Sea cows (Sirenia) descended from four legged mammals that roamed Africa when this continent was isolated. They belong to the Afrotheria, the ‘African beasts’.
Our cells have a built-in genetic clock, tracking time… but how accurately?
Stopwatch image via www.shutterstock.com.
How do scientists figure out when evolutionary events – like species splitting away from a common ancestor – happened? It turns out our DNA is a kind of molecular clock, keeping time via genetic changes.
Good science isn’t rooted in chance. It’s based on people with expertise being in the right place at the right time, equipped with enough knowledge to know what they’re looking at.
How our ancestors ate could explain why today’s humans are mostly right-handed.
Flickr/Hugo Martins
Mammals’ ancestors had a third eye and the fossil record of its disappearance tells us the story of the evolution of one of our most important features: warm blood.
Dinosaur bones unearthed at one of Australia’s richest fossil sites have introduced us to a new species: Savannasaurus, one of a family of huge dinosaurs that trekked here more than 100 million years ago.
Qilinyu, shown here front and top left, with its kin Entelognathus and small worm-like conodont animals swimming in the background.
Dingua Yang/Inst. Vertebrate Palaeontology & Palaeoanthropology
DNA analysis suggests that a newly discovered species of bison roamed Europe some 17,000 years ago - as prehistoric cave artists were trying to tell us all along.