Tag: adaptation

Stiff backs and strong joints show that giant kangaroos may have walked instead of hopped.

Over 100 years has passed since their discovery, yet some of the world’s most bizarre fossils have just been identified as distant relatives of humans, thanks to the work of University of Adelaide researchers.

Extreme adaptations of species usually cause such considerable changes that their evolutionary history is difficult to recreate. Zoologists at the University of Basel in Switzerland have now uncovered a new parasite species that represents the missing link between fungi and an extreme group of parasites. Researchers now have the information to understand for the first time the evolution of these parasites, which cause disease in humans and animals. The study has been published in the latest issue of the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Ammonites are a group of extinct cephalopod mollusks with ribbed spiral shells. They are unusually diverse and well known among fossil lovers. Régis Chirat, researcher at the Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon: Terre, Planètes et Environnement (CNRS/Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1/ENS de Lyon), and two colleagues from the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford have established the first biomechanical model explaining how these shells form and why they are so diverse. Their approach provides new paths for interpreting the evolution of ammonites and nautili, their smooth-shelled distant “cousins” that still occupy the Indian and Pacific oceans. This work has just been published on the website of the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

Just as if you were adjusting a watch, the key to accurately telling evolutionary time is based on periodically calibrating against a gold standard.

Imagine trying to trace your genetic history using sources from just your mother’s side. That’s exactly what scientists studying the evolution of the red fox have been doing for decades. However, now, University of California, Davis, researchers have for the first time explored ancestry across the red fox genome, including the paternal side. The data, constructed from over 1,000 individuals from all over the world, unveil some surprises about the origins, journey and evolution of the red fox, the world’s most widely distributed land carnivore.