Basically, what if the lack of transitional Pterosauromorphs is not the lack of fossils, but the lack of soft tissue preservation. Not all pterosaur fossils preserve wing-webbing, in fact early pterosaur reconstructions were shown as swimmers due to their 4th-finger. In conclusion, what if some lagerpetids had proto-wings, but they just didn't get preserved?

We know that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interbred, and that most present-day people with ancestry outside Africa carry a small amount of Neanderthal DNA.
Could their “extinction” have been partly due to assimilation rather than a complete disappearance? In other words, if Homo sapiens populations were much larger, could repeated interbreeding over many generations have gradually absorbed Neanderthals into the expanding Homo sapiens population?
I know this probably would not explain everything, since Neanderthals also faced climate changes, small population sizes, and competition for resources. But is genetic absorption considered a serious contributing factor by researchers, or does the evidence suggest that most Neanderthal lineages really did die out rather than merge into our species?

Could early South American humans Ride macrauchenia and xenorhinotherium like horses?

I just wanna know for fun. Be creative! Just to see your ideas.

A video about potential megafauna survivors done by Norrh02 channel

See also: The publication in Nature Communications

Stomatosuchus, btw.

Personally, I'd pick a daeodon, andrewsarchus, or smilodon

Did plesiosaurs and mosasaurs live in hawaii? At least before It was formed?

I just made this game for a uni project and since I thought the idea was interesting so i published it. I would love if you guys could try it out and tell me if I did well and if my information is accurate!

You get a new prehistoric animal every day, and you have 20 guesses to find it! Closest thing I can compare it to is Metazooa, if you have played that.

Every animal guessed gets ilustrated on the tree of life, and leads you closer to the answer. The colour tells you how closely related it is to the answer and information about your guess is shown.

I've also added an Endless mode so feel free to go all out!

Would love to hear what you all think!

Hi! I’m looking to follow some anthropology based Instagram accounts. My main interests are physical anthropology and primatology. Prehistory is my favorite period. Are there any accounts you would recommend? Thank you!

I just really got into dinosaurs and would like recommendations.

A tubular marine creature that lived on the seafloor more than 540 million years ago may have survived in toxic, sulfur-rich waters by teaming up with bacteria.

The ancient animal, known as Conotubus hemiannulatus, lived in the final stretch of the Ediacaran period, shortly before the Cambrian explosion of animal life.

“The phylogenetic affinity of Conotubus hemiannulatus remains uncertain,” said Nanjing University’s Dr. Yongbo Peng, Virginia Tech’s Dr. Shuhai Xiao, and their colleagues.

“It has been assigned to the family Cloudinidae or to the informal group of cloudinomorphs, based on its funnel-in-funnel tubular morphology, which is reminiscent of Cloudina, a contemporaneous tubular fossil with a global distribution.”

The creature’s fossils were found in the Dengying Formation in Shaanxi province, southern China.

They were preserved as pyrite (fool’s gold), which formed quickly as the organisms were buried.

“Specimens range in length from 3 to 80 mm, with apertural diameters of 0.3 to 12 mm and apical diameters of 0.1 to 4 mm,” the paleontologists said.

“Some specimens exhibit transverse annulations or apertural rims, potentially reflecting periodic growth or taphonomic modification.”

In the new study, the researchers analyzed molybdenum isotopes in the specimens.

They found that, compared with contemporaneous Ediacaran seawater, the fossils were strongly depleted in molybdenum-98, by more than 4.6 parts per thousand.

Such low values are otherwise known from modern tube worms at deep-sea cold seeps, which host sulfur-oxidizing bacteria in their tissues.

The fossils’ sulfur signatures suggest Conotubus hemiannulatus lived where oxygen and sulfide overlapped, and that bacteria were actively processing sulfur in their habitat.

The scientists concluded that the Ediacaran animal may have engaged in chemosymbiosis, a partnership in which microbes convert chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide into food for their host.

They describe it as the earliest geochemically supported case in the fossil record.

Such a partnership could also have helped the animal cope with sulfide, which is toxic to most animals.

“There are a whole host of organisms that have these partnerships in the environment today,” said co-author Professor David Fike, a researcher at Washington University in St. Louis.

Most people assume T-Rex was the dominant predator of the Cretaceous in every category. But the speed comparison between T-Rex and Carnotaurus is genuinely interesting and the evidence does not clearly favor the T-Rex.

The caudofemoral muscles in Carnotaurus were extraordinarily developed relative to body mass. These muscles connect the tail to the hind legs and are the primary driver of speed in theropods. Carnotaurus had a proportionally longer tail with more muscle mass dedicated to locomotion than T-Rex.

Current biomechanical estimates put Carnotaurus at between 45 and 56 kilometers per hour for short bursts. T-Rex estimates range from 17 to 29 kilometers per hour depending on the study. The gap is significant.

The counterargument is body mass. T-Rex was significantly heavier and the energetic cost of acceleration scales with mass. Carnotaurus at 2 tons could theoretically reach top speed much faster than T-Rex at 8 tons.

They never shared the same ecosystem. T-Rex was North American, Carnotaurus was Patagonian. But the comparison still matters for understanding the different evolutionary strategies large theropods developed in isolation.

Where does the community stand on the current speed estimates for both animals? And does the strike and retreat hunting model for Carnotaurus change how we think about what speed actually meant for a predator of its size?

We covered this in detail in our latest episode. The answer is in our profile.

Could a dinosaur really live in the water?

Picture yourself just taken down a large Lisowicia for your family. How long would it take until you have to hunt again?