Tag Archive for 'Burrowing'

Life reconstruction of Ninumbeehan dookoodukah in a palaeoenvironment reconstruction depicting its life and burrowing across seasons: (left) Ninumbeehan dookoodukah is resting on the edge of a river with a low water table as the wet season ends; (center) a small community of Ninumbeehan dookoodukah are in their estivation burrows at the apex of the arid season; (right) the onset of the humid season brings rain, triggering a mass emergence of Ninumbeehan dookoodukah from their estivation burrows. Some individuals expire before the incoming rains, leaving them to be preserved as fossils. Image credit: Gabriel N. Ugueto.

Triassic Amphibian Had Unique Adaptations for Seasonal Estivation

Nov 26, 2024 by News Staff

Paleontologists have described a new species of fossil temnospondyl amphibian from the Triassic Jelm Formation of Wyoming, preserved in torpedo-shaped...

Artistic representation of the opportunistic burrowing behavior of the hypothetical ancestor of crown snakes, as predicted from reconstructed high-definition 3D whole-brain models (highlighted middle right) shown in dorsal (top) and lateral (bottom) views. In comparison, the reconstruction of the first natural endocast of a fossil snake (Dinilysia patagonica, top right) displays a divergent morphological configuration of the telencephalon (Tel) and provides no or limited information about the diencephalon (Dien), mesencephalon (Mes), cerebellum (Cb), and medulla oblongata (MO) regions. In contrast, the estimated endocast of Najash rionegrina (bottom right) shows similarities with the hypothetical ancestor of crown snakes in several distinguishable telencephalic regions, including cerebral hemisphere (CH), olfactory bulb (OB), and olfactory tract (OT). Reconstructions of the fossil skulls (purple color) are shown around the cranial endocasts. Image credit: Macrì et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adi6888 / Neptalí Ramírez Marcial.

Researchers Shed New Light on Enigmatic Early Evolution of Snakes

Oct 3, 2023 by News Staff

The ecological origin and early evolution of snakes has long been a focus of multiple research fields and remains one of the most enduring and controversial...