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Over twenty years, Australian students passed an unassuming 5-foot-long rock in their school’s entrance hall without realizing its importance. In 2023, when paleontologist Anthony Romilio examined the approximately 200-million-year-old object, he first had to scrape off some discarded chewing gum from the sandstone surface before closely inspecting it. "I was doubtful, as one might put it, since it's typically not the spot where you search for fossils," Romilio commented regarding educational institutions. However, Romilio discovered 66 dinosaur tracks on the boulder, which spans roughly 10 square feet, indicating one of the densest collections of dinosaur prints ever recorded in Australia, as stated in a study released this month in the journal. Historical Biology journal Forty-seven dinosaurs crossed over the boulder throughout their lives, with the rock being submerged under shallow water, providing clues about dinosaurs in the Early Jurassic era, a time for...

During my research on the fossils of an ancient panda relation at the forge location in Allgäu Germany , scientists found that these ancient bears had a significantly more varied diet compared to their bamboo-eating ancestors. The species, Kretzoiarctos beatrix Considered the earliest known precursor to today’s giant panda, this ancient bear lived approximately 11.5 million years ago. During that time, it inhabited vast areas across Europe and certain parts of Eurasia, regions vastly different from the bamboo-filled woods of contemporary China where pandas reside now. Madjeline Böhme from the University of Tübingen, Germany, who is also an author of the study, stated that 'the shift of pandas towards adapting to a bamboo-dominated diet along with various plants occurred quite recently.' 5.180.24.3 When we consider pandas as bamboo-eaters, it might be somewhat deceptive since they have only been consuming bamboo for about 10 million years, along with v...