Fossils are essential to the reconstruction of the evolution of life and episodes in Earth history. Fossil skeletal material serves as the repository of chemical data widely used in the reconstruction of the Earth’s climate–ocean system at various time scales. Knowledge of biomineralization – the processes associated with the formation of mineralized biological structures – is essential to prop...

Perhaps the greatest mystery surrounding dinosaurs concerns whether they were endotherms, ectotherms, or some unique intermediate form. Here we present a model that yields estimates of dinosaur body temperature based on ontogenetic growth trajectories obtained from fossil bones. The model predicts that dinosaur body temperatures increased with body mass from approximately 25 degrees C at 12 kg ...

The co-occurrence of vertebrate trace and body fossils within a single geological formation is rare and the probability of these parallel records being contemporaneous (i.e. on or near the same bedding plane) is extremely low. We report here a late Pleistocene locality from the Victorian Volcanic Plains in south-eastern Australia in which demonstrably contemporaneous, but independently accumula...

Structural colors are generated by scattering of light by variations in tissue nanostructure. They are widespread among animals and have been studied most extensively in butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera), which exhibit the widest diversity of photonic nanostructures, resultant colors, and visual effects of any extant organism. The evolution of structural coloration in lepidopterans, however, ...

We study the dominant central giant elliptical galaxies in “Fossil groups” using deep optical (R-band) and near infrared (Ks-band) photometry. These galaxies are as luminous as the brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), raising immediate interest in their link to the formation of BCGs and galaxy clusters. However, despite apparent similarities, the dominant fossil galaxies show non-boxy isophotes, ...

The interpretation of flattened fossils remains a major challenge due to compression of their complex anatomies during fossilization, making critical anatomical features invisible or hardly discernible. Key features are often hidden under greatly preserved decay prone tissues, or an unpreparable sedimentary matrix. A method offering access to such anatomical features is of paramount interest to...

The temporal bone is used frequently to identify taxonomic affinities of genus Homo fossils based on external morphological features. In the meantime, the temporal bone pneumatization has rarely been examined, particularly in Asian Homo erectus. We put forward a comparative morphological and quantitative analysis in Asian Homo erectus from the sites of Ngandong, Sambungmacan, and Zhoukoudian, a...

The Makapansgat Limeworks is a significant Pliocene site both for its sample of 35 hominin fossils as well as its wealth of fossil fauna. The lithological and paleontological successions reveal local environmental changes that are important for understanding the context of hominin evolution in southern Africa. Yet most of the site's fossils were found in dumps left behind by quarry operations, ...

External and internal morphological characters of extant and fossil organisms are crucial to establishing their systematic position, ecological role and evolutionary trends. The lack of internal characters and soft-tissue preservation in many arthropod fossils, however, impedes comprehensive phylogenetic analyses and species descriptions according to taxonomic standards for Recent organisms. We...

Dividing the fossils usually assigned to the taxon Homo habilis sensu lato into two species (as most researchers now accept) necessitates a re-examination of their evolutionary relationships. A cladistic analysis of 48 of the most commonlyused cranial characters from recent studies of Pliocene hominid phylogeny and which distinguish two taxa within H. habilis sensu lato suggests that these foss...