Category: Palaeontology
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Increased habitat segregation at the dawn of the Phanerozoic revealed by correspondence analysis of bioturbation
Seilacher, A. & Pflüger, F. From biomats to benthic agriculture: A biohistoric revolution. in Biostabilization of Sediments (eds. Krumbein, W. E., Paterson, D. M. & Stal, L. J.) 97–105 (Bibliotheks und Informationssystem der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, 1994). Seilacher, A. Biomat-related lifestyles in the Precambrian. Palaios 14, 86–93 (1999). Article ADS Google Scholar Mángano,…
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AI provides more accurate analysis of prehistoric and modern animals, painting picture of ancient world
A new Rice University study of the remains of prehistoric and modern African antelopes found that AI technology accurately identified animals more than 90% of the time compared to humans, who had much lower accuracy rates depending on the expert. Composite images of teeth from five different antelope tribes analyzed and identified by artificial intelligence.…
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Earliest evidence for domestic yak found using both archaeology, ancient DNA
The high-altitude hero of the Himalayas, yak are among the few large animals that can survive the extremely cold, harsh and oxygen-poor conditions of the Tibetan Plateau. In the mountainous regions of Asia, yak and yak-cattle hybrids serve as vital sources of meat, milk, transportation and fuel. However, little is known about their history: when…
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Cell types in the eye have ancient evolutionary origins
Karthik Shekhar and his colleagues raised a few eyebrows as they collected cow and pig eyes from Boston butchers, but those eyes — eventually from 17 separate species, including humans — are providing insights into the evolution of the vertebrate retina and could lead to better animal models for human eye diseases. The retina is…
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Best areas for rewilding European bison
At the end of the last ice age, large herds of bison roamed across Europe. But by 1927, the European bison became extinct in the wild, with only about 60 individuals remaining in captivity. Scientists have long debated the exact causes of the grazers’ near extinction, and how much humans were to blame. A new…
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Why the long face? Scientists solve a major puzzle in mammal skull shape evolution
Horses have developed long faces simply ‘because they can,’ a team of evolutionary biologists say. In a major review of how mammalian heads evolve, scientists from Flinders University and The University of Adelaide found that adaptations to feeding explain why large species of mammals often have much longer faces compared to smaller closely related species…
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New study sheds light on how much methane is produced from Arctic lakes and wetlands
When it comes to greenhouse gases, methane is one the biggest contributors. Not only is it massively abundant — it’s about 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. That makes tracking methane emissions critically important, and nowhere more so than in the Arctic, which is now the fastest warming…
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Reply to: Revisiting the identification of Syllipsimopodi bideni and timing of the decabrachian-octobrachian divergence
replying to C. Klug et al. Nature Communications https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42842-x (2023) Bayesian tip-dating recovered the Carboniferous (Serpukhovian) coleoid Syllipsimopodi bideni Whalen and Landman 20221 (Fig. 1) as the earliest diverging vampyropod1. The analysis thus suggests that vampyropods (=total group), octobrachians (=superorder), and octopodiforms (=crown group) diverged from decabrachians (=superorder) and decapodiforms (=crown group) in the Mississippian1; this…
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Thoracic and abdominal outgrowths in early pterygotes: a clue to the common ancestor of winged insects?
Clark-Hachtel, C. M. & Tomoyasu, Y. Exploring the origin of insect wings from an evo-devo perspective. Curr. Opin. Insect Sci. 13, 77–85 (2016). Article PubMed Google Scholar Ohde, T., Mito, T. & Niimi, T. A hemimetabolous wing development suggests the wing origin from lateral tergum of a wingless ancestor. Nat. Commun. 13, 979 (2022). Article …
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A Maastrichtian insect assemblage from Patagonia sheds light on arthropod diversity previous to the K/Pg event
Szwedo, J. & Nel, A. The Cretaceous insects: a promising state of the art. Cretac. Res. 52, 628–630 (2015). Article Google Scholar Wang, B. & Szwedo, J. Introduction to thematic issue, “Cretaceous insects: diversity, palaeoecology and taphonomy”. Cretac. Res. 52, 313–315 (2015). Article Google Scholar Nel, A. Maastrichtian representatives of the dragonfly family Aeschnidiidae question…