Featured
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News |
Sex locked in stone
Fossil turtle pairs provide first direct evidence of prehistoric vertebrate mating.
- Brian Switek
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Research Highlights |
Weighing extinct animals
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Letter |
Acanthodes and shark-like conditions in the last common ancestor of modern gnathostomes
New analysis of an Acanthodes braincase forces a reappraisal of the phylogeny of gnathosomes, suggesting that the vertebrate head underwent reorganization not only before the emergence of jaws, but also afterwards.
- Samuel P. Davis
- , John A. Finarelli
- & Michael I. Coates
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Review Article |
Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere
There is evidence that human influence may be forcing the global ecosystem towards a rapid, irreversible, planetary-scale shift into a state unknown in human experience.
- Anthony D. Barnosky
- , Elizabeth A. Hadly
- & Adam B. Smith
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Research Highlights |
Dating with rare earth elements
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Letter |
Birds have paedomorphic dinosaur skulls
The bird skull arose from the nonavian dinosaur skull by several episodes of paedomorphosis, in which descendants resemble the juveniles of their ancestors, according to a study of shape change during dinosaur ontogeny and phylogeny.
- Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar
- , Jesús Marugán-Lobón
- & Arhat Abzhanov
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News & Views |
Homo 'incendius'
An analysis of microscopic and spectroscopic features of sediments deposited in a South African cave one million years ago suggests that human ancestors were using fire much earlier than had been thought.
- Richard G. Roberts
- & Michael I. Bird
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Letter |
Three-dimensional limb joint mobility in the early tetrapod Ichthyostega
Three-dimensional reconstruction and modelling of limb joint mobility in the early tetrapod Ichthyostega is used to provide insights into an important step in vertebrate evolution—the transition from swimming to walking.
- Stephanie E. Pierce
- , Jennifer A. Clack
- & John R. Hutchinson
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Letter |
Discovery of a sensory organ that coordinates lunge feeding in rorqual whales
A newly discovered sensory organ in the jaws of rorqual whales is shown to have a crucial role during lunge feeding.
- Nicholas D. Pyenson
- , Jeremy A. Goldbogen
- & Robert E. Shadwick
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News |
Mini mammoth once roamed Crete
Evolution crafted pint-sized pachyderm on Mediterranean island.
- Sid Perkins
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News |
Dinosaurs grew to outpace their young
Ancient reptiles owed huge size more to their eggs than to a benign environment.
- Matt Kaplan
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Letter |
Formation of the ‘Great Unconformity’ as a trigger for the Cambrian explosion
Changes in ocean chemistry promoted during the formation of the Great Unconformity, a stratigraphic surface that separates continental basement rock from younger marine sedimentary deposits, are proposed as the cause of the Cambrian explosion of marine animals.
- Shanan E. Peters
- & Robert R. Gaines
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Letter |
A gigantic feathered dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China
The discovery of a new species of Tyrannosaurus relative from the Early Cretaceous of China, some 125 million years old—the largest feathered creature known, living or extinct—has implications for early feather evolution.
- Xing Xu
- , Kebai Wang
- & Shuo Wang
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News |
Ancient human ancestor had feet like an ape
Fossil foot hints that tree-dwellers lived alongside species built for walking.
- Brian Switek
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Article |
A new hominin foot from Ethiopia shows multiple Pliocene bipedal adaptations
The 3.4-million-year-old partial hominin foot skeleton indicates the coexistence of more than one hominin species between 3 and 4 million years ago, each with its own way of getting around.
- Yohannes Haile-Selassie
- , Beverly Z. Saylor
- & Bruce M. Latimer
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Letter |
Adaptive radiation of multituberculate mammals before the extinction of dinosaurs
Adaptive radiation of Mesozoic-era multituberculate mammals began at least 20 million years before the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs and continued across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary—probably as a result of dietary expansion towards herbivory during the ecological rise of angiosperms—and is supported by increases in generic richness and disparity in dental complexity and body size.
- Gregory P. Wilson
- , Alistair R. Evans
- & Jukka Jernvall
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Letter |
On the difficulty of increasing dental complexity
Activation of EDA and activin A signalling, and inhibition of SHH signalling pathways together increase the number of cusps on cultured mouse cheek teeth, showing that a substantial increase in complexity requires multiple changes in developmental regulation.
- Enni Harjunmaa
- , Aki Kallonen
- & Jukka Jernvall
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Article
| Open AccessInsights into hominid evolution from the gorilla genome sequence
The genome of a western lowland gorilla has been sequenced and analysed, completing the genome sequences of all great ape genera, and providing evidence for parallel accelerated evolution in chimpanzee, gorilla and human lineages at a number of loci.
