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palaeontology

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Bone disease in sabre-toothed tigers may be a sign of inbreeding

An analysis of bones from the La Brea tar pits in California reveals that sabre-toothed tigers and dire wolves had very high rates of osteochondrosis, which may stem from a dwindling gene pool as they neared extinction

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Ancient reptiles' long necks made them vulnerable to decapitation

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Extinct lizard was a bizarrely supersized version of modern skinks

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Woolly mammoths had testosterone surges like those of male elephants

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Broad-nosed ancient shark was one of earliest fish to smell in stereo

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Longest dinosaur neck on record was six times longer than a giraffe's

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Longest dinosaur neck on record was six times longer than a giraffe's

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Oldest ichthyosaur fossil hints they evolved before mass extinction

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Caption: New fossils of Protomelission from the Xiaoshiba biota, showing attachment of the alga to a brachiopod shell. Credit: Zhang Xiguang

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Fossil thought to be earliest bryozoan animal may actually be seaweed

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Tiktaalik, an early fish that crawled on land

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Spine of early crawling fish was becoming more like a land animal's

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This is an artistic reconstruction of the Guiyang Biota. Guiyang Biota represents the oldest known Mesozoic lagerst?tte found so far. Guiyang Biota represents one of the earliest complete marine ecosystems after the great dying in Earth history. Guiyang Biota contains representatives of all trophic levels, especially abundant fish and decapod fossils, including about 1 m length coelacanths, and the earliest occurrences of lobsters and shrimps, extending the earliest record forward by 1.5 million years.

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Sea life recovered from Permian mass extinction faster than we thought

A diverse set of fossils from China shows that a complex marine ecosystem existed 251 million years ago, shortly after a mass extinction wiped out most complex life on Earth

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Illustratoin of Ignacius dawsonae, a squirrel-like animal in a tree

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Early relatives of primates lived in the Arctic 52 million years ago

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Fossil dinosaur egg

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Treasure trove of fossil eggs hints titanosaurs nested in colonies

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Trilobite

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Trilobites used trident-like horns to fight over mates like stags

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view of Earth from space

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The ozone layer was destroyed during Earth's biggest mass extinction

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