Latest articles by Vasika Udurawane

plants and animals
almost 5 years ago by Vasika Udurawane

The oldest caterpillar on Earth spends its winters frozen solid

With a name as pretty as Gynaephora groenlandica, you’d imagine this moth to be a frail creature with no defenses at all. But it is one of the hardiest insects in the world, surviving the Arctic winter frozen and still alive as a caterpillar. The Arctic woolly bear is a true survivor in every sense of the word and has even wormed its way into our culture.
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fossils
almost 5 years ago by Vasika Udurawane

Buzzsaw-toothed leviathans cruised the ancient seas

The so-called “buzzsaw shark” Helicoprion was a prominent feature of the oceans roughly 290 to 250 million years ago. Known mostly for its strange spiral set of teeth, it was also a titanic marine monster that sometimes stretched more than 12 meters in length and was the biggest marine animal of its day.
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fossils
almost 5 years ago by Vasika Udurawane

Footprint of strange dinosaur found in Alaska

Therizinosaurs are among the most unorthodox of dinosaurs. They have a big belly, short legs and tail, a long neck and a set of immense flattened claws to help them manipulate branches. Despite the majority being from Asia, tantalizing remains have surfaced from the unlikeliest of places.
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fossils
almost 5 years ago by Vasika Udurawane

Our relatives may have been hyena food 500,000 years ago

We pride ourselves on being the world’s greatest predators but once in our long history, we were the hunted and not the hunters. Bones from Morocco reveal the shocking tale of how some human ancestors met their match at the hands of bone-crushing teeth.
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fossils
almost 5 years ago by Vasika Udurawane

Dinosaurs down under

For millions of years, a wide variety of dinosaurs battled harsh, wintry conditions as the Southern Lights flickered above their heads. These unique pioneer discoveries of paleontology, some gigantic and some petite, have all left their remains in opal and rock in the “Land Down Under.”
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Vasika
Udurawane

Writer