Tag Archives: Species

Facebook Tweet Email Link Paleontologists have discovered a new dinosaur species with a very distinctive feature, a sail-like structure running down its back, the Natural History Museum in London announced on Friday. The bones of Istiorachis macarthurae, named in honor of record-breaking British sailor Ellen MacArthur, were uncovered on the Isle of Wight, a small island just off the south …

LONDON — A former PhD student analyzing 125-million-year-old fossils has made waves with the discovery of a new species of dinosaur that had a sail on its back. The findings, published in the journal Papers in Palaeontology on Friday, relate to fossils originally excavated in the 1970s on the Isle of Wight, a small island off England’s south coast. The …

Georgina Rannard Climate and science correspondent Michael Brown Giraffes in Uganda’s Kidepo Valley Giraffes are one of the world’s most distinct and well-loved creatures, always thought to be one species. But now scientists at the International Union for Conservation of Nature say we can welcome three more species of the world’s tallest mammal. It’s not the first time researchers have …

A tan-brown lizard dashed across sun-warmed rock in coastal Angola and ran straight into the scientific record. It belonged to a trio of day geckos that science had never formally described. The new species, all from Namibia’s neighbor to the north, include the large-spotted Namib day gecko, Rhoptropus megocellus, alongside R. minimus and R. crypticus. They were documented after multi-year …

Named Cordualadensa acorni, the new dragonfly species from Alberta’s Dinosaur Provincial Park represents the only Mesozoic dragonfly for Canada and fills a major 30-million-year gap in the evolutionary history of dragonflies. Cordualadensa acorni. Image credit: Alex Anderson. The fossilized wing of Cordualadensa acorni was discovered in 2023 by an undergraduate student from McGill University during a vertebrate paleontology field course …

In a recent study published in Palaeodiversity, researchers have uncovered a rich and varied fossil assemblage of tanystropheid archosauromorphs from the Late Triassic period, originating from the continental interior of Pangea. Among these fascinating discoveries is a newly described species, Akidostropheus oligos (gen. et sp. nov.), which has drawn attention due to its unique dorsal spike structure. This detailed study, …

Article summary Stable isotope analysis reveals ancient diets: By measuring ratios of carbon and nitrogen isotopes in bones and teeth, scientists can determine whether prehistoric individuals consumed C3 or C4 plants, and whether they were herbivores or carnivores. This technique has illuminated dietary habits from Neanderthals to early hominins. Advanced methods refine dietary insights: Techniques …

A protein that helps synthesize DNA is different in modern humans than it is in Neanderthals and Denisovans — our closest extinct relatives — and new experiments in mice genetically modified to express the modern human version hint that this may have made us behave differently. That discovery, in turn, could shed light on why Neanderthals and Denisovans vanished, researchers …

The story of human evolution is not a simple ladder from early forms to more advanced ones. For decades, fossils shaped a picture of steady, linear progress – one form giving rise to another in a neat sequence. But science often rewrites its narratives when new evidence appears. Now, remarkable finds in Ethiopia are challenging long-held assumptions and painting a …

Ancient, fossilized teeth, uncovered during a decades-long archaeology project in northeastern Ethiopia, indicate that two different kinds of hominins, or human ancestors, lived in the same place between 2.6 million and 2.8 million years ago — and one of them may be a previously unknown species. The discovery provides a new glimpse into the complex web of human evolution. Ten …