When Sifrhippus sandae, the earliest known horse, first appeared in the forests of North America more than 50 million years ago, it would not have been mistaken for a Clydesdale.
It weighed in at around 12 pounds–and it was destined to get much smaller over the ensuing millennia.
Sifrhippus lived during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a 175,000-year interval of time some 56 million years ago in which average global temperatures rose by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. (more…)
*Skewed skulls may have helped early whales find direction of sounds in water*
Skewed skulls may have helped early whales find the direction of sounds in water and are not solely, as previously thought, a later adaptation related to echolocation.
Scientists affiliated with the University of Michigan and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) report the finding in a paper published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (more…)
