod. Yawunik kootenayi was swimming around oceans in Canada in the Cambrian period, 508 million years ago. It's thought to share a common ancestor with today's spiders and scorpions. The arthropod had four eyes and arms lined with both tiny claws to help it feed, and long antennae to sense its surroundings. The study's lead author says species today don't have limbs that function like that. "This dual function is very, very special, because it does not appear in modern forms. If you take insects as an example, they have a...

Reconstruction of a dinosaur from the Catalan pre-Pyrenees, about 70 milion years ago. Courtesy of Òscar Sanisidro. A study of extant mammals refutes the hypothesis that dinosaurs were ectotherms. The work was carried out by researchers from ICP and UAB. It has been published in Nature. The study analyzed the lines of arrested growth (LAG) in the bones of around a hundred ruminants, representative of the specific and ecological diversity of that group of mammals. The results show that the presence of these lines is not an indicator of ectothermic physiology (does not generate internal heat), as had previously been...

Palaeontologists delighted to discover 213m-year-old remains of feathered meat-eater that retain intact air sacs in their bones The remains of a two-legged meat-eating predator that roamed the Earth at the dawn of dinosaurs have been uncovered in an ancient bone bed by fossil hunters.

The fossilised skull of a colossal "sea monster" has been unearthed along the UK's Jurassic Coast. The ferocious predator, which is called a pliosaur, terrorised the oceans 150 million years ago. The skull is 2.4m long, and experts say it could belong to one of the largest pliosaurs ever found: measuring up 16m in length. The fossil, which was found by a local collector, has been purchased by Dorset County Council. It was bought with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and it will now be scientifically analysed, prepared and then put on public display at Dorset County Museum. Palaeontologist...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Scientists have caught a fossil fish in the act of adapting toward a life on land, a discovery that sheds new light one of the greatest transformations in the history of animals. Scientists have long known that fish evolved into the first creatures on land with four legs and backbones more than 365 million years ago, but they've had precious little fossil evidence to document how it happened. The new find of several specimens looks more like a land-dweller than the few other fossil fish known from the transitional period, and researchers speculate that it may...

A scientist has described a spider that was trapped and preserved in amber 20 million years ago. Palaeontologist Dr David Penney, of the University of Manchester, found the 4cm long by 2cm wide fossil during a visit to a museum in the Dominican Republic. Since the discovery two years ago, he has used droplets of blood in the amber to reveal the age of the specimen. It is thought to be the first time spider blood has been found in amber and scientists hope to extract its DNA. Dr Penney, of the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, said...

THE popular image of Tyrannosaurus rex and other killer dinosaurs may have to be changed as a scientific consensus emerges that many were covered with feathers. Most predatory dinosaurs such as tyrannosaurs and velociraptors have usually been depicted in museums, films and books as covered in a thick hide of dull brown or green skin. The impression was of a killer stripped of adornment in the name of hunting efficiency. This week, however, a leading expert on dinosaur evolution will tell the British Association, the principal conference of British scientists, that this image is wrong. Gareth Dyke, a palaeontologist of...

Triple bone structure arose independently in platypus and humans. Listen up: mammals seem to have evolved the delicate bone structure of the middle ear at least twice. The surprising discovery comes from a fossil, found off the southern coast of Australia, that belongs to an ancestor of the platypus. Modern mammals are unique among vertebrates for possessing three tiny bones in the middle ear. The malleus, incus and stapes (commonly known as the hammer, anvil and stirrup) work as part of a chain that transmits sound towards the skull. Birds and reptiles have only one bone to perform this function....

New clues to 2bn-year-old murder Tim Radford, science editor Friday May 14, 2004 The Guardian Scientists believe they are on the track of the biggest mass murderer in the two-billion year history of life. A buried crater off Australia could be the first direct evidence of a celestial assassin that wiped out more than 80% of life on Earth 250m years ago. Luann Becker, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, reports in Science online today on extensive evidence for a 125-mile wide crater called Bedout off the northwestern coast of Australia. The clues match the date of an event...

Tiny fossil found to have the world's oldest known penis By Steve Connor 05 December 2003 A tiny fossil of a creature that lived some 425 million years ago has entered the record books as the oldest unequivocally male animal. The organism, which resembles a cross between a shrimp and a clam, sports a large penis which has been perfectly preserved in three dimensions. David Siveter, professor of palaeontology at Leicester University, said there was no doubt the fossilised creature was a male, making it the oldest unambiguous member of its sex. Professor Siveter said the fossil was found at...

SYDNEY, July 30 (AFP) - The fossilised remains of giant lions and other ferocious monsters that once stalked the earth have been discovered in the Australian outback, scientists announced Tuesday. A wombat -- a burrowing, pig-like marsupial that carries its young in a pouch -- the size of a mini car and the world's largest kangaroo were among the creatures unearthed in caves on the Nullarbor Plain, the vast desert stretching from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia to South Australia's Gawler Ranges. Some of the creatures are believed to be species never previously discovered. The fossils, believed to be around...

Ancient history as taught today is a disaster area. The chronology of the first and second millennium BCE is badly wrong. The history of ancient history revisionism offered here is drawn largely from the pages of SIS publications over the last 25 years. The Revision of Ancient History - A Perspective By P John Crowe. An edited and extended version of a paper presented to the SIS Jubilee Conference, Easthampstead Park, Sept. 17-19th 1999 [1] Internet Paper Revision no.1 March 2001 Contents Introduction An Outline History of Revising Ancient History - Up to 1952. 2.1 Exaggerating Antiquity. 2.2 The Early...