Palaeontology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The human hand can be distinguished from that of apes by its long thumb relative to fingers. Here the authors show that hand proportions vary greatly among ape species and that the human hand evolved from an ancestor that was more similar to humans than to chimpanzees.

    • Sergio Almécija
    • , Jeroen B. Smaers
    •  & William L. Jungers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The evolution of the brain in Old World monkeys (cercopithecoids) is poorly understood. Here the authors describe a complete endocast of Victoriapithecus, a 15 Myr old cercopithecoid, which shows that the brain size was much smaller and the olfactory bulbs much larger than in any extant catarrhine primate.

    • Lauren A. Gonzales
    • , Brenda R. Benefit
    •  & Fred Spoor

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Information regarding tectonic motion from before instrumental records can be found from palaeoshorelines and the reconstruction of sea level from observations. Here, the authors study corals uplifted by past earthquakes near the Solomon Islands and assess the Holocene deformation that took place there.

    • Kaustubh Thirumalai
    • , Frederick W. Taylor
    •  & Alison K. Papabatu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recent megathrust earthquakes have been documented to cause large-scale stress changes, although this has not been identified in a fossil system. Here, the authors present data that establish a link between the observations at active subduction zones and the structural record preserved in ancient mountain belts.

    • Armin Dielforder
    • , Hauke Vollstaedt
    •  & Marco Herwegh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Soft tissue from vertebrate fossils has previously been documented, but only in exceptionally preserved specimens. Here, Bertazzo et al. describe structures consistent with collagen fibres and red blood cells from eight Cretaceous dinosaur bones, none of which are exceptionally preserved.

    • Sergio Bertazzo
    • , Susannah C. R. Maidment
    •  & Hai-nan Xie

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fossils of Cretaceous birds with feathers are rare and known mostly from China. Here, the authors show an enantiornithine bird from the Lower Cretaceous of Brazil with a fully articulated skeleton and rachis-dominated tail feathers, which has implications for our understanding of feather evolution.

    • Ismar de Souza Carvalho
    • , Fernando E. Novas
    •  & José A. Andrade

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Cambrian explosion of biological diversity has been associated with widespread ocean oxygenation, yet early Cambrian ocean redox conditions remain controversial. Here, the authors present a suite of molybdenum isotope data and show that the ocean was oxygenated to modern-like levels by 521 Ma.

    • Xi Chen
    • , Hong-Fei Ling
    •  & Corey Archer

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The origin and diversification of early birds remain unclear. Here, the authors report fossils from the oldest known ornithuromorph bird, recovered from the Huajiying Formation in China, which pushes the divergence of these and other early bird lineages back to the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition.

    • Min Wang
    • , Xiaoting Zheng
    •  & Zhonghe Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Functional differentiation and taxonomic diversity are related in modern ecosystems. Here, the authors show that functional differentiation lags behind taxonomic diversification early in the evolutionary history of marine animals and that important shifts in this relationship occur at major mass extinction events.

    • M.L. Knope
    • , N.A. Heim
    •  & J.L. Payne

  • Article |

    The evolutionary origin of Hippopotamidae, the family of hippos, is poorly understood. Here, the authors describe a new fossil from Kenya that unambiguously roots Hippopotamidae into the group that includes the first large terrestrial mammals to invade Africa, more than 30 million years ago.

    • Fabrice Lihoreau
    • , Jean-Renaud Boisserie
    •  & Stéphane Ducrocq

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Growing evidence reveals great diversity of archaic Asian hominins. Here, Chang and colleagues describe a newly discovered archaic Homomandible from Taiwan, which suggests the survival of multiple evolutionary lineages among archaic hominins before the arrival of modern humans to eastern Asia.

    • Chun-Hsiang Chang
    • , Yousuke Kaifu
    •  & Liang-Kong Lin

  • Article |

    The evolution of the visual system in vertebrates remains poorly understood. Here, the authors show well-preserved rod and cone photoreceptors in a Upper Carboniferous fossilized fish, suggesting that colour vision has evolved in fish at least 300 Myr ago.

    • Gengo Tanaka
    • , Andrew R. Parker
    •  & Haruyoshi Maeda

  • Article |

    The preservation of soft tissues during fossilization is the outcome of a race between decay and mineralization. Here the authors show that differential preservation of the Gaojiashan fossil Conotubus hemiannulatuswas influenced by the duration of tissue degradation through bacterial sulfate reduction.

