An article published in the journal “Nature Ecology & Evolution” describes a study on marine reptiles that lived in a sea area that crossed today’s northern Europe called Jurassic Sub-Boreal Seaway during the Jurassic period. A team of paleontologists coordinated by the University of Edinburgh analyzed the shape and size of teeth that belonged to reptile that lived over a period of 18 million years, discovering that the marine predators living in deep waters prospered when sea levels rose while species they lived in shallow waters declined or even became extinct.

An article published in the journal “Nature” describes a research on the origin and evolution of mammals’ great brains. Eva Hoffman and Timothy Rowe of the University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences examined fossils of Kayentatherium wellesi, a relative of today’s mammals that lived in the Jurassic period, concluding that a key moment in their evolution was a kind of trading brood power for brain power.

An article published in the “Journal of Paleontology” describes a research on the theropod dinosaurs whose fossils date back to the Late Cretaceous and were found at the site of Ellisdale, in New Jersey, USA. Chase Brownstein of the Stamford Museum and Nature Center studied fossils belonging to various families: adrosauroids (Hadrosauroidea), tyrannosaurids (Tyrannosauridae), dromaeosaurids (Dromaeosauridae) and ornithomimosaurs (Ornithomimosauria). The Ellisdale site is sometimes overlooked but these findings can provide information on the diversification of theropods throughout North America.