A quarter of a billion years ago, long before dinosaurs or mammals evolved, the predator Dinogorgon, whose skull is shown here, hunted floodplains in the heart of today's South Africa. In less than a ...

Artistic reconstruction of the terrestrial ecological landscape before the end Permian mass extinction based on fossil palynomorphs, plants , and tetrapods recovered, as well as sedimentological data ...

Though the End-Permian mass extinction event is predicted to have killed off 80% of all life on Earth, new research is revealing survivors. In what is now China, it seems that plants were able to ...

Scientists don’t call it the “Great Dying” for nothing. About 252 million years ago, upward of 80% of all marine species vanished during the end-Permian mass extinction – the most extreme event of its ...

The West Texas desert has a surprising feature: a prehistoric ocean reef. There is a surprising natural wonder in the middle of the vast West Texas desert: a prehistoric ocean reef built from the ...

More about the Permian–Triassic Mass Extinction The Permian-Triassic extinction event, also known as the “Great Dying,” was the most severe mass extinction in Earth’s history, occurring about 252 ...

Despite Earth's most devastating mass extinction wiping out over 80% of marine life and half of land species, a group of early reptiles called archosauromorphs not only survived but thrived, venturing ...

Since the beginning of time, Earth has created life and then wiped out most of it in catastrophic, ultra-destructive moments. Starting with the very first extinction event since multicellular life ...

A new study reveals that a region in China's Turpan-Hami Basin served as a refugium, or "Life oasis" for terrestrial plants during the end-Permian mass extinction, the most severe biological crisis ...