Latest articles by Franz Anthony

Sometimes in a toy dinosaur set you’ll find Dimetrodon, the one with the massive sail on its back. But Dimetrodon doesn’t belong with the dinosaurs. In fact, it’s not even a reptile. Although misidentified, Dimetrodon ranks as one of the most recognizable of extinct animals because the form of its sail is quite memorable. But it’s the sail’s function that is the real mystery.

Bats’ echolocation seems like a mysterious, stealthy weapon to us. But to moths, they are a siren of death, loud as a jet engine. As the moths adapt to disrupt the bat’s sonar, the graceful aerial hunter has moved its dining table closer to the ground.

It’s hard to imagine a life without a jaw—we need one to eat and interact with one another through speech. Yet like every other part in our body, it didn’t always exist back in life’s evolutionary history.