News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
A new family tree of apes that lived in the Miocene between 23 and 5.3 million years ago reveals which are our close relatives and which are only distant cousins Humans 16 March 2022 By Michael Marshall Dryopithecus, an extinct ape from the Miocene JOHN SIBBICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY A huge study of fossil apes clarifies … Read more
If you’ve ever lived with a cat, you’ve probably received a painful chomp from your beloved furball’s pointy canines at least once. But 42 million years ago, your kitty’s teeth would have looked very different: Evolution was only just honing the teeth of cat-like animals to a deadly sharp tip for piercing and shredding flesh. … Read more
An exceptional fossil unearthed in Montana has given us the earliest known ancestor of vampire squids and octopuses. The cephalopod, belonging to the vampyropod or octopodiform superorder, pushes back the age of the group by about 82 million years. This challenges our understanding that octopuses evolved from a Triassic ancestor. Fascinatingly, it has not eight, … Read more
A 1.4-million-year-old fossil relative of killer whales had teeth that suggest it ate small fish rather than large marine mammals Life 7 March 2022 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre Artistic reconstruction of Rododelphis stamatiadisi Rossella Faleni A 1.4-million-year-old ancestor of orcas and false killer whales seems to have dined on small fish – which suggests its descendants … Read more
A thorough review of 300 years of research, and an exceptionally preserved fossil, have given us what paleontologists say is the most up-to-date reconstruction yet of an ancient beast. Living alongside dinosaurs during the Mesozoic Era, ichthyosaurs were marine reptiles that swam and hunted in Earth’s oceans. Resembling reptilian dolphins, these fascinating animals thrived … Read more
A 170-million-year-old pterosaur found on the Isle of Skye off the north-west coast of Scotland had a wingspan of about 2.5 metres, making it the largest known winged reptile from the Jurassic Life 22 February 2022 By Christa Lesté-Lasserre An artist’s impression of a new pterosaur from Scotland (Dearc sgiathanach) flying away from a predatory … Read more
Vehicles and power generators in Antarctica produce black carbon pollution that settles on the snow, causing more of it to melt in the summer Environment 22 February 2022 By Chen Ly Esperanza Base, an Argentinian research station on the Antarctic Peninsula Mike Scharer / Alamy Pollution from increasing human activity in Antarctica is darkening the … Read more
A low-lying continent that existed some 40 million years ago and was home to exotic fauna may have “paved the way” for Asian mammals to colonize southern Europe, new research suggests. Wedged between Europe, Africa and Asia, this forgotten continent – which researchers have dubbed “Balkanatolia” – became a gateway between Asia and Europe … Read more
About 95 million years ago in what is now Australia, a massive crocodile relative clamped down with its powerful jaws on the small body of a dinosaur and gulped nearly all of it down in one mighty swallow. The crocodilian died soon after, and as it fossilized, so did the partly-digested and near-complete dinosaur … Read more
Hacking coughs, uncontrollable sneezing, high fevers and pounding headaches can make anyone miserable – even a dinosaur. Recently, researchers identified the first evidence of respiratory illness in a long-necked, herbivorous type of dinosaur known as a sauropod, which lived about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period (201.3 million to 145 million years ago) in what is now … Read more