[eartharchives]

Scientists just discovered a lost branch of Australia’s marsupials

Fossils from Queensland suggest a newly recognized marsupial order may have survived in Australia for around 35 million years, rewriting part of the story of how the continent's unique mammals evolved. Image credit: Peter Schouten

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260715083546.htm

[eartharchives]

A shattered asteroid may have bombarded Earth 800 million years ago

A catastrophic asteroid breakup may have triggered a huge wave of impacts across the inner solar system about 800 million years ago. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute/Don Davis.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260716023559.htm

[eartharchives]

Pterosaurs: The Field Guide just showed the printed hardcover for the first time. Five years. Twenty illustrators. Over 200 pterosaur genera. Kickstarter launches August 1. https://fossi.ls/Nev1YT

[eartharchives]

Australia's most diverse marsupial predators have been hiding their origins for millions of years

Fossil jaws from Australia have uncovered the earliest known ancestor of modern dasyurid marsupials, filling a major gap in their evolutionary history. Image credit: Neville Garden.

https://phys.org/news/2026-07-australia-diverse-marsupial-predators-millions.html

[eartharchives]

Bones from underwater caves may hold new clues to ancient megafauna

Researchers have identified geological "fingerprints" left by underwater caves that could reveal the history of ancient megafauna fossils. Image credit: Steve Trewavas

https://www.discovermagazine.com/bones-from-underwater-caves-may-hold-new-clues-to-ancient-megafauna-49393

[eartharchives]

Dinosaurs may have been wiped out by 'oddball' space rock

Nickel isotopes preserved in debris from the Chicxulub impact suggest the asteroid that triggered the dinosaurs' extinction belonged to a rare class of primitive meteorites. Image credit: Donald E. Davis / NASA.

https://www.sci.news/space/chicxulub-c0-chondrite-14927.html

[eartharchives]

A raptor in the snow and a helicopter escape

Discovering a new dinosaur species is always exciting, but Mother Nature made sure one of Explorer Diego Pol's latest finds came with some extra challenges. Image credit: Gabriel Díaz Yantén.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/newsletters/article/stones-bones-raptor-in-snow-helicopter-escape

[eartharchives]

Reptile fossil found in Brazil helps shed light on the common origins of dinosaurs and crocodiles

A 240-million-year-old animal helps us understand a period before the rise of dinosaurs and crocodiles, when their close relatives were still experimenting with different body shapes, postures, and modes of locomotion. Illustration by Matheus Fernandes.

https://theconversation.com/reptile-fossil-found-in-brazil-helps-shed-light-on-the-common-origins-of-dinosaurs-and-crocodiles-287457

[eartharchives]

Ancient DNA analysis reveals Wiltshire’s Upton Lovell Shaman was a woman

Exclusive: Analysis offers ‘smoking gun evidence’ that overturns previous assumption that a Bronze Age shaman was male. Photograph: Wiltshire Museum

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/14/ancient-dna-analysis-reveals-upton-lovell-shaman-was-woman-wiltshire

[eartharchives]

How the Coelacanth Was Rediscovered After Millions of Years

A fish believed to have died out with the dinosaurs was pulled up alive in a net, a living fossil that had been quietly surviving in the deep ocean for 66 million years while we assumed it was gone.

https://scienceblog.com/t-coelacanth-living-fossil-found-alive/

[eartharchives]

Meteorite that crashed into a New Jersey home contains ‘extraterrestrial’ amino acids

A meteorite weighing more than 2 pounds (1 kilogram) that crashed through the roof of a New Jersey home two years ago could shed light on ancient water in the solar system.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/15/science/new-jersey-fireball-rare-meteorite

[eartharchives]

Tyrannosaurus rex scavenged duck-billed dinosaurs in ancient Wyoming, bite marks reveal

Thousands of fossilized bones from a Cretaceous-period bonebed in Wyoming, the United States, offer rare physical evidence that Tyrannosaurus rex fed on the carcasses of a duck-billed dinosaur species called Edmontosaurus annectens. Image credit: Dani Navarro.

https://www.sci.news/paleontology/tyrannosaurus-rex-edmontosaurus-annectens-scavenging-bite-marks-14922.html

[eartharchives]

Hopes bones in underwater 'time capsules' will unlock more prehistory

Scientists who have been finding fossils in SA's underwater caves are hoping they can give a window into environmental changes. Image credit: Steve Trewavas.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-16/underwater-caves-preserving-pre-historic-animal-bone-fossils-sa/106912130

[eartharchives]

New Crested Dinosaur Species Identified in Canada

A new genus and species of lambeosaurine hadrosaurid dinosaur has been identified in southern Alberta, Canada, dating back 77 million years to the Campanian age of the Cretaceous period. Image credit: Connor Ashbridge / CC BY 4.0.

https://www.sci.news/paleontology/plesiolophus-warnerensis-14917.html

[eartharchives]

This dinosaur fossil captures the final moments of a T. rex attack

A fossilized Edmontosaurus skull with a Tyrannosaurus tooth still embedded in its face has given scientists rare evidence of a dramatic predator-prey encounter. Image credit: Jenn Hall.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260713000811.htm

[eartharchives]

Call to display Rutland Sea Dragon fossil rejected

The future of the UK's largest ichthyosaur fossil remains uncertain after a council refused to revisit plans for a permanent museum display. Image credit: Anglian Water

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy06ezw6drlo

[eartharchives]

Paleontologists Discover New Species of Titanosaur in Uruguay | Sci.News

Paleontologists in Uruguay have identified a new species of aeolosaurine titanosaur from a pair of remarkably well-preserved tailbones unearthed in the 1980s near the Uruguay River. Image credit: Merlina Ramírez.

https://sci.news/paleontology/mesetasaurus-protector-14914.html