Dr. Rougier explains, “Monotremes are these living fossils from a very long distant past. You and a platypus probably had the last common ancestor over 180 million years ago.

A new study suggests the platypus and echidna — the only egg-laying mammals — had a water-dwelling ancestor. The finding could upend what’s known of their evolution.

"Adult platypus have no teeth, though juveniles have rudimentary molars. Just when and why adult platypus lost their teeth after nearly 100 million years is a mystery we think we have solved.

Published today in the Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, evidence of an ‘Age of Monotremes’ has been unearthed by a team of Australian scientists at the Australian ...

W. Andrew Barr, Bernard Wood. Spatial sampling bias influences our understanding of early hominin evolution in eastern Africa. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02522-5 ...

WASHINGTON - Fossils have long provided snapshots of the human family tree, but a new find in Africa gives scientists a kind of mini home movie showing man's primal development. Because the 4.2 ...

Science Biology Evolution New fossils of tiny, toothy early mammals could be a major missing link Jurassic molars and middle-ear bones offer clues to mammal evolution. Laura Baisas ...