This is the oldest fossil of a plesiosaur from the dinosaur era
A nearly complete skeleton of an early long-necked plesiosaur has been found in a clay pit in Germany, and reveals they survived a mass extinction
Lizards re-evolved eggs after thousands of years of live births
It’s an evolutionary U-turn: a group of egg-laying lizards evolved from live-bearing ancestors, which are in turn descended from even older egg-layers
Hummingbirds have massive hearts to power their hovering flight
Birds that hover in front of flowers have huge hearts to power their energy-intensive flight, and even birds that glide effortlessly need fairly big hearts to keep it up
Baby pterosaurs were cute, defenceless and unable to fly
Over 200 pterosaur eggs have been found at a site in China, the largest such discovery on record, and the embryos inside reveal what newly-hatched pterosaurs were like
Huge dose of brain chemical dopamine may have made us smart
Two “thinking” regions of human brains are much richer in a neurotransmitter called dopamine than the equivalent brain regions in apes and monkeys
How a tiny fly can ‘scuba dive’ in a salty and toxic lake
Alkali flies plunge into the salty and alkaline Mono Lake, to feed and lay their eggs, but until now it has been unclear how they manage to survive
Sheep learn to recognise celebrity faces from different angles
The animals were as good as humans at recognising mugshots of the same celebs from different angles, showing sophisticated brain processing of imagery
Freeloading mites are squatting on spider webs and stealing food
A newly-discovered species of mite sets up home on a spider’s web and nibbles away at any insects the spider catches – and the spider doesn’t seem to mind
What the controversial ‘human’ teeth fossils really tell us
Two 9.7-million-year-old fossil teeth found in Germany probably belong to a primitive primate and something like a deer, not an early human ancestor as has been reported
Geese-like birds seem to have survived the dinosaur extinction
A bird group named the Vegaviidae, which resembled modern loons and geese, is the first identified with members that lived before and after the Cretaceous extinction