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<keyword id="20007546" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="forest-officials" source="keywords">Forest officials</keyword> arrested a <keyword id="20213359" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="poacher" source="keywords">poacher</keyword> after skulls of a <keyword id="20112351" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="leopard" source="keywords">leopard</keyword> and barking deer were seized from his possession in <keyword id="19897145" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Odisha" source="keywords">Odisha</keyword>'s Mayurbhanj district. On a tip-off, a team of forest officials on Sunday raided the house of Lanka Badra in Makabadi village and found a leopard skull, Samrat Gowda, deputy director of Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) said on Monday. <br /><br />Badra was arrested and interrogated. During interrogation, Badra revealed the detailed procedure he followed for poaching wild animals and recreated the crime scene inside the forest, said Gowda. <br /><br />The investigating officer seized a few bones suspected to be of some wild animals from the crime scene. Further, the accused led to the discovery of weapons used in the crime from his house at Makabadi, the officer said. <br /><br />During the second search, dry meat, three snares, skull of a barking deer with antler, an axe, bill hook, poison and two bags were seized from Badra's house. <br /><br />A case has been registered and further investigation is going on, the deputy director stated.

Odisha forest officials arrest poacher with leopard, deer skulls

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Items from the Murdaugh estate in Colleton County, South Carolina, go up for auction on March 23.</li><li>Alex Murdaugh, a former lawyer, was convicted of killing his wife and son on March 2.</li></ul><p>Items from the Murdaugh family's hunting estate — which has been at the center of a high-profile murder trial — are set to go on auction this week. </p><p>In early March, Alex Murdaugh <a href="https://www.insider.com/alex-murdaugh-murders-trial-verdict-recap-biggest-moments-2023-3">was convicted</a> of murdering his wife Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, who were found dead in June 2021 from bullet wounds at the family's hunting compound. Alex Murdaugh pleaded not guilty, but a jury found him guilty of the murders. The disgraced South Carolina attorney was given <a href="https://www.insider.com/alex-murdaugh-sentenced-life-in-prison-for-family-murders-haunt-2023-3">two consecutive life sentences in prison</a>.</p><p>Liberty Auction, an auction house in Pembroke, Georgia, is holding an estate sale for the items on March 23, <a href="https://www.foxcarolina.com/2023/03/19/household-items-featured-auction-house-belonged-murdaugh-family/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to local affiliate WHNS.</a></p><p>In <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LibertyAuctionInc/posts/pfbid0gBEi56surcRNSrKYc5b6tvVjZNX2BXToNLAHAVFcDPix86Y14s6gYZhJG5wrEMiql" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a March 17 Facebook post</a>, Liberty Auction wrote that it had a "glimpse into a prominent estate picked up in Colleton County, South Carolina," without naming the estate. WHNS confirmed the estate was the Murdaugh's hunting property, <a href="https://crosbylandco.com/property/cross-swamp-farm-colleton-south-carolina/24755/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">known as Cross Swamp Farm</a> or Moselle, and which is also on sale. Representatives for the auction house did not respond to Insider's request for comment.</p><p>Among the items up for auction are a matching leather couch and recliner with monogrammed pillows embroidered with "MMB" — perhaps belonging to <a href="https://www.peeplesrhodenfuneralhome.com/obituary/maggie-murdaugh" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Maggie Kennedy Branstetter Murdaugh</a>, Alex's deceased wife.</p><p>There's also a set of lamps with what appear to be tortoise-shell stands, a set of green-and-brown dishware decorated with leaves and deer, a mirror, and multiple animal skulls, sets of antlers, and a large deer bust.</p><p>Only in-person bids at the auction house's warehouse will be accepted, according to the Facebook post.</p><p>While the items will soon go up for auction, <a href="https://www.foxcarolina.com/2023/03/16/murdaughs-moselle-property-under-contract/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WHNS</a> reported on March 16 that the Murdaugh family's 1,700-acre hunting property, <a href="https://crosbylandco.com/property/cross-swamp-farm-colleton-south-carolina/24755/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">which was listed for $3.9 million</a>, is under contract.</p><p>Some commenters on the Facebook post expressed that they wouldn't want anything from the home due to "bad vibes."</p><p>"I wouldn't want NONE of their belongings. I would be concerned with bringing bad spirits in my home," wrote one commenter.</p><p>"I hope whoever buys any of this has it blessed before they put it in their house. I can only imagine the bad juju that this has," wrote another.</p><div type="image" title="Murdaugh family" height="2711" width="3615" msid="98885898" hostid="261" sizebytes="2048344"></div><p>According to other comments by Liberty Auction, more items will be added to social media this week before the auction on March 23.</p><p>The Murdaugh family, once a prominent dynasty in South Carolina, has been <a href="https://www.insider.com/these-3-deaths-potentially-linked-to-murdaugh-family-remain-unsolved-2023-3">the subject of many controversies</a>, culminating with the murder trial of Alex Murdaugh. It's been called <a href="https://www.fitsnews.com/2023/01/22/as-south-carolinas-trial-of-the-century-begins-dont-forget-the-system-is-also-on-trial/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">South Carolina's trial of the century</a>, and it has been <a href="https://www.insider.com/murdaugh-murders-crucial-details-the-netflix-series-missed-2023-2">immortalized with the Netflix docuseries,</a> "Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal."</p>

A couch, animal skulls, and more items from the Murdaugh family's estate are up for auction

