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Isotopes in mammoth teeth evidence migrations

New, very sensitive methods allowed analysing seasonal changes of strontium isotopes in woolly mammoth teeth, thus enabling analysis with under 10-day resolution over more than 10 years of tooth growth.

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Science News

Stalk microstructure of pseudoplanktonic crinoids

Throughout their long evolutionary history, crinoids developed pseudoplanktonic lifestyles and attached themselves with long stalks to driftwood. This article describes the microstructure and internal morphology of the stalks of such crinoids from the genus Seirocrinus.

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Science News

Dinosaur skulls allow deciphering changes in diet

Protoceratopsids were small horned dinosaurs common in the Late Cretaceous rocks of the Gobi Desert. New analyses of morphometric data enable to estimate the ontogenetic changes occurring in the skull of these animals.

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Science News

At the beginning of the Cretaceous period, fish took over the ocean – the end of cephalopod domination

Seas in the Jurassic were much different from now. They were dominated by cephalopods related to squids and cuttlefish. Fish were much less abundant and diversified. Based on Jurassic otolith and statolith assemblages of Poland, Lithuania and the United Kingdom (and published data) we have reconstructed the structure of nekton community and the evolution of actinopterygians.

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Science News

First known free-living lithistid sponge

Lithistids, an informal grouping of demosponges, are sponges with skeletons built of articulated spicules. Typically they are found in deep waters, but off the Somali coast we discovered six species inhabiting sandy sea-bottom at a depth of 50 metres.

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Science News

An ichthyosaur skeleton hidden under paint

Ichthyosaurs are one of the symbols of the Mesozoic and, alongside whales, the best-adapted to a marine lifestyle amniotes. The Lower Jurassic Posidonia Shale abounds in excellently preserved fossils, including ichthyosaurs. We present a specimen of Stenopterygius quadriscissus (Bad Boll, Baden-Württemberg, Germany) from the collection of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow.

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