What crocodile DNA reveals about the Ice Age

Published: 25 January 2023

What drives crocodile evolution? Is climate a major factor or changes in sea levels? Determined to find answers to these questions, researchers from McGill University discovered that while changing...

The hidden secrets of flowers

Published: 14 December 2022

To better understand the evolution of flowers, researchers from Montreal are harnessing photogrammetry – a technique commonly used by geographers to reconstruct landscape topography. This is the...

An ecological rule breaker shows the effects of climate change on body size evolution

Published: 29 November 2022

Does evolution follow certain rules? Can these rules be predicted? Southeast Asia’s tree shrews break multiple rules when it comes to body size variation – with an unexpected twist – according to...

The tiny bodies of bats allow perfect balance between flight costs and heat dissipation

Published: 21 July 2022

Many mammal species living in cold climates tend to have large bodies and short limbs to reduce heat loss – a general pattern known as Bergmann’s rule. However, bats are the exception to the rule,...

What the rise of oxygen on early Earth tells us about life on other planets

Published: 31 January 2022

When did the Earth reach oxygen levels sufficient to support animal life? Researchers from McGill University have discovered that a rise in oxygen levels occurred in step with the evolution and...

Uncovering the underlying patterns in contemporary evolution

Published: 18 January 2022

Wild populations must continuously adapt to environmental changes or risk extinction. For more than fifty years, scientists have described instances of “rapid evolution” in specific populations as...

Crocodile evolution rebooted by Ice Age glaciations

Published: 16 February 2021

Crocodiles are resilient animals from a lineage that has survived for over 200 million years. Skilled swimmers, crocodiles can travel long distances and live in freshwater or marine environments....

Bat-winged dinosaurs that could glide

Published: 22 October 2020

Despite having bat-like wings, two small dinosaurs, Yi and Ambopteryx, struggled to fly, only managing to glide clumsily between the trees where they lived, according to a new study led by an...

Origin of a complex life form revealed

Published: 2 September 2020

Researchers from McGill University have revealed the steps by which two very distinct organisms – bacteria and carpenter ants – have come to depend on one another for survival to become a single...

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