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Location: Home > Research > Research Progress     Research Progress Fossil Unveils Leaf Eating Among Earliest Birds 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 earliest known evolution of arboreal plant-eating among birds. 　　The pheasant-sized Jeholornis, a member of... Scientists expand understanding of limb evolution in earliest birds 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 and proportionate elongation of the forelimbs. Given the scaling relationship between limb and body size... Genomic Study of Ancient Humans Sheds Light on Human Evolution on the Tibetan Plateau 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 sea level (masl). The plateau covers a wide expanse of Asia—approximately 2.5 million square kilometers... Assessment of contaminants associated with gold-standard ancient DNA protocols 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 has greatly improved the efficiency of ancient DNA research. These techniques are widely used in the stu... Bizarre Cretaceous Bird from China Shows Evolutionarily Decoupled Skull and Body 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, thus eventually giving rise to the characteristic bird body plan. 　　However, paleontologists still scr... Chinese Fossil Shows Modern Bird Skull Evolved from a Mixture of Dinosaur and Bird Features 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 retained key dinosaurian traits far into their evolution many millions of years after the split between dinos... Ancient 'Shark' from China Is Humans' Oldest Jawed Ancestor Palaeontologists discover a 439-million-year-old 'shark' that forces us to re... 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 known as the Palaeozoic period. These early "sharks," known as acanthodians, bristled with spines. In contr... Rare Fossil Teeth from China Overturn Long-held Views about Evolution of Vertebrates An international team of researchers has discovered 439-million-year-old remains of a toothed fish that suggest the ancestors of modern osteichthyans (ray- and lobe-finned fish) and chondrichthyans (sharks and rays) originated much earlier than previously thought. 　　Related findings were published in Nature on Sep... Fish Fossils Breathe New Life into Fin and Limb Evolutionary Hypothesis A trove of fossils, unearthed in rock from China dating back some 436 million years, has revealed for the first time that the mysterious galeaspids, members of an extinct clade of jawless fish, possessed paired fins. 　　The discovery, by an international team led by Prof. ZHU Min from the Institute of Vertebrate Pa... Dawn of Fishes—Early Silurian Jawed Vertebrates Revealed Head to Tail A newly discovered fossil "treasure hoard" dating back some 436 million years to the early Silurian period reveals, for the first time, the complete body shape and form of some of the first jawed fishes. 　　The discovery was published in Nature on Sept. 28 by an international team led by Prof. ZHU Min from the Inst...   32 Page(s)   12345NextFinal

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