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Exhibition: “Whales: From Bone to Book”
The Smithsonian Libraries will open its new exhibition “Whales: From Bone to Book” in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History on May 25. This exhibition is a...
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Discovery: Turtle shells appeared 40 million years earlier than previously...
Unique among Earth’s creatures, turtles are the only animals to form a shell on the outside of their bodies through a fusion of modified ribs, vertebrae and shoulder girdle bones. The turtle shell is a...
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T. rex to rule Dinosaur Hall in Washington, D.C.
A close-up of the skull of the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton known as the Wankel T.rex which was installed in front of the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana in 2001....
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Blood molecules preserved for millions of years in abdomen of fossil mosquito
Sometime during the Middle Eocene a prehistoric mosquito slurped down a final blood meal then died and sank to the bottom of a pond in what is now northwestern Montana. Slowly covered in fine sediments...
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Smithsonian scientist confirms missing link in big cat evolution
After years of sleuthing for clues about where and when pantherine felids (“big cats”) originated, a Smithsonian scientist and an international team of researchers are one step closer to understanding...
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Quality of insect fossils from Montana’s Flathead River astounds scientists
Out in Montana’s Big Sky Country Dale Greenwalt spends his summers seeking the incredibly tiny and fragile. Armed with a putty knife honed razor-sharp on its front edge, Greenwalt probes the cliffs...
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Algae assassin found responsible for whale mass grave in Chile
It has all the hallmarks of a paleontological crime scene: a massive graveyard along a remote desert highway containing the fossil bones of at least 40 dead whales and a slew of other marine victims....
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One Scary Chicken—New species of large, feathered dinosaur discovered
Finding a fossil is the first step, recognizing it for what it truly is, is the real challenge. While closely studying three fossil skeletons from museum collections a team of scientists from the...
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Discover sloths in a whole new way!
Here at Smithsonian Science we are celebrating Sloth Week with four little-known facts about sloths, some of which we found in the Smithsonian’s very own collections! 1. The Smithsonian has a...
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Human Evolution Rewritten: We owe our existence to our ancestor’s flexible...
Many traits unique to humans were long thought to have originated in the genus Homo between 2.4 and 1.8 million years ago in Africa. A large brain, long legs and the ability to craft tools along with...
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Five amazing fossil finds that will make you want to be a fossil hunter
Smithsonian intern Catalina Suarez Gomez excavating a fossil in the Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia. What do you want to be when you grow up? Would you want to explore the world searching for long lost...
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New App adds Virtual Flesh to Victorian-era Bone exhibit
Point your smartphone at the skeleton of a vampire bat mounted in a museum case, wait a minute and you will see it wiggle, jump down and scuttle away. Of course, the bat’s not actually escaping, but...
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Key Link in Turtle Evolution discovered
Pappochelys could grow up to 8 inches in length, had a long tail and used its tiny, peg-like teeth to feed on small insects and worms in what is now southern Germany. In June 2015, an international...
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Did mystery worms cause world’s first mass extinction?
Earth’s first multicellular creatures had soft bodies. This illustration shows a community of Ediacaran biota, some of which resemble living ocean creatures. Others are unlike any known organisms and...
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Fossils help scientists build a picture of the past—and present
A word to the wise: don’t ask a paleontologist to pick a favorite fossil. It’s like asking your mother which child she loves most, or asking a baseball slugger to choose his favorite bat. With over 40...
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New Montana ant species emerge from 46-million-year-old rock
“Crematogaster aurora,” queen. This specimen is the oldest known species in its genus. She was a stunning brown queen; drowned some 46 million years ago in a shallow lake in Montana. Her remains,...
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New horse-sized tyrannosaur with big brain reveals how “T. rex” became top...
Life reconstruction of the new tyrannosaur “Timurlengia euotica” in its environment 90 millionyears ago. It is accompanied by two flying reptiles, “Azhdarcho longicollis”. (Original painting by Todd...
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Smithsonian Discovery: 46-million-year-old beetle had zinc jaws
Modern day rove beetle species “Paederius riparius.” (Photo by K.V. Makarov) Remember the scene in Moonraker where Robert Kiel, as the steel-toothed character Jaws, bites through a tram cable that...
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First North American Monkey Fossils Found in Panama Canal Excavation
“Cebus capucinus,” the species of Cebus common in Panama today. (Photo by Andres Hernandez, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute) Seven fossil teeth exposed by the Panama Canal expansion project are...
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Smithsonian celebrates Panama Canal expansion!
Smithsonian staff scientist, Carlos Jaramillo (shown here), and Bruce McFadden from the Florida Museum of Natural History led a 5 year project to collect fossils from and understand the geology of the...
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New Species of Extinct River Dolphin Discovered in Smithsonian Collection
A fossil that has been in the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History since it was discovered in 1951 is today helping scientists piece together the evolutionary history of...
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Paleo-detectives energize great whale mystery: how & when baleen evolved
Baleen hangs from the palate of this gray whale swimming in the Pacific near Baja, California. (Flickr photo by Ryan Harvey) A bizarre change occurs in the mouth of a humpback whale during its...
