News tagged with vertebrate evolution

Scientists lift lid on turtle evolution

The turtle is a closer relative of crocodiles and birds than of lizards and snakes, according to researchers who claim to have solved an age-old riddle in animal evolution.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 16, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1

Fossil teeth of Gigantopithecus found from Yunnan-Guizhou plateau

Pleistocene Gigantopithecus blacki is the largest species of all extinct and extant primates. Its diet, distribution and evolution remained unclear. According to a paper in press in the journal of Quaternary In ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Feb 29, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Examining evolution from a cellular perspective

The evolutionary processes of unicellular and multicellular organisms are continually under debate. John Torday, Ph.D., a lead investigator at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute (LA BioMed), has recently co-authored ...

Biology / Evolution

created Jan 25, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Researchers closer to understanding the evolution of sound production in fish

An international team of researchers studying sound production in perch-like fishes has discovered a link between two unrelated lineages of fishes, taking researchers a step closer to understanding the evolution of one of ...

Biology / Evolution

created Dec 15, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists construct, to maintain complementary DNA libraries of first lizard genome sequence

Scientists at Indiana University Bloomington's Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics are credited with constructing the cDNA libraries for the first-ever genome sequence of a non-bird reptile, the North American ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Sep 30, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Researchers solve mystery of disappearing bird digit

Evolution adds and subtracts, and nowhere is this math more evident than in vertebrates, which are programmed to have five digits on each limb. But many species do not. Snakes, of course, have no digits, and ...

Biology / Evolution

created Sep 04, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Three periods of innovation in gene regulation occurred during the evolution of vertebrate animals: study

Over the past 530 million years, the vertebrate lineage branched out from a primitive jawless fish wriggling through Cambrian seas to encompass all the diverse forms of fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. Now ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Aug 18, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

The peculiar feeding mechanism of the first vertebrates

A fang-like tooth on double upper lips, spiny teeth on the tongue and a pulley-like mechanism to move the tongue backwards and forwards -- this bizarre bite belongs to a conodont and, thanks to fresh fossil ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 19, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Researchers reveal ancient origins of modern opossum

A University of Florida researcher has co-authored a study tracing the evolution of the modern opossum back to the extinction of the dinosaurs and finding evidence to support North America as the center of ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Dec 16, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Ancient pygmy sea cow discovered

(PhysOrg.com) -- The discovery of a Middle Eocene (48.6-37.2 million years ago) sea cow fossil by McGill University professor Karen Samonds has culminated in the naming of a new species. This primitive "dugong" ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Dec 14, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 0

How does this grab you? Study identifies first ancestor with a 'grasping hand'

In the Late Paleozoic (260 million years ago), long before dinosaurs dominated the Earth, ancient precursors to mammals took to the trees to feed on leaves and live high above predators that prowled the land, ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Jul 29, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0