What paleontologists had believed to be spiny fins turned out to be elongated jaws. New examination of fossils that were 365 million years old revealed a fish with a remarkable lower jaw.
The frill-necked lizard is one of many land animals that reached Australia from Southeast Asia.
Damien Esquerré
There’s no single reason many Asian animals spread to Australia but few went the other way – but climate, geography and the slow drift of tectonic plates all played a role.
Giraffes are the latest animals to show they can solve tasks using statistical reasoning – and the only one to do this with a small brain relative to body size.
The findings come from placoderm fish fossils found in Western Australia’s Kimberley region. This extinct order of fish represents some of our earliest jawed ancestors.
While we know that most chameleons have such a prehensile tail, it’s not yet clear how it works and what makes it simultaneously so flexible and strong.
Graffiti obscures beautiful curved invertebrate traces on a rock surface in South Africa.
Charles Helm
These surfaces are of profound scientific, cultural, heritage, environmental, and aesthetic importance. Unfortunately, they are threatened - by graffiti.
Were starfish really the oldest relatives of vertebrates such as mammals?
Yellowj/Shutterstock
Scientists used to believe that a group containing starfish and sea urchin were the closest relatives of vertebrates like humans. But new research challenges this idea.
A reconstruction of the Priscomyzon family.
Kristen Tietjen
Since the 19th century, biologists have treated the larvae of lampreys as a relic of evolutionary ancestry that could potentially give clues about vertebrate origins. Now fossils overturn that view.
The three-toed skink can give birth to live young and lay eggs in the same pregnancy. What can this little critter teach us about the evolution of live birth?
The arrangement of bones in our specimen’s fins are the same as those of ‘fingers’ in tetrapods. The only difference is the digits are locked within the fin, and not free moving.
A genetic “clock” lets scientists estimate how long extinct creatures lived. Wooly mammoths could expect around 60 years.
Australian Museum
The discovery of a perfectly preserved snake skull fossil answers many questions about the evolution of snakes from lizards.
‘Amphy’ has features of both simple and more complex forms of life – and so can help us understand important steps in evolution.
from www.shutterstock.com
The marine creature amphioxus allows scientists to explore some of the steps that took place as simple creatures evolved to become complex animals.
A member of a rare group of 410-million-year-old jawless fishes from Australia meets a mate.
along the shoreline (artist’s impression).
Nobumichi Tamura
New research shows shallow, near-land seas similar to Bass Strait were critical in the early days of fish evolution. These are the waters we need to protect now to ensure ongoing biodiversity.
Palaeontologist, Albany Museum (supported by the Millennium Trust and the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences, the NRF and the NSCF), Rhodes University