Animal Life news stories

After using a technique called molecular clock analysis, researchers have proposed that the origin of animals could be 200 million years earlier than thought. The study was published Friday (Oct. 2) in the journal Science Advances.

Deep in Peru’s Acarí Valley lie the ruins of Tambo Viejo, an Inka provincial center where excavations have uncovered tasseled sacrificial llamas and brightly adorned guinea pigs. But save for a few seeds and some stored leaves, evidence of how the Inka used one of their most sacred plants in rituals remained elusive. Now, archaeologists have discovered coca leaves still stuck in the wool of some sacrificed llamas. The discovery, reported in the journal Ñawpa Pacha, is the first direct evidence of coca in a ritual at the site. It contradicts what Spanish chroniclers reported hundreds of years ago: that coca was burned or bundled up during ritual offerings.

Close analysis of this remarkably detailed fossil suggests the evolutionary path to flight may be far more forked than we thought. Norellraptor is described in a new paper by paleontologist Xuri Wang of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences and his colleagues. The paper is published in Nature Communications.

Bones from extinct elephant-like creatures discovered along the shore of Lake Tagua Tagua in central Chile bear human-made cut marks and were found alongside stone tools, revealing that some of the first humans to live there were killing and eating these animals 13,000 years ago, new research shows.

In November 2024, archaeologists monitoring a Czech construction site noticed something emerging from the ground: mammoth bones. As earth was cleared, the discovery became an Ice Age scene. Thousands of animal remains lay with broken stone points, traces of fire, and red ochre….The deposit may preserve evidence of repeated mammoth hunts around 27,000 years ago. The study was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

The brain is an immeasurably complex organ, and we’re only just scratching the surface of how it even comes into existence. In a paper published in Nature Neuroscience today, a Stanford-led research team says the brains of humans and other animals are actually made up of two collaborating neural systems that start developing in parallel in an embryo’s earliest moments.

“The tooth itself is in immaculate condition. It’s the most complete mastodon molar from our area, and the most spectacular mastodon molar that I’ve ever seen. I had chills and shivers up and down my spine,” said paleontologist Wayne Thompson in a statement. “It’s another puzzle in the Ice Age saga that we can put into place.”

If you ask a scientist how life appeared on Earth, they will usually begin the story in one of two places: A warm, mineral-rich pool on the surface of our primordial planet. Or a deep-sea vent pumping warm, hydrogen-rich fluid through the ocean floor. Both tales are highly engaging, but only one holds any water, according to a provocative new take by geochemist Benjamin Tutolo from the University of Calgary. Tutolo’s perspective is now laid out in the peer-reviewed journal PNAS.

Some cynodonts may have been giving birth to live young much sooner in evolutionary history than previously assumed. A new Frontiers in Mammal Science study has offered the first compelling evidence that cynodonts may have been viviparous—a reproductive mode characterized by live birth.

Research published on Thursday has revealed that the humble birds were first domesticated 3,500 years ago, meaning they have been enmeshed in our lives for nearly a millennium longer than previously thought.

The authors of a new study published in iScience propose that cephalopods may be evidence that something else is the dominant driver of brain size.

Earth’s underground fungal network is so vast that, if it were in outer space, it would span roughly 10% of the Milky Way if placed in a straight line, a new study finds. The study was published Thursday (June 11) in the journal Science.

New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that our ancestors were not just lucky scavengers. They were also effective foragers who repeatedly processed, accessed, and shared animal resources across different environments.

Mayflies are among the world’s oldest winged insects, emerging roughly 300m years ago – long before dinosaurs walked the Earth. Even the Mesopotamian poem the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest pieces of literature, makes reference to the short-lived mayfly. Over the epochs, the insect’s basic design has changed very little compared with the fossils of their ancestors.

There’s been a lot of buzz in recent years about bee cognition, but not all scientists are convinced. Now, new research has added a fresh ingredient to the mix: Accounting for how bees actually see the world, rather than relying on human assumptions…And guess what? The bees still seem to be able to count.The research has been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

In our research, published today in Current Biology, we show that when some animals spot a predator, they issue a warning cry that is picked up by others and spread through the rainforest canopy. For a time, different species are linked into a shared information network, and parts of the forest briefly fall silent.