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Paleontology
Results 1 - 20 of 42.
Paleontology - Earth Sciences - 25.10.2024
Symbiosis in ancient Corals
Analysis of nitrogen isotopes provides evidence of the earliest known photosymbiosis in corals of the Devonian A research team led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz has used nitrogen isotope analysis to demonstrate that 385 million years old corals of the Devonian from the Eifel and Sauerland regions had symbionts.
Life Sciences - Paleontology - 07.08.2024
Early Mammals Lived Longer
University of Bonn researchers are studying the lifespan and growth patterns of early mammals What distinguishes the growth and development patterns of early mammals of the Jurassic period? This is the question jointly investigated by researchers of Queen Mary University of London and the University of Bonn.
Paleontology - 27.06.2024
How the Indo-Australian Archipelago became a biodiversity hotspot
The region with the greatest marine biodiversity on our planet is known as the Coral Triangle or Indo-Australian Archipelago. However, the detailed evolutionary history of this biodiversity hotspot is poorly understood. An international research team has reconstructed how biodiversity has developed over the past 40 million years.
Paleontology - Life Sciences - 07.06.2024
Second great ape species discovered at Hammerschmiede fossil site
An international team of researchers has discovered a previously unknown ape species in the Hammerschmiede clay pit in southern Germany. Buronius manfredschmidi was found close to the great ape Danuvius guggenmosi , known as "Udo". This was about 12 million years ago the first ape with adaptations for walking upright and made the Hammerschmiede excavation site famous.
Paleontology - Environment - 06.05.2024
Clawed animals lived in the hammer mill
From today's perspective, they look like a cross between a horse and a gorilla: clawed animals (Chalicotheriidae) had a massive body and a horse-like head; their arms were much longer than their legs and equipped with claws. They belonged to the group of odd-toed ungulates and are thus related to modern rhinoceroses, horses and tapirs.
Paleontology - 09.04.2024
Do some mysterious bones belong to gigantic ichthyosaurs?
A study carried out at the University of Bonn sheds light on a mystery that has puzzled paleontologists for 150 years Several similar large, fossilized bone fragments have been discovered in various regions across Western and Central Europe since the 19th century. The animal group to which they belonged is still the subject of much debate to this day.
Life Sciences - Paleontology - 02.04.2024
Temple bones in the skulls of dinosaurs and humans alike were formed by feeding habits
Whether human or reptile: in the skull of most terrestrial vertebrates there is a gaping hole in the temple; in the case of most reptiles, there are two. Scientists have been looking for explanations for this for 150 years. A team of researchers from the University of Tübingen and Ruhr University Bochum has now shown that the forces acting on the skull change depending on how and where food is held, bitten and chewed in the mouth - and over millions of years, these factors lead to the formation of connections and openings in the skull.
Paleontology - 13.03.2024
Newly discovered: Fossil giant turtle named after Stephen King novel character
An international research team led by Dr. Gabriel S. Ferreira from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of has described a new species of giant turtle from the late Pleistocene.
Paleontology - Chemistry - 06.02.2024
Surprisingly vibrant colour of 12-million-year-old snail shells
Researchers provide world's first evidence of intact polyene pigments in fossils Snail shells are often colourful and strikingly patterned. This is due to pigments that are produced in special cells of the snail and stored in the shell in varying concentrations. Fossil shells, on the other hand, are usually pale and inconspicuous because the pigments are very sensitive and have already decomposed.
Life Sciences - Paleontology - 20.09.2023
Proboscideans of the Hammerschmiede - contemporaries of the first upright ape
Today, there exist only three elephant species, in Africa and Asia. Yet the diversity of proboscidean species and their distribution was significantly greater in the Earth's past. Researchers from the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, working at the Hammerschmiede site in southern Germany, have now described new fossils of early proboscidean species.
