Paleontology

A transdisciplinary study of the dietary evolution of the first agricultural and pastoral communities in Central EuropeCredit: Photo credit: Marina Lozano Photo credit Tamás Hajdu The lifestyle and eating habits of human groups that…

Credit: Rick Stikkelorum, Arthur Ulmann & Pasha van Bijlert Humans and animals have a preferred walking speed. This is, in part, influenced by the amount of energy required: they prefer to walk at the speed at which they…

The report, based on research at a unique fossil site in Utah, provides new evidence that tyrannosaurs were social carnivores and not solitary hunters as popularly envisioned.Credit: U.S. Bureau of Land Management FAYETTEVILLE,…

Credit: Kristian Carlson A long-awaited, high-tech analysis of the upper body of famed fossil "Little Foot" opens a window to a pivotal period when human ancestors diverged from apes, new USC research shows. Little Foot's…

Credit: Gina Viglietti Our planet's worst mass extinction event happened 252 million years ago when massive volcanic eruptions caused catastrophic climate change. The vast majority of animal species went extinct, and when…

Credit: Christian Panton New, detailed study of the Renland Ice Cap offers the possibility of modelling other smaller ice caps and glaciers with significantly greater accuracy than hitherto. The study combined airborne radar data…

Scientists have sequenced ancient DNA from soil for the first time and the advance will transform what is known about everything from evolution to climate change.Credit: Devlin A. Gandy Scientists have sequenced ancient DNA…

Tarantulas are among the most notorious spiders, due in part to their size, vibrant colors and prevalence throughout the world. But one thing most people don't know is that tarantulas are homebodies. Females and their young rarely leave…

Credit: Kamitoge A single footprint left by a cat-sized dinosaur around 100 million years ago has been discovered in China by an international team of palaeontologists. University of Queensland researcher Dr Anthony…

Credit: Oscar Sanisidro (Universidad de Alcalá de Henares) The study sheds new light upon an ongoing debate among conservation biologists: whether we should conserve sets of endangered species, or whether we should preserve…

Credit: Williams et al./iScience Little is known about azhdarchid pterosaurs, gigantic flying reptiles with impressive wingspans of up to 12 meters. Cousins of dinosaurs and the largest animals ever to fly, they first appeared…

Scientists also find two new, nearly 2-million-year-old specimens--likely the earliest pieces of the H. erectus skeleton yet discoveredCredit: A. Hammond/© AMNH A new study verifies the age and origin of one of the oldest…

Credit: Illustration by Gabriel Ugueto Ancient clues, in the shape of fossils and archaeological evidence of varying quality scattered across Australia, have formed the basis of several hypotheses about the fate of megafauna that…

Researchers use 3-D-printed models to explore fractal-like interior shell patternsCredit: David Peterman Ammonoids, ancestors of today's octopus, squid and cuttlefish, bobbed and jetted their way through the oceans for around…

Picture the past. Change the future.Credit: Illustration by Cirenia Arias Baldrich for Past Global Changes Horizons, vol. 1 Past Global Changes Horizons is a scientific review of why the study of Earth's history is important,…

A new 160-million-year-old arboreal pterosaur species, dubbed 'Monkeydactyl', has the oldest true opposed thumb - a novel structure previously not known in pterosaurs. An international team of researchers from China, Brazil, UK,…

Credit: Ornella Bertrand Squirrels and other tree-dwelling rodents evolved to have bigger brains than their burrowing cousins, a study suggests. This greater brain power has given them key abilities needed to thrive in woodland…

Credit: Hanneke Jacobs Over the past few years, Naturalis has painstakingly made 3D scans of every single bone in Trix the T.rex's skeleton. Based on these scans, a modeler made a three dimensional design and reconstructed the…

Credit: M. Ponce de León and Ch. Zollikofer, UZH Modern humans are fundamentally different from our closest living relatives, the great apes: We live on the ground, walk on two legs and have much larger brains. The first…

Credit: Julius Csotonyi April12, 2021 - Gray wolves are among the largest predators to have survived the extinction at the end of the last ice age around11,700 years ago. Today, they can be found roaming Yukon's boreal forest…