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.
As the climate changes and the needs of humans increase, lesser-known species like the Ethiopian wolf will face greater risk.
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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.
Shield bug guarding her eggs in the Ecuadorean rainforest.
Andreas Kay/Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
An old technique to explore the inside of fossils unfortunately ended up destroying some unique specimens. New technology has been used to reconstruct one such fossil.
This skull belongs to the carnivorous gorgonopsian therapsid Smilesaurus ferox which lived 255 million years ago.
Cradle of Humankind/Flickr/Wikimedia
Modern sabre-tooth mammals have their canines constantly on display. This allows them to seduce mates. But was sexual selection also an important phenomenon among our pre-mammalian ancestors?
The Grampians, like much of Australia, has swung from Millennium Drought to Big Wet and back again, putting animal populations on a rollercoaster that could get worse as climate change bites.
African lions were all considered to belong to a single subspecies but new research refutes that.
Laura Bertola
Islands are very special when it comes to quirks of evolution.
The Bramble Cay Melomys is arguably the first mammal driven extinct by climate change, rather than direct human interaction.
Ian Bell/EHP/State of Queensland
Australia’s conservation laws presume that we can preserve everything in its natural state. But in a changing world, we’ll have to be more flexible than that.
Pandas are bears – but two million years ago they stopped eating meat. Their digestive systems have not yet adapted, though. Do upset stomachs make panda pregnancy more difficult?
Mammals like otters use their whiskers to orientate themselves – just like their pre-mammalian ancestors did.
Peter Trimming/Flickr
Flying-foxes can cause conflict - just ask the people of Batemans Bay, NSW. But plans to disperse them won’t necessarily work without understanding these highly mobile animals’ behaviour.
Rats are true natives of our cities.
Rat image from www.shutterstock.com