Evolution has resulted in the development of both herbivores and carnivores -- but how? What type of food did extinct vertebrates eat? And how can we gain insight into the diets of these creatures? In ...

Body coverings such as hair and feathers have played a central role in evolution. They enabled warm-bloodedness by insulating the body, and were used for courtship, display, deterrence of enemies and, ...

"I'm stunned." says Per Ahlberg of Uppsala University, who coordinated the study; "A single track-bearing slab, which one person can lift, calls into question everything we thought we knew about when ...

Ichthyosaurs represent a diverse clade of Mesozoic marine reptiles that rapidly adapted to fully aquatic lifestyles following the end-Permian mass extinction. Their streamlined, 'fish-like' body plan, ...

A fossil found over two decades ago on England’s Jurassic Coast has proved to be one of the most significant discoveries of marine reptiles in recent times. The almost complete skeleton of a ...

The Triassic period represents a pivotal chapter in Earth’s history, marking not only the recovery from the Permo‐Triassic mass extinction but also a remarkable burst in marine reptile diversity.

MSRLSI copy gift of Dr. George R. Zug and signed by author VPAL copy gift of the author; signed by the author and inscribed for the NMNH Library "Over 300 million years ago, an early land vertebrate ...

About 230 million years ago, almost 80 million years before the first bird appeared, their distantly related cousins, the pterosaurs took to the sky, as the first group of active fliers among the ...

The newly described Mirasaura grauvogeli from the Middle Triassic had a striking feather-like crest, hinting that complex skin appendages arose far earlier than previously believed. Its bird-like ...

Fossilized footprints discovered in southeastern Australia, dating back approximately 355 million years, have forced scientists to rethink the timeline of reptile evolution. Detailed in a recent study ...

WASHINGTON — Scientists in Australia have identified the oldest known fossil footprints of a reptilelike animal, dated to around 350 million years ago. The discovery suggests that after the first ...