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Categories: Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds

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Scientists have discovered the first evidence of a unique respiratory infection in the fossilized remains of a dinosaur that lived nearly 150 million years ago. Researchers examined the remains of an immature diplodocid -- a long-necked herbivorous sauropod dinosaur, like 'Brontosaurus' - dating back to the Late Jurassic Period of the Mesozoic Era. The dinosaur nicknamed 'Dolly,' discovered in southwest Montana, had evidence of an infection in the area of its neck vertebrae.

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During the Ice Age, giant mammals such as mammoths, sabre-toothed cats and woolly rhinoceroses once roamed Northern Europe and America. The cold oceans of the northern hemisphere were also home to giants like Steller's sea cow, which grew up to eight meters long and weighed up to ten tons, and has been extinct for around 250 years. Now an international research team has succeeded in deciphering the genome of this ice-age species from fossil bones. They also found an answer to the question of what the genome of this extinct species of sea cow reveals about present-day skin diseases.

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Scientists have discovered a new fossil that reveals the origin of gills in arthropods.

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A new study leaves large tooth marks in previous conclusions about the body shape of the Megalodon, one of the largest sharks that ever lived.

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Deeper analysis of fossils from one of Eastern Europe's most significant paleontological sites has led to the discovery of a new species of pangolin, previously thought to have existed in Europe during the early Pleistocene but not confirmed until now.

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A new study has found that a class of toxins found in snake and mammalian venom evolved from the same ancestral gene.

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A new study has provided the most detailed timeline of mammal evolution to date.

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A 72 to 66-million-year-old embryo found inside a fossilized dinosaur egg sheds new light on the link between the behavior of modern birds and dinosaurs, according to a new study.

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A new extinct reptile species has shed light on how our earliest ancestors became top predators by modifying their teeth in response to environmental instability around 300 million years ago.

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A study investigated the enigma of why sauropod fossils are only found at lower latitudes, while fossils of other main dinosaur types seem ubiquitously present, with many located in the polar regions.

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The evolutionary origin of endothermy (the ability to maintain a warm body and higher energy levels than reptiles), currently believed to have originated separately in birds and mammals, could have occurred nearly 300 million years ago.

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A study finds that there is a 50 percent chance that the common ancestor of birds and dinosaurs had bright colors on its skin, beaks and scales, but 0 percent chance that it had bright colors on its feathers or claws.

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Though discovered more than 45 years ago, fossils of Earth's largest flying animal, Quetzalcoatlus, were never thoroughly analyzed. Now, a scientific team provides the most complete picture yet of this dinosaur relative, its environment and behavior. The pterosaur, with a 40-foot wingspan, walked with a unique gait, but otherwise filled a niche much like herons today. The researchers dispel ideas that it ate carrion and walked like a vampire bat.

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Mere spoonsful of soil pulled from Canada's permafrost are opening vast windows into ancient life in the Yukon, revealing rich new information and rewriting previous beliefs about the extinction dynamics, dates and survival of megafauna like mammoths, horses and other long-lost life forms.

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From 50,000 years to 6,000 years ago, many of the world's largest animals, including such iconic grassland grazers as the woolly mammoth, giant bison, and ancient horses, went extinct. The loss of these grazing species triggered a dramatic increase in fire activity in the world's grasslands, according to a new study.

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New research shows that humans had a significant role in the extinction of woolly mammoths in Eurasia, occurring thousands of years later than previously thought. An international team of scientists has revealed a 20,000-year pathway to extinction for the woolly mammoth.

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Human-caused bird extinctions are driving losses of functional diversity on islands worldwide, and the gaps they leave behind are not being filled by introduced (alien) species, finds a new study.

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The flying reptiles known as pterosaurs are the closest relatives of dinosaurs and were the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight. However, many details of pterosaur flight anatomy and performance are still unclear. According to a new study pterosaurs evolved a muscular wing-body junction to reduce drag and improve flight performance.

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New examinations of skeletons and animal embryos have allowed researchers to discover how mammals developed protruding, flexible noses. This study contributes to uncovering the origin of mammals' strong sense of smell and creates the potential for new animal models, like chickens or frogs, that are often used in lab experiments to investigate facial development disorders such as cleft palate.

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Researchers trace the first tusks back to ancient mammal relatives that lived before the dinosaurs and shed light on the evolution of mammalian tusks by first defining what makes a tusk a tusk.