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New Late Pleistocene age for the Homo sapiens skeleton from Liujiang southern China
Here the authors provide new radiocarbon, U-series, and OSL dates for Homo sapiens fossils from Tongtianyan cave, southern China, placing them at 33-23 thousand years ago and indicating widespread presence of Homo sapiens across eastern Asia in the Late Pleistocene.
- Junyi Ge
- , Song Xing
- & Qingfeng Shao
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Article
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Climate-forced Hg-remobilization associated with fern mutagenesis in the aftermath of the end-Triassic extinction
This study provides evidence for long-term effects of volcanic emissions of large quantities of gaseous mercury (Hg) and plant mutagenesis by recording high abundances of malformed fern spores across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary and Early Jurassic.
- Remco Bos
- , Wang Zheng
- & Bas van de Schootbrugge
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Global latitudinal gradients and the evolution of body size in dinosaurs and mammals
Bergmann’s Rule predicts larger body sizes in colder climates. Here, the authors examine extinct and extant dinosaurs (birds) and mammaliaforms, finding no evidence of body size variation with latitude in any group, but a small variation with temperature in extant birds.
- Lauren N. Wilson
- , Jacob D. Gardner
- & Chris L. Organ
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Completing the loop of the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous true polar wander event
The authors report three palaeomagnetic poles from the North China craton and document a large round-trip true polar wander oscillation during 155−141 Ma that may have affected biotic evolution in East Asia and global extinction and endemism.
- Yifei Hou
- , Pan Zhao
- & Rixiang Zhu
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Japanese wolves are most closely related to dogs and share DNA with East Eurasian dogs
The evolutionary origin of the domestic dog is uncertain. Here, the authors sequence the whole genomes of 9 extinct Japanese wolves and 11 modern Japanese dogs, applying a phylogenetic analysis to show that dogs may have originated in East Asia from a common ancestor with the Japanese wolf.
- Jun Gojobori
- , Nami Arakawa
- & Yohey Terai
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Articular surface interactions distinguish dinosaurian locomotor joint poses
Criteria for evaluating joint articulation in vertebrates are lacking. Here, the authors propose an approach for combining measurements of 3D articular overlap, symmetry, and congruence into a single metric, and apply this to examine the walking stride of Deinonychus antirrhopus.
- Armita R. Manafzadeh
- , Stephen M. Gatesy
- & Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar
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The angiosperm radiation played a dual role in the diversification of insects and insect pollinators
Interactions with angiosperms are thought to have had a significant impact on insect diversification. Here, the authors use a Bayesian process-based approach to find that angiosperm radiation played a dual role that changed through time, mitigating insect extinction in the Cretaceous and promoting insect origination in the Cenozoic.
- David Peris
- & Fabien L. Condamine
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Mesozoic evolution of cicadas and their origins of vocalization and root feeding
The evolution of cicadas is unclear due to a lack of understanding of transitional features. Here, the authors assess adult and nymph mid-Cretaceous cicadas, to elucidate their morphological evolution and identify evidence of the origins of cicada sound-generation and subterranean lifestyle.
- Hui Jiang
- , Jacek Szwedo
- & Bo Wang
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Dental morphology in Homo habilis and its implications for the evolution of early Homo
The origin of the genus Homo is debated. Here, the authors investigate the morphology of the H. habilis enamel-dentine junction using a sample of 911 hominin and extant ape teeth, finding that H. habilis has more in common with Australopithecus than later members of the genus Homo.
- Thomas W. Davies
- , Philipp Gunz
- & Matthew M. Skinner
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Matters Arising
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Reply to: Revisiting the identification of Syllipsimopodi bideni and timing of the decabrachian-octobrachian divergence
- Christopher D. Whalen
- & Neil H. Landman
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Article
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The emergence of modern zoogeographic regions in Asia examined through climate–dental trait association patterns
The timing of the emergence of the modern Asian terrestrial biota is unclear. Here, the authors apply redescription mining to herbivore dental trait data, finding that different aspects of modern zoogeographic patterns originated in the Pliocene and Middle and Late Miocene.
- Liping Liu
- , Esther Galbrun
- & Indrė Žliobaitė
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Matters Arising
| Open Access
Revisiting the identification of Syllipsimopodi bideni and timing of the decabrachian-octobrachian divergence
- Christian Klug
- , Kevin Stevens
- & Dirk Fuchs
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Article
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A fungal plant pathogen discovered in the Devonian Rhynie Chert
Here, the authors describe a pathogenic fungus from a 400-million-year-old fossil plant from the Devonian Rhynie Chert in Scotland. They use advanced imaging methods to determine that the fungus belongs to the sac fungi, the most diverse group of Fungi today.
