Featured
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Jurassic shuotheriids show earliest dental diversification of mammaliaforms
A newly described fossil mammaliaform from the Jurassic period of China shows that the shuotheriids are allied to the docodonts, and provides details on the processes of tooth evolution in early mammals.
- Fangyuan Mao
- , Zhiyu Li
- & Jin Meng
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Nature Careers Podcast |
‘Hopeless, burnt out, sad’: how political change is impacting female researchers in Latin America
Already feeling invisible and unappreciated, the election of far-right administrations in Argentina and elsewhere are unsettling for women in science.
- Julie Gould
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Article |
Adaptive foraging behaviours in the Horn of Africa during Toba supereruption
The archaeological site Shinfa-Metema 1 in the lowlands of northwest Ethiopia provides early evidence of intensive riverine-based foraging aided by the likely adoption of the bow and arrow.
- John Kappelman
- , Lawrence C. Todd
- & Sierra Yanny
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News & Views |
The 50th anniversary of a key paper on how bird flight evolved
For a century, scientists pondered whether bird flight evolved by animals gliding down from trees or by creatures running and flapping from the ground up. A landmark 1974 paper reset the debate to focus on the evolution of the flight stroke instead.
- Kevin Padian
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Research Highlight |
Galapagos giant tortoises were supersized before arrival
Fossil analysis suggests the reptiles were already huge when they rode ocean currents to the islands thousands or even millions of years ago.
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News |
200 years of naming dinosaurs: scientists call for overhaul of antiquated system
Some palaeontologists want more rigorous guidelines for naming species, along with action to address problematic historical practices.
- Katharine Sanderson
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Where I Work |
I started fossil hunting in my 60s — now I have more than 2,000 pieces
Heather Middleton trawls England’s Jurassic Coast for specimens that might lead to a deeper understanding of palaeontology.
- Rachael Pells
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Research Highlight |
An ancient tree’s oddball shape is revealed by an extraordinary fossil
Many fossilized trees consist of only the trunk, but a specimen from Canada includes most of the crown of leaves.
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Career Q&A |
From a pocketful of rocks to scientific director of palaeontological research
PhD candidate Dirley Cortés says that it takes grit and guts to navigate the challenges of being a Latin American woman in palaeontology.
- Efrain Rincon
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News |
This is the oldest fossilized reptile skin ever found — it pre-dates the dinosaurs
Permian-period petroleum helped to preserve minute scraps of pebbly hide that probably belonged to a lizard-like creature.
- Emma Marris
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News |
Why did the world’s biggest ape go extinct?
The 300-kilogram primate couldn’t adapt when a changing environment forced a dietary shift.
- Gemma Conroy
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Article
| Open Access
The demise of the giant ape Gigantopithecus blacki
A multiproxy record of Gigantopithecus blacki provides insights into the ecological context of this species, which became extinct around 250,000 years ago, when increased seasonality led to a change in forest cover.
- Yingqi Zhang
- , Kira E. Westaway
- & Renaud Joannes-Boyau
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Nature Podcast |
The science stories you missed over the holiday period
We highlight some of the Nature Briefing’s stories from the end of 2023, including a polar bear fur-inspired sweater, efforts to open OSIRIS-REx’s sample canister, and a dinosaur’s last dinner.
- Benjamin Thompson
- , Noah Baker
- & Flora Graham
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Article |
Oldest thylakoids in fossil cells directly evidence oxygenic photosynthesis
We report the oldest direct evidence of thylakoid membranes in a parallel-to-contorted arrangement within the enigmatic cylindrical microfossils Navifusa majensis from the McDermott Formation, Tawallah Group, Australia (1.78–1.73 Ga).
- Catherine F. Demoulin
- , Yannick J. Lara
- & Emmanuelle J. Javaux
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News |
Humans might have driven 1,500 bird species to extinction — twice previous estimates
Humans are probably responsible for the extinction of 12% of bird species, many of which were never documented.
- Gemma Conroy
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Research Highlight |
Earliest known fossil mosquito is a blood-sucking surprise
Insects trapped in amber reveal that male mosquitoes, too, could once extract blood.
