ScienceBiology

This Bird Went Extinct, Then Evolution Recreated It

Sometime between 136,000 and 240,000 years ago, a flock of awkward, leggy birds took off from Madagascar and arrived at a pristine island in the Aldabra atoll 250 miles away. “This is nice,” they may have thought—there were no predators, and the birds colonized the island. Without the threat of predation, they eventually lost their … Continued

ScienceBiology

Adorable Jurassic Dinosaur May Have Flown With Bat-Like Wings

During the Jurassic period, various dinosaurs experimented with different forms of powered flight. The discovery of a new dinosaur species in China suggests some of these pioneering flyers evolved webbed fingers and an elongated forelimb, allowing them to fly in a distinctly bat-like fashion. New research published today in Nature describes Ambopteryx longibrachium, a tiny … Continued

ScienceBiology

Newly Discovered Cousin of T. Rex Was a Pint-Sized Killer

Paleontologists have identified a previously unknown relative of T. rex that stood just below 3 feet at the hip. The discovery is shedding new light on the evolutionary origins of tyrannosaurs, while providing a glimpse of these fearsome creatures before they reached enormous sizes. New research published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution describes Suskityrannus … Continued

Tech News

Will There Ever Be New Colors That We Can See?

When brain chips break big, and commercial tech giants start sifting our thoughts and swapping cherished memories for subscription wine box ads, there will be plenty of reasons to be skeptical. But if this future is inevitable, we might as well dwell on the good stuff. New colors, for instance: for years we’ve been saddled … Continued

ScienceBiology

This Fish Has Evolved to Thrive in Intensely Polluted Water

A small fish somehow evolved resistance to the heavily polluted water of the Houston Ship Channel by mysteriously acquiring genes from another fish from thousands of miles away, according to a new paper. The Houston Ship Channel’s filthy water is the result of 60 years of industrial dumping, contaminating the water out into Galveston Bay. … Continued

ScienceHuman History

Jawbone Fossil Reveals More About the Denisovans, a Mysterious Species that Mated With Modern Humans

In 2010, archaeologists found evidence of a previously unknown hominin, the Denisovans, in a Siberian cave. Researchers are now reporting the discovery of a 160,000-year-old Denisovan jawbone pulled from a cave on the Tibetan Plateau. The fossil is now the first evidence of this mysterious human species outside of Siberia, and the earliest evidence of … Continued

ScienceBiology

Rare Recordings of Elusive River Dolphins Show They Are Surprisingly Chatty

Discovered to be a unique species just five years ago, the Araguaian river dolphin of Brazil is a fascinating, yet poorly understood, aquatic creature. As new research shows, these dolphins produce a surprising array of sounds—an important clue in our understanding of how and why dolphins evolved the capacity for communication. The Araguaian river dolphins, … Continued

ScienceBiology

Newly Discovered Ancient Carnivore Was Bigger Than a Polar Bear and Is True Nightmare Fuel

New research describes the remains of a gigantic, four-legged mammalian carnivore that terrorized Africa some 22 million years ago. The name of this formidable creature is Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, which translated from Swahili means “big lion coming from Africa.” But this was no feline—it belonged to an extinct group of mammals known as hyaenodonts, which have … Continued

ScienceBiology

Meet the Wild Creatures That Roamed Ancient Texas

A comprehensive analysis of thousands of fossils collected during the Great Depression in Texas has revealed a remarkable diversity of ancient wildlife. With elephant-like gomphotheres, rhinos, antelopes, and camels, the Lone Star State was once a very Serengeti-like place. From 1939 to 1941, the United States Works Progress Administration (WPA) funded the State-Wide Paleontologic-Mineralogic Survey—a … Continued

ScienceBiology

Unknown Species of Ancient Four-Legged Whale Uncovered in Peru

The discovery of a fossilized, 42-million-year-old, four-legged whale is shedding new light on the evolution and geographical spread of these aquatic mammals. The ancestors of modern whales and dolphins evolved from a small, four-limbed hoofed animal that lived in south Asia around 50 million years ago, during the Eocene. Fossil evidence suggests these aquatic mammalian … Continued

