Never before had the fossil of a flying insect been discovered in Carboniferous rocks, which are said to be over 300 million years old.

The chambered nautilus, also known as the pearly nautilus, is a mollusk with a beautiful, symmetrical shell that is divided into buoyancy-controlling chambers. Few of these amazing sea creatures remain, apparently due to over-harvesting because their shells are popular novelties.

A fossilized spider was found in China with such perfectly preserved features that researchers were able to identify it down to its species name. Only two other fossils of its kind have been unearthed, and all three look like modern North American desert spiders.

The tiny Ancient Greenling Damselfly is an endangered insect, with only a few hundred known to be in existence. A new population of them was recently discovered in southwestern Australia, and researchers hope that studying them will aid in their conservation.

When discovered in August 1994, the Wollemi pine was hailed as the "botanical find of the century," like "finding a small dinosaur still alive on earth." It was found by New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service ranger David Noble during a weekend bushwalk into a remote 500-600 meter deep narrow sandstone canyon in the rugged and densely forested Wollemi National Park only 200 kilomet