Rosa Rubicondior

Bible Blunder - People Were Sailing Boats Around the Mediterranean Years Before The Genocidal Flood

2026-10-27T22:53:12.794+00:00

Noah's Ark, exactly as described in Genesis 6:14-16.

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World’s oldest shipwreck discovered off coast of Turkey

One awkward question about the biblical story of Noah’s Ark is what happened to everyone else who owned a boat. In a world where people built vessels, transported goods by sea and made their living on the water, why should rising water have left just one family afloat? Genesis asserts that everyone outside the Ark perished, but offers no account of the other sailors, fishermen and boatbuilders whose existence makes that exclusive survival rather less straightforward than the story suggests.

A shipwreck discovered off the coast of southern Turkey gives that question an archaeological context. Near Kekova, researchers have identified the remains of a cargo provisionally dated to around 2700–2400 BCE, potentially making this the oldest known shipwreck. The wooden vessel has disappeared, but its pottery survives, providing evidence of maritime commerce in the Early Bronze Age. On the familiar chronology of Archbishop James Ussher, which places the supposed global flood in 2348 BCE, this trading vessel was already on the seabed before Noah’s legendary voyage began.

This was evidently a vessel operating within a world of established maritime connections. As archaeologist Karin Sowada explains in the article reproduced below, Egyptian texts and archaeological finds already document overseas trade during this period. Ships carried commodities between coastal communities, supported by the practical knowledge of people who knew how to build boats, handle cargoes and undertake sea voyages. Noah, on the creationists’ preferred timetable, would hardly have inhabited a world in which keeping people and provisions afloat was an unprecedented idea.

There is an important distinction here. The existence of other boats does not establish that their occupants could have survived the entire catastrophe described in Genesis. A vessel suitable for coastal commerce was not necessarily equipped to remain at sea for months without access to fresh supplies or somewhere to land. Nor does Genesis explicitly claim that Noah owned the only boat. What the evidence does expose is an unanswered question: why did every other vessel and every other experienced seafarer fail, while Noah’s household alone survived? Simply repeating the story’s assertion that everyone else died does not provide an independent explanation.

Appealing to divine intervention to ensure that all the other sailors drowned would preserve the theological outcome, but at a revealing cost. The explanation would then depend on a deity ensuring that ordinary means of survival failed for everyone outside its chosen household. The discovery does not, by itself, disprove a global flood; it does make the familiar picture of a solitary boat in a world of helpless land-dwellers harder to sustain. Archaeology reveals a more complicated human world than the biblical narrative bothers to describe.

The scientific claims also deserve their proper qualifications. The proposed date and the claim to the world’s oldest known shipwreck remain provisional. A preliminary report by Hakan Öniz and Ceyda Öztosun appeared in the journal Journal of Maritime Archaeology in July 2026, while Sowada notes that a paper detailing the latest results has yet to be published. In the following article from The Conversation, reformatted for stylistic consistency, she explains what the surviving cargo can tell us about the vessel, its age and the trading world through which it sailed.

First, AI's assessment of the plausibility of the ark tale:

Why the Ark Myth Is Implausible* Floating Is Only the First Problem.

Noah's Ark, exactly as described in Genesis 6:14-16 with no embelishments for the sake of the preferred narrative.

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Bearign in mind that the term 'ark' as in 'Ark of the Covenant' is clearly describing a wooden box or container (the original Hebrew uses the tern 'teivah' (box or chest)), it is clear that the Bible is describing a floating box, not a boat.

A wooden box can float. Keeping a huge, heavily laden wooden structure intact, stable and habitable through months at sea is another matter. The brief instructions in Genesis 6:14–16 provide dimensions and compartments, but no adequate account of how these engineering and biological problems would be overcome.

Structural strength.

Waves support different parts of a vessel at different times, bending its hull upwards and downwards — processes called hogging and sagging. For an enormous wooden vessel, repeated bending would place considerable demands on its timbers, joints and fastenings. Movement between components can open seams and admit water. Pitch can help seal a joint, but it cannot substitute for the structural strength needed to keep that joint together.

No control over its heading.

