It’s that time of year when we reflect on the biggest events of the last 365 days.

I am, of course, referring to all the cool fossils that researchers have found. We’ve rounded up our favorite fossil finds announced in 2023 from bizarre teeth, chirping mega-dinos, and the absolutely sickest fight to the death you’ll EVER hear about.

Let’s dig in! [ intro music] First up is a face that only a mother could love. Or maybe a utensil drawer. In January 2023, researchers described a brand-new species of pterosaur they had unearthed from limestone in Southern Germany.

It’s not only incredibly complete for a fossil, but it’s also incredibly weird. With at least 480 teeth, this flying reptile's set of chompers was impressive. Except this toothsome grin wasn’t built for chomping at all, but filter feeding!

The series of small, hooked teeth actually formed an interlocking wave across the jaw, making its mouth truly stand out from other pterosaurs. And it gets weirder. Their jaws were shaped like two bent spatulas, and with noticeably shorter and straighter teeth along the front of each jaw, which created a permanent funnel-like opening.

Think roseate spoonbill meets baleen whale. So any small aquatic critters like plankton that entered through this opening with a swoosh of water got stuck in a toothy trap as water drained through the gaps. While seemingly unique to the pterosaurs, a similar strategy has worked well for other filter filters, including dabbling ducks that filter out goodies at the surface of the water.

So they had a really good reason for evolving with that messed up looking face. No offense, buddy. But the utensil-shaped pterosaur jaw was not the only impressive dental discovery of 2023.

This year, paleontologists also described a bizarre new type of mosasaur, which were marine lizards that dominated the ocean depths in the late Cretaceous period. And this one happened to have a tooth shape we’ve never seen before. We mean that.

Never! It’s the first time we’ve discovered this specific shape of tooth fossil in any species of animal on Earth. They actually look kinda like phillips-head screwdrivers, only with serrations along the grooves.

And while I wish I could say more, we don’t have a lot of them to work with. Only 3 actual teeth were found. Well, technically more like two and a bit.

But it was enough to raise significant excitement around this discovery. You might be wondering how exactly such a strange shape might translate in terms of diet. And the truth is, so are the researchers.

Since we have no living species to compare it to, it’s difficult to come to any strong conclusions. Clearly they weren’t using them to assemble furniture, but we know little beyond that. It is noted that they were a bit worn down, which implies this mosasaur wasn’t eating soft food with them.

But teeth like this aren’t suited for crushing thick-shelled critters, since those pointy tips would be at risk of shattering off. Could these large sea lizards have had a very particular diet? Or just a very specific type of feeding style?

Heck, maybe both! All we know currently is that, at least as far as we can tell, it never happened again. So your guess is as good as anyone’s really.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on what this mosasaur could have dined on, whether that’s screw-shaped crustaceans, or fastener-filled fish. Okay, we have a lot more than just teeth to talk about. Let’s get into the sparkly stuff.

Fossils like ammonites are gorgeous enough on their own, but when they shine a glitzy gold color that pops against the surrounding black shale rock? *Chef’s kiss* This particular fossil site is renowned for its impeccable preservation and for being, well, just so gosh darn pretty. A 2023 study looked at 70 fossils sampled from Germany’s Posidonia shale, ranging from crustaceans to fossilized poop. This area is significant because it’s home to a huge number of otherwise rare specimens, especially those with soft bodies, like squid.

Plus, the whole gold fossils thing. And while taking a deep dive into the mineralization of fossils in the region, they made a surprising discovery. It was assumed that the gold color on many fossils in the area meant they were rich in pyrite, a mineral also known as fool’s gold.

Pyrite tends to form in low-oxygen environments, which is a critical part of getting such well–preserved fossils. Or so we thought. The researchers were surprised to find that, even though there were clusters of pyrite in the rocks around the fossils, the fossils themselves didn’t actually have any pyrite within them!

Instead, any gold color in the fossils themselves came from phosphate minerals. The mineral makeup of these fossils tells a new story that basically goes against everything we thought we knew about fossil formation in this area. The fact that minerals like pyrite are showing up everywhere except the fossils tells us that the fossils formed in the presence of oxygen.

So while the surrounding rock needed to be anoxic to create the conditions for fossils to trap and preserve the dead thing, the process needed at least some oxygen to kickstart a chemical reaction to form the fossils themselves. Shiny. Now we’re going to shift gears and go from pretty fossils to pretty deadly ones.

The remains of one of the largest known land predators of its era were recovered from a site in Brazil, and it’s a doozy. The fossil dates back to the middle Permian period, around 260 to 270 million years ago. That puts us back before the world’s greatest mass extinction, and many million years before dinosaurs ever evolved.

The predator is a type of dinocephalian, which means “terrible head” because of their massively thick skulls. And this particular terrible head supported strong jaws for crushing bones and raising hell. This individual is the largest land predator we know of in all of South America from this time, and likely filled a role in the environment similar to today’s big cats.

