Early Mammals News

January 24, 2025

Top Headlines

Fossil Discovery in the Geiseltal Collection: Researchers Identify Unique Bird Skull

Jan. 22, 2025 — Around 45 million years ago, a 4.6 feet-tall (1.40 meters) flightless bird called Diatryma roamed the Geiseltal region in southern Saxony-Anhalt. An international team of researchers report on the ...

Did Prehistoric Kangaroos Run out of Food?

Jan. 9, 2025 — Prehistoric kangaroos in southern Australia had a more general diet than previously assumed, giving rise to new ideas about their survival and resilience to climate change, and the final extinction of the megafauna, a new study has found. The new ...

Herbivore or Carnivore? A Toolbox for the Study of Extinct Reptiles

Jan. 8, 2025 — 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 living animals, we can simply observe what they ...

Fossil Predator Is the Oldest Known Animal With 'Saber Teeth'

Dec. 17, 2024 — Scientists have discovered the oldest known animal with saber teeth: a predator that lived 270 million years ago. This animal, from before the age of the dinosaurs, was a dog-like creature that was related to the ancestors of ...

Latest Headlines

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Mammoth as Key Food Source for Ancient Americans

Dec. 4, 2024 — Scientists have uncovered the first direct evidence that ancient Americans relied primarily on mammoth and other large animals for food. Their research sheds new light on both the rapid expansion of ...

Early North Americans Made Needles from Fur-Bearers

Nov. 27, 2024 — Paleoindians at Wyoming's LaPrele mammoth site made needles from the bones of fur-bearers, likely to creat garments from the animals' furs to keep warm in a cool ...

Reconstructing Ancient Climate Provides Clues to Climate Change

Nov. 4, 2024 — Research helps reconstruct an ancient climate and challenges the timing of the Andes Mountains ...

How Mammals Got Their Stride

Oct. 25, 2024 — Researchers reveal new insights into the complex evolutionary history behind the distinctive upright posture of modern placental and marsupial mammals, showing the transition was surprisingly complex ...

Paleontologists Discover Colorado 'Swamp Dweller' That Lived Alongside Dinosaurs

Oct. 23, 2024 — The new mammal lived in Colorado 70 to 75 million years ago -- a time when a vast inland sea covered large portions of the state, and animals like ...

Brazilian Fossils Reveal Jaw-Dropping Discovery in Mammal Evolution

Sep. 25, 2024 — The discovery of new cynodont fossils from southern Brazil by a team of palaeontologists has led to a significant breakthrough in understanding the evolution of ...

Ancient Sea Cow Attacked by a Crocodile and Sharks Sheds New Light on Prehistoric Food Chains

Aug. 29, 2024 — A new study showing how a prehistoric sea cow was preyed upon by not one, but two different carnivores -- a crocodilian and a shark -- is revealing ...

To Kill Mammoths in the Ice Age, People Used Planted Pikes, Not Throwing Spears, Researchers Say

Aug. 21, 2024 — Archeologists say new findings might help resolve the debate about Clovis points and reshape how we think about what life was like roughly 13,000 ...

Fossil Hotspots in Africa Obscure a More Complete Picture of Human Evolution

Aug. 20, 2024 — A new study shows how the mismatch between where fossils are preserved and where humans likely lived may influence our understanding of early human ...

Early Mammals Lived Longer

Aug. 8, 2024 — What distinguishes the growth and development patterns of early mammals of the Jurassic period? Paleontologists have been able to gauge the lifespan and growth rates of these ancient animals, and ...

When Mammoths Roamed Vancouver Island

Aug. 7, 2024 — Mammoths, the massive pre-historic ice age cousins of the modern-day elephant, have always been understood to have inhabited parts of British Columbia, but the question of when has always been a bit ...

Evidence for Butchery of Giant Armadillo-Like Mammals in Argentina 21,000 Years Ago

July 17, 2024 — Cut marks on fossils could be evidence of humans exploiting large mammals in Argentina more than 20,000 years ago, according to a new ...

Research Tracks 66 Million Years of Mammalian Diversity

July 17, 2024 — New research has examined the fossil record going back 66 million years and tracked changes to mammalian ecosystems and species diversity on the North American ...

