Animals in the Goldilocks zone—neither too big, nor too small, but just the right size—face a lower risk of extinction than do those on both ends of the scale, according to an extensive global analysis.
Ecology
Sep 18, 2017
0
39
From miniature elephants to monster mice, and even Hobbit-sized humans, size changes in island animals are well-known to science. Biologists have long believed that large animals evolving on islands tend to get smaller, while ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 23, 2012
2
0
The supercontinent Pangaea, which was a combination of today's continents, broke apart at the end of the Triassic period due to large-scale volcanic activity. This volcanic activity was thought to be the most likely cause ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 31, 2022
0
195
(PhysOrg.com) -- Were dinosaurs endothermic (warm-blooded) like present-day mammals and birds or ectothermic (cold-blooded) like present-day lizards? The implications of this simple-sounding question go beyond deciding whether ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 11, 2009
1
1
The thorny skate's population may have declined, but not by enough to justify listing it under the Endangered Species Act, the federal government has ruled.
Ecology
Feb 25, 2017
0
8
You might think that prey would invariably flee in terror from a predator. But what if an animal was apathetic in the face of danger?
Plants & Animals
Dec 16, 2019
0
245
A quartet of researchers from the University of Tokyo in Japan and the University of Reading in the U.K. has found an association between the evolution of foot posture and body size in mammals. In their paper published in ...
(Phys.org) —Researchers have ruled out climate change as the cause of extinction of most of Australia's giant animals, including giant kangaroos, three metre-tall flightless birds and the Tasmanian tiger, around 50,000 ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 1, 2013
6
1
A study into the feeding behaviour of two extinct European rhinoceros species has revealed an unexpected survival strategy for a mammalian family of the Ice Ages. The new findings published in the journal Quaternary Science ...
Ecology
Jan 12, 2015
0
115
Paleontologists have made great strides in understanding how extinct animals like dinosaurs walked, ran, swam and flew when they were alive—but much about the mechanics of how different species moved remains uncertain. ...
Evolution
Feb 8, 2021
0
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