EXPLORE THE SCIENCE
Fossils, films, and field notes — the real science, up close
Everything here is built to be watched, listened to, and pored over together. Real specimens with museum-grade labels, short films worth pausing on, and notes straight from our researchers' desks.
WATCH & WONDER
The science, in motion
Short, accurate films to watch together — the kind of questions that start a dinner-table conversation. Nothing autoplays; tap to watch.
Parent Paleontology Society · your channel
TED-Ed · Nizar Ibrahim
TED-Ed · Len Bloch
TED-Ed · Jack Horner
TED-Ed · Emma Schachner
LISTEN
Field notes you can hear
Press play to have each note read aloud — handy for a young explorer who'd rather listen than read. The full text is always on screen.
In 2014, a team re-described Spinosaurus aegyptiacus from new skeletal material in Morocco. The short hind limbs, dense bones, and paddle-like tail told a story nobody expected: this was a dinosaur built to swim. It changed how we picture predators of the Cretaceous rivers.
You can read a diet from a single tooth. Cone-shaped and smooth means gripping slippery fish. Blade-like with serrations means slicing flesh. When we find both kinds in the same rock layer, we know two very different hunters once shared the same river.
FROM THE COLLECTION
Real specimens, real provenance
A rotating look at fossils our young researchers study — each labelled the way a museum would: genus and species, the geological formation it came from, and how old it is.
Spinosaurus aegyptiacus
Kem Kem Group, Morocco · Late Cretaceous (~95 Ma)
A cone-shaped, lightly ridged tooth built for gripping slippery fish — direct evidence of a semi-aquatic predator.
Mosasaurus
Navesink Formation, Monmouth County, NJ · Late Cretaceous (~70 Ma)
Robust crushing tooth from a giant marine lizard that ruled the seaway covering what is now New Jersey.
Dactylioceras
Whitby Mudstone, Yorkshire, England · Early Jurassic (~180 Ma)
A tightly ribbed ammonite — an extinct cephalopod whose growth spiral is a favorite first fossil for young collectors.
Triceratops horridus
Hell Creek Formation, Montana · Late Cretaceous (~67 Ma)
Fragment of the bony neck frill — part display billboard, part armor — from one of the last non-avian dinosaurs.
Carcharodontosaurus
Kem Kem Group, Morocco · Late Cretaceous (~95 Ma)
A blade-like, serrated tooth from one of the largest predators ever — a contemporary and rival of Spinosaurus.
Knightia eocaena
Green River Formation, Wyoming · Eocene (~50 Ma)
A complete articulated fish from an ancient lakebed — Wyoming's state fossil and proof of exquisite soft-sediment preservation.
Bring this home every Friday
The weekly expedition pack turns this science into something your family does together at the kitchen table — printable, screen-free, and grounded in real research.
Start Your Free Week