<ul class="summary-list"><li>After 10 years of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-to-do-see-in-austin-local-2019-6">living in Austin</a>, my husband and I decided to move to the suburbs.</li><li>It wasn't an easy decision, but we found that a lot of what we loved about Austin was disappearing.</li></ul><p>Ten years ago, my husband and I traded the hustle and bustle of Chicago life for the slowed-down pace of southern living in Austin.</p><p>We loved that the city was less hurried, had a small-town feel, and prided itself on its motto, "Keep Austin Weird."</p><p>But after a decade of living there, we grew tired of watching the city change — its natural beauty has given way to apartment complexes, offices, and bars.</p><p>So, earlier this year, we made the tough decision to embrace <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/left-major-cities-rent-in-suburbs-life-better-not-cheaper-2024-7">life in the suburbs</a> and move to a smaller town just 15 minutes south of Austin.</p><p>We still love the Texas capital, but here's why we believe this move was best for our family.</p><h2 id="761cc2c0-7a99-408c-b704-56a557e54286">The city became more congested over the years</h2><p>During our time in Austin, the city skyline grew before our eyes, with more and more buildings vying for space in a limited area.</p><p>Some of this can be attributed to the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/austin-texas-silicon-hills-tech-capital-city-photos-2019-2">growing tech sector in Austin</a>, with major companies like Apple and Amazon expanding into the city over the past few years and employing thousands of workers.</p><p>However, with more buildings, businesses, people, and apartments comes more traffic.</p><p>When we first <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/typical-austin-mover-single-millennial-renters-making-76000-a-year-2024-2">moved to Austin</a>, our doctors, places of employment, and outings all centered on downtown. By the time we left, we avoided driving to or through downtown at all costs due to the traffic congestion.</p><p>Even worse, the central expressway, I-35, was built in 1962 when the city had a population <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Planning/Demographics/population_history_pub.pdf">just north of 200,000</a>. Now, with just shy of a million residents, the infrastructure doesn't support the number of people who use it daily.</p><p>Although <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.axios.com/local/austin/2024/03/13/i-35-expansion-project-construction">construction on I-35</a> is set to start this year, the projected completion date of the expansion is years away — and traffic will likely get worse before it gets better.</p><p>The rising number of visitors hasn't helped either — <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.austintexas.org/travel-professionals/">millions of tourists</a> visit Texas' capital each year, which can make Austin feel pretty crowded.</p><h2 id="9bace3e4-709d-498f-b834-b5e059cfefff">We felt big businesses slowly took away from what made Austin special</h2><div type="image" title="A colorful sign that reads, &quot;Keep Austin weird.&quot;" height="3712" width="4949" msid="113818622" hostid="261" sizebytes="1510320"></div><p>The Texas capital is known for its motto, "Keep Austin Weird," an ode to the eclectic mix of small businesses found throughout the city.</p><p>Slowly but surely, we've watched these small businesses disappear, taking the charmingly odd vibe of Austin and morphing it into the overpriced, polished feel of any other big city.</p><p>A perfect example is South Congress, or SoCo, a popular draw for locals and tourists. The street was once lined with offbeat stores with unique Austin offerings and welcoming shop owners.</p><p>Visitors could park for free and stroll the street, enjoying places like the iconic costume shop, a gallery featuring handmade bedazzled skulls, and an emporium of uncommon items.</p><p>However, it's gotten harder for <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/recession-outlook-small-business-owner-economy-interest-rate-cuts-2024-9">small-business owners</a> to survive. Some SoCo business owners told local ABC TV station KVUE<strong> </strong>that<strong> </strong>their rent <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.kvue.com/article/money/economy/boomtown-2040/south-congress-avenue-business-closures/269-7d6b3a0e-c01b-40bf-9641-76f711e9ac41">increased by as much as 500%</a> this year.</p><p>Even just walking through the neighborhood, it's easy to see how much the area has changed. Chains like Nike, Hermès, and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/style/warby-parker-review">Warby Parker</a> now line the streets, and parking is no longer free.</p><h2 id="dec7a910-5aba-4505-8361-7b870f741406">We've found a better sense of community in the suburbs</h2><p>In the past decade, the road one street away from our Austin home underwent extreme growth business-wise, and we started to hear more and more traffic from our house.</p><p>The open stretch of land that once led us to hill country was replaced with an ever-growing strip of bars. Our once peaceful neighborhood became a popular spot for bar crawls, and we regularly heard a lot of loud, late-night partiers.</p><p>We had a fantastic decade enjoying the city but knew it was time for us to start fresh in the suburbs. Fortunately, our tough choice of moving 15 minutes south of Austin<strong> </strong>paid off, and we've already begun building a strong community.</p><p>In our new neighborhood, we go on walks where we spot wildlife like deer and foxes. Our neighbors are welcoming and inclusive — they look out for each other. It feels like a stark contrast to the seemingly constant rotation of renters and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/5-star-airbnb-host-things-guests-should-know-before-booking-2024-7">Airbnbs</a> surrounding us in Austin.</p><p>Times change, and so do cities, but I wish Austin had preserved what made it so unique.</p>

