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Life’s hidden laws: The arcane rules of evolution and how they work

Life’s hidden laws: The arcane rules of evolution and how they work

12 July 2023

A handful of “rules” govern how evolution shapes life on Earth, from island gigantism to colours shifting with latitude – and offer clues about how animals and plants might adapt to a warming world


View of the Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), a large natural history museum containing the skeleton of the Tyrannosaur

Tyrannosaurus rex may actually be three separate species

1 March 2022

After analysing the teeth and thigh bones of 38 T. rex fossils, some researchers propose reclassifying them as three different species, but others are unconvinced


Andean mouse that lives on the Llullaillaco volcano

World’s highest mammal discovered at the top of a Mars-like volcano

19 March 2020

The highest dwelling mammal – a mouse – has been discovered at 6700 metres above sea level, where conditions are so harsh they have been compared to Mars


2000-year-old lapdog skeleton

We may have started keeping lapdogs as pets 2000 years ago

19 March 2020

A 2000-year-old skeleton found in Spain belonged to a lapdog that may have been born thousands of kilometres to the east and traded during Roman times


Lascaux II replica of a Lascaux cave painting. These are horse and cow figures in the central gallery. The original Lascaux cave was closed to the public in 1963. The full-scale Lascaux II replica opened nearby in 1983. The Lascaux cave paintings in south-western France, around 17,000 years old, were painted by Cro-Magnon man, an early European culture of modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens), using red, brown and yellow ochre, and black manganese dioxide. They may have had religious and artistic significance. Photographed in 2010.

Stone Age artists were obsessed with horses and we don’t know why

15 November 2019

Stone Age artists loved drawing horses. One possible explanation is that this was because they believed horses were the most important of all the animals


leaf-like rangeomorphs

The bizarre plant-like animals that say life’s big bang never happened

6 November 2019

The Cambrian explosion is feted as the moment where complex animals burst onto the scene, but the enigmatic Ediacaran creatures that came first are rewriting the history of life on Earth


Human or hybrid? The big debate over what a species really is

Human or hybrid? The big debate over what a species really is

23 January 2019

Humans once mated with Neanderthals so are we hybrids? How we see ourselves and the rest of nature is changing, raising the question of whether species even exist


We've dug up tiny animals from beneath a frozen Antarctic lake

We've dug up tiny animals from beneath a frozen Antarctic lake

18 January 2019

The discovery of preserved carcasses of tiny crustaceans and tardigrades beneath Lake Mercer suggests biologically complex life may survive deep beneath the ice


(Coenobita compressus) walking in sand. San Cristobal island, Galapagos.

Long penises help hermit crabs avoid being robbed during sex

16 January 2019

Some male hermit crabs have unusually long penises. This could be so that they can protect their homes whilst having sex


marine iguana

Lost 'Darwinia' islands could be origin of species in the Galapagos

25 December 2018

Millions of years before the Galapagos existed, another island chain may have shaped the evolution of the unusual wildlife that later inspired Charles Darwin


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