Topic
The independent appearance of similar body forms or traits in unrelated lineages that face comparable environmental pressures.
Biologists at four US universities found identical genetic changes in jellyfish lineages separated by more than 600 million years. Most did not track the eyes and other traits that also evolved repeatedly, the authors report.
Reality
Palaeontologists describing Norellraptor barsboldi found about 30% of 194 microraptor anatomical changes also arose in birds, but in a different order. That mismatch is the team's case that microraptors and birds each evolved flight on their own.
Perspective Coverage
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Researchers describing Tamirkhan balcarceli in Nature place zhelestids, long argued to be early placental relatives, among shrew-like zalambdalestoids. The Gobi skeleton suggests teeth alone misled the group's classification for nearly 40 years.
Reality
Thin sections from two ichthyosaur fossils and two toothed whales in Oslo found the extinct reptiles' ribs nonporous where a porpoise's and a beluga's are hollowed out, which points to two routes to one shape.
Reality
Three Yukon fossils and one from Wyoming place Miracinonyx trumani beside the puma rather than the cheetah. Nitrogen isotopes put the northern animals near the top of a fish food chain far above the old known range.
Perspective Coverage
4 publishersReality