17+ hour, 34+ min ago   (996+ words) Sooty mangabeys bend the middle of their feet 46 degrees while climbing, matching the ankle bend of chimpanzees and informing debate over the last common ancestor. Climbing a bare tree trunk asks an ankle to bend further than walking ever does....

15+ hour, 1+ min ago   (1182+ words) Snakes and lizards made up a surprising share of meals at a Natufian settlement, where the same butchering method persisted for millennia. The familiar picture of the Stone Age diet centers on big animals: a gazelle on a spit, a…...

1+ day, 14+ hour ago   (956+ words) A 324-million-year-old fossil suggests early insects lived between water and land as their bodies gradually changed over time. Life on Earth changed greatly when animals began moving from water onto land. It happened in stages, and some early animals, including…...

1+ day, 15+ hour ago   (1262+ words) Purussaurus bite marks on fossil bones show a 23-foot crocodile relative killed hoofed mammals weighing up to 4,000 pounds in ancient South America. Saltwater crocodiles in northern Australia hunt horses, cattle, and feral water buffalo. They are the largest crocodiles alive…...

1+ day, 22+ hour ago   (1055+ words) Ancient DNA reveals that the American cheetah was actually closer to pumas, ranged into Arctic Yukon, and may have regularly eaten fish. For a long time, the extinct animal known as the American cheetah seemed to have a simple story....

1+ week, 5+ day ago   (1023+ words) A remarkably complete armored fish fossil from Brazil survived near a massive asteroid crater, revealing an unexpected link to ancient Europe. Near the end of the Permian, an asteroid hit central Brazil and folded the rock layers around the crater…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago   (830+ words) Decades-old museum collections from La Brea have revealed a bone belonging to a new species of Ice Age amphibian, a type of spadefoot toad. The most sensitive climate instrument at La Brea Tar Pits is not a mammoth. It is…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago   (1073+ words) Analysis of dodo bird skulls has helped scientists understand how they observed and interacted with the world before their extinction. Call someone a dodo and nobody asks what you mean. The bird showed little fear of the people who landed…...

2+ week, 5+ day ago   (803+ words) A new study could reshape human evolution by placing Australopithecus and Paranthropus within an expanded genus Homo. Some of the best-known names in human evolution – including Australopithecus and Paranthropus – may be due for retirement. A new study argues that these…...

2+ week, 5+ day ago   (797+ words) Traits that predicted mammal extinction for 130,000 years are changing, raising questions about how scientists identify species most at risk today. For 130,000 years, certain traits reliably predicted which mammals would go extinct and which would survive. A new study suggests that…...