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UrduResearchers supported by FAPESP proposed a procedure based on analyses of quartz and feldspar grains transported to the Atlantic Ocean by the Parnaíba River in Brazil’s Northeast region.
Tag: PALEONTOLOGY
Exceptional fossils may need a breath of air to form
Some of the world’s most exquisite fossil beds were formed millions of years ago during time periods when the Earth’s oceans were largely without oxygen. That association has led paleontologists to believe that the world’s best-preserved fossil collections come from…
The genetic imprint of Palaeolithic has been detected in North African populations
They have identified a small genetic imprint of the inhabitants of the region in Palaeolithic times, thus ruling out the theory that recent migrations from other regions completely erased the genetic traces of ancient North Africans
A novel method for analyzing marine sediments contributes to paleoclimate reconstitution
Researchers supported by FAPESP proposed a procedure based on analyses of quartz and feldspar grains transported to the Atlantic Ocean by the Parnaíba River in Brazil’s Northeast region.
Exceptional fossils may need a breath of air to form
Some of the world’s most exquisite fossil beds were formed millions of years ago during time periods when the Earth’s oceans were largely without oxygen. That association has led paleontologists to believe that the world’s best-preserved fossil collections come from…
Discriminating diets of meat-eating dinosaurs
A big problem with dinosaurs is that there seem to be too many meat-eaters. From studies of modern animals, there is a feeding pyramid, with plants at the bottom, then plant-eaters, and then meat-eaters at the top. A new study…
New Colorado fossil record documents life’s rebound after Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction
Nearly 66 million years ago, the reign of dinosaurs ended and the ascendency of mammals on Earth began. While this changing of the taxonomic guard is well recognized, the details remain unclear. Now poised to change that, a collection of…
Butterflies and plants evolved in sync, but moth ‘ears’ predated bats
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Butterflies and moths rank among the most diverse groups in the animal kingdom, with nearly 160,000 known species, ranging from the iconic blue morpho to the crop-devouring armyworm. Scientists have long attributed these insects’ rich variety to…
It really was the asteroid
New study underpins the idea of a sudden impact killing off dinosaurs and much of the other life
Collective behavior 480 million years ago
Though our understanding of the anatomy of the earliest animals is growing ever more precise, we know next to nothing about their behaviour. Did group behaviour arise recently or is it primeval? To answer this question, researchers from the CNRS,…
New study shows huge dinosaurs evolved different cooling systems to combat heat stroke
Researchers use 3D imaging to discover multiple heat exchangers in dinosaur heads
2nd ERC Synergy Grant goes to GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
Stephan Sobolev together with researchers from Grenoble, France, and Madison, Wisconsin, will investigate Earth’s evolution
Paleontology: New Australian pterosaur may have survived the longest
The discovery of a previously unknown species of pterosaur, which may have persisted as late as the Turonian period (90-93 million years ago), is reported in Scientific Reports this week. The fossil, which includes parts of the skull and five…
Fossil fish gives new insights into the evolution
An international research team led by Giuseppe Marramà from the Institute of Paleontology of the University of Vienna discovered a new and well-preserved fossil stingray with an exceptional anatomy, which greatly differs from living species. The find provides new insights into the evolution of these animals and sheds light on the recovery of marine ecosystems after the mass extinction occurred 66 million years ago.
African evidence support Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis
First African evidence to support hypothesis of an asteroid impact that contributed to the extinction of large animals 12,800 years ago
Using past extinctions to drive future conservation
Late Quaternary extinctions of large animals have historically been understood as global phenomena, resulting from climate fluctuations or quickly dispersing human populations. However, new technologies are enabling fine-grain analyses that shed new light on individual species’ varied responses to changing…
Seagrass meadows harbor wildlife for centuries, highlighting need for conservation
Seagrass meadows put down deep roots, persisting in the same spot for hundreds and possibly thousands of years, a new study shows. Seagrasses, crucial sources of shelter and food for thousands of species, are threatened globally by coastal development, pollution…
What did ancient crocodiles eat? Study says as much as a snout can grab
While most people imagine alligators and crocodiles as being much the same now as they were during the age of dinosaurs, digging into the fossil record shows much more diverse species through time. Semiaquatic ambush predators resembling modern alligators and…
Dishing the dirt on an early man cave
Microscopic study yields intriguing ancient Denisovan secrets
First glimpse at what ancient Denisovans may have looked like, using DNA methylation data
If you could travel back in time 100,000 years, you’d find yourself living among multiple groups of humans, including anatomically modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans. But exactly what our Denisovan relatives might have looked like had been anyone’s guess for…
