Latest Transitional fossil Stories

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, April 11, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Close examination of the lower jawbone, teeth and skeleton of the hominid species Australopithecus sediba proves conclusively that it is uniquely different from a closely related species, Australopithecus africanus, according to a series of papers authored by a scientific team that includes several Texas A&M University researchers. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120502/DC99584LOGO) Darryl de Ruiter,...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online New analysis of what is being called one of the most primitive snake fossils ever discovered suggests that the reptilian creatures may have developed their unique look on land, not in water. Nicholas Longrich of Yale University and his colleagues studied recently discovered fossils of the Coniophis precedens, an ancient protosnake that lived alongside dinosaurs some 65 to 70 million years ago, according to BBC News reports....

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, June 27, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --Australopithecus sediba, believed to be an early relative of modern-day humans, enjoyed a diet of leaves, fruits, nuts, and bark, which meant they probably lived in a more wooded environment than is generally thought, a surprising find published in the current issue of Nature magazine by an international team of researchers that includes a Texas A&M University anthropologist. (Logo:...

Those delicious flatfishes, like halibut and sole, are also evolutionary puzzles. Their profoundly asymmetrical heads have one of the most unusual body plans among all backboned animals (vertebrates) but the evolution of their bizarre anatomy has long been a mystery. How did flatfishes, with both of their eyes on one side of their head, evolve? So puzzling was the anatomy of flounders and their kin that they were used in early arguments against Darwin and his theory of natural selection....

Lee Rannals for RedOrbit.com Scientists say that the 360-million-year-old animal that was first to have moved around on land did not do so using four legs. Images have shown that Ichthyostega walked on land similar to how a salamander walks around today, but 3D computer models have led scientists to disagree. According to a study published in the journal Nature, Ichthyostega would have actually transported from water using its front limbs as crutches. The animal lived during the...

Brett Smith for RedOrbit.com The reexamination of an ancestral human fossil found almost 90 years ago indicates that evolutionary changes in human brain development started 2.5 million years ago, about the time these ancestors began to walk upright. Florida State University researcher Dean Faulk and her colleagues analyzed the 2.2 million-year-old Taung fossil of a 3 to 4-year-old child and found several features that suggest a developed mechanism that allowed for the growth of a more...

For 300 million years, they were the ultimate survivors. They successfully negotiated three mass extinctions, only to die out eventually at the end of the Cretaceous along with the dinosaurs: Ammonoids, or ammonites as they are also known, were marine cephalopods believed to be related to today's squid and nautiloids. Ammonoids changed their reproductive strategy early on in the course of evolution. However, what was once a successful initial strategy may well have proved to be a fatal...

It seems that “Lucy” was not the only hominin on the block in northern Africa about 3 million years ago. A team of researchers that included Johns Hopkins University geologist Naomi Levin has announced the discovery of a partial foot skeleton with characteristics (such as an opposable big toe bone) that don’t match those of Lucy, the human ancestor (or hominin) known to inhabit that region and considered by many to be the ancestor of all modern humans. The discovery is important...

'Lucy' lived among close cousins A team of scientists has announced the discovery of a 3.4 million-year-old partial foot from the Woranso-Mille area of the Afar region of Ethiopia. The fossil foot did not belong to a member of "Lucy's" species, Australopithecus afarensis, the famous early human ancestor. Research on this new specimen indicates that more than one species of early human ancestor existed between 3 and 4 million years ago with different methods of locomotion. The analysis will...

A 3.4-million-year-old fossil foot found in eastern Ethiopia appears to settle a long-standing debate about whether there was just one line of hominins 3 to 4 million years ago, scientists said on Wednesday. The fossil record for that period had been virtually limited to the species Australopithecus afarensis, the early human ancestor made famous by the 3.2-million-year-old Lucy skeleton. However, research on the new specimen, which was found in February 2009 in an area locally known as...