Category: Palaeontology
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Meet the Venetoraptor gassenae, the pterosaur’s flightless ancestor
As if the thought of a flying pterosaur with a 6.5 foot wingspan dominating Earth’s skies wasn’t terrifying enough, paleontologists have now found an even older pterosaur ancestor with some prominent claws. The latest find might not have its signature wings just yet, but boasts a beak and sharp claws. The roughly 230-million-year-old lagerpetid unearthed…
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Pre-Jurassic reptile had weaker bite than modern crocs
Newswise — The apex predators that roamed the earth 230 million years ago had a much weaker bite than previously thought, and likely couldn’t crunch through bone to consume the entirety of their kills. In a new study published in The Anatomical Record, palaeontologists from the University of Birmingham have recreated the original skull anatomy of Saurosuchus, a Late…
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The modern sea spider had started to diversify by the Jurassic, study finds
BYLINE: Laura Thomas Newswise — An extremely rare collection of 160-million-year-old sea spider fossils from Southern France are closely related to living species, unlike older fossils of their kind. These fossils are very important to understand the evolution of sea spiders. They show that the diversity of sea spiders that still exist today had already…
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Fossil brains provide evidence of underwater feeding in early seals
Jones, K. E., Smaers, J. B. & Goswami, A. Impact of the terrestrial-aquatic transition on disparity and rates of evolution in the carnivoran skull. BMC Evol. Biol. 15, 8 (2015). PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar Kienle, S. S. & Berta, A. The evolution of feeding strategies in phocid seals (Pinnipedia, Phocidae). J. Vertebr. Paleontol. 38,…
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Dark skin, bald head, Anatolian ancestry — ScienceDaily
A research team has used advanced sequencing technology to analyze Ötzi’s genome to obtain a more accurate picture of the Iceman’s appearance and genetic origins. Ötzi’s genome was decoded for the first time more than ten years ago. This was also the first time the genome of a mummy had been sequenced. The results provided…
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A Tale of Evolution and Adaptation
Before the evolution of modern elephants, their early relatives included several species that often shared their environment and adapted to feeding on different plants. This image depicts a landscape in Kenya in the Middle Miocene (about 15 million years ago), where a deinotheriid proboscidean (Prodeinotherium hobleyi, on the left foreground) and a shovel-tusked amebelodontid proboscidean…
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”We Were Freaking Out” – Scientists Explore Dinosaur Coliseum
The Coliseum site is viewed from above. The once-horizontal rocks are now nearly vertical, exposing many hundreds of tracks on flatirons of resistant rock. The dimples on the rock faces are dinosaur tracks. Credit: Photo by Patrick Druckenmiller Scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks have discovered and documented the largest known single dinosaur track…
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New reptile shows dinosaurs and pterosaurs evolved among diverse precursors
Brusatte, S. L., Benton, M. J., Ruta, M. & Lloyd, G. T. The first 50 Myr of dinosaur evolution: macroevolutionary pattern and morphological disparity. Biol. Lett. 4, 733–736 (2008). Article PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar Prentice, K. C., Ruta, M. & Benton, M. J. Evolution of morphological disparity in pterosaurs. J. Syst. Palaeontol. 9, 337–353…
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5,500-year-old gate found at Tell Erani | HeritageDaily
Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have discovered a 5,500-year-old gate at the multi-period archaeological site of Tell Erani in the Southern District of Israel. Tell Erani, also known as ʻIrâq el-Menshiyeh, was first occupied in the Chalcolithic period, but the majority of archaeological remains date from the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.…
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Maya sacrificial victim uncovered wearing jade ring | HeritageDaily
Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have uncovered a Maya burial containing the remains of a human sacrifice still wearing a jade ring. The discovery was made during excavations in the Maya city of El Tigre, also known as Itzamkanac (meaning “the place of the lizard serpent”), which is located in…