It is an omnivore – in other words it ate everything (plants and meat) – which is the missing link between carnivorous dinosaurs and giant four-footed herbivores

In his introduction to the audience about palaeontology he said that he was going nowhere near the famed ‘Nessie’ and that he would stick to the facts

His years of researching, studying and collecting in fossil beds in Wyoming and Western Montana in the late 1800s earned him praise in the field of palaeontology, but he continued to toil in relative obscurity in the eyes of the public

AP – The fossilized remains of two pregnant fish indicate that sex as we know it — fertilization of eggs inside a female — took place as much as 30 million years earlier than previously thought, researchers said Thursday.

LiveScience.com – Remains of embryos entombed in their fish mothers’ wombs for 380 million years have been found in fossils from an ancient rock outcrop in Western Australia. The finding is a big deal because it suggests that sex goes way back.

The prehistoric fish, called placoderms, are found at the base of the vertebrate evolutionary tree (in a large group we humans also belong to), so it now looks like sexual intercourse, and the mating behaviors that go along with it, were more widespread in these ancient animals than previously thought, said the scientists who made the discovery. …

LiveScience.com – With the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin this week, people around the world are celebrating his role as the father of evolutionary theory. Events and press releases are geared, in part, to combat false claims made by some who would discredit the theory.

In just four years one palaeontologist has discovered 48 new species from the age of the dinosaurs using a systematic search method. The new discoveries, found hidden in mud on the Isle of Wight, are around 130 million years old and shed valuable light on the poorly understood world in which well known dinosaurs roamed.

While many palaeontologists work in a sterile world of rocks and fossils, Larry Witmer’s research tends to get a little, well, messy

Fossils from north-eastern Colombia reveal the biggest snake ever discovered: a behemoth that stretched 42 to 45 feet long, reaching more than 2,500 pounds

The thieves, however, must have been disappointed when they realised that what they had smuggled out was not a valuable piece of dinosaur skeleton but a piece of 65-million-year-old fossilised dung