Our study on weird ancient marine animals called radiodonts supports the idea that vision played a crucial role during the Cambrian Explosion, a rapid burst of evolution about 500 million years ago.
One avian track, probably made by a large gull or a small goose, was found in sediments that have been dated to about 400,000 years. That makes it the oldest avian track reported from southern Africa.
A very early mammal ancestor is one of the most recent discoveries at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs in Nova Scotia. This new finding sheds further light on theories of mammalian evolution.
The footprints of over 20 different prehistoric people, pressed into volcanic ash thousands of years ago in Tanzania, show possible evidence for sexual division of labor in this ancient community.
The skull of Oculudentavis, found encased in amber, provides new clues into the transition from dinosaurs to birds and may be smallest of either ever found.
The analysis suggests that there was a mass extinction event at the time of the end-Permian, on land - and that it happened at the same time as the marine end-Permian extinction.
20 years ago, who could predict how much more researchers would know today about the human past – let alone what they could learn from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque, or satellites in space.
Pedro L. Godoy, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)
Paleontologists created an evolutionary map of how croc body size changed over the last 200 million years – with some interesting implications for today’s species.
Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for about 180 million years. But around 66 million years ago, a huge rock from outer space (called an asteroid) smashed into the Earth. Then things got worse for dinosaurs.
A series of new studies sheds light on the population crash and extinction of the giant birds, lemurs and more that roamed the island until around A.D. 700-1000.