Detecting sexual selection in the fossil record is not impossible, according to scientists writing in Trends in Ecology and Evolution this month, co-authored by Dr Darren Naish of the University of Southampton. The term “sexual selection” refers to the evolutionary pressures that relate to a species’ ability to repel rivals, meet mates and pass on genes. We can observe these processes happening in living animals but how do palaeontologists know that sexual selection operated in fossil ones? (155)

In a paper published in Nature Communications on January 22, 2013, a team of paleontologists including Dr. Luis Chiappe, Director of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s (NHM) Dinosaur Institute, has discovered a way to determine the sex of an avian dinosaur species. (126)

Skeletal remains found by an international team, in a cave about 30 miles northwest of Johannesburg South African cave may yield new clues to human development and answer key questions of the evolution of the human lineage. The team consisting of members from U.S., African, European and Australian universities, named the new species, Australopithecus sediba, in April 2010. They found skeletal remains in a cave of many individuals of Australopithecus sediba possibly belonging to a family group. They all seemed to have died suddenly in the same event about …

Archaeopteryx is considered by many to be the first bird, being of about 150 million years of age. Archaeopteryx was discovered in 1861, two years after Charles Darwin published ” On the Origin of Species”,ever-since it has become a textbook example for transitional fossil
In the 150th anniversary of its discovery, the position of Archaeopteryx as the earliest-known bird has been weakened thanks to the discovery of increasing numbers of feathered, bird-like dinosaurs over the past decade and a half. These claims are now further strengthened by a new fossil discovery …

Palaeontologists have uncovered half-a-billion-year-old fossils demonstrating that primitive animals had excellent vision.
An international team led by scientists from the South Australian Museum and the University of Adelaide found the exquisite fossils, which look like squashed eyes from a recently swatted fly.
This discovery will be published tomorrow (Thursday 30 June 2011) in the prestigious journal Nature.
The lead author is Associate Professor Michael Lee from the South Australian Museum and the University of Adelaide’s School of Earth & Environmental Sciences.
Compound Eyes
Modern insects and crustaceans have “compound eyes” consisting of hundreds or even …

Paleontologists have discovered that a group of remarkable ancient sea creatures existed for much longer and grew to much larger sizes than previously thought, thanks to extraordinarily well-preserved fossils discovered in Morocco.
The creatures, known as anomalocaridids, were already thought to be the largest animals of the Cambrian period, known for the “Cambrian Explosion” that saw the sudden appearance of all the major animal groups and the establishment of complex ecosystems about 540 to 500 million years ago. Fossils from this period suggested these marine predators grew to be about two …

Until a recent discovery, theories about the origins and evolutionary relationships of snakes barely had a leg to stand on.
Genetic studies suggest that snakes are related to monitor lizards and iguanas, while their anatomy points to amphisbaenians (“worm lizards”), a group of burrowing lizards with snake-like bodies. The debate has been unresolved–until now. The recent discovery by researchers from the University of Toronto Mississauga and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Germany of a tiny, 47 million-year-old fossil of a lizard called Cryptolacerta hassiaca provides the first anatomical evidence that the …