Category: Palaeontology
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Weaker Than Crocodiles? The Shocking Truth About Earth’s 230-Million-Year-Old Apex Predator
A recent study revealed that Saurosuchus, a Late Triassic reptile and distant relative of modern crocodiles, had a weaker bite than previously believed and couldn’t crunch bones like later dinosaurs. Despite its large size, the bite strength of Saurosuchus was equivalent to modern gharials, much weaker than its successors like Allosaurus and T. rex. Above…
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Naked kouros statue among new finds at Despotiko | HeritageDaily
Archaeologists have uncovered a naked kouros statue during excavations of an Ancient Greek sanctuary dedicated to Apollo. Despotiko is a small, uninhabited Greek island in the Cyclades island group in the Aegean Sea. Excavations in the northwest part of the island have previously found a late Archaic sanctuary in dedication to Apollo, one of the…
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240-Million-Year-Old Giant Amphibian Discovered in Retaining Wall
An artist’s impression of Arenaerpeton supinatus, the ancestor of today’s Chinese Giant Salamander. Credit: Jose Vitor Silva Arenaerpeton supinatus was discovered in rocks cut from a nearby quarry that were intended for the building of a garden wall. A 240-million-year-old fossil of an amphibian was found in a retaining wall in the 1990s. This significant…
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Scientists Discover That Extremely Rare Collection of 160-Million-Year-Old Sea Spider Fossils Are Closely Related to Living Species
Researchers have discovered 160-million-year-old sea spider fossils in Southern France that are closely related to living species. These findings offer insights into the evolution of sea spiders and will help calibrate the molecular clock, improving our understanding of arthropod evolution. Palaeopycnogonides gracilis (normal color). Credit: Dr Romain Sabroux An extremely rare collection of 160-million-year-old sea…
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Conical and sabertoothed cats as an exception to craniofacial evolutionary allometry
Gould, S. J. Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?. Paleobiology 1, 119–130 (1980). Google Scholar Hautmann, M. What is macroevolution?. Palaeontology 63, 1–11 (2020). Google Scholar Tamagnini, D., Canestrelli, D., Meloro, C., Raia, P. & Maiorano, L. New avenues for old travellers: Phenotypic evolutionary trends meet morphodynamics, and both enter the global…
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Ancient DNA re-opens the question of the phylogenetic position of the Sardinian pika Prolagus sardus (Wagner, 1829), an extinct lagomorph
Miller, W. et al. Sequencing the nuclear genome of the extinct woolly mammoth. Nature 456, 387–390 (2008). Article ADS CAS PubMed Google Scholar Soubrier, J. et al. Early cave art and ancient DNA record the origin of European bison. Nat. Commun. 7, 13158 (2016). Article ADS PubMed PubMed Central Google Scholar Ciucani, M. M. et…
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Archaeologists uncover vestiges of the Tepuztecos | HeritageDaily
Archaeologists have uncovered vestiges of the Tepuztecos during an expansion of the Puerto del Varal-Corral de Piedra highway at Barranca Chihuila-Corral de Piedra. The Tepuztecos, also known as the Tlacotepehuas, were a pre-Hispanic culture that inhabited the area around present-day Tlacotepec in the state of Guerrero, south-western Mexico. Very little is known about the Tepuztecos…
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Fort Drum – The Concrete Battleship | HeritageDaily
Fort Dum, nicknamed the “Concrete Battleship”, is a fortified island situated at the mouth of Manila Bay in the Philippines. Previously known as El Fraile Island, the site was acquired by the United States after the Spanish–American War (1898), a conflict that saw the United States emerge as the dominant power in the Caribbean region…
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Explore the avian world. Read the latest research on Birds here.
The discovery that birds evolved from small carnivorous dinosaurs of the Late Jurassic was made possible by recently discovered fossils of theropods such as Tyrannosaurus rex and the smaller velociraptors. In a way, you could say that dinosaurs are still with us and seen tweeting from your own backyard! Unfortunately, our feathered friends are also negatively affected…
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Spear thrower weapon use by prehistoric females equalized the division of labor while hunting — ScienceDaily
A new study led by Archaeologist Michelle Bebber, Ph.D., an assistant professor in Kent State University’s Department of Anthropology, has demonstrated that the atlatl (i.e. spear thrower) functions as an “equalizer,” a finding which supports women’s potential active role as prehistoric hunters. Bebber co-authored an article “Atlatl use equalizes female and male projectile weapon velocity”…