Revealing fossil anatomies and preservation pathways using advanced imaging techniques
Modern scorpions, spiders and horseshoe crabs belong to the vast lineage of arthropods, which appeared on Earth nearly 540 million years ago. More precisely, they belong to a subphylum that includes organisms equipped with pincers used notably for biting, grasping […]
South America is considered the place of origin and initial diversification of freshwater catfishes, based on the fact that the most basal clades–Diplomystidae (velvet catfishes) and Loricarioidei (suckermouth and armoured catfishes)—are all endemic to the Neotropical region (South and Central […]
Today our international team led by Farid Saleh of the University of Lausanne and Bertrand Lefebvre of the Lyon University introduces a new fossil site that has been uncovered in the French department of Hérault through the perseverance of two […]
Today’s arthropods –critters with jointed legs that contain today’s crabs, beetles, or spiders– often show very complex development with their juveniles and larvae living and feeding in a different way than the adults. A classical example is a flying butterfly with […]
For over 200 years, since Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville first used the term palæontologie in 1822, later giving rise to the English word ‘palaeontology’, this discipline has faced with the challenge of interpreting fossils that bear no resemblance to any known […]
The Early Ordovician (~480 million-year-old) Fezouata Shale Formation of Morocco is a critical source of evidence for the unfolding Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, the largest radiation in animal diversity during the Paleozoic. The Fezouata Shale preserves abundant remains of ancient […]
The peopling of the Americas and the interaction of early humans with Pleistocene megafauna in South America remains highly debated. Recent discoveries suggest that human occupation of the Americas started around the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), but the timing and […]
Worms, arthropods, vertebrates: all terrestrial fauna has an aquatic origin. As far as vertebrates are concerned, including us humans, the water-to-land transition began about 400 million years ago. It is among the sarcopterygians (aquatic vertebrates with lobed fins, as opposed […]
The fur of various mammal species has been discovered to glow in shades of red and pink when illuminated by ultraviolet (UV) lamp, through a phenomenon known as photoluminescence. In UV-photoluminescence, UV light is absorbed by a substance and reemitted […]
The invasion of land by animals, followed by the establishment of complex continental ecosystems, is a critical event in the history of life on our planet. Nonetheless, little is known about most of the pivotal morphological and physiological adaptations imposed […]