A Cambrian rock layer is considered to be "Cambrian" because of the particular fossils it contains. But what does it mean when a rock layer designated as "Ordovician" contains distinctly Cambrian fossils? Paleontologists are facing that question after a recent find in North Africa.

According to evolution, dinosaurs lived during an age when birds and non-reptile land creatures were either present in just a few "primitive" forms or not at all. But a recent National Geographic online interview offered a summary of fossil discoveries made in a dinosaur-bearing deposit in Madagascar.

A massive fossilized spider has set a new size record. It looks like today's golden orb-weavers, which are large enough to dine on small birds. This discovery, in conjunction with similar ones, presents problems for evolutionary origins, and also shows how a name choice can be misleading. What did scientists decide to name this fossil, and why?

"Scientists have struggled for decades to figure out how giant pterosaurs could become airborne and some recent proposals have simply assumed it must have been impossible," according to Michael Habib of Chatham University USA.¹ He recently co-authored a new study on pterosaur flight, the findings of which show that these giant reptiles not only could fly, but could do so skillfully.<

The blob lives. Or at least, it has been reconstructed in a three-dimensional computer model.