We loved living in Austin but left after 10 years. Big businesses and tech wrecked our favorite parts of the city.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>North America used to be crawling with giant mammals, from dire wolves to big cats.</li><li>Horses and camels evolved on the continent while others, like bison, crossed over from Asia.</li></ul><p>Towering 13 feet tall and weighing a hefty 7 tons, the African elephant is the biggest land mammal on Earth. But that wasn't always the case.</p><p>Tens of millions of years ago, shortly after the dinosaurs went extinct, mammals grew to epic proportions, dwarfing the animals we see today.</p><p>"There used to be cow-sized wombats in Australia, and there were armadillos the size of cars in South America," Emily Lindsey, an assistant curator at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, told Insider.</p><p>Some evolved on these continents while others crossed the Bering Land Bridge, which once connected Asia and Alaska.</p><div type="image" title="A map in shades of brown and blue showing the Bering Land Bridge connecting Asia and Alaska." height="650" width="1300" msid="105218368" hostid="261" sizebytes="46194"></div><p>North and South America were home to woolly mammoths, mastodons, giant sloths, and much more.</p><h2>Columbian and woolly mammoths</h2><div type="image" title="People gather around the fossilized skeleton of a woolly mammoth at the QUADRAT museum in Germany" height="1500" width="2250" msid="105218370" hostid="261" sizebytes="275752"></div><p><strong>Height: </strong>12 to 13 <a target="_blank" href="https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/mesaxonia/elephantidae.php"><u>feet tall</u></a> (Columbian mammoths); 9 to 11 feet tall (woolly mammoths)</p><p><strong>Weight: </strong>10 tons (Columbian mammoths); 4 to 6 tons (woolly mammoths)</p><p><strong>When did they go extinct?</strong> 13,000 to 10,000 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nps.gov/whsa/learn/nature/mammoth.htm"><u>years ago</u></a> (Columbian mammoths); 4,000 years ago (woolly mammoths)</p><p>Two types of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-pleistocene-park-mammoths-2016-3">mammoths</a> roamed North America. Both are members of the proboscidean family, which also includes modern elephants, and stem from a species that evolved in Africa 5 million years ago.</p><p>The Columbian mammoth arrived in North America about 1.5 million years ago, traveling over the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/eighteen-thousand-year-old-stone-tools-among-oldest-found-us-2023-9">Bering Strait</a>, which once connected Asia and Alaska. They fanned out at least as far south as Mexico, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.1997.10010985"><u>possibly all the way</u></a> to Costa Rica.</p><p>In North America, "you only get the woolly mammoths up in the north, starting around the Great Lakes," Lindsey said. They arrived later, roughly 100,000 years ago, and didn't venture as far south.</p><p>One of the woolly mammoth's most distinctive features is its thick fur. The Columbian mammoth was far less shaggy.</p><h2>American mastodons</h2><div type="image" title="People look at the fossilized skeleton of an American Mastodon at the Natural History Museum" height="1500" width="2250" msid="105218373" hostid="261" sizebytes="309920"></div><p><strong>Height:</strong> 8 to 10 feet tall</p><p><strong>Weight:</strong> 4 to 5 tons</p><p><strong>When did they go extinct?</strong> Around 11,000 years ago</p><p>A tad smaller than their woolly mammoth relatives, American mastodons were also more widely spread. Their fossils <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sdnhm.org/exhibitions/fossil-mysteries/fossil-field-guide-a-z/mastodon/"><u>have been found</u></a> all over the continent, from Alaska to central Mexico.</p><p>Some <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/r-bachelor-party-finds-rare-mastodon-fossil-in-new-mexico-2014-12"><u>mastodon fossils</u></a> show them living in North America as far back as 16 million years ago. The forest dwellers likely fed on trees and shrubs.</p><p>In addition to their smaller stature, mastodons had shorter, straighter <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mammoth-tusk-found-ocean-deep-sea-2021-11">tusks than mammoths</a>. But paleontologists mainly distinguish them by their teeth. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.insider.com/boy-found-ancient-mammoth-tooth-grandmas-backyard-2023-5">Mammoth molars</a> are fairly flat. American mastodons have bumpier molars.</p><h2>Camels</h2><div type="image" title="Camelops and Hemiauchenia are shown next to each other in an artist's rendering" height="1500" width="2568" msid="105218377" hostid="261" sizebytes="71476"></div><p><strong>Height:</strong> <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-camels.htm"><u>7 feet tall</u></a></p><p><strong>Weight:</strong> 1,800 pounds</p><p><strong>When did they go extinct? </strong>10,000 years ago</p><p>"We think of camels as this very exotic creature that we associated with very different places, with sand dunes, but <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fossil-discovery-california-ancient-elephants-camels-dogs-2021-5">camels actually are native</a> to North America," Lindsey said.</p><p>Its relatives evolved 44 million years ago during the Eocene period. Over time, Camelops made its way to the Canadian Yukon and Mexico, making its home in woodlands, grasslands, and wetlands.</p><p>The Camelops was about a foot taller than modern camels, but it's difficult to tell from their fossils if they had a hump.</p><p>These animals crossed the Bering land bridge into Asia 7 million years ago and gave rise to modern camels. More recently, they arrived in South America via the Isthmus of Panama, another land bridge that formed between North and South America<strong> </strong>3 million years ago.</p><p>Some of Camelops' ancestors went extinct, Lindsey said. Others continued to evolve. "Those are the llamas and guanacos that you see in South America today," she said.</p><h2>Horses</h2><div type="image" title="Several skeletons of ancient horses are lined up in glass cases at the Field Museum in Chicago" height="1500" width="2175" msid="105218378" hostid="261" sizebytes="281496"></div><p><strong>Height:</strong> <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/ancient-horse.htm"><u>4.5 feet tall</u></a> (Equus scotti)</p><p><strong>Weight:</strong> 1,100 pounds (Equus scotti)</p><p><strong>When did they go extinct? </strong>About 10,000 years ago</p><p>Over 50 million years ago, horses started evolving in North America. There were many species, all different from today's versions.</p><p>"When they start out, they're very small," Lindsey said, comparable to small dogs. Instead of hooves, they had five toes<strong> </strong>on their feet.</p><p>Then, 15 million years ago, the landscape and climate started changing. It was drier. Grasslands emerged.</p><p>Horses became larger, with longer legs and fewer toes. Some migrated to Eurasia, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-horses-stripes-like-zebras-until-human-domestication-2016-1">becoming zebras</a> and wild Asian horses.</p><p>"Then they get wiped out in the Americas and brought back about 12,000 years later when the Spanish come," Lindsey said.</p><h2>Short-faced bears</h2><div type="image" title="A saber-tooth cat and a short-faced bear roar at each other in an artist's rendering" height="1500" width="2000" msid="105218381" hostid="261" sizebytes="471100"></div><p><strong>Height:</strong> 11 feet tall when standing on their hind legs</p><p><strong>Weight:</strong> 1,500 to 2,200 pounds</p><p><strong>When did they go extinct? </strong>Between 12,7000 and 11,000 years ago</p><p>Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Arctodus simus cast a looming shadow over boreal forests, plains, tundra, grasslands, and subtropical woodlands. Known as the short-faced bear, it ranged across the US and Canada, into Florida.</p><p>"The short-faced bears were huge," Lindsey said. They were far larger than 8-foot-tall grizzly bears and "would've been terrifying."</p><p>Studies have shown that its muzzle was perhaps not as short as its name suggests. Some researchers <a target="_blank" href="https://iceage.museum.state.il.us/mammals/short-faced-bear-0"><u>also think</u></a> the bear may have been an omnivore instead of solely a meat eater.</p><h2>Dire wolves</h2><div type="image" title="A reconstuction of a dire wolf with another dire wolf in the background at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum" height="810" width="1440" msid="105218383" hostid="261" sizebytes="90070"></div><p><strong>Height:</strong> 3 feet tall at the shoulder</p><p><strong>Weight:</strong> 130 to 150 pounds</p><p><strong>When did they go extinct?</strong> An estimated 10,000 years ago</p><p>Dire wolves were big. "But they're not as big as they're shown <a target="_blank" href="https://www.insider.com/game-of-thrones-direwolves-original-plans-meaning-cut-2020-10"><u>in 'Game of Thrones</u></a>,' I'm sorry to say," Lindsey said. She calls them the linebacker version of wolves, about 20% larger than gray wolves.</p><p>Once <a target="_blank" href="https://tarpits.org/stories/our-evolving-understanding-dire-wolves"><u>thought to be</u></a> the cousins of gray wolves, dire wolves evolved separately over 5 million years ago in North America. The finding came courtesy of ancient DNA.