Giant eagle discovered in Flinders Ranges
An eagle twice the size of the modern-day apex predator the wedge-tailed eagle, which soared over southern Australia more than 60,000 years ago, had a wingspan […]
Lizard, snake T-cell mystery
Studies of Australian sleepy lizards have raised new questions about vertebrate immunity after researchers identified the evolutionary disappearance of genes needed for some T cell production […]
New study revises fossil discovery
An international team of scientists have debunked an earlier description of a fossil thought to be the remarkable missing link between lizards and snakes. The new […]
How snakes got their fangs
Ever wondered how deadly snakes evolved their fangs? The answer lies in particular microscopic features of their teeth, research led by Flinders University and the South […]
Land clearance a bonus for bees
After centuries of human impact on the world’s ecosystems, a new study from Flinders University details an example of how a common native bee species has […]
Native bees’ exotic origins reveal cross-pollination
Ancestors of a distinctive pollinating bee found across Australia probably originated in tropical Asian countries, islands in the south-west Pacific or greater Oceania region, ecology researchers […]
Bushfires have reshaped life on Earth before
The catastrophic bushfires raging across much of Australia have not only taken a huge human and economic toll, but also delivered heavy blows to biodiversity and […]
Scaling 70m years of reptile history
New analysis of a fossil lizard has helped close the 70-million-year gap in the fossil record on the origins of lizards and snakes. Snakes and lizards […]
Flightless fowls of a far-flung nature
Not all fowl are chickens and ducks. Australia’s giant mihirungs (Dromornithidae) were flightless fowl that included some of the most massive birds in the world, such […]