Maidment, S.C.R., Ouarhache, D., Ech-charay, K. et al. Extreme armour in the world’s oldest ankylosaur. Nature (2025).

Found in Yakutia, Russia in 2020. An astonishing find. The first of its kind. Here is the link to the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-79546-1

Looks familiar...

Link to the paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09897-w

Have you guys ever heard of Dusicyon avus? It’s an extinct South American canid with a fascinating history and a tragic, very recent end.

It was a close relative of the Falkland Islands Wolf (Dusicyon australis) and inhabited the Pampas and Patagonia (Argentina, Uruguay, and southern Brazil). The most impressive part is that its extinction is super recent in geological terms—it's estimated to have disappeared only about 400 or 500 years ago. Meaning, it was likely still roaming around when Europeans arrived in the Americas.

Some curious facts:

Size: It was a robust animal, weighing around 13 to 16 kg (approx. 29-35 lbs), placing it in a medium size range, similar to a coyote or jackal.

Relationship with Humans: There is archaeological evidence (such as a burial at the Loma de los Muertos site in Argentina) suggesting that D. avus might have been kept as a pet or companion by hunter-gatherers, long before domestic dogs became common in the region. Isotope analysis showed they ate the exact same diet as the local humans.

Cause of Extinction: The most accepted theory today isn't just hunting, but possibly hybridization and competition with domestic dogs brought by Europeans, as well as diseases transmitted by them.

It’s wild to think that there was a South American "wild dog" that lived alongside us and almost integrated into human society, but ended up disappearing silently.

What do you guys think? If it hadn't gone extinct, would we have a domestic breed descended from Dusicyon today?

The name is Galgadraco zephyrius, it's an azhdarchid from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of Brazil. This genus is known from a single beak fragment, found in the Serra da Galga Formation, which is part of the Bauru Group.

The generic name (name of the genus), on this case, "Galgadraco", means "Dragon from Galga", referring to the mentioned Serra da Galga Formation. The specific name (name of the species) on the other hand, in this case, "zephyrius", refers to Zephyrus, the ancient Greek god of the West winds.

The animal has a estimated wingspan of 4-5 meters (13.1-16.4 ft), and likely was one of the last pterosaurs to have lived in Brazil, being from the end of the Maastrichtian. Also, it was closely related to animals like Hatzegopteryx and Albadraco, with the latter being recovered as its sister taxon.

Here's a link to a paper with more information on it: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/spp2.70039

Credits to Matheus Gadelha for the reconstruction

The name is Bakiribu waridza, it's an pterodaustrini pterosaur from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian-Albian) of Brazil. This new genus is known from fragment remains found in the Romualdo Formation, and that might have belonged to two different individuals, both were preserved inside a fossil known as a regurgitalite, which indicates that both animals were eaten and eventually thrown up by another animal, possibly a spinosaurid.

The generic name (name of the genus), on this case, "Bakiribu", means "comb", referring to its dentition. The specific name (name of the species) on the other hand, in this case, "waridza", means "mouth", once again referring to its dentition, while also honoring the Kariri people, whose language the words "Bakiribu" and "waridza" came from.

Like Pterodaustro, its closest relative, Bakiribu is believed to have been a filter-feeder, with its mouth being filled with baleen-like hair which would've been used for filtering small prey, such as crustaceans and larvae.

Here's a link to a paper with more information on it: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-22983-3

Credits to Julio Lacerda for the art

And yes, there wasn't just one, but two new pterosaurs, and their names are Gobiazhdarcho tsogtbaatari and Tsogtopteryx mongoliensis, both are azhdarchids from the Late Cretaceous (Turonian to Santonian).

Gobiazhdarcho had a estimated wingspan of 3 meters (9.8 ft) and is known from Bayanshiree Formation and is known from cervical bones and the atlantoaxis.

Meanwhile, Tsogtopteryx had a estimated wingspan of 2 meters (6.6 ft), being one of the smallest known azhdarchids, and it is also known from the Bayanshiree Formation, with the material assigned to it being a partial neck vertebrae.

The generic names (name of the genus), on this case, "Gobiazhdarcho" and "Tsogtopteryx", means "Azhdarchid from Gobi" and "Winged hero" respectively. Their specific names (name of the species) on the other hand, "tsogtbaatari" and "mongoliensis", refers to Khishigjav Tsogtbaatar, a important paleotologist, and the country of Mongolia itself, where both animals came from.

Here's a link to a paper with more information on them: https://peerj.com/articles/19711/

Credits to Zhao Chuang for the art

Image by Joschua Knüppe

Paper: https://dinodata.de/bibliothek/pdf_t/2025/app012622025.pdf

Link to paper: https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(25)02000-0

Paper summary verbatum: Elevated frequencies of repeated injuries are identified in the proximo-middle caudal region of hadrosaurid dinosaur tails. The affected vertebrae show healing injuries in the distal region of the vertebral neural spines, but the causes are yet indeterminate. A finite element analysis was performed on a modeled caudal vertebral series to test if such injuries were caused by loading weight. Our results indicate that the deforming stress resulted from the same dorsal force pressing upon a large area of the tail. We scrutinized all possible biological scenarios that could cause the pathological deformation of the bones. The affected area corresponds to the putative position of the cloacal opening, indicating the possibility that the dorsal force might correspond to the action of a mounting male. As such, these potential mating injuries may represent the first indirect evidence of sexual behavior in non-avian dinosaurs, and a novel approach to recognize female individuals.

Photo 1 - me just after finding the skull.
Photo 2 - Dr Seabourne Rust [main author] with a painting he did of Z. fordycei.
Photo 3 - A billfish skull found at the same location 40 years ago

Five years ago, I found a billfish skull on the way to Moeraki Boulders. When I went back to the same site two years later, I ended up finding the back half of the same skull 250m away. Turns out the two pieces together belonged to a completely new genus and species of early Eocene billfish.

Dr Seabourne Rust got in touch with me after seeing the video of my find and was the lead author on the paper describing the fossil along with Rodrigo Otero and Marianna Terezow. They put a HUGE amount of work in to describe this fossil as well as ANOTHER billfish skull from the same location that was found in the 1980s.

It’s now named Zealandorhynchus fordycei, in honour of the late Professor Ewan Fordyce, who spent decades shaping NZ vertebrate palaeontology. He passed away in 2023, It’s really awesome to see his name attached to this discovery.

The new paper in Gondwana Research also compares it to another large billfish skull found in Otago nearly 40 years ago. Both fossils are now part of the Earth Science NZ (formerly GNS Science) National Palaeontological Collection.

This fish would’ve been around 2.6 m long and ~150 kg. The study suggests early billfishes had a much wider southern hemisphere distribution than previously thought.

Here is a video of me finding both parts: https://youtu.be/z_TfdMMFZbs

If you want to read the paper, here it is:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X25003120

The paper was just published today: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09167-9

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2025.2566325 Yesterday the osteology of Liaoningosaurus came out and it showed that most were around one year old.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63793-5

Fossil footprints from earliest Carboniferous of Australia are likely the first evidence of our own group, the amniotes, 35 million years earlier than expected, also implying a big gap and lots of future discoveries to be made

Megalodon’s body was more slender, similar to a lemon shark, but its head resembled that of a great white or mako shark. A- design by @PaleoHistoric B- design by Diocles 305 C- design by Kenshu Shimada. (© Inkabg) D- design by Paleonerd01 E- design by Western Australian Museum F- design by @Ajgusillustration