Top 5 Coolest Fossil Discoveries of 2025

New Dinosaur Species: Istiorachis macarthurae

• 🦕 A new species of Iguanodontian, Istiorachis macarthurae, was discovered on the Isle of Wight, England.
• 💡 This dinosaur possessed extremely exaggerated spines along its backbone and tail, forming a large "sail".
• 🎯 Hypotheses for the sail's purpose include spinal cord protection, thermoregulation, species recognition, and sexual signaling, with sexual signaling being the most likely.
• 📈 The research indicated that sail size evolved, becoming taller and more elongated over time from the Jurassic to the Cretaceous periods.

Ancient Flying Squirrels in North America

• 🐿️ New fossil evidence from Florida and Tennessee suggests that giant flying squirrels once inhabited North America.
• 🐾 These squirrels, closely related to modern Eurasian giant flying squirrels, likely migrated from Asia via the Bering Strait during warmer periods.
• 🥶 They were eventually outcompeted by cooler conditions in North America, becoming extinct on the continent.
• 🏠 The ancient Tennessee squirrels were estimated to be the size of house cats.

Plesiosaur Skin Discovery

• 🌊 A nearly complete Plesiosaur skeleton was found with well-preserved skin traces on its tail and flippers, over a hundred million years old.
• 🦎 The skin was smooth and scaleless on the tail but scaly along the rear edge of the flippers.
• 🏊‍♀️ These scales may have aided in hydrodynamics for swimming or helped with gripping surfaces while bottom-walking.

Dinosaur Footprints on the Isle of Skye

• 👣 A fossil site on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, yielded 131 dinosaur footprints from the Middle Jurassic period.
• 🚶‍♀️ The tracks, belonging to sauropods and theropods, suggest dinosaurs were simply strolling and not interacting, indicating they visited the mudflat at different times.
• 🔍 This discovery may help reevaluate previously unidentified impressions at nearby sites, which were mistaken for fish burrows.

Ancient Hyrax Butt Drag Fossil

• 🦔 Fossilized tracks from South Africa potentially represent the earliest evidence of a hyrax butt drag in the fossil record, dating back 126,000 years.
• 💩 The tracks, found in sandy substrate, bear a striking resemblance to modern hyraxes dragging their hindquarters, possibly leaving behind a fecal pellet.
• 🚽 The research also suggests that communal hyrax toilet areas should be considered trace fossil sites.