Scientists have described a new species of bat based on the oldest bat skeletons ever recovered. The study on the extinct bat, which lived in Wyoming about 52 million years ago, supports the idea that bats diversified rapidly on multiple continents during this time.
Tag: Paleobiology
What Ancient Underwater Food Webs Can Tell Us About the Future of Climate Change
UNLV analysis challenges the idea that ocean ecosystems have barely changed over millions of years, pointing scientists down a new path on conservation efforts and policy.
Armoured worm reveals the ancestry of three major animal groups
An international team of scientists, including from the Universities of Bristol and Oxford, and the Natural History Museum, have discovered that a well-preserved fossilised worm dating from 518-million-years-ago resembles the ancestor of three major groups of living animals.
Great White Sharks May Have Contributed to Megalodon Extinction
Megatooth sharks like, Otodus megalodon, more commonly known as megalodon, lived between 23 and 3.6 million years ago in oceans around the globe and possibly reached as large as 20 metres in length.
What Caused This Megatooth Shark’s Massive Toothache?
Did the world’s largest prehistoric shark need an orthodontist, or did it just have a bad lunch?
Sharp size reduction in dinosaurs that changed diet to termites
Dinosaurs were generally huge, but a new study of the unusual alvarezsaurs show that they reduced in size about 100 million years ago when they became specialised ant-eaters.
Fossils may hold clues to climate change, says BGSU paleobiologist
Evolution and extinction of an ancient mollusk, informs the research of Dr. Peg Yacobucci
All-purpose dinosaur opening reconstructed for first time
For the first time ever, a team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, have described in detail a dinosaur’s cloacal or vent – the all-purpose opening used for defecation, urination and breeding.
Mud-slurping chinless ancestors had all the moves
A team of researchers, led by the University of Bristol, has revealed our most ancient ancestors were ecologically diverse, despite lacking jaws and paired fins.
New study reveals how reptiles divided up the spoils in ancient seas
While dinosaurs ruled the land in the Mesozoic, the oceans were filled by predators such as crocodiles and giant lizards, but also entirely extinct groups such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs.
Now for the first time, researchers at the University of Bristol have modelled the changing ecologies of these great sea dragons.
Ancient giant armoured fish fed in a similar way to basking sharks
Scientists from the University of Bristol and the University of Zurich have shown that the Titanichthys – a giant armoured fish that lived in the seas and oceans of the late Devonian period 380-million-years ago – fed in a similar manner to modern day basking sharks.