- Aylwyn Scally
- , Julien Y. Dutheil
- & Richard Durbin
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News |
Super-sized fleas adapted to feed off dinosaurs
Earliest fossil species had armoured mouthparts to attack thick hides.
- Brian Switek
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News & Views |
In the shade of the oldest forest
The uncovering of a large soil surface preserved under sediment for 390 million years has exposed plant remains which show that the world's earliest forests were much more complex than previously thought. See Letter p.78
- Brigitte Meyer-Berthaud
- & Anne-Laure Decombeix
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Letter |
Diverse transitional giant fleas from the Mesozoic era of China
The morphology of the oldest definitive fleas—from the Middle Jurassic and Early Cretaceous periods of China—suggests that they had ‘reptilian’ hosts before radiating to mammalian and avian hosts, and their stout and elongate sucking siphons suggest that they may be rooted among the scorpionflies of the Mesozoic era.
- Diying Huang
- , Michael S. Engel
- & André Nel
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News |
Iceman's DNA reveals health risks and relations
Ötzi’s genome hints at heart disease, bacterial infection and common ancestry with modern-day Sardinians.
- Ewen Callaway
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News |
Debate bubbles over the origin of life
Could life have originated in geothermal ponds?
- Brian Switek
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Research Highlights |
Early bird was black
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Books & Arts |
Palaeontology: Beyond the Jurassic
Brian Switek winds his way through prehistory at Utah's rehoused museum of natural history.
- Brian Switek
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News |
Study measures mammalian growth spurt
It takes 24 million generations for mouse-sized mammals to evolve into elephants — but shrinking back is much faster.
- Brian Switek
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News |
Enigmatic fossils are neither animals nor bacteria
Scanning techniques reveal detailed cell structure of debated relics.
- Matt Kaplan
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Letter |
Acute vision in the giant Cambrian predator Anomalocaris and the origin of compound eyes
New fossils from Australia reveal that the Cambrian apex predator Anomalocaris possessed compound eyes more powerful than those of most living arthropods.
- John R. Paterson
- , Diego C. García-Bellido
- & Gregory D. Edgecombe
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Research Highlights |
Moth fossils show their colours
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News & Views |
The earliest modern humans in Europe
The reanalysis of findings from two archaeological sites calls for a reassessment of when modern humans settled in Europe, and of Neanderthal cultural achievements. See Letters p.521 & p.525
- Paul Mellars
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Research Highlights |
Ancient creature's surprising sight
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News & Views |
Earth's longest fossil rift-valley system
The origins of the Gamburtsev mountain range, which is hidden beneath Antarctic ice, are a long-standing mystery. Detailed geophysical data from the area form the basis of a comprehensive model that solves the mystery. See Letter p.388
- John Veevers
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News Feature |
Dark days of the Triassic: Lost world
Did a giant impact 200 million years ago trigger a mass extinction and pave the way for the dinosaurs?
- Roff Smith
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News |
Ancient moth sported a green sheen
Analysis of fossilized wing scales suggests insect used bright hues to warn off predators.
- Sid Perkins
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Research Highlights |
Ancient whales were worm food
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News |
Artificial intelligence finds fossil sites
Palaeontologists use computer neural network and satellite images to work out where to dig.
- Ewen Callaway
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News |
Secrets of a mastodon graveyard
Fossil gold mine once ensnared dinosaurs in quicksand.
- Matt Kaplan
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News |
Tyrannosaurs were power-walkers
Limb analysis suggests dinosaurs moved with short, fast strides.
- Matt Kaplan
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Research Highlights |
To be or not to be a bird
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News & Views |
Fresh light on southern early mammals
Little is known about mammalian evolution in South America during the age of the dinosaurs. The discovery of 100-million-year-old skulls confirms that mammalian faunas were endemic in southern continents at this time. See Letter p.98
- Christian de Muizon
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News |
How mammoths lost the extinction lottery
Fossils, climate records and DNA reveal unpredictability of ice-age die-offs.
- Ewen Callaway
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Letter |
Early dispersal of modern humans in Europe and implications for Neanderthal behaviour
- Stefano Benazzi
- , Katerina Douka
- & Gerhard W. Weber
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Letter |
Highly specialized mammalian skulls from the Late Cretaceous of South America
- Guillermo W. Rougier
- , Sebastián Apesteguía
- & Leandro C. Gaetano
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Letter |
The earliest evidence for anatomically modern humans in northwestern Europe
- Tom Higham
- , Tim Compton
- & Michael Fagan
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News |
Tooth chemistry reveals sauropod sojourns
First hard evidence of seasonal dinosaur migration found in dental enamel.
- Daniel Cressey
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Letter |
Lowland–upland migration of sauropod dinosaurs during the Late Jurassic epoch
- Henry C. Fricke
- , Justin Hencecroth
- & Marie E. Hoerner