Birds descended from theropod dinosaurs by the Late Jurassic, but our understanding of the earliest evolution of the Avialae, the clade comprising all modern birds but not Deinonychus or Troodon, has been hampered...
While ravens do not occur in what is now the Chinese capital of Beijing today, a new scientific study analyzing fossil bird bones from the UNESCO World Heritage Zhoukoudian "Peking Man" site demonstrates that rave...
A new type of analysis of a spectacular 120-million-year-old fossil skeleton of the extinct early bird Jeholornis from northeastern China has revealed the oldest evidence for birds eating leaves, marking the earli...
The assembly of the volant bird body plan from the ancestral bulky dinosaurian condition is an enduring topic of evolutionary biology. The body plan of volant birds demonstrates a pronounced decrease in body size ...
The assembly of the volant bird body plan from the ancestral bulky dinosaurian condition is an enduring topic of evolutionary biology. The body plan of volant birds demonstrates a pronounced decrease in body size ...
The Tibetan Plateau, the highest and largest plateau above sea level, is one of the harshest environments settled by humans. It has a cold and arid environment and its elevation often surpasses 4000 meters above s...
Ancient DNA (aDNA) techniques have rapidly evolved in recent years, especially the application of single-stranded DNA library construction protocol and the automation of lab work using liquid handling robots that ...
It is now widely accepted that birds are descended from dinosaurs. It is also understood that this transition encompasses some of the most dramatic transformations morphologically, functionally, and ecologically, ...
Scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IVPP) in Beijing and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago have revealed that birds retai...
Living sharks are often portrayed as the apex predators of the marine realm. Paleontologists have been able to identify fossils of their extinct ancestors that date back hundreds of millions of years to a time kno...