Known from a single skull discovered in South Africa in 1952, Cistecynodon parvus has been shuffled across the evolutionary tree: described at various times as a close relative of advanced cynodonts, a juvenile of another species and even something outside the group altogether. Now, a new study using computed tomography (CT) scans to digitally reconstruct…
Paleontologists have described a new species of enigmatic cyclidan crustacean on the basis of three well-preserved specimens from the Early Triassic Guiyang biota of China. Yunnanocyclus fortis. Image credit: Sun et al., doi: 10.1002/spp2.70052. Cyclidans are a distinctive group of arthropods that first appeared in the Carboniferous period and survived until the Late Cretaceous. Their…
Paleontologists analyzing fossils from Ethiopia have described a previously unknown crocodile species that shared the landscape with a hominid species called Australopithecus afarensis. Named Crocodylus lucivenator, the formidable predator may have stalked Australopithecus afarensis at watering holes in the wetlands and woodlands of the Pliocene. Crocodylus lucivenator overlapped with the famed Lucy and her hominin…
Fossil jaws of the ancient monkey species Stirtonia victoriae from the La Victoria Formation in Colombia suggest that a shift toward leaf-eating allowed early primates in South America to grow larger and occupy new ecological niches. The discovery may also hint at when the lineage developed the anatomical features that later produced the powerful howls…