</p><p>Lindsey said the news was surprising because they're so similar behaviorally and morphologically. For example, they likely lived in packs like modern dogs, wolves, and coyotes.</p><p>Researchers know quite a bit about how dire wolves hunted, too. "Scientists have looked at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dire-wolf-and-sabre-tooth-cat-bones-show-what-prehistoric-hunts-were-like-2017-5"><u>injuries in dire wolves</u></a>, as well as saber-tooth cats, that were found in the tar pits," Lindsey said.</p><p>They found injuries to the fossils' paws and skulls. "That's consistent with the type of injuries we see in, say, wolves today that are chasing down animals on the landscape," Lindsey said. A wolf's prey might trample its toes or kick it in the head.</p><h2>Saber-tooth cats</h2><div type="image" title="A child crouches under a replica of a saber-tooth cat at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh" height="1500" width="2185" msid="105218387" hostid="261" sizebytes="219738"></div><p><strong>Height:</strong> 3 feet at the shoulder (smilodon and scimitar)</p><p><strong>Weight:</strong> 300 to 500 pounds (scimitar cat); up to 750 pounds (smilodon)</p><p><strong>When did they go extinct? </strong>Roughly 10,000 years ago (smilodon); between 10,000 and 28,000 years ago (scimitar)</p><p>You may have grown up calling them saber-toothed tigers, but the smilodon isn't a close relative of tigers. Their common name comes from their impressive canine teeth, which could be up to 7 inches long.</p><p>Another genus of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dire-wolf-and-sabre-tooth-cat-bones-show-what-prehistoric-hunts-were-like-2017-5">saber-tooth cats</a>, Homotherium, is known as scimitar cats. Their teeth weren't as long as smilodon and were serrated like a steak knife. Like the smilodon, they lived in North America during the Pleistocene. The two cats were similarly widespread, from the Yukon to Florida.</p><p>But these two predators had different prey, according to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00434-6"><u>a study</u></a> from a few years ago. While the smilodon went after tapirs (pig-like animals with trunks)<strong> </strong>and deer, scimitars preferred baby mammoths.</p><p>"Saber-tooth cats tend to get a lot of injuries in their lower back, which is consistent with this idea that they were ambush predators," Lindsey said. The smilodons would sit and wait before leaping onto a large animal and wrestling it to the ground.</p><p>"It's very easy to torque your back that way," Lindsey said. "And so they get a lot of lower back arthritis type of injuries."</p><p>Lindsey was also part of <a target="_blank" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=42246614699244699707dd7c242788d80d4a91432fafa7103792e8fe2d509dd0&amp;postID=654c1e6cb0b368bea7429e8a&amp;postSlug=extinct-giant-mammals-pleistocene-megafauna-ice-age-north-america&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41598-021-99853-1"><u>a study</u></a> that diagnosed a smilodon with hip dysplasia based on a CT scan of a fossil. "It's an animal that probably couldn't have survived to adulthood as it did without other animals taking care of it," she said. "So that indicates that these are probably social creatures. There's all kinds of amazing, fun things you can learn from bones."</p><h2>Giant sloths</h2><div type="image" title="Visitors look at a large skeleton of a giant ground sloth in a museum in Florida" height="1500" width="2250" msid="105218389" hostid="261" sizebytes="462358"></div><p><strong>Height:</strong> 19.6 feet when upright</p><p><strong>Weight:</strong> Up to 3 tons</p><p><strong>When did they go extinct? </strong>10,000 years ago or into the Late Holocene</p><p>For most extinct Pleistocene megafauna — animals <a target="_blank" href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2019.2643"><u>weighing more</u></a> than 100 pounds — there are still living analogs. Instead of mammoths, there are elephants. Camelops has its camel and llama relatives.</p><p>"But you don't have anything in the world that is even kind of like a 3,000-pound sloth," Lindsey said. "That's just something that is completely gone."</p><p>Unlike their modern counterparts, these behemoths spent most of their time on the ground instead of in trees.</p><p>North America had several species of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/giant-sloths-hunted-by-humans-bones-2019-3">giant sloths</a>. Among the largest were the Eremotherium, which have mostly been found in the southeast along Florida and the Gulf Coast, as well as in Central and South America.</p><p>"They like sort of the wetter, more tropical regions," Lindsey said. "They got to be about the size of elephants." While very large, the Eremotherium wasn't as big as the Megatherium <strong>— </strong>another species of giant sloth — which lived throughout South America.</p><p>The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fossils-of-giant-sloth-found-in-sinkhole-2019-3">giant sloths</a> had a diverse diet, including being able to reach higher into the trees thanks to their stature and ability to stand on their hind legs. Exactly when they went extinct is disputed, but their adaptability may have helped them survive a bit longer than many other mammals they lived alongside.</p><h2>American lion</h2><div type="image" title="Three lions crouch drinking from a pond in an artist's rendering" height="480" width="960" msid="105218391" hostid="261" sizebytes="46584"></div><p><strong>Height:</strong> 4 feet at the shoulder</p><p><strong>Weight:</strong> Up to 770 pounds</p><p><strong>When did they go extinct? </strong>Between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago</p><p>Saber-tooths weren't the only big cats that made their home in North America. Panthera atrox was one of the largest<strong> </strong>members of the cat family<strong> </strong>ever.</p><p>"The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-american-lion-fossil-found-in-dried-up-mississippi-river-2022-11">American lions</a> were huge," Lindsey said. "They're much, much bigger than modern lions."</p><p>While fairly rare in the fossil record, there's evidence the big cats did make their way throughout North America. Scientists have found their bones and teeth from Canada to Mexico.</p><p>Researchers <a target="_blank" href="https://phys.org/news/2010-05-scientists-american-lion.html"><u>have debated</u></a> about whether these gigantic cats are more closely related to modern lions or jaguars. Its skull shares similarities with lions', but its jaw resembles those of jaguars and tigers.</p><p>Due to its enormous size, the American lion was able to make meals out of bison and wild horses.</p><h2>Ancient bison</h2><div type="image" title="The mummified skull of an extinct bison behind a glass case at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History" height="1500" width="2218" msid="105218393" hostid="261" sizebytes="191042"></div><p><strong>Height:</strong> 7.5 feet tall</p><p><strong>Weight:</strong> 3,500 pounds</p><p><strong>When did they go extinct? </strong>Roughly 10,000 years ago</p><p>Unlike the Camelops and horses that evolved in North America, other big beasts migrated in. That includes ancient bison.</p><p>"They are the most recent arrivals into North America of all the Pleistocene megafauna," Lindsey said.</p><p>The first bison species appeared around 3 million years ago in South Asia and China. Eventually, some crossed the Bering Land Bridge. They start showing up in the North American fossil record between 300,000 and 130,000 years ago.</p><p>The ancient bison, Bison antiquus, was 25% larger than those living today. Their territories included grasslands, woodlands, and wetlands from Canada to Mexico.</p><p>Another species of bison on the continent was the Bison priscus or steppe bison. A <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618221002421"><u>recent study</u></a> suggested modern bison — Bison biso — evolved from this species.</p><h2>Why did they go extinct?</h2><p>Was it the changing climate, human interactions, or a combination that caused so many large mammals to go extinct around 10,000 years ago?</p><p>"That is something that scientists have been debating for about 70 years," Lindsey said. The climate was changing at the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-earth-looks-like-during-an-ice-age-2014-5">end of the Ice Age</a> on a global scale. Humans were also spreading throughout the world.</p><p>"These two things are so closely tied in time, the climate changes and the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/eighteen-thousand-year-old-stone-tools-among-oldest-found-us-2023-9">spread of human populations</a>, it's been really hard to say to what degree each of those factors was involved in the extinctions," Lindsey said.</p><p>Humans may have more of an impact than just hunting, too. A 2023 paper tied <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fires-may-have-caused-la-brea-tar-pit-extinctions-thousands-of-years-ago-2023-8"><u>fires started by humans</u></a> to some of the extinctions in what is now California.</p><p>If that did have an impact on the animals in that region, the causes might vary for others. "Different ecosystems are going to have different parameters of what pushes them to the brink," Lindsey said. "But there is something about the combination of humans and an unstable climate or a rapidly changing environment that pushes ecosystems again and again towards tipping points."</p>