Paleontology - Earth Sciences - 01.09.2023
Fossil spines reveal deep sea’s past
Research team led by Göttingen University describe early occurrence of irregular sea urchins in the depths of the oceans Right at the bottom of the deep sea, the first very simple forms of life on earth probably emerged a long time ago. Today, the deep sea is known for its bizarre fauna. Intensive research is being conducted into how the number of species living on the sea floor have changed in the meantime.
Paleontology - Environment - 08.08.2023
Shell size: how turtles evolved over the last 200 million years Diversity of turtle body size studied
With a shell length of about 100 millimeters, the land-dwelling areolate flat-shelled turtle (Homopus areolatus) is one of today's smallest turtle species. The record at the other end of the scale is held by the leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), which is common in tropical and subtropical seas and can reach up to two meters in length.
Paleontology - History / Archeology - 04.08.2023
Database with 2,400 prehistoric sites
Human history in one click: For the first time, numerous sites relating to the early history of mankind from 3 million to 20,000 years ago can be accessed in a large-scale database. Scientists from the research center ROCEEH ("The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans") have compiled information on 2,400 prehistoric sites and 24,000 assemblages from more than 100 ancient cultures.
Paleontology - 13.07.2023
Chinese alligator had Asian relatives around 200,000 years ago
University of Tübingen paleontologists Dr. Márton Rabi and Gustavo Darlim, working with Chulalongkorn University and Department of Mineral Resources of Thailand, have demonstrated that an almost completely fossilized alligator skull found in Thailand belongs to a previously unknown species. The fossil was discovered in 2005 and is at most 230,000 years old.
Life Sciences - Paleontology - 29.06.2023
Exciting insights into the sexual development of a marine reptile
International research team sheds light on puberty of extinct vertebrates some 240 million years ago Fossil skeletons have long fascinated researchers as a window to prehistory. But so far, little is known about details of sexual development in extinct creatures. An international team of researchers from China, Germany and Japan, with significant participation from the University of Bonn, reports on the puberty of Keichousaurus in the journal Current Biology.
Environment - Paleontology - 22.06.2023
Ravens were attracted to humans’ food more than 30,000 years ago
Wild animals entered into diverse relationships with humans long before the first settlements were established in the Neolithic period around 10,000 years ago. An international study by researchers from the Universities of Tübingen, Helsinki and Aarhus presents new evidence that ravens helped themselves to people's scraps and picked over mammoth carcasses left by human hunters during the Pavlovian culture more than 30,000 years ago in what is now Moravia in the Czech Republic.
Paleontology - 16.06.2023
Fossil study sheds light on famous spirals found in nature
A 3D model of a 407-million-year-old plant fossil has overturned thinking on the evolution of leaves / "Science" publication A 3D model of a 407-million-year-old plant fossil has overturned thinking on the evolution of leaves. The research has also led to fresh insights about spectacular patterns found in plants.
Paleontology - Life Sciences - 11.05.2023
300,000-Year-Old Snapshot: Oldest Human Footprints from Germany Found
Schöningen/Tübingen, 05/12/2023. In a study published today in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, an international research team led by scientists from the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment presents the earliest human footprints known from Germany.
Environment - Paleontology - 28.03.2023
80 million years old rainforest
Plant fossils from Egypt shed light on the evolutionary history of rainforests An international team of researchers led by first author Dr. Clément Coiffard of Freie Universität Berlin and Senckenberg scientist Dieter Uhl has taken a close look at the evolutionary history of tropical rainforests.
Paleontology - Life Sciences - 13.02.2023
Researchers solve a 150-year-old mystery
Study led by the University of Bonn: Aetosaur find involves juveniles Aetosaurs had a small head and a crocodile-like body. The land dwellers were up to six meters long and widely distributed geographically. They died out about 204 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic. In Kaltental near Stuttgart, Germany, an assemblage of 24 Aetosaurus ferratus individuals, only between 20 and 82 centimeters long, was discovered in 1877.