A fossil mammal tooth smaller than a grain of rice does not announce itself loudly. It must be hard won from sediment and ...

Caviomorph rodents represent a remarkable adaptive radiation of hystricognath rodents in South America, having colonised the continent from African ancestors in the Eocene. Once isolated on the newly ...

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 ...

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 ...

Rodents may have a rule of thumbnails. Many rodents have curved claws that help the animals climb or dig. But most also have flat nails on their thumbs, researchers report in the Sept. 4 Science. This ...

Fossilized teeth discovered in Alaska’s far north have revealed three previously unknown mammal species that lived 73 million ...

Seventy-three million years ago, in Alaska's dark and frozen landscape, a group of small, rodent-like creatures was quietly ...

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 ...