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Articles on Mammals

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Temperature sensitivity makes western fence lizards vulnerable to climate change. Greg Shine/BLM

Climate change is already forcing lizards, insects and other species to evolve – and most can’t keep up

From dark dragonflies becoming paler to plants flowering earlier, some species are slowly evolving with the climate. Evolutionary biologists explain why few will evolve fast enough.
When Pangea Ultima forms, conditions on Earth will be too inhospitable for most mammals to survive. Maurus Spescha/Shutterstock

How the age of mammals could end

A supercontinent could raise global temperatures to such a degree that it could wipe out mammals.
The fossil deposits at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles have well-preserved remains of many prehistoric animals that got stuck in natural asphalt seeps over the past 60,000 years. Cullen Townsend, courtesy of NHMLAC

A changing climate, growing human populations and widespread fires contributed to the last major extinction event − can we prevent another?

New findings from the La Brea Tar Pits in southern California suggest human-caused wildfires in the region, along with a warming climate, led to the loss of most of the area’s large mammals.

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