Fossils

Find out everything there is to know about fossils and stay updated on the latest fossil news with the comprehensive articles, interactive features and fossil pictures at LiveScience.com. Learn more about these fascinating findings as scientists continue to make amazing discoveries about fossils.

Related Topics: Archaeology, Dinosaurs, Cretaceous Period, Evolution

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A phacopid trilobite with hyper-compound eyes

This trilobite was equipped with a 'hyper-eye' never seen before in the animal kingdom

By Joanna Thompson

Trilobite with "hyper compound eyes" could see through hundreds of lenses, new X-ray study reveals.

Pointy peaks in the tooth's crown told paleontologists that this was a mastodon molar.

Michigan boy finds 'dragon's tooth' that belonged to a mastodon

By Mindy Weisberger

A boy stumbled upon a mastodon molar while on a nature walk in Michigan.

illustration shows a close up of the newly identified eagle Archaehierax sylvestris next to a lake, with an eagle of the same species flying in the background

Koala-hunting eagle terrorized Australia 25 million years ago

By Nicoletta Lanese

A newly-identified eagle fossil is the oldest ever found in Australia.

Reconstitution of mother-newborn interaction in the Matalascañas Trampled Surface.

Baby elephants frolicked in an ancient 'nursery,' fossil footprints show

By Mindy Weisberger

Over 100,000 years ago, extinct relatives of modern elephants lived in matriarchal groups, according to preserved trackways in southwestern Spain.

The original fossil of Yuanchuavis, which was found in the Jehol Biota in northeastern China.

Bizarre tail on little dinosaur-age bird was literally a drag

By Laura Geggel

An extraordinary 120-million-year-old fossil bird from China reveals that the animal had a sexy but vaguely impractical tail.

The giant penguin, Kairuku waewaeroa.

Kids discover giant penguin’s fossil skeleton in New Zealand

By Mindy Weisberger

A newly described extinct giant penguin from New Zealand has unusually long legs and a long, slender beak, and it dates to a time when much of the region was underwater.

A female of the now-extinct Lagonomegopidae spider family guards her egg sac.

99 million-year-old spider mummies reveal moms cared for teeny spiderlings

By Laura Geggel

Four chunks of amber containing Cretaceous-age spiders reveal that mothers cared for spiderlings.

An illustration of the semiaquatic "god of death" whale.

Walking whale ancestor named after Egyptian god of death

By Laura Geggel

Meet Phiomicetus anubis, a semiaquatic whale that lived in what is now Egypt 43 million years ago.

An illustration of the turtle (Yuchelys nanyangensis) hatching from its tennis ball-size egg.

Rare embryo from dinosaur age was laid by human-size turtle

By Laura Geggel

A farmer in China found a 90 million-year-old fossilized turtle egg that has an embryo inside it.

Though originally identified as a type of long-horned beetle, Pulchritudo attenboroughi belongs to the frog-legged beetle group.

49 million-year-old beetle looks like it was squashed yesterday

By Mindy Weisberger

Meet "Attenborough's Beauty," an ancient beetle that was so exceptionally well-preserved you can still see the colorful patterns on its wing case.

An articulated skeleton of Decennatherium rex, an ancestor of giraffes, found at the Batallones-10 site in Spain.

Graveyard of rhinos, horses and giraffes found in ancient, dried-up watering hole

By Stephanie Pappas

Three periods of drought left an ancient watering hole littered with the bodies of horses, giraffes and rhinos who gathered in search of moisture.

This fossilized horseshoe crab (Euproops danae), shown in the left image, held a perfectly preserved mold of its brain, shown close-up in panel B.

Perfectly preserved 310-million-year-old fossilized brain found

By Harry Baker

Researchers have uncovered a 310 million-year-old horseshoe crab fossil complete with an exceptionally rare example of a fossilized brain.

The mushroom of the newly discovered parasitic fungus A. blatica growing out of the rectum of a carpenter ant fossilized in amber.

Peculiar parasitic fungi discovered growing out of the rectum of a 50 million-year-old fossilized ant

By Harry Baker

Scientists recently discovered a new species of parasitic fungus growing inside a 50 million-year-old carpenter ant that had been fossilized in amber.

An illustration of Paraceratherium linxiaense chomping down on vegetation on what is now the northeastern Tibetan Plateau about 26.5 million years ago, during the late Oligocene epoch.

Ancient giant rhino was one of the largest mammals ever to walk Earth

By Laura Geggel

Paleontologists in China found the skull, jaw and a few vertebrae belonging to one of the largest land mammals that ever lived.

teeth from a mastodon skull unearthed in California

Forest ranger stumbles onto garden of ancient beasts in California foothills

By Tia Ghose

A park ranger wandering through a petrified forest in California has unearthed a trove of prehistoric fossils, including a stunningly preserved mastodon skull and the remains of a monster salmon.

This illustration shows what might have happened 180 million years ago, with the shark (Hybodus hauffianus) biting the belemnite, which had been chomping on the crustacean (Proeryon). Notice that the belemnite (Passaloteuthis laevigata) holds the crustacean's molted exoskeleton in its arms.

Jurassic squid got murdered mid-meal, leaving this epic fossil behind

By Laura Geggel

About 180 million years ago, a shark likely attacked a squid-like creature eating a crustacean.

An artistic reconstruction of two night-hunting Shuvuuia deserti emphasizes the dinosaur's resemblance to an owl.

Tiny dinosaur that looked like an owl hunted like one, too

By Mindy Weisberger

A small desert-dwelling theropod dinosaur named Shuvuuia had excellent night vision, and its hearing was comparable to that of an owl. Like many owls, it was probably a nighttime predator.

Bicellum brasieri holotype specimen.

Fossil 'balls' are 1 billion years old and could be Earth's oldest known multicellular life

By Mindy Weisberger

Tiny fossils from the northern Highlands of Scotland preserve the oldest evidence of organisms with more than one type of cell.

Derek Demeter and Henry Sadler discovered the enormous bone from an Ice Age mammoth while diving in Peace River in Florida.

Divers discover massive thigh bone from Ice Age mammoth in Florida river

By Stephanie Pappas

Two amateur archaeologists diving in the Peace River of Florida found an Ice Age mammoth bone.

An image reconstruction of a Mosasaurus swimming with its mouth open.

Mosasaurus: Apex ocean predator of the dinosaur age

By Patrick Pester

Mosasaurus was one of the largest members of the mosasaur family, which were the top predators in the oceans during the age of dinosaurs.