The first bird to inhabit Earth used its robust hind legs to make two or three powerful leaps while flapping its way to flight, according to a study by the University of Southampton published in Developmental Biology.
Evolution
Aug 12, 2026
0
170
Nearly 80 years ago, a British expedition discovered the battered remains of a giant fossil on the peak of an Arctic island. Unable to take it with them, they snapped some pictures, took some bones and left the fossil to ...
Snakes are highly modified lizards, with more than 4,000 living species today. The origin of snakes has long been one of evolutionary biology's most debated questions. Their sparse fossil record has made it hard to pin down ...
Evolution
Aug 9, 2026
0
2242
The Mauritian dodo—a global symbol of human-caused extinction and one of the world's largest pigeons—may not have deserved its reputation as a silly simpleton and may have been the only member of its group to live in the ...
Ecology
Aug 8, 2026
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44
The dodo has been extinct for more than 300 years, wiped out within decades of humans arriving on its home island of Mauritius, but it lives on in the public imagination.
Paleontology & Fossils
Aug 8, 2026
0
18
A new study led by a Duke University scientist overturns a long-held idea about how primates, including humans, came to have such large and sophisticated brains. The research finds that the dramatic expansion of the primate ...
Evolution
Aug 6, 2026
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356
Iguanodontians are a diverse group of herbivorous dinosaurs that lived from the Late Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous and had a worldwide distribution. Intercontinental dispersal events between Asia, North America and Europe ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Aug 6, 2026
0
39
Dinosaurs are famous for being big, from the towering Tyrannosaurus rex to the colossal Apatosaurus. But a new study published today in the journal Evolution by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and Princeton ...
Evolution
Aug 5, 2026
0
284
For the first time, researchers have discovered a new species of extinct amphibian from Ice Age Los Angeles at La Brea Tar Pits: a spadefoot toad they have named Spea labreae. Only one other extinct Pleistocene amphibian ...
Ecology
Aug 5, 2026
1
289
Only two complete dodo skulls are known to exist anywhere in the world: one at the Natural History Museum Denmark and one at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The specimen housed in Copenhagen has been preserved ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Aug 5, 2026
0
66
