Search Results for: Vertebrates
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1,539 results
1,539 results for: Vertebrates
- Animals
Toothy valves control crocodile hearts
The odd cog teeth of the crocodile heart may be the first cardiac valve known to control blood flow actively.
- Animals
Super Bird: Cooing doves flex extra-fast muscles
Muscles that control a dove's cooing belong to the fastest class of muscles known.
- Paleontology
Big Gulp? Neck ribs may have given aquatic beast unique feeding style
The fossilized neck bones of a 230-million-year-old sea creature have features suggesting that the animal's snakelike throat could flare open and create suction to pull in prey.
- Animals
Beat Goes On: Carp heart keeps pace when fish lacks oxygen
Without oxygen, a Scandinavian fish not only can survive but also maintains a normal heartbeat for days.
- Plants
Green Red-Alert: Plant fights invaders with animal-like trick
Mustard plants' immune systems can react to traces of bacteria with a burst of nitric oxide, much as an animal's immune system does.
- Paleontology
Early Bird: Fossil features hint at go-get-’em hatchlings
A well-preserved, 121-million-year-old fossilized bird embryo has several features that suggest that the species' young could move about and feed themselves very soon after they hatched.
- Paleontology
Dino Dwarf: Island living may have led to ancient downsizing
Fossils unearthed at a German quarry hint that members of one species of dinosaur that lived in the region about 152 million years ago evolved to be abnormally small because of the constraints of its island ecosystem.
- Paleontology
The big fish that went away . . .
Fossils found near Charleston, S.C., suggest that an extinct species of billfish related to today's swordfish and marlin would easily exceed the lengths documented for world-record specimens of those oft-sought sports fish.
- Paleontology
. . . and the big bird that didn’t
The California condor, one of today's largest and rarest birds, may have survived the last ice age because of its varied diet.
- Paleontology
Plenty of dinosaurs yet to be found
Despite a dramatic surge in dinosaur discoveries in recent years, paleontologists won't soon run out of interesting new fossils to unearth, a new analysis suggests.
- Animals
Color at Night: Geckos can distinguish hues by dim moonlight
The first vertebrate to ace tests of color vision at low light levels—tests that people flunk—is an African gecko.
- Animals
Crow Tools: Hatched to putter
The New Caledonian crow is the first vertebrate to be shown definitively to have an innate tendency to make and use tools, according to researchers who doubled as bird nannies.
