The savannah monitor lizard (Varanus exanthematicus) doesn’t eat like a bird, but it does breathe like one, a new study has discovered. Air flows only one way through its lungs—other than the American alligator, it’s the only other known reptile found to have this trait. That’s surprising, because the unidirectional airflow of birds was thought to have...
Who can forget the “dino droppings … droppings?” scene of the 1993 blockbuster hit, Jurassic Park—the one where actor Jeff Goldblum walks up to a huge pile of dung left by a sick triceratops? It’s memorable, all right, but there’s one thing the film missed: The piles of dino dung were likely cleaned up before...
We officially have fossil evidence that the whining bane of many a summer night was busy sucking blood as far back as 46 million years ago, a new study says. Scientists have discovered blood in a mosquito fossil in the oil shale of northwestern Montana. Researchers found the insect’s last blood meal by detecting heme—a pigment in...