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☆ Ancient Foxes Lived and Died Alongside Humans
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-09 | by ( Jack Tamisiea | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But dogs were not the only ancient canines to become companions. Archaeologists have found traces of foxes living among early communities throughout South America. A team of researchers recently examined the fox’s bones, which were unearthed among the remains of dozens of hunter-gatherers. The team’s findings, published Tuesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, posit that this fox lived alongside the humans it was buried with. “It’s a practice that had been suggested before, but to actually find it is a nice surprise.”

Persons: ”, Ophélie Lebrasseur, “ Organizations: Royal Society Open Science, University of Oxford Locations: South America, Patagonia

☆ Ancient ‘Dune’-like Sandworm Existed Far Longer Than Thought
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Jack Tamisiea | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

With a head covered in rows of curved spines, ancient Selkirkia worms could easily be confused with the razor-toothed sandworms that inhabit the deserts of Arrakis in “Dune: Part Two.”During the Cambrian Explosion more than 500 million years ago, these weird worms — which lived inside long, cone-shaped tubes — were some of the most common predators on the seafloor. “If you were a small invertebrate coming across them, it would have been your worst nightmare,” said Karma Nanglu, a paleontologist at Harvard. “It’s like being engulfed by a conveyor belt of fangs and teeth.”Thankfully for would-be spice harvesters, these ravenous worms disappeared hundreds of million years ago. But a trove of recently analyzed fossils from Morocco reveals that these formidable predators measuring only an inch or two in length, persisted much longer than previously thought.

Persons: ”, Karma Nanglu, “ Organizations: Harvard Locations: Arrakis, Morocco

☆ Not All Heroes Wear Capes, but These Termites Did for Science
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Jack Tamisiea | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Their findings, published on Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, reveal that while the spiders quickly spotted the termites in the striped capes, they rarely attacked the striped termites, providing an explanation for why myriad other species use striking stripes to scare off predators. That’s where jumping spiders come in. With more than 6,500 species found worldwide, jumping spiders are voracious arachnids that feed on just about any invertebrate they come across. Dr. Taylor and her team studied two species of jumping spiders commonly found in Florida — the regal jumping spider, or Phidippus regius, and Habronattus trimaculatus. The researchers placed two termites of each cape variety in a petri dish with a jumping spider and recorded which termite the spiders looked at and which they ended up attacking.

Persons: Taylor, Habronattus, trimaculatus Organizations: Royal Society Open Science Locations: Florida

☆ Wiping Out the Dinosaurs Let Countless Flowers Bloom
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Jack Tamisiea | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Roughly three-fourths of the planet’s species, most notably non-avian dinosaurs, were wiped out. The catastrophe may have even helped flowering plants blossom into the dominant green things they are today. “It’s just bizarre to think that flowering plants survived K-Pg when dinosaurs didn’t,” said Jamie Thompson, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Bath and one of the authors of the study. Flowering plants are known to scientists as angiosperms. But they rapidly diversified as mass extinction loomed.

Persons: “, ”, Jamie Thompson Organizations: University of Bath

☆ 505-Million-Year-Old Jellyfish Fossils May Be the Oldest Ever Found
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-01 | by ( Jack Tamisiea | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jellyfish have been floating through Earth’s oceans seemingly forever. They rarely show up in the fossil record because jellyfish are 95 percent water and are prone to rapid decay. But Dr. Caron and other scientists recently described a cache of jellyfish fossils from the Cambrian period that found an improbable pathway to preservation. In a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the scientists posit that these 505-million-year-old animals are among the oldest swimming jellyfish known to science. “These new fossils represent the most compelling evidence of Cambrian jellyfish to date,” said David Gold, a paleobiologist at the University of California, Davis, who was not involved in the new study.

Persons: ”, Jean, Bernard Caron, Caron, David Gold, Davis Organizations: Royal Ontario Museum, Royal Society B, University of California Locations: Toronto

☆ This Extinct Dolphin Had Tusks That Fish Were Wise to Avoid
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Jack Tamisiea | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The waters off New Zealand 25 million years ago were home to early baleen whales, megatooth sharks and human-size penguins. Now researchers are adding a bizarre dolphin to the mix that may have used tusklike teeth to thrash prey into submission. “Mentally, I just couldn’t figure out what could possibly need teeth like that,” Dr. Coste said. In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Dr. Coste and her colleagues described the snaggletoothed dolphin as a unique species, Nihohae matakoi. The curious cetacean’s genus, Nihohae, is a combination of the Maori words for “teeth” and “slashing.”

Persons: Amber Coste, Coste Organizations: New Zealand, University of Otago, Royal Society B Locations: New, Otago

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