An international team including scientists at the University of St Andrews has unlocked the secret of one of the great events of Earth's evolution – the Cambrian explosion.
Archaeology
Feb 19, 2016
27
1780
The Cambrian Period, which occurred between 541 million and 485 million years ago, is an important point in evolutionary history where most of the major groups of animals first appear in the fossil record. Often called the ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Feb 17, 2016
0
1002
Long before kangaroos carried their joeys in their pouches and honey bees nurtured their young in hives, there was the 508-million-year-old Waptia. Little is known about the shrimp-like creature first discovered in the renowned ...
Archaeology
Dec 17, 2015
0
1103
The first animals to have complex skeletons existed about 550 million years ago, fossils of a tiny marine creature unearthed in Namibia suggest.
Paleontology & Fossils
Nov 6, 2015
2
197
Mammals were evolving up to ten times faster in the middle of the Jurassic than they were at the end of the period, coinciding with an explosion of new adaptations, new research shows.
Archaeology
Jul 16, 2015
1
1430
Researchers have unearthed a fossil of a sponge, no bigger than a grain of sand, that existed 60 million years earlier than many expected.
Archaeology
Jul 8, 2015
25
465
(Phys.org)—A small team of researchers with the University of Bristol in the UK and another with Uppsala University in Sweden has found a reason for why soft tissue in some species fossilizes better than others. In their ...
A new study of teeth belonging to a particularly phallic-looking creature has led to the compilation of a prehistoric 'dentist's handbook' which may aid in the identification of previously unrecognized specimens from the ...
Archaeology
May 6, 2015
1
706
Since the Cambrian Explosion, ecosystems have suffered repeated mass extinctions, with the "Big 5" crises being the most prominent. Twenty years ago, a sixth major extinction was recognized in the Middle Permian (262 million ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 15, 2015
1
45
A new analysis of geologic history may help solve the riddle of the "Cambrian explosion," the rapid diversification of animal life in the fossil record 530 million years ago that has puzzled scientists since the time of Charles ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 31, 2014
8
0
