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Now, fragile bones in 30-million-year-old rocks from southern Germany show that hummingbirds were much farther-flung than anyone expected. The discovery of ornithologist Gerald Mayr of the Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg in Frankfurt, Germany, raises questions about where early hummingbirds evolved and why the European ones became extinct. Hummingbird history has long been shrouded in mystery, chiefly because the delicate-boned creatures have left so few fossils. Hints of Old World origins appeared when a possible primitive insect-eating hummingbird, Parargornis messelensis, turned up in 49-million-year-old rocks in Messel, Germany.

Focuses on the 62nd annual meeting of the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology from 9 to 12 October 2002 regarding the evolution of marsupial shoulder restraint. Features of the marsupial shoulder restraint in placental mammals; Development of bones and muscles in placental mammals; Role of the shoulder blade.

The article highlights the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's annual meeting held in Austin, Texas on October 17-20, 2007. Timothy Rowe of the University of Texas noted that a reanalysis of fossil jaws from Australia belonged to a platypus that lived at least 112 million years ago. Thomas Rich of the Museum Victoria described Teinolophos trusleri. Zhe-Xi Luo of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pennsylvania believed that the canal in Teinolophos resembles that of a modern platypus.

The article highlights the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's annual meeting held in Austin, Texas on October 17-20, 2007. Jack Horner of Montana State University in Bozeman argued that the species of dinosaurs are in fact juveniles of different ages that would have grown up to be bony-headed Pachycephalosaurus. Robert Sullivan of the State Museum of Pennsylvania speculated that juvenile pachycephalosaurs in Asia may have been misidentified as new species.

The article reports that a trade association of commercial fossil dealers have launched the online journal entitled "Journal of Paleontological Sciences," providing assurances of access to and documentation of fossils. The Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences (AAPS) headed by Mike Triebold is the trade group which publishes the journal. Mark Goodwin of the University of California, Berkeley, opposes the new venture saying that the publication will further undermine science. On the other hand, founders of the publication say that they want to help bring these fossils into the daylight.

This article presents studies conducted by researchers at the George Washington University and the University of California which describe fossils of spiders and their webs that further emphasize the antiquity of orb webs. Two groups of spiders, deinopoids and araneoids, make an orb web. Biologists think that the two spider lineages had evolved orb weaving independently. Deinopoids follow the more ancient silk recipe. On the other hand, the araneoids used a pair of glands to dab a viscous glue onto the support line.

This article reports that the Mesozoic era is called the "Age of Dinosaurs" for good reason. For 185 million years, they diversified with ferocious gusto, evolving into a panoply of predators and prey that fill the record books for size and shapes. Mammals, meanwhile, were nocturnal, shrewlike nobodies that snatched insects and stole the occasional egg. Only after dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago could mammals escape from the shadows and begin to thrive. And this furry Goliath wasn't content just to eat bugs: A smaller relative was discovered nearby with the bones of a baby dinosaur in its stomach. The new fossils, each about 130 million years old, come from the famous fossil beds of Liaoning Province in northeastern China.

Ever since its discovery in 1861, Archaeopteryx has been the classic example of a transitional fossil. Now, the first look inside the head of Archaeopteryx reveals a fundamentally birdlike brain, well suited for flying. Paleontologist Angela Milner of the Natural History Museum in London, Great Britain and colleagues inspected the brain of the so-called London specimen of Archaeopteryx, one of seven known fossils of the magpie-sized creature. Although the brain itself isn't preserved, during life the brain pressed against the skull, leaving an impression of its lobes.

For decades, paleontologists have been eagerly looking for the roots of the so-called Cambrian Explosion, an apparent eruption of many-celled animals about 540 million years ago in which all the major animal body plans appeared. Researchers claim to have found the oldest known fossil of a bilaterian animal. But other experts suspect that the microscopic specimens might not be fossils at all. The new animal, described online this week in "Science," was an oval blob less than a fifth of a millimeter long. The authors say that it shows that key features of bilaterians are preserved in rocks some 580 million to 600 million years old and thus that the genetic tool kit used to assemble more sophisticated body plans was present long before the Cambrian.

The article cites that until 10,000 years ago, a menagerie of big animals roamed North America, including fearsome predators such as saber-toothed cats and bone-crushing dogs. Rival mastodons, stoked by surging hormones, occasionally battled to the death, according to research presented here at the meeting of Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. Mastodons are extinct relatives of modern elephants. While studying mastodon remains from the Great Lakes region, paleontologist Dan Fisher of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, came across signs of injuries reminiscent of those found in dueling elephants. Fisher spotted hints of violent combat in five out of 10 mastodon specimens well enough preserved to show signs of injuries.

Sauropod dinosaurs are the stout, four-footed, long-necked variety of dinosaurs. They have enjoyed an on-again, off-again relationship with water. When scientists realized that the water pressure would have collapsed the animals' lungs, they moved sauropods onto dry land. Ever since, the big beasts have sturdily marched across the floodplains taking dips only. At the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, paleontologists took a fresh look at how these gargantuan creatures would have fared if they did take the plunge. A computer model indicates that sauropods would have ridden high in the water and would likely have been very unstable. Another experiment also suggests that water would have shifted their balance even at shallow depths. Then, researcher Martin Lockley and colleagues from the University of Colorado at Denver, Colorado argued that the dinosaurs had kept all fours squarely on land but that the narrower forefeet had simply sunk deeper into the sediment, causing the resulting manus tracks to stand up better to erosion.

Examines dinosaur eggs in Auca Mahuevo, Argentina. Investigation of the skulls and embryos of dinosaurs; Description of the eggs; Comparison of features to determine the evolutionary relationships of embryonic sauropods.

Focuses on the argument of Andy Wyss and his fellow paleontologists at Santa Barbara-based University of California that the tribosphenic molar evolved not once, but twice. Implication for mammalian dental evolution; Role of tribosphenic molar, Cuisinart-like tooth that could both slice and grind, in the success of placental mammals and marsupials.