- Christine Strullu-Derrien
- , Tomasz Goral
- & David L. Hawksworth
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Common origin of sterol biosynthesis points to a feeding strategy shift in Neoproterozoic animals
Sterane molecular fossils are used to compliment evidence from the fossil record. Here, the authors use a molecular clock to explore the origins of the smt gene, tracing the loss of sterol synthesis to dietary shifts in animals at the end-Neoproterozoic.
- T. Brunoir
- , C. Mulligan
- & D. A. Gold
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Bony-fish-like scales in a Silurian maxillate placoderm
The origin and early evolution of large scales in bony fishes and small scales in cartilaginous fishes are unclear. Here, the authors report a 425-million-year-old fish, Entelognathus, with a mosaic of scale and fin spine characters.
- Xindong Cui
- , Matt Friedman
- & Min Zhu
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The rise of predation in Jurassic lampreys
Here, the authors report two fossil lampreys, jawless vertebrates, from the Middle-Late Jurassic fossil Lagerstätte Yanliao Biota of North China. These large lampreys have an extensively toothed feeding apparatus resembling the Southern Hemisphere pouched lamprey, suggesting an ancestral predatory habit and southern origin of living lampreys.
- Feixiang Wu
- , Philippe Janvier
- & Chi Zhang
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Middle ear innovation in Early Cretaceous eutherian mammals
The evolution of the middle ear in early therians is unclear. Here, the authors report a reconstructed, detached middle ear in a eutherian mammal from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota, suggesting independent decoupling of hearing and chewing apparatuses.
- Haibing Wang
- & Yuanqing Wang
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Taphonomic experiments reveal authentic molecular signals for fossil melanins and verify preservation of phaeomelanin in fossils
Reconstructing original fossil colour provides insights into the behaviour of ancient animals but is challenging because phaeomelanin pigments have a poor fossil record. Here, the authors present experimental data that predict the composition of fossil melanins and support the molecular preservation of phaeomelanin in 10 million year old frogs.
- Tiffany S. Slater
- , Shosuke Ito
- & Maria E. McNamara
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Article
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Bayesian analyses indicate bivalves did not drive the downfall of brachiopods following the Permian-Triassic mass extinction
Brachiopod-bivalve switch in diversity dominance after the Palaeozoic era is a textbook example of clade replacement, and its mechanism has long been debated. Here, new Bayesian analyses suggest that diversification turnover between the two was not driven by biotic competition but the end-Permian extinction.
- Zhen Guo
- , Joseph T. Flannery-Sutherland
- & Zhong-Qiang Chen
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Multi-proxy evidence for sea level fall at the onset of the Eocene-Oligocene transition
Sea level fall with the growth of the Antarctic Ice Sheet 34 million years ago, and the shift in nutrients and carbon from continental margins to the ocean, initially provided a negative feedback that slowed global cooling and ice sheet expansion.
- Marcelo A. De Lira Mota
- , Tom Dunkley Jones
- & James Bendle
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Late Cambrian geomagnetic instability after the onset of inner core nucleation
An 80 thousand-year-long period of extreme non-geocentric dipole magnetic fields is recorded in Late Cambrian carbonate rocks of South China, suggesting that 495 million years ago Earth’s inner core had not grown large enough to stabilize the dynamo.
- Yong-Xiang Li
- , John A. Tarduno
- & Zhenyu Yang
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Intra-gastric phytoliths provide evidence for folivory in basal avialans of the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota
Birds exhibit extensive close ecological interactions with flowering plants, but the evolutionary origins of those relationships remain unclear. Plant phytolith analysis of stomach contents of the Early Cretaceous long-tailed bird Jeholornis reveals the earliest example of leaf eating by birds.
- Yan Wu
- , Yong Ge
- & Zhonghe Zhou
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Mammalian maxilloturbinal evolution does not reflect thermal biology
The maxilloturbinal, an area of the mammalian nasal cavity, has been proposed to play a pivotal role in body temperature maintenance. Here, the authors use computed tomographic data to show that neither corrected basal metabolic rate nor body temperature significantly correlate with the relative surface area of the maxilloturbinal.
- Quentin Martinez
- , Jan Okrouhlík
- & Pierre-Henri Fabre
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A mid-Cambrian tunicate and the deep origin of the ascidiacean body plan
Our understanding of the origins of tunicates, an important group of filter-feeding marine invertebrate chordates, is limited due to a poor fossil record. Here, the authors present a 500 million year old tunicate fossil, demonstrating that the modern tunicate body plan was established shortly after the Cambrian Explosion.
