Palaeontology
How a 23-million-year-old whale fossil was rescued from Ocean Grove beach
Nature had already reclaimed the fossil site once, burying it beneath layers of sand. If the crew failed this time, they would have to wait another year to try again.
- Alexander Darling
Latest
Australia’s oldest dinosaur fossil found in a Brisbane suburb
As a Brisbane schoolboy, Bruce Runnegar unearthed a fossil in a suburban quarry. He kept it for 68 years, taking it with him all over the world, never imagining he was carrying something 230 million years old.
- Marissa Calligeros
Big as a minivan and jaws like a garbage compactor: Meet the Australian Museum’s latest star
Australia is pitching its oversized megafauna as its latest “dangerous” tourist attraction.
- Linda Morris
- Exclusive
- National
Scientists dissolved a boulder in acid – and a thylacine jumped out
The bone-crushing fossilised jaws were one of three Tasmanian tiger ancestors uncovered by palaeontologists, amid a contentious effort to resurrect the marsupial carnivore.
- Angus Dalton
- Exclusive
- NSW
Giant ‘sea scorpions’ hunted Australian waters like sharks
Two new species that ruled the ancient oceans as crocodile-sized apex predators have been uncovered in NSW.
- Angus Dalton
- 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.
- Chris Bryant
- Exclusive
- 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.
- 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?
- 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.
- 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.
- Angus Dalton