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Resin from shipwreck hints at trade routes and botany of ancient Asia
If you’ve seen the movie Jurassic Park, you know that amber played a significant role in rebuilding a lost world: A mosquito trapped within its glossy resinous interior provided the genetic material...
View ArticleUsing Fossils in Panama to Model Future Climate Change
When Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute paleobotanist Carlos Jaramillo learned that Panama was expanding its canal in 2006 and blasting 100 million tons of rock to do so, he knew he had to move...
View ArticleWhat is it like to discover a new dinosaur?
Amateur paleontologist, Ray Stanford, describes his experience of discovering the impression of a dinosaur and determining that it was a new species. This video is associated with the exhibit cases...
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Fossils Show Prehistoric Global Warming
The Past as Prologue For those who think that global warming is a 21st-century phenomenon, Scott Wing, a scientist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, has news about the past. Wing...
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Fossil teeth of 15-million-year-old browsing horse found in Panama Canal...
The fossil teeth of a 15- to 18-million-year-old three-toed browsing horse, Anchitherium clarencei, were recently discovered by scientists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the...
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Fossils of tiny cupuladriid colonies reveal extinction can lag more than one...
Photo: This fossil shell once hosted a cupuladriid colony that reproduced sexually. A new Smithsonian study that examines 10 million years of the evolution of tiny coral-like organisms called...
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Newly discovered prehistoric turtle co-existed with world’s biggest snake
The discovery of a new fossil turtle species in Colombia’s Cerrejón coal mine by researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and the Florida Museum of Natural History helps...
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Starch grains found on Neandertal teeth debunks theory that dietary...
Neandertal teeth from Shanidar Cave. Researchers from George Washington University and the Smithsonian Institution have discovered evidence to debunk the theory that Neandertals’ disappearance was...
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Prehistoric bird able to yield extreme fighting force with club-like wings
Long before the knights of medieval Europe wielded flails or martial artists brandished nunchucks, it appears that a flightless prehistoric bird used its own wings as a similar type of weapon in...
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Tyrannosaurus rex more hyena than lion
The ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex has been depicted as the top dog of the Cretaceous, ruthlessly stalking herds of duck-billed dinosaurs and claiming the role of apex predator, much as the lion reigns...
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Artist’s recreation of 7- to 6-million-year-old early human unveiled in Hall...
Meet Sahelanthropus tchadensis. This newly unveiled recreation by artist John Gurche is on view in the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History....
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With 800 color photographs, new book takes a fascinating look inside palms
Palms are recognized as icons of the tropics, in addition to being the source of many economically significant products that extend relevance of the group to millions of people daily. Striking...
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Fossil skull of an extinct toothed whale excavated from Panamanian sediments
A scientist from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute uses a pick to dislodge the fossil skull of an extinct toothed whale from sediments on the Panamanian Coast near the town of Piña....
View ArticleMeet Our Scientist–Briana Pobiner, human origins researcher at the National...
Digging up early human and animal remains from the field in Africa, performing examination and publishing research about her findings, then enticing and educating the public about the implications are...
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New 20-foot extinct species of crocodile discovered in Colombian coal mine
Did an ancient crocodile relative give the world’s largest snake a run for its money? In a new study in the journal Palaeontology, University of Florida and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute...
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New dinosaur species named from hatchling fossil donated to National Museum...
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with help from amateur fossil hunter Ray Stanford, have described a previously unknown armored dinosaur hatchling from a fossil...
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Ancient whales
This illustration by Carl Buell depicts Ocucajea picklingi (center) and Supayacetus muizoni (bottom), two ancient whales that lived off the Peruvian coast during the Eocene, between 56-34 million years...
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Details of ancient shark attack preserved in fossil whale bone
A fragment of whale rib found in a North Carolina strip mine is offering scientists a rare glimpse at the interactions between prehistoric sharks and whales some 3- to 4-million years ago during the...
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Wayne Clough & Carlos Jaramillo, at a research site near the Panama Canal.
Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough, left, talks with Carlos Jaramillo, scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, at a research site near the Panama Canal. Jaramillo and his...
View ArticleConrad Labandiera, Smithsonian palentologist, studies fossils to learn how...
The post Conrad Labandiera, Smithsonian palentologist, studies fossils to learn how insects got along before flowering plants arrived appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.
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Insect mimic of ginko-like leaf discovered 165 million years after its...
A new species of hangingfly with wings that perfectly mimic the multi-lobed leaf of an ancient ginkgo-like tree has been discovered in China by scientists from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of...
View ArticleHow do paleontologists reconstruct environments from the ancient past?
The post How do paleontologists reconstruct environments from the ancient past? appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.
View ArticleReplicating whale fossils found in Chile
The post Replicating whale fossils found in Chile appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.
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Scientists find impact of open-ocean industrial fishing within centuries of...
The impact of industrial fishing on coastal ecosystems has been studied for many years. But how it affects food webs in the open ocean―a vast region that covers almost half of the Earth’s surface―has...
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