Field Museum

This pinecone-looking animal is the world’s most-trafficked mammal. New analysis of its DNA and a rebuilt family tree could help save it from poaching.

We can’t protect what we do not know, and now that we have confirmed that this other species of pangolin exists, we can use ...
The Field Museum

Fossilized babies of ancient crocodile-like predators uproot scientists’ understanding of how animals adapted to the land

Baby fossil tetrapods show that the common ancestors of amphibians, reptiles, and mammals did not evolve from animals with amphibian-like tadpoles, as previously thought Life on our planet began in ...
The Field Museum

New species of dinosaur, a cousin of Velociraptor, probably glided on four “wings” and hunted early birds

A fossil bed in northwestern China is littered with the remains of hundreds of prehistoric birds—including some whose broken bones were crushed into pellets, similar to those coughed up by modern owls ...
The Field Museum

Catch the CTA to Pokémon Fossil Museum at the Field Museum

The Field Museum and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) are teaming up this summer to celebrate the North American debut of Pokémon Fossil Museum. Pokémon fans can build up excitement for the ...
The Field Museum

“Feathered dragon” had some of the longest tail feathers ever found on a fossil bird

Birds have all kinds of fancy decorations for attracting mates— male peacocks have a fan of feathers accented with shimmering blue eye-spots, birds of paradise do courtship dances that highlight their ...
The Field Museum

This newly-discovered blue octopus from the Galápagos Islands could curl up in the palm of your hand

The Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador are home to more than a thousand plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth— things like marine iguanas and giant tortoises. In a new paper in ...
The Field Museum

PEET - Bivalves Affiliated Project: Pearls

Joint preparation of the major exhibition, Pearls, by the PIs with two other curators from AMNH and FMNH required investigations into some of the intriguing economic aspects surrounding marine and ...
The Field Museum

Ice Age butcher’s tools are a sign of ancient humans’ creativity during hard times

Crystals inside a prehistoric bone rewrote scientists’ estimates of the age of the archaeological site, suggesting that the stone tools were made during a harsh ice age In central China, scientists ...
The Field Museum

What Do We Mean By Facts?

The use of the words “fact”, “hypothesis”, and “theory” in science can be confusing, especially if conducting research isn’t your everyday job! But these terms have specific meanings, and they’re part ...
The Field Museum

This ancient plant-eater had a twisted jaw and sideways-facing teeth

In a dry riverbed in Brazil, in a dense forest near the Amazon, a team of paleontologists found a fossilized jawbone from an ancient animal. Over the course of their fieldwork, they found eight ...
The Field Museum

Football-sized fossil creature may have been one of the first land animals to eat its veggies

Life on Earth started in the oceans. Sometime around 475 million years ago, plants began making their way from the water onto the land, and it took another 100 million years for the first animals with ...