Animal Life news stories

Since 1996, nearly 50 new feathered dinosaur species have emerged from the fossil fields of China. Paleontologists thought they had a good idea of the diversity of these fluffy carnivores. But a recent finding left them scratching their heads.

Whether it’s a tricky maths problem or an unexpected bill, daily life is full of stressful experiences. Now researchers have found that humans produce a different odour when under pressure – and dogs can sniff it out.

Road excavations in China’s Guizhou Province have unearthed a trove of ancient fish fossils. As a part of rock layers known as the Rongxi Formation, the newfossil bed is filled with never-before-seen species that push back the dates of our first jawed animal ancestors by about 15 million years.

South Australia’s Naracoorte Caves is one of the world’s best fossil sites, containing a record spanning more than half a million years. Among the remains preserved in layers of sand are the bones of many iconic Australian megafauna species that became extinct between 48,000 and 37,000 years ago.

Our eight-legged friends can teach us something important about ourselves.

Tiny tardigrades can survive conditions that would kill most other forms of life. By expelling their body’s water and transforming into a seemingly lifeless ball called a tun, they enter a state of dried-up suspended animation in which they can survive for decades without food and water and withstand extreme temperatures, pressures and even the vacuum of space.

An ancient fossil from one of our planet’s earliest vertebrate organisms was found concealing an exciting surprise.

The devastating destruction that’s happening across the Amazon might be what comes to your mind first when thinking about deforestation – but it’s by no means the only place where dwindling forests are a worry, as a new study highlights.

Despite transforming history as beasts of burden essential for transporting goods and people, the humble donkey has long been woefully understudied.

The oldest definitive dinosaur species ever discovered in Africa — and one of the oldest dino species to walk Earth — has been unearthed in Zimbabwe, a new study finds.

An international team of researchers with a central contribution from researchers at the Dept. of Biological Physics at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) has unravelled the evolutionary origins of animals and fungi.

Imag from: Geograph Britain and Ireland (Wiki Commons)

Palaeontologists at Adelaide’s Flinders University have used cutting edge micro-CT scanning and 3D printing technology to look inside a 100-million-year-old dinosaur fossil. But this was no ordinary fossil.

Only three people surveyed from coastal communities in China reported seeing the dugong in the past five years.

Researchers looked at the impact of climate on 17-million-year-old tooth fossils.

A new discovery about jumping spiders could challenge some pretty hefty human assumptions about the cognitive abilities of arthropods.

Birds’ brains are a bit of a mystery. Despite the small size of their noggins, parrots and corvids show remarkable intelligence, solving some puzzles as well as primates.