Search Results for: Vertebrates
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1,512 results
- Animals
Cats and foxes are driving Australia’s mammals extinct
Since the arrival of Europeans in Australia, a startling number of mammal species have disappeared. A new study puts much of the blame on introduced cats and foxes.
- Animals
Just enough fat is good for an elephant seal
Fat affects the buoyancy of marine mammals. As elephant seals get fatter, they can spend less energy swimming and more time foraging, a new study finds.
- Genetics
Rainbow trout genome shows how genetic material evolved
The finding challenges the idea that whole genome duplications are followed by quick, massive reorganization and deletions of genetic material.
- Animals
‘Planet of the Bugs’ reveals the secrets to insects’ success
Entomologist Scott Richard Shaw explores the evolution of insects and how they came to rule the world.
- Paleontology
Oldest true dolphin species gets a new name
A dolphin species first described in the 1970s has gotten a new name but still retains the title of oldest true dolphin species identified to date.
- Paleontology
Fossils push back origins of modern mammals
Fossils of three newly identified early mammals from China suggest that the common ancestor of today’s mammals lived over 200 million years ago.
- Animals
Slow, cold reptiles may breathe like energetic birds
Finding birdlike air patterns in lungs of crocodilians and in more distantly related lizards raises the possibility that one-way airflow evolved far earlier than birds themselves did.
- Neuroscience
Melatonin and the watery beginnings of sleep
The tiny zooplankton Platynereis dumerilii use melatonin just as much as we do, suggesting that the origins of sleeplike behavior may lie under the sea.
- Animals
How the ghost shark lost its stomach
The lack of a digestive organ in fish and other animals is linked to genetics.
- Paleontology
Lost-and-found dinosaur thrived in water
Fossils pieced together through ridiculous luck reveal Spinosaurus to be the only known dinosaur adapted for regular ventures into water.
- Paleontology
Giant platypus tooth found
A fossil molar found in Australia reveals a previously unknown extinct species of the mammal.
- Life
Genes gives clues to outcome of species interbreeding
Genetics provides clues to why hybrid river fish formed a subspecies but insects formed a new species.
