Search Results for: Vertebrates
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A fish’s solution to broken hearts
The zebrafish can regenerate missing heart muscle.
By John Travis -
Getting an Earful: With gene therapy, ears grow new sensory cells
Scientists have for the first time coaxed the growth of new sensory cells within the ears of an adult mammal.
By John Travis -
Animals
Sibling Desperado: Doomed booby chick turns relentlessly violent
The first known case among nonhuman vertebrates of so-called desperado aggression—relentless attacks against an overwhelming force—may come from the underling chick in nests of brown boobies.
By Susan Milius -
Paleontology
Curved claws hint at pterosaur habits
A study of the claws of flying reptiles known as pterosaurs suggests that some of the creatures may have walked like present-day herons and used their wing fingers to hold prey.
By Sid Perkins -
Paleontology
Skimming the Surface: Flying reptile may have scooped its meals
Fossils unearthed in Brazil strengthen the idea that some species of ancient flying reptiles snatched their meals on the fly, snapping up fish as they swooped low over the water's surface.
By Sid Perkins -
Paleontology
Family Meal: Cannibal dinosaur known by its bones
Analyses of the gnaw marks on bones of Majungatholus atopus, a carnivorous dinosaur from Madagascar, indicate that the creatures routinely fed on members of their own species.
By Sid Perkins -
Paleontology
Veggie Bites: Fossil suggests carnivorous dinosaurs begat vegetarian kin
Chinese rocks have yielded fossil remains of a creature that had rodentlike incisors and a hefty overbite, providing the first distinct dental evidence for plant-eating habits among theropod dinosaurs.
By Sid Perkins -
Paleontology
Trackway site shows dinosaur on the go
Scientists say that a sediment-filled, bathtub-shape depression found at one of North America's most significant dinosaur trackway sites is the first recognized evidence of urination in dinosaurs.
By Sid Perkins -
Paleontology
Mosasaurs were born at sea, not in safe harbors
Newly discovered fossils of prehistoric aquatic reptiles known as mosasaurs suggest that the creatures gave birth in midocean rather than in near-shore sanctuaries as previously suspected.
By Sid Perkins -
Paleontology
Stegosaur tails packed a punch
A mathematical analysis of a fossil stegosaur's bones leaves little doubt that the creature's spike-studded tail was an effective defense against predators.
By Sid Perkins -
Globin Family Grows: Blood-protein relative is in all tissues
Researchers discovered a relative of the blood protein hemoglobin in all the body's tissues.
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Paleontology
Into the Gap: Fossil find stands on its own four legs
A fossil originally misidentified as an ancient fish turns out to be the nearly intact remains of a four-limbed creature that lived during an extended period noted for its lack of fossils of land animals.
By Sid Perkins