Tag: island

News Bite: Dodos and the evolution of bird brains

If you wander into the basement of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, and wander into the fossil collections, you will find a vast array of different dinosaurs dating back over 200 million years. However, just a few feet away from the oldest dinosaurs you will find several drawers filled with the bones of Raphus cucullatus: the dodo. These are not fossilized; the dodo has on …

Filed under: anatomy, bird, brain, dinosaur, dodo, extinction, fossil, island, scanning

Images of the fossil salamander in amber, Palaeoplethodon, alongside a modern plethodontid salamander. The close resemblance suggests that Palaeoplethodon is a lungless animal, whose closest relatives lived nearby in North America.

News Bite: Salamanders of the Caribbean!

Arrr, ye mateys! Pour out some grog, and I’ll tell ye a tale of mines, beaches, and death in ancient jungles. I of course be talkin’…about salamanders! Okay, not going to do that voice the whole time (though maybe it should be in the episode), but I will briefly present Palaeoplethodon hispaniolae, the first salamander in amber and the first ever found in the Caribbean! This discovery was spearh …

Filed under: Caribbean, Palaeoplethodon, amber, dinosaur, evolution, fossil, island, mines, salamander, science

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