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In today's turtles the shell has a key protective function. The animals can withdraw into it and protect themselves against predators.

C. abyssinicus revealed answers about gorilla lineage but also provided fossil evidence that our common ancestor migrated from Africa. "Our new research supports early divergence: 10 million years ago for the human-gorilla split and 8 million years ago for our split from chimpanzees," said Los Alamos National Laboratory geologist and senior team member Giday WoldeGabriel Nature paper places human evolution in Africa, not Eurasia LOS ALAMOS, N.M. Feb.

A last meal provides new insights: The fossilized food remains of the extinct predatory fish Saurichthys reflect its spiral-shaped intestine. The spiral valve in fossils from Southern Switzerland is similar to that of sharks and rays. Paleontologists from the University of Zurich have thus closed a gap in the knowledge concerning the evolution of the gastrointestinal tract in vertebrates.