Mammals, including humans, stand out with their distinctively upright posture, a key trait that fueled their spectacular evolutionary success. Yet, the earliest known ancestors of modern mammals more ...

Conspicuous colorations are widespread in animals, yet their adaptive functions remain unclear, particularly in mammals. White eye-rings (WER), the bright-colored pelage encircling eyes, are prevalent ...

One of the most important steps in the evolution of modern mammals was the development of highly sensitive hearing. The middle ear of mammals, with an eardrum and several small bones, allows us to ...

The humble rodent “thumb” may not seem like an obvious window into evolution, but its keratinized tip – the unguis (hoof, claw, or nail) – turns out to reveal striking insights into rodent history and ...

Foot bones that are separate in small hopping rodents are fused in their larger cousins, and a team of researchers wanted to know why. Foot bones that are separate in small hopping rodents are fused ...

The legions of squirrels breaking into backyard bird feeders benefit from a surprising trait developed over millions of years—tiny hands with four claws and a human-looking thumbnail. This combination ...

The Arctic was not simply a cold edge of the Cretaceous world, but a place where mammals adapted, diversified, migrated and ...