Reptiles were trapped in equatorial rainforests’ fragments following global warming 300 million years ago, leading to an explosion in diversity. Steve Mirsky reports. Leer más.
Andy Duckworth attended the premier of the Natural History Museum’s interactive film Who Do You Think You Are? with some of the most unforgiving critics around: 60 schoolchildren. Leer más.
 | A SET of 200-million-year-old teeth from a beast related to dinosaurs and crocodiles has shed light on how snake fangs evolved. They support the idea that venom canals inside fangs evolved from grooves on the tooth surface. The late Triassic reptile Uatchitodon is known only from its teeth, which resemble tall, serrated crocodile or dinosaur teeth. Several have been found, and the two youngest ones, dating from 220 million years ago, have what look like venom canals. An older set have grooves of different depths but no canals. Until now it was unknown whether the variations reflected evolutionary changes, different stages of tooth development, or even teeth from different positions in the mouth. |
 | Pterosaurs (also referred to as pterodactyls) were too slow and flexible to use the stormy winds and waves of the southern ocean like the albatrosses of today, the research by Colin Palmer, an engineer turned paleontology PhD student in Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, found. Their slow flight and the variable geometry of their wings also enabled pterosaurs to land very gently, reducing the chance of breaking their paper- thin bones. This helps to explain how they were able to become the largest flying animals ever known. |
 | La repentina desaparición de buena parte de los bosques y selvas generada tras el cambio climático vivido hace 300 millones de años propició que se disparara la biodiversidad, al contrario de lo que pudiera pensarse, alimentando además la posterior aparición de los dinosaurios. “Los animales que sobrevivieron a ese cambio son los ancestros de los dinosaurios, que proliferaron en el espacio vacío creado tras la deforestación”, asegura a este diario el responsable del estudio que publica hoy Geology, Howard Falcon-Lang. |
