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Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 2025.

Flora

Plants

Arthropods

Fish

Amphibians

Amphibian research

• Jenkins et al. (2025) redescribe Hapsidopareion lepton and reevaluate the affinities of recumbirostrans, recovering them as probable stem-amniotes.

Reptiles

Synapsids

Mammals

Other animals

Other animal research

• A study on fossil material of the tommotiid Lapworthella fasciculata from the Cambrian strata in Australia is published by Bicknell et al. (2025), who report evidence of increase of thickness of sclerites of L. fasciculata and increase of the frequency of perforated sclerites through time, and interpret these findings as the oldest evidence of evolutionary arms race between predator and prey reported to date.

Foraminifera

History of life in general

• Maletz et al. (2025) revise Paleozoic fossils with similarities to feathers, and interpret the studied fossil material as including remains of macroalgae, hydrozoan cnidarians and graptolites.
• Zong et al. (2025) report the discovery of a new assemblage of well-preserved fossils (the Huangshi Fauna) in the Silurian (Rhuddanian) strata in south China, including fossils of sponges, cephalopods, arthropods and carbon film fossils of uncertain identity.

Other research

• Evidence of a link between marine iodine cycle and stability of the ozone layer throughout Earth's history, resulting in an unstable ozone layer until approximately 500 million years ago that might have restricted complex life to the ocean prior to its stabilization, is presented by Liu et al. (2025).
• Evidence of slow accumulation of Australian sediments preserving Archean mudrocks with high organic content is presented by Lotem et al. (2025), who interpret their findings as consistent with lower primary productivity in Archean than in present times.
• Cowen et al. (2025) study the geochemistry of dental tissue of Devonian fish fossils from Svalbard (Norway) and Cretaceous lungfish and plesiosaur fossils from Australia, and interpret their findings as indicative of preservation of the primary chemical composition of the bioapatite in the studied fossils.

Paleoclimate

• Evidence of low atmospheric CO₂ levels throughout the main phase of the late Paleozoic icehouse, and of rapid increase in atmospheric CO₂ between 296 and 291 million years ago, is presented by Jurikova et al. (2025).
• Evidence indicating that abrupt climate changes during the Last Glacial Period increased pyrogenic methane emissions and global wildfire extent is presented by Riddell-Young et al. (2025).

References

1. Gini-Newman, Garfield; Graham, Elizabeth (2001). Echoes from the past: world history to the 16th century. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd. ISBN 9780070887398. OCLC 46769716.
2. Jenkins, X. A.; Sues, H.-D.; Webb, S.; Schepis, Z.; Peecook, B. R.; Mann, A. (2025). "The recumbirostran Hapsidopareion lepton from the early Permian (Cisuralian: Artinskian) of Oklahoma reassessed using HRμCT, and the placement of Recumbirostra on the amniote stem". Papers in Palaeontology. 11 (1). e1610. doi:10.1002/spp2.1610.
3. Bicknell, R. D. C.; Campione, N. E.; Brock, G. A.; Paterson, J. R. (2025). "Adaptive responses in Cambrian predator and prey highlight the arms race during the rise of animals". Current Biology. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2024.12.007. PMID 39755119.
4. Kaminski, M. A.; Korin, A. (2025). "Flabellogaudryina n.gen, a new agglutinated foraminiferal genus from the Eocene of Saudi Arabia". Micropaleontology. 71 (1): 93–100. doi:10.47894/mpal.71.1.04.
5. Maletz, J.; Zhu, X.-J.; Zhang, Y.-D.; Gutiérrez-Marco, J. C. (2025). "The identification of 'feather-like' fossils in the Palaeozoic: Algae, hydroids, or graptolites?". Palaeoworld. doi:10.1016/j.palwor.2025.200909.
6. Zong, R.; Liu, Y.; Liu, Q.; Ma, J.; Liu, S. (2025). "A new exceptionally preserved fauna from a lowest Silurian black shale: Insights into the recovery of deep-water ecosystems after the Late Ordovician mass extinction". Geology. doi:10.1130/G53042.1.
7. Liu, J.; Hardisty, D. S.; Kasting, J. F.; Fakhraee, M.; Planavsky, N. J. (2025). "Evolution of the iodine cycle and the late stabilization of the Earth's ozone layer". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 122 (2). e2412898121. doi:10.1073/pnas.2412898121.
8. Lotem, N.; Rasmussen, B.; Zi, J.-W.; Zeichner, S. S.; Present, T. M.; Bar-On, Y. M.; Fischer, W. W. (2025). "Reconciling Archean organic-rich mudrocks with low primary productivity before the Great Oxygenation Event". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 122 (2). e2417673121. doi:10.1073/pnas.2417673121.
9. Cowen, M. B.; de Rafélis, M.; Ségalen, L.; Kear, B. P.; Dumont, M.; Žigaitė, Ž. (2025). "Visualizing and quantifying biomineral preservation in fossil vertebrate dental remains". PeerJ. 13. e18763. doi:10.7717/peerj.18763. PMC 11700492. {{cite journal}}: Check |pmc= value (help)
10. Jurikova, H.; Garbelli, C.; Whiteford, R.; Reeves, T.; Laker, G. M.; Liebetrau, V.; Gutjahr, M.; Eisenhauer, A.; Savickaite, K.; Leng, M. J.; Iurino, D. A.; Viaretti, M.; Tomašových, A.; Zhang, Y.; Wang, W.; Shi, G. R.; Shen, S.; Rae, J. W. B.; Angiolini, L. (2025). "Rapid rise in atmospheric CO₂ marked the end of the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age". Nature Geoscience: 1–7. doi:10.1038/s41561-024-01610-2.
11. Riddell-Young, B.; Lee, J. E.; Brook, E. J.; Schmitt, J.; Fischer, H.; Bauska, T. K.; Menking, J. A.; Iseli, R.; Clark, J. R. (2025). "Abrupt changes in biomass burning during the last glacial period". Nature. 637 (8044): 91–96. doi:10.1038/s41586-024-08363-3. PMID 39743610.

• 2025 in paleontology