    • James D. Schiffbauer
    • , Shuhai Xiao
    •  & Alan J. Kaufman

  • Article |

    The phylogenetic and biogeographic origin of Perissodactyla (horses, rhinoceroses and tapirs) is unclear. Here the authors report 54.5 Myr fossils from a sister taxa of Perissodactyla found in India, which suggests that the group may have originated in India before its collision with Asia.

    • Kenneth D. Rose
    • , Luke T. Holbrook
    •  & Thierry Smith

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Calcifying organisms such as planktonic coccolithophores may be particularly vulnerable to increased ocean acidification. Here, O’Dea et al.show that two fossil coccolithophore species exhibited reduced calcification rates during a global warming acidification event 56 million years ago.

    • Sarah A. O’Dea
    • , Samantha J. Gibbs
    •  & Paul A. Wilson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about Mesozoic marine reptile dead-falls. Here, the authors reconstruct the ecological succession of a Late Jurassic shallow-water ichthyosaur fall community and show that it fulfilled ecological roles similar to shallow whale falls and did not support specialized chemosynthetic communities.

    • Silvia Danise
    • , Richard J. Twitchett
    •  & Katie Matts

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Palaeodiversity estimations are confounded by fossil availability and sampling. Here, Dunhill et al.use the fossil record of Great Britain to test aspects of the marine and terrestrial fossil records that are commonly used to identify and correct for bias in palaeodiversity estimations.

    • Alexander M. Dunhill
    • , Bjarte Hannisdal
    •  & Michael J. Benton

  • Article |

    The causes of crocodylomorphs extinction during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic remain unclear. Here, the authors show significant correlations between crocodylomorph diversity and Tethyan sea surface temperatures, which suggests that water temperature was a driver of marine crocodylomorph diversity.

    • Jeremy E. Martin
    • , Romain Amiot
    •  & Michael J. Benton

  • Article |

    Modern arthropods present niche differentiation between larvae and adult stages. Here, Liu et al. describe a larval fossil of Leanchoilia illecebrosa, an early Cambrian arthropod from China, and show a feeding appendage, unknown in adults, that suggests that niche differentiation originated in the early Cambrian.

    • Yu Liu
    • , Joachim T. Haug
    •  & Xianguang Hou

  • Article |

    The potential preservation of viruses in the fossil record is poorly understood. Here, the authors perform metagenomic and microscopic analyses of viruses in living microbial mats and after mineralization, and propose criteria for identifying fossilized viruses.

    • Muriel Pacton
    • , David Wacey
    •  & Crisogono Vasconcelos

  • Article |

    The seas of the Mesozoic were populated by marine reptiles, yet their modes of locomotion remain unknown. Here, Zhang et al. describe seabed tracks made by the paddles of Middle Triassic nothosaurs in southwestern China, which shows that these marine reptiles used their forelimbs for propulsion.

    • Qiyue Zhang
    • , Wen Wen
    •  & Qican Zhang

  • Article |

    The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) represents the most severe climatic event since modern humans arrived in Europe and it is likely that it has changed their morphology. Here, Brewster et al. examine human cranial morphology from before and after the LGM and show significant differences across periods.

    • Ciarán Brewster
    • , Christopher Meiklejohn
    •  & Ron Pinhasi

  • Article |

    Tyrannosaurids were top predators in Asia and North America during the latest Cretaceous and most species had deep skulls. Here, Lü et al. describe mature fossils of Qianzhousaurus sinensis, a new long-snouted tyrannosaurid species from southeastern China that groups with other long snout species from Asia.

    • Junchang Lü
    • , Laiping Yi
    •  & Liu Chen

  • Article |

    Reconstructing patterns of diversification of early animals is challenging. Here, Vannier et al.describe complex digestive organs in arthropods from the early Cambrian of China and Greenland and show similarities with modern crustaceans, suggesting that these structures might have promoted ecological diversification.

    • Jean Vannier
    • , Jianni Liu
    •  & Allison C. Daley

  • Article |

    Internal organs are hard to fossilize and so far only digestive and nervous systems have been described for the Cambrian arthropod Fuxianhuia protensa. Here, Ma et al. describe cardiovascular structures of F. protensaand show that they are similar to the vascular system of extant arthropods.

    • Xiaoya Ma
    • , Peiyun Cong
    •  & Nicholas J. Strausfeld

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Pterosaurs were Mesozoic flying reptiles with extremely large body sizes. Here, Benson et al.demonstrate that pterosaurs evolved increasing body sizes during the Cretaceous, at the same time of bird radiation, suggesting that competition can drive macroevolution.

