Archive for March, 2012

Penn Dixie will provide training for new volunteers in the field of paleontology

The Penn Dixie Paleontological and Outdoor Education Center in Hamburg is looking for people to work as volunteers for the site’s various programs and activities. A training session for new volunteers will be held at 8:30 a.m. Saturday in the Gateway Executive Office Building’s auditorium at 3556 Lake Shore Road in Blasdell, next to Woodlawn […]

New fossil finds filling in history of tetrapods

Back in 2004, a fossil tetrapod from the Canadian Arctic achieved near-celebrity status, at least for mineralized skulls. The newly discovered specimen, named Tiktaalik roseae, made appearances on the Colbert Report and PBS NewsHour. (The scientists involved got to share a bit of the spotlight, as well.) The find was noteworthy because it supplied a long […]

Oldest Organism With Skeleton Discovered in Australia

A team of paleontologists has discovered the oldest animal with a skeleton. Called Coronacollina acula, the organism is between 560 million and 550 million years old, which places it in the Ediacaran period, before the explosion of life and diversification of organisms took place on Earth in the Cambrian. The finding provides insight into the evolution […]

Two New Species of Horned Dinosaur Named

Two new horned dinosaurs have been named based on fossils collected from Alberta, Canada. The new species,Unescopceratops koppelhusae andGryphoceratops morrisoni, are from the Leptoceratopsidae family of horned dinosaurs. The herbivores lived during the Late Cretaceous period between 75 to 83 million years ago. The specimens are described in research published in the Jan. 24, 2012, online […]

Two New Extinct Camel Species Discovered at Panama Canal Excavation

The discovery of two new extinct camel species by University of Florida scientists sheds new light on the history of the tropics, a region containing more than half the world’s biodiversity and some of its most important ecosystems.       Appearing online this week in theJournal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the study is the first […]

Fossil Hints at Origin of Scorpion, Horseshoe Crab Claws

A 390-million-year-old fossil has yielded new insights into the evolutionary origins of the front claws of scorpions and horseshoe crabs. The fossil was discovered by scientists from Yale University and the University of Bonn Germany. It was unearthed in a quarry near Bundenbach in Germany and has been given the scientific name Schinderhannes bartelsi. The […]