New digital restorations indicate that the structure and function of the shoulder joint were highly variable among Early Cretaceous birds, with such key features as the configuration of the triosseal canal and the nature of scapula-coracoid articulation showing considerable diversity.
Salamanders originate as metamorphosed with a biphasic lifestyle as shown by the palate shape and several non-shape features associated with the vomerine teeth, with diverse ecological types displayed in living species achieved in the Early Cretaceous.
Evidence for a largely unexplored radiation of squamates (lizards, snakes, and amphisbaenians) in the Middle to Late Jurassic is revealed by analyses of morphospace expansion, disparity, and evolutionary rates.
Sixteen new mermithid nematodes associated with their insect hosts are discovered from mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber and they are more abundant in non-holometabolous insect hosts, revealing what appears to be a vanished history of nematodes parasitism.
Three-dimensional digital reconstruction shows the temporal and palatal regions of stemward avialans are evolutionarily and functionally conservative, and the mixture of plesiomorphic cranial morphologies together with derived postcranial skeleton manifests the key role of mosaicism in early bird diversification.
The discovery of the earliest direct evidence of brood care in insects demonstrates a remarkably conserved egg-brooding reproductive strategy within scale insects in stasis for nearly 100 million years.
A 99-million year old beetle in amber was a myrmecophile—a social impostor of the earliest-known ant colonies—revealing the most ancient behavioral symbiosis yet discovered in the Metazoa.
Nicolás Mongiardino Koch, Jeffrey R Thompson ... Greg W Rouse
Phylogenomics of sea urchins clarifies their origins and diversification history, reveals surprising discrepancies with their rich fossil record, and serves as basis to explore the sensitivity of time calibration analysis.
