Cause‐specific mortality of the world’s terrestrial vertebrates

Soft Tissue Preservation in Terrestrial Mesozoic Vertebrates

Exceptionally preserved fossils—i.e., those that retain, in somemanner, labile components of organisms that are normally degraded far too quickly to enter the fossil record—hold the greatest potential for understanding aspects of the biology of long-extinct animals and are the best targets for the search for endogenous biomolecules. Yet the modes of preservation of these labile components, and ...

Dry riverbeds: corridors for terrestrial vertebrates

Riparian areas along rivers are essential movement corridors for terrestrial animals. However, the potential role of the dry bed of intermittent rivers as a movement corridor has been largely ignored. In this study, we investigated the use of the dry riverbed, compared with riparian, upland, and unpaved road habitats, by terrestrial vertebrates (mammals, reptiles, and birds) along two intermitt...

Body Form and Gait in Terrestrial Vertebrates

The Olfactory Nervous System of Terrestrial and Aquatic Vertebrates

Animals in their natural milieu are surrounded by odors. These odors are rich source of information, and are perceived by sophisticated olfactory systems, that have evolved over time. The sense of smell helps species to localize prey, evade predators, explore food and recognize viable mates. In humans, memoirs, thoughts, emotions, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of s...

Exploring the origins of carbon in terrestrial worlds.

Given the central role of carbon in the chemistry of life, it is a fundamental question as to how carbon is supplied to the Earth, in what form and when. We provide an accounting of carbon found in solar system bodies, and in particular a comparison between the organic content of meteorites and that in identified organics in the dense interstellar medium (ISM). Based on this accounting, identif...