‘They saw bigger things’: Richard Leakey, Edward O Wilson and Thomas Lovejoy remembered

Friends and colleagues pay tribute after the recent deaths of these groundbreaking naturalists, who shifted our understanding of the world and our future

Over Christmas and the new year, three of the world’s leading naturalists died. Thomas Lovejoy, a conservation biologist credited with popularising the term “biodiversity” and a passionate defender of the Amazon, died on 25 December. A day later, Edward O Wilson, known to many as the “modern-day Darwin”, died in Burlington, Massachusetts. On 2 January, Richard Leakey, a world-renowned Kenyan conservationist who helped establish Africa as the birthplace of humankind, died at his home in Nairobi.

From presidents to undergraduate students, thousands have paid tribute to the three men, whose achievements range from developing theories on forest and island ecosystems to reforming the Kenyan civil service and devising proposals to protect half the planet for nature. Alongside grand accomplishments, which were sometimes controversial, their passing has been a chance to reflect on the small and the mundane: fleeting interactions that inspired careers, kind words that propelled research projects, and generosity of spirit that has helped amplify the voices of those that practise and produce science.

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The Isle of Wight’s dinosaur hunter: we’re going to need a bigger museum

Jeremy Lockwood spent lockdown identifying two specimens – and is a ‘bit obsessed’ in his search for more

Some of us binged on box sets, others grappled with the challenges of home school and zoned out of Zoom meetings: for many, life under lockdown felt glum. But for Jeremy Lockwood, a retired GP turned palaeontologist, 2021 was a standout year featuring two big dinosaur discoveries and laying plans to make the Isle of Wight famous for its prehistoric inhabitants once more. “It was an absolutely thrilling time for me,” Lockwood said.

Lockwood, 64, who retired as a family doctor in the Midlands seven years ago, was behind the widely publicised discovery of a new species of iguanadontian dinosaur with a distinctively large nose and a second species, nicknamed “the horned crocodile-faced Hell Heron”.

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Fossil hunter Richard Leakey who showed humans evolved in Africa dies at 77

Kenyan conservationist found oldest near-complete human skeleton in 1984, dating from 1.5m years ago

The celebrated Kenyan conservationist and fossil hunter Richard Leakey, whose groundbreaking discoveries helped prove that humankind evolved in Africa, has died aged 77.

The president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, announced Leakey’s death with “deep sorrow”.

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Scientists find perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo preparing to hatch like a bird

At least 66m-year-old fossil discovered in southern China reveals posture previously unseen in dinosaurs

Scientists have announced the discovery of an exquisitely preserved dinosaur embryo from at least 66m years ago that was preparing to hatch from its egg just like a chicken.

The fossil was discovered in Ganzhou, southern China and belonged to a toothless theropod dinosaur, or oviraptorosaur, which the researchers dubbed “Baby Yingliang”.

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Largest triceratops ever unearthed sold for €6.6m at Paris auction

US collector ‘falls in love’ with 8-metre-long dinosaur found in South Dakota and reassembled in Italy

An 8-metre-long dinosaur skeleton has sold at auction for €6.6m (about £5.5m), more than four times its expected value, to a private collector in the US said to have fallen in love with the largest triceratops ever unearthed.

The 66m-year-old skeleton, affectionately known as Big John, is 60% complete, and was unearthed in South Dakota, in the US, in 2014 and put together by specialists in Italy.

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Unfreezing the ice age: the truth about humanity’s deep past

Archaeological discoveries are shattering scholars’ long-held beliefs about how the earliest humans organised their societies – and hint at possibilities for our own

In some ways, accounts of “human origins” play a similar role for us today as myth did for ancient Greeks or Polynesians. This is not to cast aspersions on the scientific rigour or value of these accounts. It is simply to observe that the two fulfil somewhat similar functions. If we think on a scale of, say, the last 3m years, there actually was a time when someone, after all, did have to light a fire, cook a meal or perform a marriage ceremony for the first time. We know these things happened. Still, we really don’t know how. It is very difficult to resist the temptation to make up stories about what might have happened: stories which necessarily reflect our own fears, desires, obsessions and concerns. As a result, such distant times can become a vast canvas for the working out of our collective fantasies.

