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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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