First Ever 3D Reconstruction of 52,000-Year-Old Woolly Mammoth Chromosomes Thanks to Serendipitously Freeze-Dried Skin

July 11, 2024 — An international research team has assembled the genome and 3D chromosomal structures of a 52,000-year-old woolly mammoth -- the first time such a feat has been achieved for any ancient DNA sample. ...

Giant Salamander-Like Creature Was a Top Predator in the Ice Age Before the Dinosaurs

July 3, 2024 — Meet Gaiasia jennyae, the swamp creature with a toilet seat-shaped head. It lived 40 million years before the first dinosaurs, and it was the top predator in its ...

Extinct Humans Survived on the Tibetan Plateau for 160,000 Years

July 3, 2024 — Bone remains found in a Tibetan cave 3,280 m above sea level indicate an ancient group of humans survived here for many ...

The Evidence Is Mounting: Humans Were Responsible for the Extinction of Large Mammals

July 1, 2024 — Human hunting, not climate change, played a decisive role in the extinction of large mammals over the last 50,000 years. This conclusion comes from researchers who reviewed over 300 scientific ...

Last Surviving Woolly Mammoths Were Inbred but Not Doomed to Extinction

June 27, 2024 — The last population of woolly mammoths was isolated on Wrangel Island off the coast of Siberia 10,000 years ago, when sea levels rose and cut the mountainous island off from the mainland. A new ...

Tiny New Species of Great Ape Lived in Germany 11 Million Years Ago

June 7, 2024 — Ancient apes in Germany co-existed by partitioning resources in their environment, according to a new ...

Florida Fossil Porcupine Solves a Prickly Dilemma 10-Million Years in the Making

May 28, 2024 — An exceptionally rare fossilized porcupine skeleton discovered in Florida has allowed researchers to trace the evolutionary history for one of North America's rarest ...

Diverse Headgear in Hoofed Mammals Evolved from Common Ancestor

May 20, 2024 — From the small ossicones on a giraffe to the gigantic antlers of a male moose -- which can grow as wide as a car -- the headgear of ruminant hooved mammals is extremely diverse, and new research ...

Dinosaur Study Challenges Bergmann's Rule

Apr. 5, 2024 — A new study calls into question Bergmann's rule, an 1800s-era scientific principle stating that animals in high-latitude, cooler climates tend to be larger than close relatives living in warmer ...

Early Dinosaurs Grew Up Fast, but They Weren't the Only Ones

Apr. 3, 2024 — The earliest dinosaurs had rapid growth rates, but so did many of the other animals living alongside them, according to a new ...

Researchers Name Prehistoric Amphibian Ancestor Discovered in Smithsonian Collection After Kermit the Frog

Mar. 21, 2024 — Scientists have uncovered the fossilized skull of a 270-million-year-old ancient amphibian ancestor in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. The team of ...

Slimming Down a Colossal Fossil Whale

Feb. 29, 2024 — A 30 million year-old fossil whale may not be the heaviest animal of all time after all, according to a new analysis by paleontologists. The new analysis puts Perucetus colossus back in the same ...

Killer Instinct Drove Evolution of Mammals' Predatory Ancestors

Feb. 22, 2024 — The evolutionary success of the first large predators on land was driven by their need to improve as killers, researchers ...

Panama Canal Expansion Rewrites History of World's Most Ecologically Diverse Bats

Feb. 20, 2024 — In a new study, paleontologists describe the oldest-known leaf-nosed bat fossils, which were found along the banks of the Panama Canal. They're also the oldest bat fossils from Central America, ...

Archaeologists Discover Oldest Known Bead in the Americas

Feb. 12, 2024 — The bead found at the La Prele Mammoth site in Wyoming's Converse County is about 12,940 years old and made of bone from a ...

How Did Humans Learn to Walk? New Evolutionary Study Offers an Earful

Jan. 29, 2024 — A new study, which centers on evidence from skulls of a 6-million-year-old fossil ape, Lufengpithecus, offers important clues about the origins of bipedal locomotion courtesy of a novel method: ...

Woolly Mammoth Movements Tied to Earliest Alaska Hunting Camps

Jan. 17, 2024 — Researchers have linked the travels of a 14,000-year-old woolly mammoth with the oldest known human settlements in Alaska, providing clues about the relationship between the iconic species and some ...