Palaeontology
Opinion
Billionaires
$67 million stegosaurus upends the dinosaur hierarchy
A billionaire hedge fund founder has splashed around nine times Sotheby’s presale estimate for a stegosaurus skeleton, making it the most valuable fossil sold at an auction.
- by Chris Bryant
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Animals
Meet the ‘echidnapus’, a bizarre blend of the world’s strangest creatures
Scientists led by Tim Flannery have unearthed evidence for a previously unknown “age of monotremes” when egg-laying mammals dominated Australia.
- by Angus Dalton
Explainer
Evolution
No more ‘Homo stupidus’: Why Neanderthals are getting a makeover
They were shrewd, complex and creative, and we shared the planet with them (and other types of humans) for thousands of years. So why did the Neanderthals die out and not us?
- by Angus Holland
Starfish cousin caught in the act of cloning itself
A recently discovered fossil in Germany pushes the origin of cloning sea stars back more than 150 million years in first-ever evidence for the phenomenon.
- by Jack Tamisiea
In an undiscovered cave, Josh came face-to-face with a human-sized skull
One of Australia’s most complete fossils to date has emerged from a labyrinth in regional Victoria.
- by Angus Dalton
The hidden Melbourne beach teeming with rare fossils
Mega sharks and a bird with a six-metre wingspan graced our shoreline 5 million years ago, and urban explorers can still uncover traces of them at this bayside beach.
- by Petra Stock
We now know what killed humans’ largest relative – and it’s eerie
By analysing fossils from Chinese caves, Australian scientists have helped uncover one of palaeontology’s biggest mysteries.
- by Angus Dalton
A Murray River fossil rewrites the history of earth’s biggest creatures
The pale-white slab was locked away for a century. New analysis has redefined the history of the ocean and all the creatures that depend on it – including humans.
- by Angus Dalton
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Evolution
Scientists finally identify chicken farmer’s 240 million-year-old fossil
Nearly 30 years ago a retired farmer found a salamander-like prehistoric amphibian in a sandstone block. It hasn’t been formally identified – until now.
- by Angus Dalton
At 22, Eric discovered an ‘extinct’ possum. It lived in his pocket
The man who rediscovered Victoria’s faunal emblem, the Leadbeater’s possum, 60 years ago now fears he may live to see it go extinct for real.
- by Sherryn Groch
It’s not a stretch: This dinosaur had a 15-metre-long neck
That’s longer than the average bus, and enough to give other sauropods neck envy.
- by Jack Tamisiea