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1. The Fossil Record: What Is It, and How Is It Used? (https://www.livescience.com/37193-fossil-record.html) 2. Unprecedented Discovery: Scientists Find New Dinosaur Fossil Encased in Amber (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/unprecedented-discovery-scientists-find-new-dinosaur-fossil-encased-amber-180972058/) 3. Ancient Fossils Reveal How New Species Emerge (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180724142646.htm) 4. Fossil Finds Reveal How Ancient Monkeys Adapted to Life in the Trees (https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207986-fossil-finds-reveal-how-ancient-monkeys-adapted-to-life-in-the-trees/) 5. Fossils Reveal How Ancient Marine Reptiles Evolved Over Time (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181114
More than a million years ago, on a hot savannah teeming with wildlife near the shore of what would someday become Lake Turkana in Kenya, two completely different species of hominins may have passed each other as they scavenged for food. Scientists know this because they have examined 1.5-million-year-old fossils they unearthed and have concluded they represent the first example of two sets of hominin footprints made about the same time on an ancient lake shore. The discovery will provide more insight into human evolution and how species cooperated and competed with one another, the scientists said.
One of the most fascinating periods in the evolution of the human lineage is the appearance of the first ancestors capable of bipedalism. Knowing the type of locomotion used by many fossil species—walking upright on the ground or climbing from branch to branch with the strength of their arms—has been one of the most classic questions in the study of the process of hominization.
Human footprints stir the imagination. They invite you to follow, to guess what someone was doing and where they were going. Fossilized footprints preserved in rock do the same—they record instances in the lives of many different extinct organisms, back to the earliest creatures that walked on four feet, 380 million years ago.
Fossilized skeletons and shells clearly show how evolution and extinction unfolded over the past half a billion years, but a new analysis extends the chart of life to nearly 2 billion years ago. The chart shows the relative ups and downs in species counts, telling scientists about the origin, diversification, and extinction of ancient life. With this new study, the chart of life now includes life forms from the Proterozoic Eon, 2,500 million to 539 million years ago. Proterozoic life was generally smaller and squishier -- like sea sponges that didn't develop mineral skeletons -- and left fewer traces to fossilize in the first place.
If all the world's a stage and all the species merely players, then their exits and entrances can be found in the rock record. Fossilized skeletons and shells clearly show how evolution and extinction unfolded over the past half a billion years, but a Virginia Tech analysis extends the chart of life to nearly 2 billion years ago. The study is published in the journal Science.