- Karma Nanglu
- , Rudy Lerosey-Aubril
- & Javier Ortega-Hernández
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Mid-latitudinal habitable environment for marine eukaryotes during the waning stage of the Marinoan snowball glaciation
Based on geochemical and paleontological data, this study shows that habitable open-oceans extended to mid-latitude coastal oceans during the waning stage of the Marinoan snowball Earth, offering refugia for benthic photosynthetic eukaryotes
- Huyue Song
- , Zhihui An
- & Jinnan Tong
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Decoupling body shape and mass distribution in birds and their dinosaurian ancestors
Here, the authors track the evolution of mass distribution through bird evolution challenging suggested coupling between body shape and centre-of-mass position, and instead showing that crouched bipedalism evolved after powered flight.
- Sophie Macaulay
- , Tatjana Hoehfurtner
- & Karl T. Bates
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Molecular fingerprints resolve affinities of Rhynie chert organic fossils
It can be challenging to identify extinct organisms with morphology alone. Here, the authors use non-destructive Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy to determine the molecular fingerprints of eukaryotes and prokaryotes from the 407 Ma Rhynie chert fossil assemblage of Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
- C. C. Loron
- , E. Rodriguez Dzul
- & S. McMahon
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Molecular exploration of fossil eggshell uncovers hidden lineage of giant extinct bird
The evolution and systematics of Madagascar’s extinct elephant birds remains unclear. Here, the authors recover genetic, stable isotope, morphological, and geographic data from fossil eggshell to describe variation among clades, identifying cryptic diversity and potential drivers of speciation.
- Alicia Grealy
- , Gifford H. Miller
- & Michael Bunce
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A conserved tooth resorption mechanism in modern and fossil snakes
Living snakes replace their teeth without external resorption. Here, the authors use histology to show that odontoclasts resorb dentine internally and investigate this mechanism in fossil snakes.
- A. R. H. LeBlanc
- , A. Palci
- & M. W. Caldwell
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The macroevolutionary impact of recent and imminent mammal extinctions on Madagascar
Madagascar is a threatened biodiversity hotspot. Here, using a newly assembled dataset and island biogeography models, the authors estimate how many millions of years of evolutionary history have been lost since human colonisation and may be further lost in the future for Malagasy mammals.
- Nathan M. Michielsen
- , Steven M. Goodman
- & Luis Valente
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Ordovician–Silurian true polar wander as a mechanism for severe glaciation and mass extinction
Palaeomagnetic data from South China and compiled reliable palaeopoles from 4 other continents reveals a ~50˚ true polar wander (TPW) event occurring 450–440 million years ago. Sweeping Gondwana across the South Pole, this TPW event induced the Ordovician glaciation and mass extinction.
- Xianqing Jing
- , Zhenyu Yang
- & Bo Wan
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Exceptional preservation and foot structure reveal ecological transitions and lifestyles of early theropod flyers
The shape of bird toe pads and foot scales can be used to infer their behaviour. Here, the authors examine fossil evidence of toe pads and scales, in addition to claws and bones, from birds and close relatives, illustrating diverse lifestyles and ecological roles among early theropod flyers.
- Michael Pittman
- , Phil R. Bell
- & Thomas G. Kaye
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Multiple drivers and lineage-specific insect extinctions during the Permo–Triassic
The impact of three extinction events during the Permo–Triassic interval on terrestrial invertebrates is unclear. Here, the authors find that key abiotic and biotic factors, including changes in floral assemblages, were correlated with changes in insect diversity through this interval.
- Corentin Jouault
- , André Nel
- & Fabien L. Condamine
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Ruminant inner ear shape records 35 million years of neutral evolution
External ecological interactions and intrinsic biological parameters affect evolutionary pathways and animal diversity. Here, the authors use ruminant inner ear morphology to investigate patterns of diversity through 33 million years, finding clade-dependent climate and paleogeographic trends.
- Bastien Mennecart
- , Laura Dziomber
- & Loïc Costeur
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Increases in reef size, habitat and metacommunity complexity associated with Cambrian radiation oxygenation pulses
During the Cambrian Radiation, oxygenation occurred in a series of short pulses. Here, the authors quantify episodic changes in reef size, extent of habitat and in metacommunity ecological complexity associated with these oxygenation pulses by examining archaeocyath sponges.
- Andrey Yu. Zhuravlev
- , Emily G. Mitchell
- & Amelia Penny
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Evolutionary origins of the prolonged extant squamate radiation
Here, the authors present two well preserved fossil lizard skulls from the Late Jurassic of North America. These fossils, placed at the base of the clade Pan-Scincoidea, suggest that squamates had a wide geographic distribution and preserve characteristics that show the complex early evolutionary history of squamate anatomy.
