What did the first snakes look like?
The ancestral snakes in the grass actually lived in the forest, according to the most detailed look yet at the iconic reptiles.
BMC Evolutionary Biology is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on all aspects of molecular and non-molecular evolution of all organisms, as well as phylogenetics and palaeontology. It is journal policy to publish work deemed by peer reviewers to be a coherent and sound addition to scientific knowledge and to put less emphasis on interest levels, provided that the research constitutes a useful contribution to the field.
The ancestral snakes in the grass actually lived in the forest, according to the most detailed look yet at the iconic reptiles.
Evolution
May 19, 2015
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772
Paleontologists at the University of Toronto (U of T) and the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto have entirely revisited a tiny yet exceptionally fierce ancient sea creature called Habelia optata that has confounded scientists ...
Archaeology
Dec 21, 2017
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1397
A new species of lobopodian, a worm-like animal with soft legs from the Cambrian period (541 to 485 million years ago), has been described for the first time from fossils found in the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. ...
Archaeology
Jan 30, 2017
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1181
The secret communication of gibbons has been interpreted for the first time in a study published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. The research reveals the likely meaning of a number of distinct gibbon ...
Evolution
Apr 7, 2015
1
461
Researchers have found that cats in Australia are most likely descended from those brought by European settlers. Feral cats found on the islands surrounding Australia may represent founding populations from Europe, introduced ...
Evolution
Dec 3, 2015
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33
You don't name a sea creature after an ancient Greek warship unless it's built like a predator.
Archaeology
Aug 31, 2015
25
1426
Today's sloths might be known as slow, small animals, but their ancestors developed large body sizes at an amazing rate, according to an evolutionary reconstruction published today in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary ...
Evolution
Sep 10, 2014
7
0
When trying to better the odds for survival, a major dilemma that many animals face is dispersal—being able to pick up and leave to occupy new lands, find fresh resources and mates, and avoid intraspecies competition in ...
Archaeology
Nov 26, 2019
0
652
A common spinal disease could be the result of some people's vertebrae, the bones that make up the spine, sharing similarities in shape to a non-human primate. The research, published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary ...
Evolution
Apr 27, 2015
4
106
Why do animals that live in caves become blind? This question has long intrigued scientists and been the subject of hot debate.
Evolution
Apr 18, 2017
2
588