Archive for October, 2015

Tropical ants in Europe

Tropical ants in Europe “Imagine I could send an ecologist to Europe back tens of millions of years ago. Then, ask them to look at the ants and to tell me where they think they have landed… They would say South East Asia,” explains Prof. Evan Economo of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology […]

125-million-year-old bird discovered

Birds have an enormously long evolutionary history: The earliest of them, the famed Archaeopteryx, lived 150 million years ago in what is today southern Germany. However, whether these early birds were capable of flying — and if so, how well — has remained shrouded in scientific controversy. A new discovery published in the journal Scientific […]

48-million-year-old uteroplacenta found

A 48 million year-old horse-like equoid fetus has been discovered at the Messel pit near Frankfurt, Germany according to a study published October 7, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jens Lorenz Franzen from Senckenberg Research Institute Frankfurt, Germany, and Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, Switzerland, and colleagues. The authors of this study completed their […]

molecular analysis clarifying dino color claims

The color of dinosaurs is a fascinating topic, and in recent years the discovery of melanosomes — small, pigment-filled sacs — associated with fossilized dinosaur feathers has given rise to all sorts of speculation about our prehistoric pals, from the hue of their plumage to color’s impact on behavior. It all sounds wonderful — but […]

Mammoth fossil unearthed

While digging in his field on Monday, Michigan farmer James Bristle found what he thought was ordinary debris in his field. After digging further, he discovered that what he had found wasn’t a fence post, but bones from a Woolly Mammoth. After the discovery, Bristle contacted the University of Michigan, who arrived to excavate the […]

Odaraia alata: 500 Million Old

A 500-million-year-old fossilized arthropod found in the Burgess Shale, a fossil field in the Canadian Rockies, may provide clues to how heads evolved in early animals. The fossil is a submarine-shaped arthropod, Odaraia alata, of the Middle Cambrian Period. A paper in Current Biology reports that both Odaraia alata, originally found about 100 years ago, […]