Earther

103 New Beetle Species Named After Star Wars Characters, Mythological Beasts, and More

There are more species of beetle than just about anything else on Earth—approximately 400,000 species described, with perhaps a million or more left to catalog. Now, researchers have identified 103 new species of weevil (a tiny variety of beetle), all from a single Indonesian island. Trigonopterus weevils are wee, egg-shaped insects, dimpled like a golf … Continued

ScienceBiology

Newly Discovered African Titanosaur Had a Distinctly Heart-Shaped Tailbone

Titanosaurs were the giants of the giants—four-legged behemoths that stomped around Cretaceous South America and Africa 100 million years ago. The discovery of a previously unknown titanosaur in Tanzania with a unique heart-shaped tailbone is adding to our knowledge of these enigmatic beasts, and how they lived and evolved on the African continent. The name … Continued

Tech News

2-Billion-Year-Old Squiggles Could Be the Earliest Evidence of a Mobile Life Form

The reported discovery of 2.1-billion-year-old fossilized track marks etched in sedimentary rock is pushing back the earliest evidence of self-propelled movement by an organism on Earth by a whopping 1.5 billion years. New research published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests ancient life on Earth had acquired the capacity for self-propelled … Continued

ScienceBiology

Cartoonishly Well-Preserved Fossil Is the Earliest Bird of Its Kind

A 52-million-year-old fossil found in Wyoming is now the earliest known seed-eating perching bird in the scientific record, a discovery that’s shedding new light on the history and early eating habits of these now-ubiquitous birds. Perching birds like crows, finches, sparrows, and robins are prolific, accounting for more than half of all bird species alive … Continued

ScienceBiology

Newly Discovered Spiked Dinosaurs From South America Look Like Creatures From ‘No Man’s Sky’

Paleontologists in Argentina have uncovered a dinosaur unlike anything ever seen before. Alive some 140 million years ago, these majestic herbivores featured long, forward-pointing spikes running along their necks and backs. These spikes may have served a defensive role, but their exact purpose now presents a fascinating new mystery. New research published this week in … Continued

ScienceBiology

Rare Fossil of Triassic Reptile Discovered in Antarctica

The fossilized remains of an early reptile dating back some 250 million years have been uncovered in the unlikeliest of places: Antarctica. The discovery shows how wildlife recovered after the worst mass extinction in our planet’s history, and how Antarctica once hosted an ecosystem unlike any other. Needless to say, paleontological work in Antarctica is … Continued

ScienceBiology

See What Trees Look Like to a Bird’s Ultraviolet-Sensitive Eyes

A bird’s-eye view can completely change your perspective on things. And I mean that literally. A pair of European researchers used a specially configured camera and took pictures of trees in order to see vegetation the way that birds do. They think that their results unveil the hidden importance of ultraviolet vision, and could offer … Continued

ScienceBiology

Ancient Shark With Spaceship-Shaped Teeth Named After Vintage Video Game

A newly described freshwater shark from the Cretaceous Period had teeth that resembled the iconic Galaga video game spacefighter. Remarkably, the remains of this shark were found in the same pile of debris that contained Sue the T. rex—the largest and most complete fossil of the species ever found. Introducing Galagadon nordquistae, a newly discovered … Continued

ScienceBiology

Fascinating Experiment Uses a Robot to Recreate the Walking Style of an Early Land Dweller

Using computer simulations and a robot, researchers have recreated the likely gait of a 300-million-year-old animal considered to be among the planet’s earliest terrestrial walkers. Hundreds of millions of years ago, aquatic animals began transitioning to land. But how did the world’s first quadrupedal vertebrates walk? The question sounds simple enough, but no one was … Continued

Earther

The 20-Year Quest to Track Down Every Bird-of-Paradise Species Before They Vanish

Edwin Scholes has taken dozens of bush plane flights, helicopters and boat trips, and spent countless hours hauling gear up muddy mountains in New Guinea, for nothing more than a song and dance. Sometimes, he only manages to capture a few seconds of footage of the rainforest performances he seeks before his subjects become spooked, … Continued