Let’s take just one example. Back in the 1980s, there was a great deal of buzz about a “mitochondrial Eve”, the putative common ancestor of our entire species. Granted, no one was claiming to have actually found the physical remains of such an ancestor, but DNA sequencing demonstrated that such an Eve must have existed, perhaps as recently as 120,000 years ago. And while no one imagined we’d ever find Eve herself, the discovery of a variety of other fossil skulls rescued from the Great Rift Valley in east Africa seemed to provide a suggestion as to what Eve might have looked like and where she might have lived. While scientists continued debating the ins and outs, popular magazines were soon carrying stories about a modern counterpart to the Garden of Eden, the original incubator of humanity, the savanna-womb that gave life to us all.

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South Australian eagle fossil identified as one of the oldest raptor species in the world

The 25m-year-old fossil reveals ancient eagle had features unlike any seen among modern hawks and eagles

A 25m-year-old eagle fossil discovered on a remote outback cattle station in South Australia has been identified as one of the oldest raptor species in the world.

Palaeontologists discovered the eagle fossil on the shore of a dry lake known as Lake Pinpa in 2016, and have since identified it as a new species, Archaehierax sylvestris, in a study published in the journal Historical Biology.

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Human footprints thought to be oldest in North America discovered

Ancient tracks found in New Mexico are believed to be between 21,000 and 23,000 years old, study says

New scientific research conducted by archaeologists has uncovered what they believe are the oldest known human footprints in North America.

Research done at the White Sands national park in New Mexico discovered the ancient footprints, with researchers estimating that the tracks were between 21,000 and 23,000 years old, reported Science.

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Dinosaur fossil with ‘totally weird’ spikes in skeleton stuns experts

Extraordinary ankylosaur remains dating back 168m years a first for Africa

Fossil hunters have unearthed remnants of the oldest – and probably weirdest – ankylosaur known so far from a site in the Middle Atlas mountains in Morocco.

The remains of the heavily armoured animal are extraordinary in being the first to have defensive spikes that are fused to the skeleton, a feature researchers say is unprecedented in the animal kingdom.

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Well-preserved 28,000-year-old lion cub found in Siberian permafrost

Female cave lion cub named Sparta in Russia’s Yakutia region may even have traces of mother’s milk in it

Scientists have said that an astonishingly well-preserved cave lion cub found in Siberia’s permafrost lived 28,000 years ago and may even have traces of its mother’s milk in it.

The female cub, named Sparta, was found at the Semyuelyakh River in Russia’s Yakutia region in 2018 and a second lion cub called Boris was found the year before, according to a study published in the Quaternary journal.

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‘Real’ T rex goes on show in England for first time in over a century

The skeleton of Titus, discovered in the US in 2018, makes its world debut at Nottingham museum

The first ‘real’ Tyrannosaurus rex to be exhibited in England for more than a century will go on show in Nottingham on Sunday.

The skeleton of Titus, discovered in the US state of Montana in 2018, will make its world debut at the Wollaton Hall Natural History Museum as part of a new exhibition on the dinosaur’s life and environment.

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How a ranger stumbled upon one of the largest fossil finds in California history

While on a routine patrol, Greg Francek came across bone fragments from prehistoric animals that existed millions of years before humans

Imagine a California with volcanoes erupting to the east and Los Angeles buried under the Pacific Ocean. Giant camels, rhinoceros and four-tusked miniature elephants graze on a lush landscape, only to be preyed upon by bone-crushing dogs.

This is the prehistoric scene conjured up by a trove of new fossils discovered in California’s Sierra foothills – a hugely significant find, and one of the largest in the state’s history.

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Tyrannosaurs may have hunted in packs like wolves, new research has found

Paleontologists say a mass grave in Utah shows the dinosaurs may not have always been solitary predators as previously thought

Tyrannosaur dinosaurs may not have been solitary predators as long envisioned but more like social carnivores such as wolves, new research announced on Monday has found.

