Category: Paleontology

Why Do Humans Have Thumbs and Not Fins? Biology Paleontology Science Videos STEM Education 

Why Do Humans Have Thumbs and Not Fins?

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Did you know we can trace the evolution of our hands, and thumbs, back to a 375 million-year-old fish called Tiktaalik? Watch this video with paleontologist and geneticist Dr. Neil Shubin to learn what a fish and a little blue hedgehog can teach us about the evolution of thumbs. This is a video from Dr. Joe Hanson’s It’s Okay To Be Smart series.     Tiktaalik is a 375 years-old fish with fins. When we look under its fin rays and take off the scales, what we find are versions of our…

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Dinosaurs of Ghost Ranch Paleontology Science Videos Zoology 

Shelf Life Video: The Dinosaurs of Ghost Ranch

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Dinosaurs’ fossils have attracted paleontologists to the Badlands of Ghost Ranch, NM, since 1881. Here, they have found the best place to find early carnivorous dinosaurs in the world. This video is another in the Shelf Life series from the American Museum of Natural History.   After being unearthed, dinosaurs’ bones are very delicate, and paleontologists need to take really good care of them. Once they are safely brought to the Museum of Natural History, they are ready to be analyzed. By looking at dinosaurs’ fossils, researchers can figure out…

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Biology Paleontology 

Microfossils Are Earliest Evidence Yet of Life on Earth

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By Katherine Lindemann Researchers examining deposits from ancient hydrothermal vents in northeastern Canada have found evidence of microbial activity, possibly some of the earliest life on Earth. Hydrothermal vents deep beneath the oceans have long been thought to be where life originated, leading Matthew Dodd and colleagues to search where they did. The microbes were likely iron-metabolizing bacteria, and the structures they left are between 3.77 and 4.28 billion years old, making them even older than the microbes found last year to have lived near the surface of the ocean…

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Shelf Life Video: Fossils in the Gobi Desert Paleontology Science Videos 

Shelf Life Video: Fossils in the Gobi Desert

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It’s been nearly a century since the Museum began their explorations of Mongolia’s Gobi Desert—a vast and imposing landscape that occupies an unparalleled space in the scientific record. The American Museum of Natural History gives some background on the Gobi Desert expeditions: One of the world’s richest locations for dinosaur, lizard, and mammal fossils, it was discovered in 1993 by a team that included Curators Mark Norell (now Macaulay Curator and Chair of the Division of Paleontology) and Mike Novacek (now Provost of Science at the Museum), and visited by…

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Paleontology 

Oviraptors in the Wild

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By Kate Stone Oviraptorosaurs are an odd-looking group of feathered, bird-like theropod dinosaurs. They tend to have short skulls and small, toothless mouths. Now, an international team of paleontologists is reporting on a new oviraptorosaur discovery from Ganzhou, Tongtianlong limosus. The fossil is a remarkably well-preserved specimen. The animal seems to have died with its limbs splayed to the sides and its head raised. Tongtianlong is a bit different from other species. It has a unique dome-like skull. Oviraptors were mysterious and misunderstood for a long time, but they have…

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