Genesis describes no propulsion or steering system. Their absence would not automatically make a floating vessel sink, but would deprive its occupants of an important means of managing dangerous seas. Waves striking broadside can produce severe rolling, while breaking waves can cause flooding and destabilise a vessel. Shifting animals, provisions and accumulated water would create further hazards. A uniform current would simply carry the ark along; the greater concerns are breaking waves, changing conditions and the inability to control its orientation. A submerged landscape would also offer no accessible harbour in which to seek shelter.

Another issues raised by the lack of steering and propulsion is the point of sending out a raven to find dry land - why, if there was no means of steering towards it, and what did the remining raven of the pair do for a mate? There is also the small problem of explaining how the dove managed to find a living olive tree on the top of a mountain, since that was all that would have been dry land as the waters began to recede. Olive trees don't grow on the tops of mountains and the Bible is quite explicit that 'all living substance' outside the ark had been destroyed (Genesis 7: 23), although it's clear from other passages that the authors equated living with breathing.

Breathing inside a floating menagerie.

Animals consume oxygen and release carbon dioxide, heat and water vapour; their waste adds ammonia and other contaminants. Adequate ventilation requires continuous air replacement throughout the occupied spaces, including the lower decks and internal compartments. If the ark had only one small window, explaining sufficient airflow for its enormous animal population would be a serious problem. Opening a vent does not guarantee that fresh air reaches every compartment, while closing it against storm-driven water would make ventilation worse.

A necessary qualification.

The wording of Genesis 6:16 is uncertain: translations variously describe a window, a roof or an opening beneath the roof, sometimes extending around the vessel. A larger opening could improve natural ventilation, although its effectiveness would still depend on its design, internal airflow and the number and size of the animals. The text does not supply enough information to calculate ventilation rates or a time to suffocation.

The objection is therefore not that wood cannot float, or that every rudderless vessel must sink. It is that surviving this voyage requires solutions to major structural, stability and ventilation problems which the narrative does not explain. Invoking miracles supplies a theological escape, not an engineering demonstration.

Lastly

Starting somewhere in Mesopotamia, the ark would have been near the transition between the subtropical wind belt and the prevailing westerlies farther north. If we assume broadly familiar wind patterns, and that it remained within the westerly belt, its general drift could have been eastwards. Earth’s rotation would not simply turn the planet beneath it: the ark, ocean and atmosphere would already share that rotation. Its movement would depend on winds, waves and currents. Even a modest average drift of 0.3 metres per second would carry it about 26 kilometres a day, or roughly 9,500 kilometres in a year. Illustrative speeds of 0.1–0.5 metres per second would give annual travelling distances of approximately 3,200–15,800 kilometres. These are distances along its wandering track, however, not necessarily its final distance from the starting point.

This is a thought experiment rather than a navigational prediction. Submerging the continents would radically alter ocean circulation, and an uncontrolled vessel could change direction or cross between wind belts. Nevertheless, there is no physical reason to assume that it would remain conveniently near Mesopotamia. After a year without steerage, Noah’s problem might have been less “Where is the nearest mountain?” and more “Which side of the planet are we on?”

With no means of controlling its course, the ark could have drifted thousands of kilometres from its starting point — potentially far to the east if prevailing winds and currents carried it that way. Nothing in the narrative explains how its eventual landfall in the mountains of Ararat was determined, nor how it could have travelled counter to prevailing winds to reach its traditional resting place in modern Turkey.

The moral of the story is that there are people today who are gullible and ignorant enough to imagine that the tale of Noah's Ark is real history, or even plausible.

US Naval Academy: hull strength and wave-induced bending.
Maritime and Coastguard Agency: vessel stability.
AHDB: ventilation and air quality in livestock housing.
Alternative translations of Genesis 6:16.

Published: October 14, 2026 9.27pm BST

World’s oldest shipwreck discovered off coast of Turkey

Credit: Hakan Öniz

Karin Sowada, Macquarie University

A shipwreck off the coast of Turkey is the oldest shipwreck in the world, our team of archaeologists believes.

There’s little left of the ship itself but based on clues from its cargo – including pottery vessels – a research team I was part of has tentatively dated the wreck to around 2700–2400 BCE.

