When dinosaurs reigned some 130 million years ago, flowering plants were taking over the world. That change is sealed in ancient amber specimens on the slopes of Lebanon that Danny Azar knows so well.

A father and daughter discovered fossil remnants of a giant ichthyosaur that scientists say may have been the largest-known marine reptile to ever swim the seas.

500 million years ago, the world was a very different place. During this period of time, known as the Cambrian period, basically all life was in the water. The ocean was brimming with animals that looked pretty different from the ones we recognize today — including a group of predatory worms with a throat covered in teeth and spines.

Researchers thought these tiny terrors died out at the end of the Cambrian period. But a paper published recently in the journal Biology Letters showed examples of a new species of this worm in the fossil record 25 million years after scientists thought they'd vanished from the Earth. One of the authors of the paper, Karma Nanglu, tells us how this finding may change how scientists understand the boundaries of time.

Curious about other weird wonders of the ancient Earth? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.

The ancient extinct shark that starred in the film The Meg is thought to be the largest shark that ever swam the Earth. But there's debate over what it really looked like.

A new study of kelp fossils from the coast of Washington state show that kelp forests, which host all manner of marine life, developed tens of millions of years ago.

A new study of fossil footprints in White Sands National Park bolsters the argument that humans may have lived in North America longer than thought.

Butterflies likely split from nocturnal moths around 100 million years ago in present-day western North America or Central America, a new study of the winged insects finds.

A project to replace the boardwalk at the Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite in Moah, Utah, cause minor damage to tracks and trace fossils at the site, a Bureau of Land Management paleontologist found.

A group of geologists stumbled on the fossil of the giant creature, known as Arthropleura, during a "social trip" to England's Northumberland region in 2018. It's the largest such fossil ever found.

Research into the evolution of tardigrades has been severely hindered by a lack of fossils. This new discovery could offer researchers insight into how the creatures lived millions of years ago.

Scientists analyzing fossils from the country's northwest regions say two specimens were from previously unknown species.

Human ancestors got steadily larger over the last 1 million years. Our relatives living in colder places developed bigger bodies, a new study finds.

The side-by-side tracks of two ancient animals have been called "by far the oldest vertebrate tracks in Grand Canyon."

A new study reveals there were multiple species of Deinosuchus, the giant crocodylians that lived 75 million years ago. They were among the largest predators in the ecosystem and ate dinosaurs.