- Chase D. Brownstein
- , Dalton L. Meyer
- & Jacques A. Gauthier
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Renewal of planktonic foraminifera diversity after the Cretaceous Paleogene mass extinction by benthic colonizers
Planktonic foraminifera are key to understanding paleoclimate and plankton evolution, but their origins are unclear. Here, the authors use a molecular clock to suggest that benthic foraminifera dispersed in plankton and renew planktonic foraminifera diversity after the Cretaceous Paleogene mass extinction.
- Raphaël Morard
- , Christiane Hassenrück
- & Michal Kucera
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Ordovician opabiniid-like animals and the role of the proboscis in euarthropod head evolution
Here, the authors describe two opabiniid-like euarthropods with anterior proboscises from the Middle Ordovician Castle Bank Biota, Wales, UK. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that these specimens may be sister to radiodonts and deuteropods.
- Stephen Pates
- , Joseph P. Botting
- & Joanna M. Wolfe
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Evidence for late-glacial oceanic carbon redistribution and discharge from the Pacific Southern Ocean
Evaluation of foraminiferal test dissolution by Computed Tomography scanner provided deep seawater carbonate ion concentration at the Southern Ocean. Quantitative data highlighted the reconfiguration of glacial to deglacial carbon storage followed by oceanic-atmospheric CO2 transfer.
- Shinya Iwasaki
- , Lester Lembke-Jene
- & Frank Lamy
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Independent origin of large labyrinth size in turtles
The size and shape of the inner ear, or bony labyrinth, is thought to be related to ecological adaptations in vertebrates. Here, the authors examine this relationship in turtles across 230 million years of evolution, unexpectedly finding large labyrinth size and no association with ecology.
- Serjoscha W. Evers
- , Walter G. Joyce
- & Roger B. J. Benson
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Matters Arising
| Open AccessRevisiting life history and morphological proxies for early mammaliaform metabolic rates
- Shai Meiri
- & Eran Levin
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Matters Arising
| Open AccessReply to: Revisiting life history and morphological proxies for early mammaliaform metabolic rates
- Elis Newham
- , Pamela G. Gill
- & Ian J. Corfe
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Article
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Permian hypercarnivore suggests dental complexity among early amniotes
Dental development and replacement rates varied greatly among early terrestrial carnivorous and herbivorous amniotes, revealing a complexity that reflected a diversity of feeding behaviours soon after their initial appearance in the fossil record.
- Tea Maho
- , Sigi Maho
- & Robert R. Reisz
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Article
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The origin and evolution of open habitats in North America inferred by Bayesian deep learning models
The expansion timing and dynamics of open vegetation are disputed. Here, the authors present a model of paleovegetation changes in North America, showing open vegetation beginning around 23 million years ago and accelerating at 5 million years ago to become the most prominent natural vegetation type in North America today.
- Tobias Andermann
- , Caroline A. E. Strömberg
- & Daniele Silvestro
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Matters Arising
| Open Access
Accurate population proxies do not exist between 11.7 and 15 ka in North America
- Spencer R. Pelton
- , Madeline E. Mackie
- & Todd A. Surovell
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Matters Arising
| Open Access
Reply to: Accurate population proxies do not exist between 11.7 and 15 ka in North America
- Mathew Stewart
- , W. Christopher Carleton
- & Huw S. Groucutt
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Article
| Open Access
Body size, shape and ecology in tetrapods
Here, the authors examine how body size, shape, and segment proportions correspond to ecology in models of 410 tetrapods. They find variable allometric relationships, differential scaling in small and large animals, and body proportions as a potential niche occupation mechanism.
- Alice E. Maher
- , Gustavo Burin
- & Karl T. Bates
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| Open Access
Rapid Eocene diversification of spiny plants in subtropical woodlands of central Tibet
Spines are an important physical defense for many plant species. Here, the authors describe seven different spine morphologies from the Eocene of central Tibet associated with regional aridification and expansion of herbivorous mammals.
- Xinwen Zhang
- , Uriel Gélin
- & Tao Su
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Article
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Climatic and tectonic drivers shaped the tropical distribution of coral reefs
Warm-water coral reefs are limited to tropical and subtropical latitudes today but extended poleward in the geological past. This study shows that climatic and tectonic drivers explain the past distribution of coral reefs and associated biodiversity.
- Lewis A. Jones
- , Philip D. Mannion
- & Daniel J. Lunt
Lower Ordovician synziphosurine reveals early euchelicerate diversity and evolution