Dire wolves, camels, and other extinct giant mammals that used to live in North America

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Dozens of warships of Hitler's Black Sea fleet were scuttled in 1944 in the Danube river.</li><li>10,000 explosive devices hidden within the exposed wreckage, said a Serbian minister.</li></ul><p>Extreme droughts across Europe are revealing thousands of years of lost history.</p><p>Most dramatic is the Nazi fleet of 20 World War German warships that re-surfaced as the water level in the River Danube in Serbia plummeted due to the soaring temperatures and lack of rain.</p><div type="image" title="A WW2 German warship revealed in Serbia by depleted water levels" height="1904" width="3808" msid="93680767" hostid="261" sizebytes="550276"></div><p>Hitler's Black Sea fleet was scuttled in 1944 as the German army retreated from Soviet forces, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/europes-drought-exposes-ancient-stones-world-war-two-ships-waters-fall-2022-08-20/">Reuters report.</a></p><p>Strewn across the Danube riverbed, some of the Nazi hulks still boast guns, turrets, command bridges, and broken masts said Reuters.</p><p>According to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/20/europe-drought-danube-spanish-stonehenge-climate/">The Washington Post</a>, many more ships are thought to be buried under the river's sandbanks.</p><div type="image" title="A Nazi warship revealed by droughts in Serbia" height="2831" width="3775" msid="93680769" hostid="261" sizebytes="718700"></div><p>Talking to <a href="https://www-novosti-rs.translate.goog/c/drustvo/vesti/1146583/zbog-nezapamcene-suse-olupine-nemackih-brodova-drugog-svetskog-rata-izronile-dunava-kod-prahova?_x_tr_sl=auto&amp;_x_tr_tl=en&amp;_x_tr_hl=en&amp;_x_tr_pto=wapp">local media</a>, junior Serbian transport minister Belimir Trajilović said that roughly 10,000 explosive devices are hidden within the exposed wreckage. </p><p>Across Europe, more lost history is being uncovered by the continental drought. </p><p>In Spain, the Valdecanas reservoir has dried up and revealed a prehistoric stone circle dubbed the "Spanish Stonehenge," officially known as the Dolmen of Guadalperal. </p><div type="image" title="The dolmen of Guadalperal, also known as the Spanish Stonehenge, is seen due to the receding waters of the Valdecanas reservoir in the outskirts of El Gordo" height="4000" width="5333" msid="93680773" hostid="261" sizebytes="1137378"></div><p>It was discovered in 1926 but has been covered by water since 1963. It has only been fully exposed four times since, but it is again visible as authorities say the water level has dropped to 28% of capacity, Reuters reports.</p><p>In Germany, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/centuries-old-hunger-stones-reappear-as-european-rivers-run-dry-2022-8?r=US&amp;IR=T">medieval "hunger stones" </a>are revealed in dried-up rivers. The stones mark how low water levels got in previous devastating droughts.</p><p>Researchers said the markings express that "drought had brought a bad harvest, lack of food, high prices and hunger for poor people."</p><div type="image" title="A view of the 'hunger stone,' which dates back to 1616." height="3022" width="4030" msid="93680775" hostid="261" sizebytes="850326"></div><p><em>Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine</em> ("If you see me, then weep"), reads an inscription on a rock in the Elbe River near the northern Czech town of Děčín, close to the German border, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/19/hunger-stones-wrecks-and-bones-europe-drought-brings-past-to-surface">The Guardian reports</a>. Another in Germany says, "When this goes under, life will become more colorful again."</p><p>In Italy's River Po, the heat exposed a 1,000-pound WWII bomb dropped, and 3,000 residents were evacuated while bomb disposal carried out a controlled explosion of the U.S.-manufactured device. </p><p>In the parched Lake Como, northern Italy, the 100,000-year-old skull of a deer and the remains of hyenas, lions, and rhinos have been uncovered, according to The Guardian. </p>

Photos of a Nazi fleet of ships sunk in World War II that have resurfaced in Europe's drought

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Archaeologists have found the fossilized remains of nine <keyword id="528865" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Neanderthals">Neanderthals</keyword> in a cave near Rome.</li><li>Experts say the Neanderthals were hunted and mauled to death by hyenas.</li><li>Some of the bones, which included skullcaps and broken jawbones, could be over 90,000 years old.</li></ul><p>Archaeologists have discovered the fossilized remains of nine <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neanderthal-genes-lower-risk-severe-coronavirus-2021-2">Neanderthals</a> thought to have been hunted and mauled to death by a pack of hyenas in a cave just outside Rome, the Italian Culture Ministry announced Saturday.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/difference-humans-neanderthals-homo-sapiens-2016-9">fossilized bones</a>, which included skullcaps and broken jawbones, were discovered in the Guattari Cave in San Felice Circeo in <keyword id="21474" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Italy">Italy</keyword>'s Lazio region. They are believed to have belonged to seven adult males, one female, and one young boy.</p><p>Scientists from the Archaeological Superintendency of Latina and the University of Tor Vergata in Rome believe the bones come from different time periods. The oldest remains are thought to date from 90,000 to 100,000 years ago. The other eight Neanderthals' remains are believed to date from 50,000 to 68,000 years ago.</p><p><em><strong>Read more: </strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/behavioral-science-holds-the-key-to-getting-more-americans-vaccinated-2021-5">Scientists have a surprising plan to speed up vaccinations - with free beer, clever texting, and lots of cash</a></em></p><p>According to the ministry statement, many of the bones "show clear signs of gnawing," which led experts to believe the Neanderthals were attacked by hyenas, which dragged them to the cave and consumed them, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/archaeologists-discover-neanderthal-remains-in-caves-near-rome/a-57470987">Deutsche Welle reported</a>.</p><div type="image" title="hyenas" height="2416" width="4833" msid="82500105" hostid="261"></div><p>"Neanderthals were prey for these animals," said Mario Rolfo, a professor of archaeology at Tor Vergata University, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/may/08/remains-of-nine-neanderthals-found-in-cave-south-of-rome?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">according to The Guardian</a>. "Hyenas hunted them, especially the most vulnerable, like sick or elderly individuals."</p><p>The researchers also found traces of hyenas alongside the human remains. They also found remains of rhinoceroses, giant deer, wild horses, and vegetables.</p><p>This is not the first time researchers have discovered fossils in the Guattari Cave. A Neanderthal skull was discovered there in 1939 by the anthropologist Alberto Carlo Blanc. Excavations of a new part of the cave that hadn't been explored yet began in 2019.</p><p>"It is a spectacular find," said Rolfo, according to The Guardian. "A collapse, perhaps caused by an earthquake, sealed this cave for more than 60,000 years, thereby preserving the remains left inside for tens of thousands of years."</p><p>Culture Minister Dario Franceschini called the finding "an extraordinary discovery that will be the talk of the world," <a href="https://apnews.com/article/rome-europe-science-d0f498355e2a3f6d300dd9c18125b2d1">according to the Associated Press</a>.</p><p>Neanderthals are the closest known ancient relatives of humans. They inhabited Eurasia from about 400,000 years ago until a little after 40,000 years ago.</p>

Packs of hyenas hunted Neanderthal men as prey and devoured their corpses in caves, new research finds

