Tag: Biology Letters
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Splatatouille: A Squirrel Rather Than a Rat Debunked by Science
What was once a quirky urban mystery On a damp stretch of West Roscoe Street in Chicago, a peculiar imprint in the concrete captured the public imagination. Dubbed “Splatatouille” in a light-hearted public naming contest, the footprint-like mark suggested something extraordinary had fallen onto wet pavement. The image spread across social media in 2024, prompting…
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Splatatouille: ResearchersIdentify Chicago’s Famous Memento as a Squirrel
Unraveling a Mysterious Mark on West Roscoe Street What began as a quirky urban legend—the so-called “Splatatouille” imprint—has now been given a scientific label. In a study published in Biology Letters, researchers from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, argue that the famous hole in Chicago’s sidewalk was most likely made by an eastern gray squirrel,…
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Ancestors of Flightless Birds Once Flew Across Oceans, New Study Finds
A new twist on how flightless birds spread across continents For generations, scientists have wondered how flightless giants like ostriches, emus, and kiwis ended up on continents as distant as Africa, Australia, and South America. The traditional view tied this broad dispersal to the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, arguing that its breakup around 150 million years…
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Tongue Bite Fossil Rewrites Fish Evolution: 310-Million-Year-Old Discovery
A fossil discovery from roughly 310 million years ago is reshaping how scientists understand the evolution of feeding in ray-finned fish. The fossilized remains of Platysomus, an early Pennsylvanian fish, show the first clear evidence of a tongue-like biting structure that used gill bones to crush and grind prey. This tiny but pivotal innovation demonstrates…