Heftier than modern-day gray wolves and capable of cracking the bones of their prey, dire wolves were among the Pleistocene’s most-feared hunters. It’s long been believed that these top predators lived only in the Americas, but researchers have now unearthed the first fossil evidence that dire wolves also […]
IN THE SUMMER of 2016, a gold miner in Canada’s Yukon Territory found an unexpected treasure. While blasting a wall of permafrost with a water cannon to release whatever riches might be found inside, Neil Loveless saw something melting out of the ice. It wasn’t a precious mineral, but […]
The 5-inch segment of fossilized jaw, which was discovered in Antarctica in the 1980s, dates from 40 million years ago. Using the fossils’ size and measurements, the researchers were able to estimate the rest of the individuals’ size. The bird with the foot bone is “the largest specimen […]
The dodo? The woolly mammoth? Think again. Sometime in the late 1600s, in the lush forests of Mauritius, the very last dodo took its last breath. After centuries of untroubled ferreting in the tropical undergrowth, this species met its untimely end at the hands of humans, who had […]
Megalodon was the most massive shark that ever lived, and its gargantuan girth was highly unusual even among sharks, scientists recently discovered. In fact, Megalodon’s gigantism — it’s estimated to have measured up to 50 feet (15 meters) in length, about as long as a bowling lane — was […]
A new study has revealed the size of the legendary giant shark Megalodon, including fins that are as large as an adult human. To date only the length of the legendary giant shark Megalodon had been estimated. But now, a new study led by the University of Bristol […]