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists uncovered a new species of human ancestor named the Nesher Ramla homo in a sinkhole. </li><li>This ancestor lived between 140,000 and 120,000 years ago in <keyword id="6355882" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="israel">Israel</keyword> and Arabia alongside humans. </li><li>New research suggests Nesher Ramla homo <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/a-handful-of-recent-discoveries-have-shattered-anthropologists-picture-of-where-humans-came-from-and-when/articleshow/73110125.cms">interbred with humans</a>, as well as our Neanderthal cousins.</li></ul><p>The eastern Mediterranean coast was a crowded place 120,000 years ago.</p><p>By that time, Homo sapiens - anatomically modern humans - had migrated out of Africa and settled in modern-day Israel and Arabia. Meanwhile, Neanderthals - our genetic cousins - had started to thrive in Eurasia. </p><p>Now, new research reveals that a third human ancestor was hunting and gathering in the same landscape. <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.abh3169">Two</a> <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.abh3020">studies</a> published Thursday in the journal <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> describe a previously unknown hominin called the Nesher Ramla homo. The group not only shared tools and technology with their neighbors, they also interbred.</p><p>"They lived together and interacted with another," Rachel Sarig, an anthropologist from Tel Aviv University and co-author of the new studies, told Insider.</p><div type="image" title="Nesher Ramla Homo" height="2198" width="3991" msid="83825645" hostid="261"></div><p>Sarig and her colleagues uncovered a partial jaw bone, which they pieced together from 17 fragments like a puzzle, deep in a sinkhole at an Israeli site called Nesher Ramla - hence the ancestor's name. There were also chunks of skull and a tooth belonging to the same individual.</p><p>Notably, the human ancestor had no chin - a feature distinct to Homo sapiens - and a flatter, squatter head. Those features suggest Nesher Ramla was a more ancient species than the region's other occupants.</p><p>"It was some kind of pre-Neanderthal," Sarig said.</p><p>The team had expected the bones to belong to a modern human.</p><p>"Homo sapiens were the dominant population in the Levant" between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, Sarig said. "We were very surprised when we started looking at the <keyword id="6377866" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="fossils">fossils</keyword>, and it was clear right away that Nesher Ramla was not the same."</p><h2>A sinkhole in the Judean Hills</h2><div type="image" title="Nesher Ramla Homo" height="843" width="1264" msid="83825646" hostid="261"></div><p>The discovery was a decade in the making. In 2011, workers were expanding a limestone quarry in the Judean Hills - between Israel's Mediterranean coast and Jerusalem - when they found a huge sinkhole.</p><p>In sediment about 25 feet down, Sarig's team uncovered animal teeth and bones, flint stone tools, and the Nesher Ramla bones. They suspect the sinkhole was an ancient watering hole, where animals came to drink and our human ancestors gathered to butcher game. </p><p>The researchers calculated that the animal teeth and flint were between 120,000 and 140,000 years old, suggesting Nesher Ramla homo lived then, too. But Hila May, a co-author of the new studies, told Insider that it's possible this prehistoric human started occupying the area up to half a million years ago.</p><div type="image" title="Nesher Ramla Homo" height="1746" width="2323" msid="83825647" hostid="261"></div><p>Typically, hominins that lived during the Middle Pleistocene era in Israel, as Nesher Ramla homo did, are classified as part of the species Homo heidelbergensis. These ancestors are characterized by their <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/node/738">use of fire to make tools and cook</a>. But the authors of the study chose not to put this new human in that species, since its anatomical features do not align closely.</p><p>Still, May said this ancestor had a very similar way of life to Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.</p><p>"They were hunter-gatherers living in small groups, hunting animals like rhinos, horses, and deer," she said, adding that Nesher Ramla were "not very different in their abilities from other groups."</p><h2>Interbreeding among human ancestors</h2><div type="image" title="Neanderthal" height="1993" width="2658" msid="83825648" hostid="261"></div><p>The new study suggests that once Neanderthals migrated to Europe about 100,000 years ago, the Nesher Ramla group played a key role in shaping what they looked like and how they lived.</p><p>The new discovery might also solve a genetic mystery. Previous research found that some Neanderthals from the Middle Pleistocene era have genes that come from Homo sapiens. But these modern humans didn't arrive in Europe until about 45,000 years ago - long after the Neanderthals.</p><div type="image" title="nesher ramla" height="2657" width="3542" msid="83825649" hostid="261"></div><p>So if Nesher Ramla interbred with both Neanderthals and modern humans in the Levant before Neanderthals expanded west, that could explain the migration of the genes. </p><p>"We needed some explanation how Homo genes got to Europe before Homo got there," May said.</p><p>And the three hominins did more than just interbreed - evidence from the sinkhole also suggests they shared tool-making technologies, using the same types of flint tools made in the same way.</p>

A human ancestor previously unknown to science lived alongside ancient humans and Neanderthals - and they all interbred

<p class="source"><span>Raphael Gaillarde/Gamma-Rapho via Getty</span></p><p class="caption">An artist's reconstruction of Homo erectus in the Tautavel prehistory museum in France, July 18, 2013.</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Homo erectus fossils discovered on the island of Java come from a population that died between 117,000 and 108,000 years ago, researchers have found.</li><li>It's the last known appearance of Homo erectus in the archaeological record.</li><li>The individuals seem to have perished in a mysterious mass death, after which their bones were swept downstream in a flood.</li><li>The date of these fossils means that Homo erectus lived at the same time as three other human ancestors.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>In the early 1930s, Dutch anthropologists found a giant bed of bones hidden above the banks of the Solo river on the Indonesian island of Java. </p><p>More than 25,000 fossil specimens were buried in the river mud in an area called Ngandong, including 12 skull caps and two leg bones from a particularly intriguing human ancestor: Homo erectus.</p><p>This species of early human persisted for nearly 2 million years and spread far across parts of Africa and Asia. But scientists had been unable to identify when the last of them died out. </p><p>Efforts to determine the exact age of the Java fossils didn't help much, since that gave a broad range of options: Their time of death was estimated to be somewhere between 550,000 and 27,000 years ago. </p><p>But <a href="https://nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1863-2">a study</a> published today in the journal Nature has put questions about the fate of the last Homo erectus to rest. </p><p>By dating the surrounding river sediment, rather than the fossils themselves, anthropologists were able to identify a much tighter age range for these skulls. The results showed that the Homo erectus individuals perished in a mass death between 117,000 and 108,000 years ago.</p><p>That means the bones represent the last known appearance of Homo erectus in the archaeological record.</p><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Kira Westaway</span></p><p class="caption">A side view of one of the Homo erectus skull caps discovered in Ngandong, Indonesia.</p><p>The new timeline helps solve other puzzles as well, since it enables anthropologists to identify other ancient human species that Homo erectus overlapped with - and those it didn't.</p><p>"Our research shows that Homo erectus did not survive late enough to interact with modern humans on Java," Russell Ciochon, a co-author of the new study, told Business Insider. "Ngandong is the youngest known Homo erectus site in the world."</p><h2>A flood collected the fossilized bones</h2><p>According to the study authors, the skulls caps and leg bones discovered in Ngandong represent the largest Homo erectus find at any single site.</p><p class="source"><span>Russell L. Ciochon/University of Iowa</span></p><p class="caption">An exposed bone bed as it looked in 2010, during excavations in Ngandong, Indonesia.</p>That's because the bones, along with 25,000 other fossils that were later lost during World War II, "accumulated within a log jam in the river," according to study co-author Kira Westaway.<p>She added that the skull caps are missing parts of the cranium because the skeletons got damaged when they were washed down the river in a flood. Alongside the fossils, researchers found bones from at least 64 mammals that also got carried downstream.</p><p>"The fossils would not have been concentrated in this small area without the flooding event," Ciochon added.</p><p>The fact that the bones were all swept downstream at the same time suggests the 12 Homo erectus individuals they came from died simultaneously in what could be a mass death.</p><h2>Climate change may have killed Homo erectus</h2><p>Ciochon said his team isn't sure how these particular individuals died, but one theory about why Homo erectus died out on Java overall may sound familiar: climate change.</p><p>Between about 120,000 and 110,000 years ago, the world shifted from a glacial period to an interglacial period, and temperatures rose. Java, which is now mostly rainforest, used to be covered in woodlands. But around the time of Homo erectus' extinction, the island's environment started to get wetter and more humid due to increasing temperatures, which allowed the rainforest to grow. </p><p class="source"><span>Russell L. Ciochon/University of Iowa</span></p><p class="caption">Excavations in Ngandong, Indonesia in 2010.</p><p>It's possible our human ancestors there couldn't handle the shift.</p><p>"The demise of Homo erectus on Java coincides with this rainforest expansion, and the changing environment likely contributed to the demise," Ciochon said. "No Homo erectus fossils are found after the environment changed, so Homo erectus likely was unable to adapt to this new rainforest environment."</p><p>Westaway said the encroaching rainforest "would have caused problems for the essentially open woodland fauna" that Homo erectus liked to hunt, which may have led to food insecurity.</p><p>"They might not have been able to find food sources they normally ate, or they might have been more vulnerable to the predators in the rainforest," Ciochon added.</p><p>The Ngandong site also included bones from animals that were more suited to woodland environments, like elephant, deer, and cattle. Those creatures lived and died at the same time as Homo erectus.</p><h2>Intermingling human ancestors</h2><p>By correctly dating these fossils, anthropologists can now explore who Homo erectus might have interacted with before they died out. The list is large: Homo erectus could have interbred with Denisovans - another group of human ancestors found mostly in Siberia and east Asia - as well as two other early human species that lived on Pacific islands, called Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis.</p><p class="source"><span>DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini via Getty</span></p><p class="caption">A skull of Homo erectus found in Indonesia, also known as the Sangiran skull, in 1995.</p><p>Denisovans lived between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago. Genetic evidence indicates that they interbred with both modern humans and an older species, passing on about 1% of their DNA.  </p><p>"This older species is likely H. erectus," Ciochon said, given that the new date from his new study falls solidly within the time frame that Denisovans were alive.</p><p>But it's not clear whether Denisovans and Homo erectus intermixed on Java in particular.</p><p>"There is considerable speculation about where and when the Denisovans meet Homo erectus and what the results of those interactions were," Ciochon added.</p><p class="source"><span>Russell L. Ciochon/University of Iowa</span></p><p class="caption">Excavations underway in Ngandong, Indonesia, in 2010.</p><p>This new discovery also opens up the possibility that the two other east Asian ancestor species descended from Homo erectus.</p><p>More than 50,000 years ago, Homo luzonensis lived and thrived on what's now the Philippine island of Luzon. On the nearby Indonesian island of Flores, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02999">Homo floresiensis</a>, nicknamed "the Hobbit" for its short stature, lived between 100,000 and 60,000 year ago. </p><p>"There is no doubt" that these three species overlapped temporally, Westaway said.</p><p class="source"><span>Kira Westaway/Macquarie University</span></p><p class="caption">The Solo river near Ngandong, Indonesia, with exposed river terraces on its bank.</p><p>Ciochon and Westaway's new research cements Homo erectus' status as one of the longest-lived early humans. The species <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-erectus">lasted about 1.8 million years</a> - roughly six times as long as Homo sapiens (us) have existed. </p><p>The first Homo erectus specimen was discovered in Indonesia in 1891, and fossils have been found across Africa and in China. These ancestors made it to Java and nearby Pacific islands by crossing land bridges when sea levels were low, Ciochon said.</p><p>He added that it's possible other Homo erectus populations outlived the counterparts found at the Java site.</p><p>"Our work provides the age of the last know appearance of Homo erectus, but this does not mean that it is the age of extinction," he said. "Small groups of Homo erectus may have lived longer without leaving fossil evidence."</p>              <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/homo-floresiensis-discovered-indonesia-archaeology-hobbit-ancestor-2016-12">Archaeologists made a groundbreaking discovery that unveils the mysterious origins of real-life hobbits</a></h3>

