The humble rodent “thumb” may not seem like an obvious window into evolution, but its keratinized tip – the unguis (hoof, claw, or nail) – turns out to reveal striking insights into rodent history and ...

One of the most important steps in the evolution of modern mammals was the development of highly sensitive hearing. The middle ear of mammals, with an eardrum and several small bones, allows us to ...

Researchers have shed new light on the features that enable tree-dwelling mammals to move effectively through their ...

The surprising story of mammal evolution begins long before the age of dinosaurs. Witness how some of our prehistoric mammal relatives survived global catastrophes, defying extinction and evolving ...

Researchers (left to right) Gordon Shepherd, Anderson Feijó, Lauren Johnson, and Rafaela Missagia, working in the Field Museum’s mammal collections. Picture a squirrel eating an acorn. It’s holding ...

The legions of squirrels breaking into backyard bird feeders benefit from a surprising trait developed over millions of years—tiny hands with four claws and a human-looking thumbnail. This combination ...

A study published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution, used artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze over 300,000 hours of vocal recordings of mammal species from Far North Queensland to southern New ...

Rodents in Chicago have been adapting to an increasingly urban environment over the past century, a new study has shown. Evolution generally entails seeing small changes passed down over generations, ...