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Article
| Open Access
Landscape dynamics and the Phanerozoic diversification of the biosphere
A model of sediment flux from the land to the oceans over the Phanerozoic eon explains differences in the fossil records of marine animal genera and land plant genera.
- Tristan Salles
- , Laurent Husson
- & Beatriz Hadler Boggiani
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Nature Careers Podcast |
Scientific illustration: striking the balance between creativity and accuracy
A misleading image in a medical textbook could have life and death implications, but some disciplines can deploy myth and metaphor to convey their science through art.
- Julie Gould
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Article
| Open Access
Fossil evidence for a pharyngeal origin of the vertebrate pectoral girdle
Computed tomography analysis of the braincase of the Early Devonian placoderm fish Kolymaspis sibirica suggests a skeletal gill support was involved in the origin of the shoulder girdle and provides new evidence reconciling historic theories about the evolution of paired fins.
- Martin D. Brazeau
- , Marco Castiello
- & Matt Friedman
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News |
Blood-sucking fish had flesh-eating ancestors
Two ‘superbly preserved’ fossil lampreys from the Jurassic period help piece together the past of the unusual jawless fish.
- Xiaoying You
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News |
Did dust from the Chicxulub asteroid impact kill the dinosaurs?
Fine particles kicked up by the collision could have blocked out the Sun for years, resulting in global cooling and disastrous consequences for ecosystems.
- Katharine Sanderson
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Article
| Open Access
A continuous fish fossil record reveals key insights into adaptive radiation
This study presents a continuous fossil record, extracted from a series of sediment cores, that shows how haplochromine cichlids came to dominate the fish fauna of Lake Victoria in Africa.
- Nare Ngoepe
- , Moritz Muschick
- & Ole Seehausen
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Nature Podcast |
Astronomers are worried by a satellite brighter than most stars
Researchers determined the telecommunications satellite was periodically brighter than 99% of stars, and powerful X-rays have uncovered an ancient trilobite’s last meal.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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Book Review |
A ‘user’s manual for the female mammal’ — how women’s bodies evolved
The female perspective is often missed in evolutionary tales, but it is at the centre of what makes us human.
- Josie Glausiusz
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Research Briefing |
A trilobite’s last meal reveals feeding behaviour and physiology
The gut contents of a fossilized trilobite, Bohemolichas incola, from the Ordovician period (about 465 million years ago), were imaged by a technique called synchrotron microtomography and fully itemized. The results indicate that the animal fed indiscriminately on small shelly invertebrates and that its gut had a neutral to alkaline pH.
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Article
| Open Access
Uniquely preserved gut contents illuminate trilobite palaeophysiology
Fossilized gut contents of an Ordovician trilobite shed light on the feeding habits of one of the most common and well-known extinct arthropods.
- Petr Kraft
- , Valéria Vaškaninová
- & Per E. Ahlberg
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News & Views |
Getting inside the oldest known vertebrate skull
Analysis of a 458-million-year-old fossil fish reveals anatomical insights about the vertebrate skull and how skull organization evolved from that of ancestral early vertebrates to that of jawed vertebrates.
- Zhikun Gai
- & Philip C. J. Donoghue
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Article
| Open Access
The oldest three-dimensionally preserved vertebrate neurocranium
Computed tomography reveals that the cranial anatomy of Ordovician stem-group gnathostome Eriptychius americanus from the Harding Sandstone of Colorado, USA, is distinct among vertebrates.
- Richard P. Dearden
- , Agnese Lanzetti
- & Ivan J. Sansom
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News |
A new human species? Mystery surrounds 300,000-year-old fossil
A chinless jawbone from eastern China that displays both modern and archaic features could represent a new branch of the human family tree.
- Dyani Lewis
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News |
Ancient-human fossils sent to space: scientists slam ‘publicity stunt’
The decision to send hominin bones on a commercial spaceflight has raised eyebrows among human-evolution researchers.
