Tag Archives: ancestor

From flounders to seahorses: Evolutionary success of spiny-rayed fishes detailed

Even as the dinosaurs were becoming extinct 66 million years ago, the ancient ancestor of spiny-rayed fishes flourished, eventually giving rise to tens of thousands of species that can now be found in home aquariums or on dinner plates. Using modern genetic tools and information from the fossil record, a team led by researchers at Yale University, University of Oxford, and University of California-Davis have constructed a detailed evolutionary history of the 18,000 species of spiny-rayed fishes existing today, a diverse group that includes basses, pufferfishes, and cichlids, and that comprises a large portion of the vertebrate tree of life.

The findings published the week of July 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences show surprisingly close evolutionary relationships between lineages of fish species such as tunas and seahorses, and suggest some fish lineages — like cichlids, the tiny gobies, and little-studied snailfishes — are experiencing high rates of new species origination. (more…)

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Tooth pushes back modern monkeys’ first ancestor three million years

The ancestor of all modern African monkeys was alive 3 million years earlier than previously thought and coexisted with members of a now-extinct branch of the monkey family tree, according to new evidence from anthropologists.

“We pushed back the origin of modern monkeys by a huge chunk of time,” said anthropologist Andrew Hill of Yale University, the senior researcher on the project. “This means there are all sorts of things we can think about. You can start to look at animal interactions that might have taken place.” (more…)

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New Species of Ancient Crocodile, Ancestor of Today’s Species, Discovered by MU Researcher

COLUMBIA, Mo. – A University of Missouri researcher has identified a new species of prehistoric crocodile. The extinct creature, nicknamed “Shieldcroc” due to a thick-skinned shield on its head, is an ancestor of today’s crocodiles. Its discovery provides scientists with additional information about the evolution of crocodiles and how scientists can gain insight into ways to protect the species’ environment and help prevent extinction. The discovery was published this week in the journal PLoS-ONE (Public Library of Science). (more…)

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