Latest articles by Vasika Udurawane

fossils
almost 5 years ago by Vasika Udurawane

The "giant chickens" of New Caledonia

The strange extinct avian rulers of New Caledonia named Sylviornis, were among the oddest large birds ever to exist. For a long time we puzzled about what they were, only to find out that were indeed real “giant chickens”.
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fossils
almost 5 years ago by Vasika Udurawane

The evolution of ichthyosaurs, the mighty "fish-lizards" of the Mesozoic

They arose millions of years before the first dinosaurs and dominated the seas in a vast array of finned fish-like and dolphin-like forms. Some were hardly the size of a small porpoise while some were as vast and gentle as today’s biggest whales and still others terrorized their kin with vicious jaws and teeth. They were the spectacular ichthyosaurs, among the most specialized of all marine reptiles.
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fossils
almost 5 years ago by Vasika Udurawane

Ice Age dogs found trapped in the Siberian permafrost

The relationship between dog and man is an ancient love that has carried on for thousands of years. Now we have a few secrets that may shed some light on the origins of this bond – puppies dug up from the Ice Age permafrosts of Yakutia, Russia.
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fossils
almost 5 years ago by Vasika Udurawane

The alien world of the Burgess Shale

The Cambrian is remembered as a time when there was nothing on land and all life existed in the oceans. Gone were the days of simple one-celled organisms for an evolutionary explosion had just occurred and animal life had mushroomed into hundreds of new forms. It was a time of change, when the seas were ruled by creatures seemingly straight out of science fiction.
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fossils
almost 5 years ago by Vasika Udurawane

What killed the Siberian unicorns?

Gigantic one-horned beasts once roamed the frozen steppes and tundra of Siberia. They were a species of rhino, more than two meters at the shoulder who grazed these areas in huge numbers during the last Ice Age. That is, until their extinction.
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Vasika
Udurawane

Writer