So now we know what smaller South American animals probably had nightmares about. Which is Fun! I know, I know.

All this talk of fossils, and no dinosaurs yet? Well dino-heads, this one’s for you. When it comes to dinosaurs, another fan favorite has got to be the one that looked a bit like an armadillo on steroids, the Ankylosaurus.

This particular Ankylosaurus fossil was actually first discovered in 2005, but it had one piece so mysterious, it wasn’t identified until now. The discovery was worth the wait. After hemming and hawing for nearly 20 years, paleontologists finally identified the puzzling bone.

And it turned out to be the first ever fossilized reptilian dinosaur larynx, also known as the voice box. Now, a fossil of a larynx is super rare, given that it’s usually made of cartilage, which doesn’t fossilize well. That means we really don’t know much about the evolution of this organ in non-avian reptiles.

After comparing it to a range of organisms from turtles to crocodilians, this fossilized larynx turned out to be closest in form to the voice boxes of birds. So that means that the ankylosaur would have had finer control of their vocal cords compared to other reptiles, with the ability to open, close, and manipulate their airflow to modify sounds. This tells us that long before birds evolved, their early relatives were capable of complex vocal expressions, too.

And like today’s birds, they might have used these calls for attracting a mate, defending their turf, or communicating with their young. Though as it stands, we can’t be sure. Which means that maybe those fearsome dinosaurs of the past had less of a roar, and more of a sing-song-y warble.

Some fossils are always going to be a bit more exciting to the masses than others. For example, findings that revolve around anything with an extremely long neck. They’re just so wild looking!

There just aren’t any equally extreme necks today. Even giraffes can’t hold a candle to some of the ridiculous necks of yesteryear. But this extreme body form wasn’t exactly rare once upon a time.

It was a common strategy in marine reptiles, and it evolved independently multiple times! It comes with kind of an obvious downside, though. The neck is the part that holds your head on, and if something were to, say, chomp on that long neck, well.

Having a longer neck could surely pose a problem, especially in a sea full of hungry predators. And yeah, as it turns out, that was totally a problem. What’s more, the evidence had been right under our noses for a while now.

Two specimens of different Tanystropheus species, a type of long-necked marine reptile, had been hanging out in a paleontological museum in Zurich, Switzerland for quite some time. So while the fossil discovery itself isn’t recent, some new information about them was recently uncovered that tells an impressive and truly gruesome story of their demise. For starters, these two weren’t found whole - which isn’t surprising given that many fossil discoveries are only partial, scattered remains that get jigsaw-ed together.

But this time it’s different, because a new study figured out these particular individuals’ bones were separated right away, since they were straight-up decapitated. After a closer look, researchers realized that one of the reptile’s bones had traces of bite marks. Something not only tried to take a bite out of its neck, but after a first attempt that caused a major fracture, the neck was then bitten right off.

And while there weren't any tooth marks left behind on the other Tanystropheus spine, its splintered bones imply an equally violent attack. Not only is this about as hardcore as fossils come, it also gives us insight into predator-prey interactions and what life, and death, was like with an incredibly long neck. And yet, despite the risks, a long neck was clearly still a good evolutionary strategy, given how frequently it pops up in the fossil record.

Really puts a new spin on the phrase “sticking your neck out.” Oh, did I say that a dual neck-snapping was as hardcore as fossils get? I take it back. If that was the appetizer, here’s the main course.

In an extreme example of punching above your weight, two intertwined fossils discovered in China tell the incredible story of a mammal attacking a dinosaur three times its size.! Dinosaurs and mammals both appeared on the scene during the Late Triassic period. At the peak of their reign, dinosaurs definitely ruled the roost in terms of general size and fearsomeness, but that doesn’t mean mammals weren’t holding their own against reptilian rivals.

This particular mammal died biting into the ribs of its herbivorous victim, which was a bold move given the extreme size difference between the two. See, this bold attacker was about the size of a domestic cat. To be honest, it gives off strong badger vibes.

And this mammal wasn’t fighting fair - the fossil shows its paw gripping the dino by the jaw and its teeth are still embedded in its foe. So I’m sure you’re wondering, who won this fight-to-the-death? Unfortunately we’ll never know, given that their battle was dramatically cut short.

By a volcano! Which is why we have this fossil in the first place - these two combatants were so focused on fighting each other that they failed to notice the waves of ash and debris from a nearby eruption barreling their way. So while we’ll never know who would’ve won, we can certainly spend time daydreaming about the most metal fight in the fossil record.

From spatula-faced pterosaurs to decapitated marine reptiles, 2023 was clearly another impressive year for those of us that love fossils. And with every discovery that reveals the answers we’ve been searching for, they also leave us with new and exciting questions. So here’s hoping that 2024 brings more fascinating fossils to chew on.

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Happy new year! [ OUTRO MUSIC ]