Palaeontology

When prey is scarce, large carnivores may gnaw prey to the bone, wearing their teeth down in the process.

Scientists at The University of Manchester have used synchrotron-based imaging techniques to identify previously unseen anatomy preserved in fossils.

A University of Nevada, Las Vegas research team recently unearthed fossil remains from an extinct wolf species in a wash northwest of Las Vegas, revealing the first evidence that the ice age mammal once lived in Nevada.

Evolution has had the choice to create many different events throughout the 2.7 billion years that life has existed on this planet. Many paths have been created and avoided. Take the fact that mammals could have been the main form of life throughout the mesozoic instead of Dinosaurs.

A nearly complete mammoth skeleton has just been uncovered at Changis-sur-Marne in the Seine-et-Marne department. This type of discovery, in its original context, is exceptional in France since only three specimens have been found in 150 years: the first such discovery, known as "the mammoth of Choulans”, was discovered in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon in 1859.

Previous studies based on dental characters caused considerable confusion on taxonomic classification. In a paper published in the latest issue of Vertebrata PalAsiatica 2012(4), paleontologists from Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences and Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, reported new materials of a fossil wolf, Canis Chihliensis, from the newly discovered Shanshenmiaozui Locality in the Nihewan Basin, North China.

Public lecture about primitive humanoids nicknamed 'hobbits' forbidden by holders of Tolkien film rights

Australopithecus afarensis (the species of the well-known "Lucy" skeleton) was an upright walking species, but the question of whether it also spent much of its time in trees has been the subject of much debate, partly because a complete set of A. afarensis shoulder blades has never before been available for study.

Yet 1.8 million years ago hippos were a prominent part of European wildlife, when mega-fauna such as woolly mammoths and giant cave bears bestrode the continent. Now palaeontologists writing in Boreas, believe that the changing climate during the Pleistocene Era may have forced Europe's hippos to shrink to pygmy sizes before driving them to warmer climes.

Conodonts : Wiki Commons Scientists have discovered why the 'broken world' following the worst extinction of all time lasted so long – it was simply...

Complex brains evolved much earlier than previously thought, as evidenced by a 520-million-year-old fossilized arthropod with remarkably well-preserved brain structures.

An unusual collaboration between researchers in two disparate fields resulted in a new discovery about the teeth of 65-million-year-old dinosaurs.