At https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/11/scientists-unearth-15-meter-snake-fossil/ … a fossil discovery in India has revealed a very big snake that once slithered around Earth. It initially amounted to the recognition of fossilised vertebrae – subsequently analysed and recreated. It was found in a lignite mine in the Gujarat. It is thought it was as long as 49 feet in length – 15 metres. The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports. The size is derived from 27 fossilised vertebrae – some still in their original alignment.
At https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/11/coffee-potato-fossil-survived-apocalypse/ … a fossil plant that has been assigned as an ancestor of potatoes and coffee beans. It appears to have survived the end of Creteous asteroid strike – the apocalypse in the title. Hence, potatoes and coffee in the modern world. The fossilised plant itself was found in California – and was embedded in Late Cretaceous geological strata. Sediments laid down as a result of the asteroid strike. It was also a flowering and fruiting plant, we are told, adding more evidence that flowering plants existed alongside ferns and conifers in the dinosaur era. It is also an ancestor of tomatoes and mint, we are told, and no doubt other modern plant species.
At https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/11/frozen-puppy-with-woolly-rhino-in-its-stomach/ … a strange headline to make you wobble your head. A woolly rhinoceros inside the stomach of a wolf pup. The mummified youngster had eaten a whole woolly rhinoceros – armour plate and all. Firstly, it was a baby rhinoceros, and secondly, it had only eaten and digested a part of the animal. How could a wolf cub bring down a woolly rhinoceros? Probably as part of a pack of wolves, picking on the baby rhinoceros as it wasn’t fast enough to get away. The interesting bit is how the wolf pup was preserved. It must have been immediate, in the act or shortly after the act of eating the meat brought to him. Was he in the open? Assuming it was a he. Another interesting fact is that the remains have been dated by C14 methodology. At 14,400 years ago. This is roughly 5000 years prior to the start of the Holocene and 2500 years prior to the Younger Dryas event. Did it coincide with the Oldest Dryas event, one might wonder. On the face of it the date is during the warm episode that runs from the end of the Late Glacial Maximum to the Younger Dryas episode, divided by the Older Dryas period [not to be confused with the Oldest Dryas period]. The Oldest Dryas lasted from 18,000 to 15,000 years ago. The Older Dryas came somewhere between 15,000 and 11,000 years ago. A minor fall in global temperature that lasted a few hundred years. However, such dates are themselves confusing – for me as much as for you. Different sources use different numbers in that the Younger Dryas is often dated 11,900 years ago – and the start of the Holocene is anywhere between 10,000 and 9,500 years ago. It all makes sense if you are a young guy at university as you have not been taught earlier dating systems. You start from scratch at the new batch of dates. Of course, these dates will also be revised and they will, eventually, also be confused.
At https://phys.org/news/2025-11-newly-fossil-fish-engand-jurassic.html … a fossil fish from Dorset’s Jurassic coast. A rich source of Jurassic fossils that fall out of the cliffs as a result of erosion. And a story associated with Steve Etches, famed fossil collector and now the curator of a museum in Kimmeridge with some truly outstanding fossils he has unearthed from the shore and detached from their slate stone entombment. Worth a visit. The geological formation is known as the Kimmeridge Clay, as it is at Kimmeridge it surfaces – in the cliffs. It is a band of clay that stretches right across southern England, but is buried. Occasionally it is encountered by bore holes and surface extraction. The published material is co-hosted between Steve Etches and Dr Martin Ebert and represents a new species of fossil fish, derived from a complete skeleton, presumably extracted by Etches.
Finally, at Daily Galaxy on November 28th we had the story about the dinosaur egg and its intact embryo as posted here last week. We learn here that the embryo was in a curled position. This resembles the pre-hatching behaviour as seen in modern birds. This is known as tucking, positioning itself to use force to break the egg shell. It is considered a vital way for hatchlings to succeed and survive. This means dinosaurs using a similar technique passed the idea on to birds in the post Cretaceous period. More evidence of a link between the two, as now favoured by paleontologists in order to explain light bones and big bodies in dinosaurs.