- Ewen Callaway
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Matters Arising |
Amniote metabolism and the evolution of endothermy
- Ryosuke Motani
- , David A. Gold
- & Geerat J. Vermeij
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Matters Arising |
Reply to: Amniote metabolism and the evolution of endothermy
- Jasmina Wiemann
- , Iris Menéndez
- & Derek E. G. Briggs
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News |
‘Weird’ dinosaur prompts rethink of bird evolution
The fossil is as old as the ‘first bird’, Archaeopteryx, and might have specialized in running or wading instead of flying.
- Jude Coleman
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Article |
A new avialan theropod from an emerging Jurassic terrestrial fauna
An avialan species from the Zhenghe Fauna—a collection of vertebrate fossils from the Late Jurassic of China—had an unusual combination of features, including very long hindlimbs, suggesting that it had a terrestrial or wading lifestyle.
- Liming Xu
- , Min Wang
- & Zhonghe Zhou
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Matters Arising |
Reply to: Palaeospondylus and the early evolution of gnathostomes
- Tatsuya Hirasawa
- & Shigeru Kuratani
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Article |
New reptile shows dinosaurs and pterosaurs evolved among diverse precursors
A well-preserved partial skeleton (Upper Triassic, Brazil) of the new lagerpetid Venetoraptor gassenae gen. et sp. nov. offers a more comprehensive look into the skull and ecology of dinosaur and pterosaur precursors.
- Rodrigo T. Müller
- , Martín D. Ezcurra
- & Sterling J. Nesbitt
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Research Highlight |
This ancient reptile wanted to be a whale
Fossils suggests that a dog-sized swimmer sifted prey with plates similar to baleen, in an example of convergent evolution.
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Nature Index |
How China is capturing attention with landmark research
From ancient sea species to clues on comets, papers by the country’s talented scientists are regularly making headlines.
- Gemma Conroy
- , Pratik Pawar
- & Sian Powell
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News & Views |
A really big fossil whale
A newly discovered fossil of an extinct whale from Peru indicates that the animal’s skeleton was unexpectedly enormous. This finding challenges our understanding of body-size evolution.
- J. G. M. Thewissen
- & David A. Waugh
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News |
Could this ancient whale be the heaviest animal ever?
Massive vertebrae and other fossilized remains found in Peru point to an Eocene-epoch beast of colossal proportions.
- Emma Marris
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Article |
A heavyweight early whale pushes the boundaries of vertebrate morphology
Perucetus colossus, a basilosaurid whale from the middle Eocene epoch of Peru with an extremely pachyosteosclerotic postcranium, is estimated to have a greater skeletal mass than any known mammal or aquatic vertebrate.
- Giovanni Bianucci
- , Olivier Lambert
- & Eli Amson
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News & Views |
From the archive: infant mortality, and a guidebook about fossils
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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News |
Oldest genetic data from a human relative found in 2-million-year-old teeth
Ancient protein sequences identify the sex of Paranthropus robustus fossils and hint at evolutionary relationships.
- Ewen Callaway
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News |
Ancient-DNA researcher fired for ‘serious misconduct’ lands new role
Former co-workers have expressed shock that Charles Sturt University in southeastern Australia has appointed Alan Cooper to its faculty.
- Dyani Lewis
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News |
Did our human ancestors eat each other? Carved-up bone offers clues
A fossilized hominin leg shows gashes that were probably made by stone tools.
- Lilly Tozer
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News |
Prized dinosaur fossil returned to Brazil after controversy
The one-of-a-kind specimen will be housed at a museum in Santana do Cariri, near where it was found.
- Meghie Rodrigues
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News & Views |
Infancy of sterol biosynthesis hints at extinct eukaryotic species
A newly discovered fossil record of steroid molecules, spanning 1.64 billion years, points to ancient organisms in the eukaryotic domain being capable of only early steps in the synthesis of sterol molecules.
- Fabien Kenig
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News |
A ‘lost world’ of early microbes thrived one billion years ago
Fat-like compounds in ancient rocks point to a vast array of previously unknown microorganisms that once dominated complex life on Earth.
- Heidi Ledford
Fossils document evolutionary changes of jaw joint to mammalian middle ear
Palaeospondylus and the early evolution of gnathostomes