No living mammal is more peculiar than the platypus. It has a broad, duck-like bill, thick, otter-like fur, and webbed, beaver-like feet. The platypus lays eggs rather than gives birth to live young, its snout is covered with electroreceptors that detect underwater prey, and male platypuses have a venomous spur on their hind foot. Until […]
Archive for November, 2013
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Development of Cryptic Worms Provides New Insights Into Molluscan Evolution
November 4th, 2013 
riffin There are still a lot of unanswered questions about mollusks, e.g. snails, slugs and mussels. The research group of Andreas Wanninger, Head of the Department of Integrative Zoology of the University of Vienna, took a detailed look at the development of cryptic worms. The larvae of the “wirenia argentea” hold a much more complex muscular […]
Extinct ‘Mega Claw’ Creature Had Spider-Like Brain
November 3rd, 2013 riffin Researchers have discovered the earliest known complete nervous system exquisitely preserved in the fossilized remains of a never-before described creature that crawled or swam in the ocean 520 million years ago. Research led by University of Arizona Regents’ Professor Nick Strausfeld and London Natural History Museum’s Greg Edgecombe has revealed that the ancestors of chelicerates […]
Tell-Tale Toes Point to Oldest-Known Fossil Bird Tracks from Australia
November 2nd, 2013 riffin Two fossilized footprints found at Dinosaur Cove in Victoria, Australia, were likely made by birds during the Early Cretaceous, making them the oldest known bird tracks in Australia. The journal Palaeontology is publishing an analysis of the footprints led by Anthony Martin, a paleontologist at Emory University in Atlanta who specializes in trace fossils, which […]
Paleontologist Presents Origin of Life Theory
November 1st, 2013 riffin It has baffled humans for millennia: how did life begin on planet Earth? Now, new research from a Texas Tech University paleontologist suggests it may have rained from the skies and started in the bowels of hell. Sankar Chatterjee, Horn Professor of Geosciences and curator of paleontology at The Museum of Texas Tech University believes […]
