It was as if the fossil was grinning at us at the secrets it had been hiding,” said Dr. Martin Smith, but he remembered the time when a 500-million-year-old riddle all at once became clear.

An eight-armed, pig-snouted brittle star found in the depths of the South Pacific has roots reaching back to the days of the dinosaurs. Researchers discovered the brittle star in 2015, in a barrel of ...

The year’s most notable findings also include insights into dog and sheep domestication and a new species of manta ray in the ...

A bumpy snailfish, Andean mouse opossum and ancient sea cow were just some of the many species described in 2025.