That’s about 4,500 years ago. Prior to this discovery, the world’s oldest shipwreck was a wreck off the coast of Dokos, in Greece, thought to have been from about 4,200 years ago.

Much work remains to be done to finesse the conclusions, and a paper outlining the results is yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. Yet the discovery could transform our understanding of ancient Mediterranean connections during the Early Bronze Age.

Here, and perhaps even earlier, lie the foundations of extensive trade routes as we know them today.

WORLD’S OLDEST SHIPWRECK ALERT - Archaeologists say the wreck dates to 4400-4700 years old https://t.co/4lD8AHyke8
— Rebecca Morelle (@BBCMorelle) October 14, 2026

Searching for clues

Associate Professor Hakan Öniz of Akdeniz University, Antalya, has worked along this coastline for decades excavating ancient shipwrecks.

Acting on clues from local seafarers, Öniz found a shipwreck in shallow waters off Kekova, west of Antalya in Turkey, in 2024. Earlier this year, he contacted me and asked if I would help date some of the pottery vessels found on this wreck.

As an archaeologist specialising in desert sites, this was a singular experience. New technology, water-logged methods of excavation and laborious conservation techniques were the new normal. Yet there is always room for learning new skills in life.

Of the ship itself there is now nothing to see, owing to underwater exposure. Yet the research team has now estimated the ship and its cargo dates to around 2700–2400 BCE. However, the precise dating is still under consideration. Earlier or later dates on either side of this initial determination are also possible.

Artifacts from the newly discovered 4,700-year-old shipwreck heading to a Turkish museum

©Image Credit: Hakan Öniz - Source: Geekspin

A time capsule of ancient trade

This discovery promises to re-write our understanding of early trade networks from around 4,500 years ago.

The ship is a “missing piece” in the story of networks, trade and commodity exchange in the wider eastern Mediterranean. This era includes the pyramid age of Giza and its mighty pharaohs.

What remains under the sea is a time capsule of ancient trade.

Although its direction was not known, the boat was evidently travelling along the coast of southern Turkey.

Now resting on the seabed between two islands, it is apparent the ship likely sought refuge in the lee waters during a storm. One could imagine the terror of the sailors – possibly coastal people from the Levant region – as their ship crashed against the rocks.

While timbers from the ship disappeared long ago, the remains of its precious cargo were embedded in the rocky slope along the Kekova coast.

Divers worked over the past four months to extract its pottery from barnacles clinging to the rocky underwater slope.

A closer look at pottery

Pottery is like plastic: it never goes away and just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces.

Yet humble pottery vessels hold many clues about the past.

In this case, the cargo included large ceramic storage vessels or amphorae which once contained products from regions of the eastern Mediterranean.

The pots were large ovoid, flat-based jars with two handles, many featuring a raised horizontal clay “belt” around the widest part of the jar.

Through these vessels was possible to ascertain many pieces of information. This includes the likely origin of the jars and the contents exchanged across the region.

Importantly, the shape and manufacturing technique of the pots themselves help us date the cargo. By extension, this includes also the date of other pottery, and the ship itself.

The bigger picture

Compared to later periods, trade and exchange in the eastern Mediterranean during the third millennium (3000–2000 BCE) is poorly understood.

Maritime voyages during the that period are known from Egyptian texts, pottery vessels and raw materials from ancient tombs.

Around the same time as this ship struck the rocks, the ancient Egyptians were trading in the eastern Mediterranean through the port of Byblos in Lebanon.

Commodities such as cedar, tin/lead, oils, tree resins, lapis lazuli and silver, all materials that Egypt lacked, were imported by the Egyptian state.

Recent scientific research also reveals that silver was acquired by the Egyptian state around 2600 BCE. Analyses showed this silver was acquired from the Lavrion mines east of modern Athens.

While it is unlikely Egyptian ships made this journey, boats like the Kekova ship may have used the route as part of an extended international maritime network.

And what was in the jars? Remarkably there were still residues visible to the naked eye. Again, scientific analyses are pending, but could be some of the products mentioned in the Egyptian texts, possibly olive oil, wine or tree resin.

