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Categories: Computer Science: Virtual Reality (VR), Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds

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A new study has discovered the oldest known cavities found in a mammal, the likely result of a diet that included eating fruit.

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The conditions under which early members of the genus Homo dispersed outside Africa were analysed on a broader scale, across Europe during the Early and Middle Pleistocene. The model is based on the comparison of functional trait distribution of large herbivorous mammals in sites with archaeological or fossil evidence of human presence and in sites, which lack evidence of human presence.

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Bird dispersal movements are thought to depend on complex demographic and genetic factors. Researchers show that there may be a simpler explanation: bird dispersal distances depend on the morphology and flight efficiency of the wings. Bird populations and the capacity of species to move across the landscape can determine which species will thrive and which may become endangered.

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The rise and fall of Earth's land surface over the last three million years shaped the evolution of birds and mammals, a new study has found, with new species evolving at higher rates where the land has risen most.

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Scientists have discovered three new species of ancient creatures from the dawn of modern mammals that hint at rapid evolution immediately after the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.

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A new study has revealed that over the last 20,000 to 50,000 years, birds have undergone a major extinction event, inflicted chiefly by humans, which caused the disappearance of about 10 to 20 percent of all avian species. According to the researchers, the vast majority of the extinct species shared several features: they were large, they lived on islands, and many of them were flightless.

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Research on a newly discovered bird fossil found that a unique brain shape may be why the ancestors of living birds survived the mass extinction that claimed all other known dinosaurs.

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Newly-hatched pterosaurs may have been able to fly but their flying abilities may have been different from adult pterosaurs, according to a new study. Researchers found that hatchling humerus bones were stronger than those of many adult pterosaurs, indicating that they would have been strong enough for flight.

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New findings from zoologists working with birds in Southeast Asia are shining fresh light on the connections between animal behaviour, geology, and evolution - underlining that species can diversify surprisingly quickly under certain conditions. Sulawesi Babblers (Pellorneum celebense), shy birds that live in the undergrowth on Indonesian islands, have begun to diverge quite significantly despite being separated geographically for mere tens of thousands of years.

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Ancient chickens lived significantly longer than their modern equivalents because they were seen as sacred -- not food -- archaeologists have found.

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Free from human disturbance for a century, an inland island in Central America has nevertheless lost more than 25% of its native bird species since its creation as part of the Panama Canal's construction, and scientists say the losses continue.

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If paleontologists had a wish list, it would almost certainly include insights into two particular phenomena: how dinosaurs interacted with each other and how they began to fly.

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New research looked at a newly discovered, endangered songbird located only in South America -- the Iberá Seedeater -- and found that this bird followed a very rare evolutionary path to come into existence at a much faster pace than the grand majority of species.

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Ancient Egyptians mummified cats, dogs, ibises and other animals, but closer to home in the South American Atacama desert, parrot mummies reveal that between 1100 and 1450 CE, trade from other areas brought parrots and macaws to oasis communities, according to an international and interdisciplinary team.

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Feathers, an owl head and oars suggest the people in this Iron Age grave were prepared for a long journey.

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The largest flightless bird ever to live weighed in up to 600kg and had a whopping head about half a meter long - but its brain was squeezed for space. Dromornis stirtoni, the largest of the 'mihirungs' (an Aboriginal word for 'giant bird'), stood up to 3m and had a cranium wider and higher than it was long due to a powerful big beak, leading Australian palaeontologists to look inside its brain space to see how it worked.

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In a genetic surprise, ancient DNA shows the closest family members of an extinct bird known as the Haitian cave-rail are not in the Americas, but Africa and the South Pacific, uncovering an unexpected link between Caribbean bird life and the Old World.

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The fossil of a bird that lived alongside the dinosaurs was found with some sort of rocks in its stomach. Previously, researchers thought that these rocks were swallowed on purpose to help clean its stomach, like modern birds of prey do, giving a hint at its diet. But in a new study, scientists discovered that these rocks are quartz crystals that likely formed after the bird died -- its diet is still a mystery.

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Love them or hate them, there's no doubt the European Starling is a wildly successful bird. A new study examines this non-native species from the inside out to learn what exactly happened at the genetic level as the starling population exploded across North America?

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This new paper shows that melanin is more than just something that gives colour to the body. It played an important role in the evolution of warm-blooded animals and helped defined what birds and mammals look like today. By studying where melanin occurs in the body in fossils and modern animals researchers have produced the first model for how melanin has evolved over the last 500 million years.