Paleontologists developed the theory while studying a mass tyrannosaur death site found seven years ago in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, one of two monuments that the Biden administration is considering restoring to their full size after former president Donald Trump shrank them.

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Boy finds fossil up to 500m years old in his West Midlands garden

Sid Jhamat, six, from Walsall came upon a horn coral while using his fossil-hunting kit to find worms

A six-year-old boy has found a fossil dating back millions of years in his garden after receiving a fossil-hunting kit for Christmas.

Siddak Singh Jhamat, known as Sid, said he was excited to find the fossil in his garden in Walsall after digging for worms.

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Giant worm’s undersea lair discovered by fossil hunters in Taiwan

Scientists believe 2-metre-long burrow once housed predator that ambushed passing sea creatures

The undersea lair of a giant worm that ambushed passing marine creatures 20m years ago has been uncovered by fossil hunters in Taiwan.

Researchers believe the 2-metre-long burrow found in ancient marine sediment once housed a prehistoric predator that burst out of the seabed and dragged unsuspecting animals down into its lair.

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Baby shark! Newborn megalodons larger than humans, scientists say

Creatures that patrolled the oceans 3m years ago were about two metres long at birth, researchers find

Enormous megatooth sharks, or megalodons, which patrolled the world’s oceans more than three million years ago, gave birth to babies larger than most adult humans, scientists say.

Researchers made the unsettling discovery when they X-rayed the vertebra of a fossilised megalodon and found that it must have been about two metres (6.5 ft) long when it was born.

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Siberia permafrost yields well-preserved ice age woolly rhino

Calf carcass from thawing ground in north-east region of Yakutia found with many internal organs intact

A well-preserved ice age woolly rhino with many of its internal organs still intact has been recovered from the permafrost in Russia’s extreme northern region.

Russian media reported on Wednesday that the carcass was revealed by thawing permafrost in Yakutia in August. Scientists are waiting for ice roads in the Arctic region to become passable to deliver the animal to a laboratory for studies in January.

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Meave Leakey: ‘Definitely, Africa is where it all began’

The renowned fossil hunter on the anti-African prejudice in palaeontology, her dream discovery, and bathing her daughter beside a baby hippo

For over 50 years, British-born palaeoanthropologist Meave Leakey has been unearthing fossils of our early ancestors in Kenya’s Turkana Basin. Her discoveries have changed how we think about our origins. Instead of a tidy ape-to-human progression, her work suggests different pre-human species living simultaneously. Leakey’s new memoir, The Sediments of Time: My Lifelong Search for the Past, co-written with her daughter Samira, reflects on her life in science and pieces together what we now understand about the climate-driven evolution of our species.

Leakey is part of a famous family of palaeoanthropologists. Her husband, Richard Leakey, and his parents, Louis and Mary, are known for their discoveries of early hominins.

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Malta may demand return of fossil given to Prince George by David Attenborough

Attenborough gave seven-year-old a giant shark tooth found on a family holiday

From the world-famous Koh-i-noor diamond to the Rosetta Stone, British royals have long been gifted rare objects that campaigners want repatriated to their rightful lands.

Prince George, it seems, is the latest in the line of fire, after being given a giant prehistoric shark tooth by the environmentalist and national treasure Sir David Attenborough, found on a family holiday to Malta more than 50 years ago.

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Seven footprints may be the earliest evidence of humans on the Arabian Peninsula

Experts say discovery of 120,000-year-old prints could shed new light on spread of Homo sapiens out of Africa

A set of seven footprints made at a lake about 120,000 years ago have been hailed as the earliest evidence of modern humans on the Arabian Peninsula – a discovery experts say could shed light on the spread of our species out of Africa.

The path by which Homo sapiens spread around the world was full of twists and turns. Genetic studies suggested it was not until 60,000 years ago that a migration of modern humans out of Africa led to a successful spread across Europe.

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