    • Roger B. J. Benson
    • , Rachel A. Frigot
    •  & Richard J. Butler

  • Article |

    Some echinoderms have photosensory organs composed of microlenses, yet the evolutionary origin of these microlenses is unclear. Here, Gorzelak et al.describe evidence of microlenses in Late Cretaceous brittle stars and starfish, suggesting that such visual systems were already present at this time.

    • Przemysław Gorzelak
    • , Mariusz A. Salamon
    •  & Bruno Ferré

  • Article |

    Rusinga Island in Kenya is home to important fossil beds, including remains of the early ape Proconsul. Here the authors reconstruct the Early Miocene environment in Rusinga Island, and find that Proconsul lived in a dense closed-canopy tropical seasonal forest, a warm and relatively wet local habitat.

    • Lauren A. Michel
    • , Daniel J. Peppe
    •  & Kieran P. McNulty

  • Article |

    Burgess Shale-type deposits are critical to our understanding of the Cambrian diversity explosion. Here, Caron et al.report a new assemblage from the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, British Columbia, with high diversity and abundance of soft-bodied taxa, providing new insights into the early diversification of metazoans.

    • Jean-Bernard Caron
    • , Robert R. Gaines
    •  & Michael Streng

  • Article |

    Early Permian sphenacodontid synapsids were the first terrestrial large-bodied apex predators. Here, Brink and Reisz show that sphenacodontids had a diverse dentition associated with the evolution of changes in feeding style at the onset of the first well established, complex terrestrial ecosystems.

    • Kirstin S. Brink
    •  & Robert R. Reisz

  • Article |

    Humans have influenced the shaping of the landscape for generations, yet disentangling these influences from those of climate is a challenge. Giguet-Covex et al.take the novel approach of using lake sediment DNA to reconstruct a detailed picture of human land use since the Neolithic Period.

    • Charline Giguet-Covex
    • , Johan Pansu
    •  & Pierre Taberlet

  • Article |

    Allosauroids were common Jurassic–Cretaceous megapredators that disappeared in the Late Cretaceous faunal turnover. Here, Zanno and Makovicky describe Siats meekerorum, a giant new North American allosauroid from the Late Cretaceous, demonstrating that this clade co-occurred with and competitively excluded smaller tyrannosaurs.

    • Lindsay E. Zanno
    •  & Peter J. Makovicky

  • Article |

    Cladodontomorph sharks are Palaeozoic stem chondrichthyans thought to have disappeared at the end-Permian mass extinction. Here, Guinot et al.report the finding of a shark tooth assemblage from the Early Cretaceous recovered from southern France, which shows that this group survived the mass extinction in deep-sea refuges.

    • Guillaume Guinot
    • , Sylvain Adnet
    •  & Henri Cappetta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Scorpions have maintained the primary anatomical features of their Paleozoic arthropod ancestors. Here, the authors report the genome sequence of Mesobuthus martensiiand highlight evidence of genetic and morphological evolution that represents a unique adaptation model of arthropods.

    • Zhijian Cao
    • , Yao Yu
    •  & Wenxin Li

  • Article |

    Tooth shapes vary greatly amongst mammals, but the genetic underpinnings and functional relevance of new dental morphologies are largely unknown. Gomes Rodrigues et al. show that Eda and Edargenes modulate molar crest development in mice, enabling incipient adaptation to highly fibrous diets.

    • Helder Gomes Rodrigues
    • , Sabrina Renaud
    •  & Laurent Viriot

  • Article |

    Some early flying dinosaurs, such as the Early Creataceous Microraptor, possessed four wings, but their aerodynamic performance is poorly understood. Dyke et al. show that Microraptordid not require sophisticated wing morphology to undertake effective glides, supporting the view that the origin of feathers in dinosaurs is not associated with flight.

    • Gareth Dyke
    • , Roeland de Kat
    •  & Bharathram Ganapathisubramani

  • Article |

    Mosasaurs were the dominant marine reptiles in the Late Cretaceous. Lindgren et al. report a mosasaur fossil with preserved soft tissue, providing the first evidence that mosasaurs were propelled by hypocercal tail fins.

    • Johan Lindgren
    • , Hani F. Kaddumi
    •  & Michael J. Polcyn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is still not clear when the introduction of animal domestication in northwestern Europe occurred. Here the authors provide evidence that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Northern Germany already possessed domestic pigs, and pigs were present in the region ~500 years earlier than previously thought.

    • Ben Krause-Kyora
    • , Cheryl Makarewicz
    •  & Almut Nebel

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