Related topics: teeth · fossil

Prehistoric shark hid its largest teeth

Early sharks that lived 300 to 400 million years ago not only dropped their lower jaws downward but rotated them outward when opening their mouths. This enabled them to make the best of their largest, sharpest and inward-facing ...

Beak bone reveals pterosaur like no other

A new species of small pterosaur—similar in size to a turkey—has been discovered, which is unlike any other pterosaur seen before due to its long slender toothless beak.

The evolutionary puzzle of the mammalian ear

The vertebrate ear is a remarkable structure. Tightly encapsulated within the densest bone of the skeleton, it comprises the smallest elements of the vertebrate skeleton (auditory ossicles) and gives rise to several different ...

Tiny prehistoric lizard sheds light on reptile evolution

The discovery of a new species of prehistoric reptile from Germany is reported this week in Scientific Reports. The anatomical features of the species, named Vellbergia bartholomaei, add to our understanding of the early ...

New finding on origin of avian predentary in Mesozoic birds

The predentary bone is one of the most enigmatic skeletal elements in avian evolution. Located at the tip of the lower jaw, this bone is absent in more primitive birds and in living birds; it is thought to have been lost ...

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