The ship may have acquired its pottery from several ports on their journey. Our best assessment at this stage of research is that some of the “belted” jars (or clays used to make them) may have originated in the Central Jordan Valley.

The coast of southern Turkey is littered with ancient shipwrecks. While maritime archaeology is a relatively recent phenomenon, some of the world’s most famous wrecks have been discovered there. Who knows what other secrets these waters hold.

The research on which this article is based was led by Associate Professor Hakan Öniz, head of the Division of Mediterranean Underwater Cultural Heritage Research, and the Department of Restoration and Conservation of Cultural Heritage in the Faculty of Art at the Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey.

Karin Sowada, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Director of the Australian Centre for Egyptology, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Published by The Conversation.
Open access. (CC BY 4.0)

The significance of this discovery is not that it identifies a vessel which survived the biblical flood, but that it adds physical evidence of maritime commerce to a period which, on the familiar Ussher chronology, preceded it. If the proposed dating is confirmed, this ship was carrying goods through the eastern Mediterranean before Noah supposedly began his extraordinary voyage. Boatbuilding, seafaring and the transport of provisions were already practical human activities, not innovations reserved for a single divinely instructed family.

That leaves the literalist with an awkward question. In a world of experienced sailors and seaworthy vessels, why did every other boat fail to preserve its occupants? The existence of those vessels does not establish that they could have survived months without landfall or fresh supplies, but it does expose something the Genesis narrative leaves unexplained. Declaring that everyone outside the Ark died supplies the required theological outcome; it does not explain how that outcome followed from the circumstances. If they weren't drowned but were killed some other way, then why flood the Earth at all?

Nor does the biblical description demonstrate how Noah’s enormous wooden vessel would have remained structurally sound, adequately ventilated and habitable throughout its ordeal. Those are engineering and biological questions, requiring more than dimensions and an assurance of divine favour. If additional miracles are needed to keep the Ark intact, sustain its occupants and ensure its eventual landfall, then its supposed success becomes a statement of faith rather than evidence that the design was workable. The explanations are examples of how, as science shows the Bible stories to be more and more implausible, creationists are having to add more and more to the narrative to compensate for what the authors left out. Perhaps updated editions of the Bible need to be issued as regularly as creationists mock science for revising its textbooks.

The archaeology, meanwhile, remains properly open to scrutiny. The wreck’s precise age, the origins of its cargo and its place in ancient trading networks require further investigation. Revising those conclusions would be science doing its job. Whatever its final claim to the title of the world’s oldest known shipwreck, the discovery reveals another part of a human past reconstructed from material evidence — a past considerably richer than the biblical story allows. The archaeologists went looking for ancient maritime history; the difficulties for creationism came with the cargo.

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Unintelligent Design - A Marine Amphibian With an Evolutionary Past - 237 MIllion Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-10-26T21:37:55.295+00:00

New fossil evidence reveals the first fully marine amphibian, Gerrothorax maritimus, which dates to the Late Triassic period nearly 237 million years ago. The animal had a flattened body that was covered in bony armor, a potential defense mechanism against predators like ichthyosaurs.

Credit: Ryosuke Motani, UC Davis.

Researchers Unearth Fossil Evidence of First Fully Marine Amphibian | UC Davis

Why would an omniscient designer give an animal the inherited anatomy of a four-limbed vertebrate, then adapt that anatomy for life on the seabed? Evolution has a straightforward explanation: descendants inherit structures from their ancestors, and natural selection modifies what is already available. An unrestricted designer, supposedly capable of anticipating every requirement, has no comparable constraint. Yet nature repeatedly presents us with organisms whose bodies make sense as products of history.

A newly described amphibian adds another intriguing example. According to research, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Gerrothorax maritimus, an armoured amphibian that lived approximately 237 million years ago, presents evidence for a fully marine existence in a group whose living representatives have no equivalent ocean-going species.

The evidence includes two remarkably complete skeletons from Guizhou Province, China, marine sediments deposited far from major land masses, and strontium isotope proportions consistent with Triassic seawater. Together, these observations support an animal that inhabited the sea, rather than a freshwater carcass that happened to wash into it.

