As a shark tooth and fossil hunting enthusiast, I often have people ask me why I find fossils so fascinating. To me, the answer is simple: I’m astounded by the fact that I can walk along the beach in ...

Understanding the evolution of insect mating behavior is essential for explaining how early insects adapted to life on land. A new study examines Petrobiellus akkesiensis, a rare jumping bristletail, ...

For decades, the Pentatomomorpha, an enormous group of shield-like insects mostly feeding on plants, were regarded as entirely terrestrial. Yet the Zekuformidae fossil, excavated from lakebed rocks ...

A new study on the mating behavior of jumping bristletail (Petrobiellus akkesiensis) reports the first documented case of direct sperm transfer via genital coupling in apterygote hexapods. The study ...

A rare fossil insect from Tibet, given the name Zekuforma maculata, reveals that a landlocked lineage of ‘true bugs’ briefly tested semi-aquatic life. The discovery rewrites about 230 million years of ...

One of the most important steps in the evolution of modern mammals was the development of highly sensitive hearing. The middle ear of mammals, with an eardrum and several small bones, allows us to ...

The skull had the brow of a descendant but the face of an ancestor. When researchers finished reconstructing the DAN5/P1 cranium from Ethiopia’s Afar region, dated to between 1.6 and 1.5 million years ...

An international team of scientists led by the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC) has described a new species of fossilized insect from the Australian Jurassic period, estimated to be around 151 ...

Flies and maggots are not exactly the glamorous side of crime-solving, but at Texas A&M, they are part of the investigative team. Entomologist Jeff Tomberlin has turned insects into forensic witnesses ...