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Ancient fossils reveal the evolutionary history of ossification in the spine of land vertebrates A study conducted by researchers from the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin revealed the evolution of ossification patterns in the backbones of four-legged vertebrates. Antoine Verrière and his colleagues were able to reconstruct the patterns of how the bones in the vertebral column formed in the ancestor to all land vertebrates based on a large dataset of modern and fossil vertebrates with the inclusion of rare new data from the 300 Ma old reptile Mesosaurus tenuidens.

International research team describes bone cancer in a large amphibian species from southwestern Poland More than 215 million years ago, a large amphibian species lived in floodplains in southwestern Poland: Metoposaurus krasiejowensis. On one of these fossils, Polish and American scientists, with the participation of researchers from the University of Bonn, detected bone cancer for the first time.

An international research team including the Department of Biology at the University of Hamburg has used computer models and engineering methods to analyze the mobility of dinosaur tails. According to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers found that these tails could move at speeds of more than 100 kilometers per hour.

Göttingen University geobiologist discovers diversity of patterns in 240 million-year-old seashells UV light makes it possible to see intricate structures of fossils that are barely visible in normal daylight. This method has often been used on the fossilised seashells from the Earth's current geological era to reveal patterns of colour that had long since faded away.

Study by the University of Bonn proves for the first time that enigmatic microstructures originate from calcium oxalate In fossil leaves, puzzling structures are often visible under the microscope. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now been able to show for the first time that they originate from calcium oxalate crystals.

Study by the University of Bonn proves for the first time that enigmatic microstructures originate from calcium oxalate In fossil leaves, puzzling structures are often visible under the microscope. Researchers at the University of Bonn have now been able to show for the first time that they originate from calcium oxalate crystals.

Researchers at the University of Bonn study the way of life of extinct amphibians If you need to lurk at the bottom of a water body waiting for prey, it is wise to stay motionless without resisting against the buoyant forces of water. To do so you need a kind of diving belt that helps to sink. One large amphibian species Metoposaurus krasiejowensis, that lived more than 200 million years ago, compensated for buoyancy with a heavy shoulder girdle.

When they re-analyzed a skeleton that was discovered in Trossingen in 1922, consisting mainly of the rear of the body, Regalado Fernandez and Werneburg established that many of the bones were not the same as a typical Plateosaurus . For instance, the partial skeleton displayed, among other derived characters, broader and more strongly-built hips with fused sacral vertebrae as well as unusually large and robust long bones - both features implied locomotion on four legs.

Many people living today have a small component of Neanderthal DNA in their genes, suggesting an important role for admixture with archaic human lineages in the evolution of our species. Paleogenetic evidence indicates that hybridization with Neanderthals and other ancient groups occurred multiple times, with our species- history resembling more a network or braided stream than a tree.

An international team of researchers reports that at least 20 species of carnivorous mammals lived 11.5 million years ago in what is now the Hammerschmiede fossil site in southern Germany. The site has been a focus of attention since the 2019 discovery of the first known ape to walk upright, Danuvius guggenmosi .

Geckos lived in Europe as early as 47 million years ago, say palaeontologists who have examined a nearly complete fossil gecko skull from central Germany. This previously unknown species was found in a former coalmining area - Geiseltal - and was described by a research team led by Dr. Andrea Villa of the Catalan Institute of Palaeontology Miquel Crusafont in Barcelona and biogeologist Dr. Márton Rabi of the University of Tübingen and Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

Using zinc isotopes, researchers investigated the diet of megalodon, the largest shark to have ever lived The diet of fossil extinct animals can hold clues to their lifestyle, behaviour, evolution and ultimately extinction. However, studying an animal's diet after millions of years is difficult due to the poor preservation of chemical dietary indicators in organic material on these timescales.

Mouse deer are among the smallest ruminants in the world. Today, they live in the tropics of Africa and Asia and are barely larger than hares. Males and females differ little in appearance. But that was not the case about eleven million years ago. Josephina Hartung and Professor Madelaine Böhme from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen came across a previously unknown difference between the sexes while examining two fossil mouse deer skulls from the Hammerschmiede clay pit in the Allgäu region of Germany.

Palaeobiologists from the University of Tübingen have described a previously unknown turtle species that lived in what is now Romania some 70 million years ago. The reptile, measuring 19 cm in length, has no close relatives now but is a member of the larger group of side-necked turtles that are today found mostly in the southern hemisphere.

An international research team led by biologists from Friedrich Schiller University Jena has discovered material evidence that ants already lived in a special social system based on the division of labour more than 100 million years ago. Ants live in states organised according to the division of tasks.

The oldest known footprints of pre-humans were found on the Mediterranean island of Crete and are at least six million years old, says an international team of researchers from Germany, Sweden, Greece, Egypt and England, led by Tübingen scientists Uwe Kirscher and Madelaine Böhme of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen.

A new study of two approximately 52-million-year-old fossil finds from the Green River Formation in Wyoming, USA, has fitted them into the evolutionary history of crocodiles. Biogeologists Jules Wal-ter, Dr. Márton Rabi of the University of Tübingen, working with some other colleagues, determined the extinct species Tsoabichi greenriverensis to be an early caiman crocodile.

Göttingen research team creates phylogenetic tree of leaf insects An international research team led by the University of Göttingen has studied the evolution of the walking leaves. Walking leaves belong to the stick insects and ghost insects that, unlike their approximately 3,000 branch-like relatives, do not imitate twigs.

Researchers disprove theory of volcanic eruption as reason for mass deaths / Mineralogists and planetologists of the University of Münster participating in worldwide study in "Science' Was it volcanic eruptions in western India or an asteroid impact that caused the death of dinosaurs and many other animal species 66 million years ago? Researchers have been discussing this since the 1980s.

Around three years ago, researchers on an Antarctic expedition, including Münster University palaeobotanist Dr. Benjamin Bomfleur , made an incredible discovery in northern Victoria Land. They found the 200 million-year-old footprint of an extinct reptile. The researchers have now published their findings from the hand-sized footprint in the journal "Polar Research".