Topic description and stories

Left: 3D model with the jaws open; the individual bones are colour-coded to show the boundaries between them. Right: Original fossil skull of Acanthostega gunnari

Fossil skull sheds new light on transition from water to land

16 Mar 2015

The first 3D reconstruction of the skull of a 360 million-year-old near-ancestor of land vertebrates has been created by scientists.

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Rendering of the Ichthyostega backbone structure

Reassembling the backbone of life using a particle accelerator

14 Jan 2013

New research shows for the first time the intricate three-dimensional structure of the backbone in the earliest four-legged animals (tetrapods)...

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flesh reconstruction

3D model reveals how ancient creature got around

24 May 2012

Early tetrapod primarily used front limbs to move and its back limbs for balance.

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Limb of a terrestrial tetrapod recovered from a Scottish riverbed by Stanley Wood in 2005

From fins to limbs

11 Apr 2012

Tonight Cambridge vertebrate palaeontologist Professor Jenny Clack is the subject of BBC Four’s Beautiful Minds series. The programme looks at her...

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