Dust from a giant asteroid crash caused an ancient ice age
About 466 million years ago, long before the age of the dinosaurs, the Earth froze. The seas began to ice over at the Earth’s poles, and the new range of temperatures around the planet set the stage for a boom…
Scientists discover one of world’s oldest bird species in Waipara, New Zealand
Toothed fossil find rewrites history of seabird family
Mysterious Jurassic crocodile identified 250 years after fossil find
A prehistoric crocodile that lived around 180 million years ago has been identified – almost 250 years after the discovery of it fossil remains. A fossil skull found in a Bavarian town in the 1770s has been recognised as the…
What the noggin of modern humans’ ancestor would have looked like
Despite having lived about 300,000 years ago, the oldest ancestor of all members of Homo sapiens had a surprisingly modern skull–as suggested by a model created by CNRS researcher Aurélien Mounier of the Histoire Naturelle de l’Homme Préhistorique laboratory (CNRS…
USC scientist identifies new species of giant flying reptile
The prehistoric creature had a wingspan like a small plane, it could soar across oceans or continent
Identity crisis for fossil beetle helps rewrite beetle family tree
There are more different kinds of beetle than just about any other kind of animal–scientists have described about 5,800 different species of mammals, compared with nearly 400,000 species of beetles. Of those 400,000 kinds of beetles, more than 64,000 species…
A new duck-billed dinosaur, Kamuysaurus japonicus, identified
The dinosaur, whose nearly complete skeleton was unearthed from 72 million year old marine deposits in Mukawa Town in northern Japan, belongs to a new genus and species of a herbivorous hadrosaurid dinosaur, according to the study published in Scientific…
Palaeontology: New hadrosaur from Japan sheds light on dinosaur diversity
The discovery of a previously unknown species of hadrosaur dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Period is reported in Scientific Reports this week. The fossil, found in Japan, furthers our understanding of hadrosaur diversity in the Far East and hadrosaurid evolution…
Denisovan finger bone more closely resembles modern human digits than Neanderthals
Morphology of the denisovan phalanx closer to modern humans than to Neanderthals
Death march of segmented animal unravels critical evolutionary puzzle
The death march of a segmented bilaterian animal unearthed from ~550-million-year-old rocks in China shows that the oldest mobile and segmented animals evolved by the Ediacaran Period (635-539 million years ago). The research was published in Nature on Sept. 4…
Ancient animal species: Fossils dating back 550 million years among first animal trails
In a remarkable evolutionary discovery, a team of scientists co-led by a Virginia Tech geoscientist has discovered what could be among the first trails made by animals on the surface of the Earth roughly a half-billion years ago. Shuhai Xiao,…
Tropical sea snake uses its head to ‘breathe’
Scientists describe complex oxygen absorption system
A face for Lucy’s ancestor
Researchers discover remarkably complete 3.8-million-year-old cranium of Australopithecus anamensis
Paleontologists discovered diversity of insect pollinators in 99-million-year old amber
Research by Russian paleontologists revealed an unexpected diversity of insect pollinators in 99-mil
Ancient die-off greater than the dinosaur extinction
Clues from Canadian rocks formed billions of year ago reveal a previously unknown loss of life even greater than that of the mass extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, when Earth lost nearly three-quarters of its plant and…
A 3.8-million-year-old fossil from Ethiopia reveals the face of Lucy’s ancestor
Researchers discover ‘remarkably complete’ cranium of Australopithecus anamensis
Prehistoric puma poo reveals oldest parasite DNA ever recorded
The oldest parasite DNA ever recorded has been found in the ancient, desiccated feces of a puma
Filter-feeding pterosaurs were the flamingos of the Late Jurassic
Modern flamingoes employ filter feeding and their feces are, as a result, rich in remains of microscopically-small aquatic prey. Very similar contents are described from more than 150 million year old pterosaur droppings in a recent paper in PeerJ .…
The composition of fossil insect eyes surprises researchers
Eumelanin – a natural pigment found for instance in human eyes – has, for the first time, been identified in the fossilized compound eyes of 54-million-year-old crane-flies. It was previously assumed that melanic screening pigments did not exist in arthropods.…
Extinct Caribbean bird yields DNA after 2,500 years in watery grave
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Scientists have recovered the first genetic data from an extinct bird in the Caribbean, thanks to the remarkably preserved bones of a Creighton’s caracara from a flooded sinkhole on Great Abaco Island. Studies of ancient DNA from…
In the shadow of the dinosaurs
A new sphenodontian from Brazil is the oldest record of the group in Gondwana
Monster penguin find in Waipara, New Zealand
Gigantic prehistoric penguin had close Antarctic relative
HHU researchers research the basic principles of life
Volkswagen Foundation to provide funding of EUR 1.5 million
What a group of bizarre-looking bats can tell us about the evolution of mammals
Bats with skulls and teeth adapted to a wide range of diets are helping scientists understand how major groups of mammals first evolved. ***A video quiz of the bats is available to embed from: https:/ / www. youtube. com/ watch?v=…