A group of our Homo erectus ancestors suffered a mysterious mass death more than 107,000 years ago. It's their last appearance in the fossil record.

Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker reportedly got married in Las Vegas. Here's a timeline of their relationship.

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgoomany/7988353175/in/photolist-daUp6a-qUqkeH-p1CCWT-gXiVcG-oeVYUN-7VYwBt-7yKiEj-5pviTW-Fn9xX5-KgakN-cvBToG-yaXUw-m1KXx-bo7raF-9qARNs-jdkizv-j5TQLS-bEM7R-m1KTf-qnQaFS-3FvaXD-tDfjz-etGU4j-9fKq8e-8aUYDt-dTBo5x-Hd8vwx-6db8N9-czucju-bLEjf2-7W2MA9-7faUFY-8EHB3j-5PQRjn-oB6ag-2zjAks-6f9SUg-ccQRtw-4MiUvy-dqwgcU-2ytsPB-ne5c8p-6uCzEC-dJ5jVn-e3qYfr-7GNc1E-czud9L-bcwSj6-3FAGUU-6kaVEA">Flickr/Dineshraj Goomany</a></span></p><p class="caption">Red deer fighting.</p></div><p></p></div></div>The antlers atop the heads of al different kinds of deer - including the reindeer that live way up north - have to be tough enough to face off with others.</p><p>Deer antlers are made out of bone and are an <a href="https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/kidsyouth/ahdiff.htm">extension of the deers' skull</a>. But until now, researchers weren't entirely clear why this antler bone was able to handle so much stress without breaking during fights.</p><p>According to <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/journal/abseba#5eb3f4eb-b460-4b01-95f1-4b088bfdae5a-b6de7b7c-de82-45a5-9538-313dd15c6659">researchers from Queen Mary University 0f London</a>, it has a lot to do with how the fibers in the antler bone are arranged on a microscopic level.</p><p>"The fibrils that make up the antler are staggered rather than in line with each other. This allows them to absorb the energy from the impact of a clash during a fight," author Paolino De Falco <a href="http://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/items/se/190811.html">said in a news release</a>.</p><p>For their analysis, the researchers looked at the antlers of red deer. In total, there are 47 species in the deer family, including reindeer, caribou, and elk. With the <a href="http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-uncounted-outbreaks/">exception of one, all have antlers</a>.</p><p>Looking at the antler bone on a nano-level - that is, looking at structures that are about one thousandth the width of a hair - they were able to identify the staggered fibers, surrounded by a system that could get damaged. Together, this makes the antler bone have elastic qualities, meaning it can bounce back from intense strain.</p><p>The results were published Monday in the journal <a href="http://pubs.acs.org/journal/abseba#5eb3f4eb-b460-4b01-95f1-4b088bfdae5a-b6de7b7c-de82-45a5-9538-313dd15c6659">ACS Biomaterials Science &amp; Engineering</a>.</p><p>Now that the researchers have this information about antler bones at the nanoscale, the hope is to put it to good use in damage-resistant materials that could be stronger than ever.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sugar-effects-human-body-explained-2016-12">Here's what happens to your body when you stop eating sugar</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="5oMGljMzE6lf0JBPB-pyxq10IYKalQNS" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

