The Extinct World

This ichthyosaur appears to have died giving birth — a Jurassic fossil that may preserve the moment, or a trick of shifting bones

Before the dinosaurs took over, North Carolina had its own butcher — a nine-foot predator that stalked the Triassic

Spinosaurus had a deep tail and dense bones — yet scientists still can't agree on how it actually hunted in the water

In 1972 scientists laughed at Opabinia — a five-eyed animal with a claw-tipped nozzle from half a billion years ago

A shark with a roof of teeth on its back — science still doesn't know why Stethacanthus wore it

A hatchling T-rex weighed less than a house cat — and was already using its teeth before it grew into a multi-ton predator

A giant amphibian that thrived where crocodiles couldn't — the last of its kind, ruling Australia's rivers 100 million years ago

In the Gobi Desert, a Velociraptor and a Protoceratops died locked in combat — their skeletons still tangled more than 70 million years later

Illinois chose a state fossil that science still can't place — in 2016 it was a vertebrate, in 2023 an invertebrate

The largest bird ever to take flight had teeth — Pelagornis spread wings wider than six meters over ancient oceans