How smushed shells could help to resolve paleontological mysteries. By Asher Elbein You never know where a bit of unusual scientific research is going to lead. Consider a 2012 study about turtle ...

When it comes to animals with iconic features, the turtle is high on the list. Deer have horns, kangaroos have pouches, humans have existential dread, and turtles have shells... right? Apparently that ...

An environmental scientist at Harrisburg University recently found the shell of an extinct, previously unknown turtle species at a fossil site in Tennessee. The discovery of the painted turtle – which ...

Imagine there are ten different types of shells, each the size of a grain of sand, mixed in the bowl of mud in front of you. You want to find each type of individual shell —what do you do? For ...

If you ask most people to guess why turtles first developed shells, you’ll usually get one answer: the hard shells protect them from predators. That’s the theory scientists have been working with for ...

Three undergraduate students from the University of Arkansas made a world-class discovery this week when they uncovered a 325-million-year-old nautiloid fossil just yards from two of ...

The fossil record may not be perfect, but it passed a critical test with flying colors, according to a study by University of Chicago paleontologist Susan M. Kidwell published in the Feb. 11 issue of ...

A collection of fossil shells from marine snails and clams is challenging a theory that says the world’s deadliest mass extinction was accompanied by severe ocean acidification. Instead of showing ...

Fossils are the remains or traces left behind by life forms that existed long ago and are normally found in sedimentary rocks. They are usually very small, like micro shells or pollen, and sometimes ...

ALTHOUGH Wells 1 and Scrutton 2 suggested methods of studying fossils to determine probable changes in day length, few studies have followed these suggestions. We have examined fossil bivalve shells ...

The specimens may be an ancient type of algae, not creatures known as bryozoans A species that lived about 520 million years ago and was thought to be the oldest known bryozoan is instead a type of ...