All articles tagged with #natural history
Researchers analyzing Jan Brueghel the Elder’s painting Air argue it depicts a noctule bat catching a bird midflight, aligning with recent evidence that larger bats eat birds. The study links modern tracking with historical art and suggests more natural-history knowledge may be hiding in paintings, though it remains unclear whether Brueghel observed the event or drew on symbolic or secondhand observations.
In 1938, East London Museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer found a heavy blue coelacanth in a trawler’s discard, a fish science had believed extinct for tens of millions of years. Ichthyologist J.L.B. Smith confirmed its identity as Latimeria chalumnae, publishing the finding in Nature and showing that absence of evidence in the fossil record does not prove extinction. The discovery sparked shifts in how scientists view ‘living fossils’ and evolution, and later work revealed ongoing genomic change despite the fish’s ancient lineage.
A rare near-complete skull of a Pachycephalosaurus, a dome-headed herbivore from the Cretaceous Period, was found in South Dakota and will be displayed at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History for a limited time. The fossil is significant due to its rarity and the insights it provides into dinosaurs living just before their extinction, and it was donated by philanthropists Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
The new series of Prehistoric Planet on Apple TV+ is redefining our perception of dinosaurs, showing them as social and flamboyant creatures rather than mindless monsters. The series marries the visual effects of MPC with the scientific rigour of BBC Studios Natural History Unit, resulting in thoroughly convincing CGI. The show's approach is to treat the camera as if it had been placed by a flesh-and-blood documentarian, making it feel uncontrived. Sir David Attenborough narrates and presents several sequences to camera, ensuring authenticity. Prehistoric Planet Season 2 is on Apple TV+ from 22 May.
Two 52 million-year-old bat skeletons discovered in Wyoming are the oldest bat fossils ever found, revealing a new species - Icaronycteris gunnelli. The fossils were exceptionally well-preserved and revealed the animals’ complete skeletons, including teeth. The newly discovered extinct bat species was not much different from bats that fly around today and lived on a diet of insects. The research sheds light on the evolution and diversity of bats in the early days and was published in the scientific journal PLOS One.
Scientists have described a new species of bat based on the oldest bat skeletons ever recovered, which lived in Wyoming about 52 million years ago. The study supports the idea that bats diversified rapidly on multiple continents during this time. The fossils represent the oldest bat skeletons ever found and are not the most primitive, supporting the idea that Green River bats evolved separately from other Eocene bats around the world.
The legend of the rat king, a group of rats whose tails have become so entangled that they've formed a grotesque, single entity, has been talked about for centuries. While some doubt the possibility of rats becoming entangled in such a way, preserved specimens in natural history museums around the world prove that it does occur. The association with disease and bad omens adds to the fear and superstition surrounding these creatures, leading to their immediate killing in the past.