Islands have been vital laboratories for advancing evolutionary theory since the pioneering work of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the 19th century. Now, a new paper appearing in PLOS ONE from an international team of investigators describes two new fossil relatives of marsupials that shed light on how a unique island ecosystem evolved […]
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Rare fossil bird deepens mystery of avian extinctions
During the late Cretaceous period, more than 65 million years ago, birds belonging to hundreds of different species flitted around the dinosaurs and through the forests as abundantly as they flit about our woods and fields today. But after the cataclysm that wiped out most of the dinosaurs, only one group of birds remained: the […]
New species of ‘missing link’ between dinosaurs and birds identified
Known as the ‘Icon of Evolution’ and ‘the missing link’ between dinosaurs and birds, Archaeopteryx has become one of the most famous fossil discoveries in Palaeontology. Now, as part of an international team of scientists, researchers at The University of Manchester have identified a new species of Archaeopteryx that is closer to modern birds in […]
WFS News: Ancient flesh-eating fish look like piranha
@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev Scientists have unearthed the fossilised remains of a piranha-like species that they say is the earliest known example of a flesh-eating fish.This bony creature, found in South Germany, lived about 150 million years ago and had the distinctive sharp teeth of modern-day piranhas.These Jurassic marauders used their razor […]
WFS News: Dinosaur from the Earliest Jurassic of South Africa
@ WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev A Giant Dinosaur from the Earliest Jurassic of South Africa and the Transition to Quadrupedality in Early Sauropodomorphs A new species of a giant dinosaur has been found in South Africa’s Free State Province. The plant-eating dinosaur, named Ledumahadi mafube, weighed 12 tonnes and stood about four metres […]
WFS News:Description of climate-envelope models
@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev Climate-envelope models attempt to capture the climatic conditions that constrain the potential niche of a species, and use them to predict the probability of occurrence of species in an area. There are many different types of climate-envelope models [1], distinguished among other things by the type of data […]
Plate tectonics may have been active on Earth since its origin
A new study suggests that plate tectonics — a scientific theory that divides Earth into large chunks of crust that move slowly over hot viscous mantle rock — could have been active from the planet’s very beginning. The new findings defy previous beliefs that tectonic plates were developed over the course of billions of years. […]
Fat from 558 million years ago reveals earliest known animal
Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) and overseas have discovered molecules of fat in an ancient fossil to reveal the earliest confirmed animal in the geological record that lived on Earth 558 million years ago. The strange creature called Dickinsonia, which grew up to 1.4 metres in length and was oval shaped with rib-like […]
WFS News: Ancient ‘Alien’ Wasp Hijacked Fly Pupae, Ate the Flies Inside
@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev Fossilized fly pupae are about as exciting to look at as a handful of dingy, stale Rice Krispies. But despite their humdrum appearance, fossil pupae can hold fascinating secrets inside; in some cases, they preserve deadly examples of insect parasitism. Scientists recently investigated hundreds of fossil pupae — […]