There's a scientific reason why reindeer antlers are so tough

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source">© William Robichaud/WWF</p></div><p></p></div></div>One of the rarest <keyword id="6371668" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="animals">animals</keyword> in the world, a wild saola, has been photographed alive in <keyword id="13486" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Vietnam">Vietnam</keyword> for the first time in 15 years, <a href="http://wwf.panda.org/who_we_are/wwf_offices/vietnam/?212235/Saola-rediscovered-Asian-Unicorn-sighted-in-Vietnam-for-first-time-in-15-years#" target="_blank">according to a statement from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)</a>.</p>
<p>The saola looks like an antelope. It's characterized by two parallel horns that can measure up to 20 inches long.</p>
<p>The animal is so rare that is has been dubbed the "Asian Unicorn."</p>
<p>"When our team first looked at the photos we couldn't believe our eyes," Dr. Van Ngoc Thinh, WWF-Vietnam's Country Director, <a href="http://wwf.panda.org/who_we_are/wwf_offices/vietnam/?212235/Saola-rediscovered-Asian-Unicorn-sighted-in-Vietnam-for-first-time-in-15-years#" target="_blank">said in a statement</a>. "Saola are the holy grail for South-east Asian conservationists so there was a lot of excitement."</p>
<p>The saola was first discovered in 1992 in Vietnam near its border with Laos when a survey team from the WWF and Vietnam's forest agency found a skull with unusual horns in a hunter's home. This was the first new large mammal discovered in more than 50 years, according to the WWF.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><p class="source">WWF</p><p class="caption">A camera trap photo taken on Sept. 7, 2013, in the early evening shows a single saola moving along a rocky forest valley stream in a remote corner of the Central Annamite mountains of Vietnam.</p></div><p></p></div>In 2010, villagers in Laos captured a saola, but it <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=3&amp;cad=rja&amp;ved=0CD0QFjAC&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fenvironment%2Fnature%2Frare-saola-dies-in-captivity-2080995.html&amp;ei=JZuDUuzMOPL54APk04Fw&amp;usg=AFQjCNG5NelePfXHS2i7Yv72rfqQ3iSjsA&amp;bvm=bv.56343320,d.dmg" target="_blank">died after several days in captivity</a>. That was the first confirmed record of the species since 1999 when two photographs were taken of a wild saola in Laos.</p>
<p>Since the saola is hardly ever seen, very little known is about its behavior or even how many are out in the wild. Experts believe that no more than a few hundred exist.</p>
<p>The saola is listed as <a href="http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/18597/0" target="_blank">critically endangered</a> on the IUCN Red List. The animal faces threats from hunting - they may be caught in snares to catch animals like deer for the illegal wildlife trade - and loss of habitat from road construction.</p>
<p>The most recent saola sighting gives conservationists a better idea of their range and will help with protection efforts.</p>
<p>Here's a video of the elusive saola:</p>
<p></p>

The Rarest Mammal On The Planet Was Spotted In Vietnam

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Humans are not newcomers when it comes to messing around with nature. While we haven't created Frankenstein's monster yet, what we do transforms the natural world.<p>One recent example is the creation of the coywolf - a hybrid of the coyote and the wolf that is also known as the Eastern coyote. According to a new article from <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21677188-it-rare-new-animal-species-emerge-front-scientists-eyes?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20151029n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/n">The Economist</a>, their population seems to have reached more than a million.</p><p>These animals have a completely new genetic make up: Their genes are about 1/4 wolf DNA and 2/3 coyote DNA, the rest is from domesticated dogs. A 2013 study suggests this <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.12570/full">dog DNA is mostly from a few specific breeds</a>, including German Shepherds and Doberman Pincers.</p><p>Human activity likely played a role in the species' creation. As humans cut down wolves' forest homes and hunted down their populations, the lack of available partners for wolves led them to search elsewhere for mates, leading them to coyotes and dogs.</p><p>Scientists think this intermixing began with wild wolves in southern Ontario about a century or two ago.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The coywolves' success is astounding scientists. <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21677188-it-rare-new-animal-species-emerge-front-scientists-eyes?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20151029n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/n">According to The Economist:</a><p style="padding-left: 30px;">The animal's range has encompassed America's entire north-east, urban areas included, for at least a decade, and is continuing to expand in the south-east following coywolves' arrival there half a century ago. This is astonishing. Purebred coyotes never managed to establish themselves east of the prairies. Wolves were killed off in eastern forests long ago. But by combining their DNA, the two have given rise to an animal that is able to spread into a vast and otherwise uninhabitable territory.</p><p>Here's the coyote, which traditionally maxes out at 75 pounds and has pointier features, and readily populates cities:</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container full"><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div>And this is what a wolf looks like. Wolves are usually bigger, weighing in at about 100 pounds, and prefer more wild habitats.<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>While the grey wolf and the coyote are each other's closest living relatives, the two animals separated evolutionarily 1 to 2 million years ago.<p>Usually hybrids - even between two closely related species - don't survive as well as their parent species, but the coywolves seem to be an exception. They've only really emerged in force during the last few decades, but they seem to have a few advantages over their parent species.</p><p>According to The New York Times' <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/magazine/should-you-fear-the-pizzly-bear.html?referrer=">Moises Velazquez-Manoff</a>: "[The coywolf] can be as much as 40 percent larger than the Western coyote, with powerful wolf-like jaws; it has also inherited the wolf's more social nature, which allows for pack hunting."</p><p><a href="http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21677188-it-rare-new-animal-species-emerge-front-scientists-eyes?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20151029n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/n">According to The Economist</a>: "With larger jaws, more muscle and faster legs, individual coywolves can take down small deer. A pack of them can even kill a moose."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>These animals are even better fitted to our changing world than we thought, and their proliferation has been more "rapid, pervasive, and transformational than once thought," <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21677188-it-rare-new-animal-species-emerge-front-scientists-eyes?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20151029n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/n">according to The Economist</a>. The genetic combination of the two animals seems especially well suited to the northern habitat. The wolf genes allow the coyote to take down bigger prey, while the coyote genes let them adapt to cities and other populated areas.<p>The wolves even follow railroads into cities, making themselves scarce during the day - adopting a nocturnal schedule. They even look both ways before crossing the highway.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Another reason the animals are so successful could be their wider diet, <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21677188-it-rare-new-animal-species-emerge-front-scientists-eyes?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20151029n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/n">according to The Economist:</a><p style="padding-left: 30px;">Coywolves eat pumpkins, watermelons and other garden produce, as well as discarded food. They also eat rodents and other smallish mammals. Many lawns and parks are kept clear of thick underbrush, so catching squirrels and pets is easy. Cats are typically eaten skull and all, with clues left only in the droppings.</p><p>To study the hybrids better, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0088861" target="_blank">scientists went ahead and made some 50/50 hybrids in the lab, mating female coyotes with male grey wolves</a>. That's not exactly like the wild coywolves, but it's similar. And gives scientists a better idea of how successful a mating between the two species would be. While two pregnancies didn't result in live offspring, one litter created six puppies.</p><p>Here's the result:</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>This is what a wild coywolf looks like. This one was spotted in West Virginia.<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The mixing of the two species has even created hybrids with their own distinct sounds - taking the wolves' howl and the coyotes's yipping and turning it into a "yip-howl". You can hear it about 45 seconds into this camera trap video, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNBABxY0Mr8">uploaded to YouTube by simplenotme</a>:<div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-automatic-parallel-parking-video-2015-10">Watch a Tesla parallel park itself in less than one minute</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="NjZWM4eDriqgBlpuZnFCiX0e1d7OjHsL" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "deer skulls" and got 12 results

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A group of our Homo erectus ancestors suffered a mysterious mass death more than 107,000 years ago. It's their last appearance in the fossil record.

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