Members of the metatherian genus Swaindelphys were previously known from Swain Quarry in south-central Wyoming and the Nacimiento Formation in the San Juan Basin, New Mexico, and now, from the Black Peaks Formation of west Texas.
Life…
Category: Paleontology
-
No kings buried here: DNA unravels the myth of incestuous elites in ancient Ireland
New research has cast doubts over suggestions an incestuous social elite ruled over the ancient people of Ireland more than 5,000 years ago.
Researchers examined the evidence from burials of individuals at the Newgrange prehistoric monument in…
Continue Reading
-
55-Million-Year-Old Tree Frog Fossil Unearthed in Australia
The discovery of Litoria tylerantiqua suggests that Australian treefrogs (pelodryadids) were present in Australia by the Early Eocene, when the continent was still connected to Antarctica and South America as the last remnants of the…
Continue Reading
-
Early Complex Life May Have Sheltered in Meltwater Ponds during Snowball Earth Episodes: Study
During periods known as Snowball Earth, between 720 and 635 million years ago, early eukaryotes — complex cellular lifeforms that eventually evolved into the diverse multicellular life we see today — could have waited things out in…
Continue Reading
-
Brachiopods and forams reduced calcification costs through morphological simplification during mass extinction events
Raup, D. M. The role of extinction in evolution. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 91, 6758–6763 (1994).
Google Scholar
Bambach, R. K. Phanerozoic…
Continue Reading
-
Armored, Large-Bodied Lizards Lived alongside Dinosaurs in Cretaceous North America
New fossilized specimens of monstersaurs — including a previously unknown genus and species, Bolg amondol — from the Kaiparowits Formation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah reveal unexpected richness of these…
Continue Reading
-
Warm and Humid Climate Conditions Set Stage for Pterosaurs to Take to Skies 220 Million Years Ago
In new research, paleontologists combined data on the distribution of Triassic pterosauromorph (pterosaur + lagerpetid) fossils with information on the ancient climate in the same areas.
Foffa et al. suggest that lagerpetids — and…
Continue Reading
-
Climate drivers and palaeobiogeography of lagerpetids and early pterosaurs
Palaeobiogeography
To explore the phylo-palaeobiogeography of Triassic pterosauromorphs, we implemented complementary analyses based on two recently published studies to (1) assess the degree to which pterosauromorphs dispersed across climatic…
Continue Reading
-
Bones of a raccoon-sized prehistoric lizard sat in a jar for 20 years
For 20 years, the remains of a giant lizard that lived alongside dinosaurs were…
Continue Reading
-
Triassic Sauropodomorph Dinosaur Suffered from Severe Bone Tissue Infection
A ream of paleontologists at the University of Zurich reports a chronic case of osteomyelitis (bone tissue infection) in Plateosaurus trossingensis, one of the earliest discovered and best-known dinosaurs from the Late Triassic of Europe.
Continue Reading