Evolution has no preferred destination

There is an important qualification here. Being a tetrapod does not necessarily mean having descended immediately from an animal that walked about on dry land. Four-limbed vertebrates include thoroughly aquatic lineages, and earlier research already established Gerrothorax as a highly specialised aquatic animal. The new discovery should therefore not be presented as proof that this particular species made a direct transition from a terrestrial existence to the ocean.

Nevertheless, it illustrates the broader point beautifully: evolution is not a ladder leading inexorably from water to land, from simplicity to complexity, or towards humans. It is a branching process in which populations adapt to local circumstances. An aquatic habitat is not an evolutionary step backwards, and life on land is not an achievement that every lineage must retain.

Nor does occupation of a new habitat require an organism to abandon its ancestry. A marine tetrapod remains a tetrapod. Its inherited skeletal organisation can be modified for a different way of life without being replaced by an entirely new body plan. This is descent with modification, precisely the pattern evolutionary biology predicts.

Did it breathe through gills?

Gill breathing is the interpretation supported by the wider research on Gerrothorax. In particular, anatomical studies interpret its adult gills as internal, broadly comparable to those of fish, rather than the exposed, feathery gills familiar from an axolotl. The distinction matters because it changes what we can infer about development.

Retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood is called paedomorphosis. Neoteny is one mechanism that can produce it, through a slowing of bodily development relative to reproductive maturation. However, the mere presence of gills in an adult fossil does not demonstrate that mechanism. An adult can retain an ancestral respiratory system without simply being a larva that has become sexually mature.

A study of gills in early tetrapods specifically distinguishes internal gills from external larval gills. It would therefore be premature to describe G. maritimus as a proven example of neoteny. Equally, evidence for gills does not, on its own, tell us whether other respiratory surfaces also contributed to gas exchange.

The UC Davis report proposes that armour reduced exchange through the skin, while drinking seawater and eliminating excess salts through the gills enabled marine life. This is a physiological reconstruction, rather than a process directly observable in the fossil. In living animals, salt regulation at the gills involves specialised transport mechanisms; it is not simply a matter of mechanically filtering salt from water.

Inherited solutions, not unlimited foresight

For intelligent design creationism, the difficulty is not that such an animal could not function. Clearly, its ancestors survived and reproduced. The difficulty is explaining why an allegedly unconstrained designer should repeatedly produce organisms whose structures and relationships bear the signature of inherited constraints.

Evolution does not start with a blank sheet. Existing structures may be retained, modified, reduced or put to new uses. A feature that evolved under one set of circumstances can become useful under another. None of this requires foresight: selection acts on differences that affect survival and reproduction in the environments organisms actually encounter.

Calling the result “designed” supplies no comparable account of the sequence. Why these inherited structures? Why this combination of ancestral and specialised features? What independent prediction does the designer hypothesis make? If every possible arrangement can be explained afterwards as whatever a designer wanted, the explanation has no power to distinguish one outcome from another.

A chronology that Genesis cannot accommodate

For recent special creation, the problem is more direct. An animal living approximately 237 million years ago belongs to a history vastly older than the few thousand years permitted by a literalist reading of Genesis. Its existence cannot be accommodated merely by relabelling it an amphibian “kind”. The age of the rocks and the geological history they record still require an explanation.

Nor does the presence of a fossil in marine sediment automatically make it a victim of a mythical global flood. Scientists investigate the depositional environment, preservation, anatomy and chemistry together. An interpretation must explain that combined evidence, rather than select one convenient observation and ignore the rest.

This discovery does not establish that every physiological detail is understood, or that one fossil can logically exclude every imaginable supernatural designer. It does something more scientifically useful: it extends our knowledge of what an ancient lineage could do, and places that achievement within a testable evolutionary history. There is no predetermined march towards land, no obligation to become more complex, and no need for a supernatural redesign. There are inherited bodies, changing opportunities and natural selection — operating across a span of time that recent creationism cannot allow.

How Strontium Isotopes Reveal an Ancient Marine Habitat. Finding a fossil in marine sediment establishes where it was buried, but not necessarily where it lived. Rivers can carry carcasses out to sea. To distinguish a marine resident from a freshwater visitor, researchers can examine a chemical signature preserved in its skeleton: the proportions of different strontium isotopes.

