FOSSIL HUNTRESS

Dsungaripterus weiiPterosaurs were flying reptiles—not birds, nor dinosaurs—that ruled the skies from the Late Triassic until the end of the Cretaceous, roughly 228–66 million years ago.

Fossil Sea StarStarfish—or, more accurately, sea stars—look almost too geometrically tidy to be real.

SUE, the T Rex at the Field Museum, ChicagoStanding more than 12 metres (40 feet) long and roughly 4 metres (13 feet) tall at the hips, SUE is one of the largest, most complete and best-preserved specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex ever discovered.

Despite occasionally being called the “Indian water dragon,” Physignathus cocincinus is more accurately known as the Indochinese, Chinese, Asian or green water dragon.

Frogs have been hopping, swimming and making an astonishing amount of noise for their size for a very long time.

Sea Lion SkullSea lions are sleek, intelligent marine predators capable of diving through cold ocean water with astonishing speed and grace.

Manatees do not live year-round in Texas, but these gentle sea cows are known to occasionally visit, swimming in for a summer vacation and returning to warmer waters for the winter.

Libonectes atlasense / Andy Chua Collection A beautifully preserved mandible of Libonectes atlasense, an elasmosaurid plesiosaur from early Turonian, Upper Cretaceous, deposits of the Akrabou Formation near Asfla Village, Goulmima, Errachidia Province in…

Geeky goodness from the Fossil Huntress.

Sheer beauty — a beautiful Euhoplites ammonite from Folkstone, UK.

Villains, tyrants and heroes alike are immortalized in the scientific literature as researchers don each new species a unique scientific name — and rename geographic sites with a settlers' mindset.

Meet Thrissops formosus, a beautifully streamlined ray-finned fish that patrolled the warm tropical waters of Europe during the Late Jurassic, roughly 150 million years ago.

Long before whales began singing through the oceans—and while dinosaurs were still finding their feet on land—sleek, sharp-toothed reptiles were already patrolling the ancient seas.Meet the ichthyosaurs.Their name means “fish lizard,” though they were nei…

Alnashetri cerropoliciensisSlip back 90 million years and wander the sun-baked floodplains of Patagonia, where the giants get all the glory—but it’s the tiny, fleet-footed oddballs that hold the real secrets.Meet Alnashetri cerropoliciensis, a delicate li…

Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis This story begins some 125 million years ago on the lush floodplains of what is now the Isle of Wight, back in the Cretaceous.Forget the cool, windswept English coastline of today.

Spotted Hyena, Crocuta crocutaThis charming fellow with the questionable dental hygiene is a Spotted Hyena, Crocuta crocuta.

Woolly rhinoceros, Coelodonta antiquitatisThe Woolly rhinoceros, Coelodonta antiquitatis, was one of the great lumbering herbivores of Pleistocene Eurasia.

Woolly rhinoceros, Coelodonta antiquitatisTravelling widely is one of the great pleasures of our age.

Standing in the Age of Mammals Hall at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is one of the most delightfully perplexing mammals ever to paddle, wade or lumber along the Pacific coast.At first glance, its skeleton appears almost familiar.It has…

There are few creatures quite as charming—or as suspiciously competent—as the raccoon.With its black mask, ringed tail and remarkably nimble front paws, the northern raccoon, Procyon lotor, looks rather like a small bear dressed for a burglary.

Massetognathus pascualiThere are fossils that appear fierce.

Among the towering dinosaurs, enormous marine reptiles and other spectacular fossils at the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi is a much smaller creature that tells one of evolution’s most extraordinary stories.It is a fossil of Probainognathus, a small, pr…

Coyote, Canis latransDire wolves vanished.

Pick up a fossil and you are holding evidence of a life.Not merely an old rock.

Eighty million years ago, long before Texas acquired highways, cattle ranches or the unshakeable belief that everything should be larger there, much of the region lay beneath a warm inland sea.And cruising through those waters was an animal that appears to