Researchers led by the University of Bristol show that the earliest jaws in the fossil record were caught in a trade-off between maximizing their strength and their speed.
Paleontology & Fossils
Mar 18, 2022
0
366
Anewly described softshell turtle that lived in North Dakota 66.5 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period, just before the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, is one of the earliest known species of the genus, according ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 11, 2022
0
408
In an ancient shallow bay of what is now Montana, the body of an octopus-like creature the size of a fist was buried on the seafloor. Some 325–328 million years later, a new paper published in Nature Communications provides ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Mar 9, 2022
1
93
New research led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and Yale shows that the oldest ancestors of the group of animals that includes octopuses and vampire squids had not 8 but 10 arms. The study, which ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Mar 8, 2022
0
201
A new study reveals that the iconic extinct Megalodon or megatooth shark grew to larger sizes in cooler environments than in warmer areas.
Evolution
Mar 6, 2022
1
2285
Abrupt shifts in the evolution of animals—short periods of time when an organism rapidly changes size or form—have long been a challenge for theorists including Darwin. Now a newly published research paper supports the ...
Evolution
Mar 2, 2022
0
1192
By applying an algorithm akin to what Facebook uses to make friend suggestions, researchers have identified communities of ancient life in the fossil record and tracked how their numbers changed through each of the planet's ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Feb 28, 2022
0
43
A newly discovered extinct duck that lived in ancient Aotearoa New Zealand could be key to dating other finds from an ancient lake bed uncovered in St Bathans, Central Otago.
Paleontology & Fossils
Feb 23, 2022
0
106
The land contact between North and South America has long been a fountain of research. The Isthmus of Panama—the narrow strip of land between the two continents—fully emerged about 3.5 million years ago. It allowed contact ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Jan 25, 2022
0
34
Most of us are captivated by the thought of a "living fossil," which is any organism that appeared millions of years ago in the fossil record and survives today, relatively unchanged.
Plants & Animals
Jan 21, 2022
0
5
