Earth & Climate

On the trail of elephant rises and falls

The trunk animals once had an enormous biodiversity. (Illustration: Oscar Sanisidro) Today only three species are left - but once there was an enormous...

A beetle from the dinosaur droppings

The fossil beetle and the originator of the feces in which it was preserved. (Image: Qvarnström et al./ Malgorzata Czaja) Researchers have discovered a...

Dino nursery discovered in the cold north

Among the dinosaur species that apparently lived and nested year-round in what is now Alaska was a relative of Tyrannosaurus rex: Nanuqsaurus hoglundi. ...

Ancient giant rhinoceros discovered

This is what Paraceratherium linxiaense could have looked like. (Image: Yu Chen) Giant rhinos are among the largest land mammals that have ever lived...

Featured picture: Searching for clues in the Chiquihuite cave

In search of traces of the past, researchers venture into remote caves: Here archaeologists are on their way to the Chiquihuite cave in Mexico,...

Cretaceous live snail birth

99 million year old birth scene in amber: a snail and its five young animals. (Image: Tingting Yu) When it was just giving birth...

Featured picture: A crocodile with horns

This skull comes from an extinct crocodile that has long puzzled researchers. The reptile, once native to Madagascar, resembled the Nile crocodiles in...

Mysterious shark dying

Microfossils provide evidence of an enigmatic mass extinction in sharks. (Illustration: Leah Rubin) A bang in the history of sharks is emerging: around 19...

Featured picture: Powerful crab larva

This crab larva is only two millimeters in size and is still largely transparent. But that doesn't mean she's defenseless: her tentacles, which...

On the trail of the secret of the green Sahara

After rare rainfall, green is still sprouting in the Sahara today. (Image: Rachid Cheddadi) Where the sun burns on the bare ground today, a...

New insights into the origins of flowering plants

Fossil blooms from the early Cretaceous period. (Image: NIGPAS) Flowering plants have a unique characteristic that has contributed to their evolutionary success: their seeds...

Featured picture: Wild dogs in hyena look

At first glance, these African wild dogs resemble hyenas and their hunting behavior is also quite similar. The wild dog, therefore also known...

Eco-energy: where are the limits?

Earth at night. (Image: NASA / GSFC) Renewable energies are considered natural and environmentally friendly alternatives to fossil fuels. But with the use...

Ice Age intercontinental exchange

When the Bering Land Bridge dried up in the Pleistocene Ice Ages, the horse populations of North America and Eurasia met and mingled. ...

What Inhibited Mammals in the Dino Era

Representatives of early mammalian lineages such as this comparatively large gobiconodon may have suppressed the development of the ancestors of modern mammals during the...

Recent Articles