Adaptive radiations in the Mesozoic
Bony fishes are the most diverse of all extant vertebrate groups. A comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the group now provides new insights into its 250-million-year evolutionary history. The Ging…
Showing posts with the label Palaeontology
Short-faced bears, largest carnivores in the Ice Age, became omnivores to survive
Based on the analysis of fossil teeth conducted by researcher Alejandro Romero, from the University of Alicante's Departament of Biotechnology, a study shows that short-faced bears (Arctodus simu…
Two-billion-year-old salt rock reveals rise of oxygen in ancient atmosphere
A 2-billion-year-old chunk of sea salt provides new evidence for the transformation of Earth's atmosphere into an oxygenated environment capable of supporting life as we know it. A sample of 2-bi…
Evidence for a giant flood in the central Mediterranean Sea
Marine scientists have uncovered evidence of one of the largest floods in Earth's history in the central Mediterranean seafloor. Artistic interpretation of the flooding of the Mediterranean throu…
The curse of zombie fossils
New research has revealed how the history of life can be distorted by the ways animals decompose and lose body parts as they decay - and the ways in which decayed bodies ultimately become fossilised.…
Prehistoric coastline discovered in West London
Engineers working on Britain’s new high speed railway have discovered an ancient, sub-tropical coastline dating back 56 million years. A depiction of what the area would have looked like during the P…
Dinosaur frills and horns did not evolve for species recognition
The elaborate frills and horns of a group of dinosaurs including Triceratops and Styracosaurus did not evolve to help species recognise each other, according to researchers at Queen Mary University o…
New understanding of Kenyan paleoenvironments opens window on human evolution in the area
Interest in human evolution has stimulated new geological work in the southern rift valley of Kenya. A new Geological Society of America Bulletin article by Anna K. Behrensmeyer and colleagues prese…
Giant bear of the late Pleistocene found in Buenos Aires
It was discovered on the banks of the Salado River, northwest of the province of Buenos Aires, a paleontological site has revealed a lot of fossils in recent weeks. The skull and jaw of this giant be…
Burrowing into the inner world of snake evolution
Looking inside the head of a snake is so much easier when the snake is a fossil. Flinders University and South Australian Museum postdoctoral researcher Alessandro Palci and other evolutionary palaeo…
New research solves the 60-year-old paleontological mystery of a 'phantom' dicynodont
A new study has re-discovered fossil collections from a 19th century hermit that validate 'phantom' fossil footprints collected in the 1950s showing dicynodonts coexisting with dinosaurs. Ske…
Are palaeontologists naming too many species?
A comprehensive new study looking at variations in Ichthyosaurus, a common British Jurassic ichthyosaur (sea-going reptile) also known as 'Sea Dragons', has provided important information int…
Tree-ring research helps analyze droughts in Mongolia
The extreme wet and dry periods Mongolia has experienced in the late 20th and early 21st centuries are rare but not unprecedented and future droughts may be no worse, according to an international re…
520-million-year-old fossil brains found in ancient predator
Scientists have peered into the brain of a prehistoric creature that lived around 520 million years ago. Fifteen fossils of the ancient predator were recently discovered in Greenland, which had fortu…
The early bird got to fly: Archaeopteryx was an active flyer
The question of whether the Late Jurassic dino-bird Archaeopteryx was an elaborately feathered ground dweller, a glider, or an active flyer has fascinated palaeontologists for decades. Valuable new i…
Pterosaurs went out with a bang, not a whimper
Fossils of six new species of pterosaurs - giant flying reptiles that flew over the heads of the dinosaurs - have been discovered by a research team led by the Milner Centre for Evolution at the Univ…
A cold case on Greenland’s glaciers warms up with new evidence
It may not rank among the all-time greatest dramas, but the history of ice on Greenland has been a source of scientific controversy for more than a decade. Iceberg off the coast of Greenland [Credit:…