Paleontologist Dany Azar holds up one of his treasures that he discovered in Lebanon in a piece of amber from the early Cretaceous: The oldest mosquito ever found. Ari Daniel/For NPR hide caption
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fossils
This illustration depicts a washed-up Ichthyotitan severnensis carcass on the beach. Sergey Krasovskiy hide caption
Selkirkia tsering fossil found in a collection from the Fezouata Formation in Morocco. Javier Ortega Hernández/Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology hide caption
Ancient predatory worms have scientists rethinking the history of life on Earth
That giant extinct shark, Megalodon? Maybe it wasn't so mega
New fossils suggest kelp forests have swayed in the seas for at least 32 million years
In the night sky of northern Lebanon, two meteors of the annual Orionid meteor shower streak as they cross through the Milky Way. IBRAHIM CHALHOUB/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
The Orionid meteor shower peaks this weekend. Enhance your view with these tips
Scientists studying fossil human footprints in New Mexico say their age implies that humans arrived in North America earlier than thought. NPS Photo hide caption
Fossil footprints in New Mexico suggest humans have been here longer than we thought
A blue morpho butterfly sits on a leaf. A new study finds that butterflies likely originated somewhere in western North America or Central America around 100 million years ago. Kristen Grace/Florida Museum hide caption
Butterflies originated in North America after splitting from moths, new study suggests
News Round Up: aquatic vocal fry, fossilizing plankton and a high seas treaty
A photo of the the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite in Moab, Utah. A construction project at the site recently damaged some of the tracks and trace fossils. Wayne Hsieh/Flickr hide caption
Fossilized section of the giant millipede Arthropleura, found in a sandstone boulder in the north of England. Neil Davies hide caption
An artistic reconstruction of Paradoryphoribius chronocaribbeus in moss. Holly Sullivan/Harvard/NJIT hide caption
Brachiosaurus dinosaur, a relative of the newly discovered species, seen in computer artwork. SCIEPRO/Science Photo Library/Getty Images hide caption
A reconstructed Neanderthal skeleton (right) and a modern-human version of a skeleton are displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 2003. A new study confirms that early humans who lived in colder places adapted to have larger bodies. Frank Franklin II/AP hide caption
The two sets of footprints "are among the oldest tracks on Earth of shelled-egg-laying animals, such as reptiles, and the earliest evidence of vertebrate animals walking in sand dunes," paleontologist Stephen Rowland said. U.S. National Park Service/U.S. National Park Service hide caption
A new study of Deinosuchus or "terror crocodiles," led by Adam Cosette, offers a fuller picture of the ancient creature from head to tail. Cossette said Deinosuchus had large, robust teeth, ranging from six to eight inches long, as shown in the photo. Adam Cossette hide caption
An artist's interpretation of a baby mosasaur hatching from an egg in the Antarctic sea. Francisco Hueichaleo hide caption
Scientists Find The Biggest Soft-Shelled Egg Ever, Nicknamed 'The Thing'
Harrison Duran, 23, poses with Alice, the 65-million-year-old partial skull of a triceratops. The dinosaur-obsessed student helped find Alice on an expedition with the Fossil Excavators. Fossil Excavators hide caption
This is vertebrae of the Selam skeleton. Zeray Alemseged, University of Chicago hide caption
In an artist's rendering, a gigantic, cassowarylike dinosaur named Beibeilong, which lived some 90 million years ago, incubates its eggs. Zhao Chuang/Nature Communications hide caption
Tubes of hematite, an iron-rich mineral, might be evidence of microbial life that lived around underwater vents billions of years ago. Matthew Dodd/University College London hide caption
An artist's impression of Saccorhytus coronarius, a sea creature that lived 540 million years ago. Jian Han, Northwest University, China hide caption
Digital visualization of Idmonarachne brasieri based on laboratory-based scans of the fossil. Proceedings of the Royal Society B hide caption
Sir David Attenborough at the Beijing Museum of Natural History with fossil of Juramaia, as featured in the Smithsonian Channel series Rise of Animals: Triumph of the Vertebrates. Courtesy Smithsonian Channel hide caption