Birds have always been charged with carrying the burden of our feelings, writes Delia Falconer. Yet we’ve never treated these inscrutable, vivacious companions particularly well.
Archaehierax sylvestris, whose remains have been unearthed in the arid South Australian outback, was the apex predator in a lush prehistoric forest filled with marsupials and waterfowl.
Finding a fossil tooth embedded in bone is always great news for palaeontologists, as it is the gateway to some otherwise out-of-reach understanding of the behaviour of extinct animals.
Jackals appeared and established themselves in Africa in at least the last five million years. These animals have evolved and adapted to the changing environment, allowing them to survive.
This is a crucial dinosaur for palaeontologists; the variety of fossils available means researchers can study the species’ growth through its whole life span.
By looking at the eye bones and ear canals of extinct dinosaurs, researchers show that a small ancient predator likely hunted at night and had senses as good as a modern barn owl.
Combining evidence from archaeology, geochronology and paleoenvironmental science, researchers identified how ancient humans by Lake Malawi were the first to substantially modify their environment.