What are strontium isotopes?

Strontium is a naturally occurring element that behaves chemically rather like calcium. Small quantities can therefore become incorporated into bones, teeth and shells. Its isotopes have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. For this kind of investigation, researchers compare strontium-87 with strontium-86, expressing the result as the ratio ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr.

Both these strontium isotopes are stable, but strontium-87 is also produced by the radioactive decay of rubidium-87. Consequently, rocks with different ages and geological histories can have different strontium isotope ratios. Weathering releases some of that strontium into rivers, lakes and eventually the oceans.

Why does seawater have a recognisable signature?

Freshwater commonly reflects the geology of its drainage basin. A river flowing through ancient, rubidium-rich rocks may carry a different isotope ratio from one draining younger volcanic terrain.

The open ocean, however, mixes strontium supplied by many sources. Because strontium remains dissolved for much longer than the ocean takes to mix, its isotope ratio is approximately uniform throughout the open ocean at any particular time. Freshwater systems are much more variable.

The ocean’s ratio has nevertheless changed over geological time as the balance between sources changed. Researchers have reconstructed this history using well-preserved marine fossils from independently dated rocks. An ancient fossil must therefore be compared with seawater of its own geological age, rather than simply with today’s seawater.

How does the signature enter an animal?

Animals acquire strontium from their environment and food. Some becomes incorporated into their mineralised tissues alongside calcium. After the appropriate analytical corrections, the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio can help identify the sources of that strontium.

A skeleton retaining a ratio consistent with contemporary seawater therefore supports participation in a marine environment and food web. A distinctly different ratio may instead indicate freshwater or terrestrial sources. This is a chemical provenance test, rather than a direct measurement of how salty the water was.

Could fossilisation overwrite the evidence?

Yes. After burial, groundwater and chemical reactions can introduce or exchange strontium, changing the original biological signature. Such alteration is called diagenesis. Bone is particularly susceptible, so a seawater-like result cannot automatically be assumed to record the animal’s lifetime: it could partly reflect its burial environment.

Researchers therefore need to assess preservation and possible contamination. Depending on the material available, checks can include examination of mineral structure, comparison of different tissues and surrounding sediment, and measurements of other chemical indicators. Nor is every freshwater isotope ratio distinct from seawater: occasional overlap is another reason to use several independent lines of evidence.

What does this mean for Gerrothorax maritimus?

According to the UC Davis report, the fossils yielded strontium isotope proportions consistent with Late Triassic seawater. This complements their occurrence in offshore marine deposits and the exceptional completeness of the skeletons, including delicate finger bones, which supports limited transport before burial.

The argument is therefore based on converging evidence: geological setting, skeletal preservation and isotope chemistry all support a marine interpretation. The university report does not describe the detailed tests for chemical alteration, so those should not be assumed from the news account alone.

A final distinction: this use of strontium isotopes is not a radioactive “stopwatch” measuring how long the animal has been dead. Here, the central question is whether its chemical signature matches the sea in which it is thought to have lived. It helps reconstruct an ancient habitat, rather than independently establishing the fossil’s age.

The paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution is explained in a news report from the University of California, Davis:

Researchers Unearth Fossil Evidence of First Fully Marine Amphibian
Unlike Modern Amphibians, the Giant Salamander-Sized Amphibian Could Tolerate Salt Water
Scientists report fossil evidence of the first fully marine amphibian in a study from the University of California, Davis; Peking University; and the Geological Museum of Guizhou. The amphibian is an armored, giant salamander-sized, bottom-dwelling ocean creature that the researchers named Gerrothorax maritimus. The research, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, is based on the analysis of two nearly complete skeletons that date to the Late Triassic period nearly 237 million years ago. The fossils were discovered in an area of China’s Guizhou Province that was once covered by ocean and located hundreds of miles from large land masses.
This area is part of an ecosystem that we’ve been looking at and trying to reconstruct. We’ve been mostly studying marine reptiles and the fish from this place, but now we also have this amphibian and it’s a sort of very unusual member of the lineage.

Professor Ryosuke Motani, co-corresponding author
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA, USA.

Of the over 8,000 species of modern amphibians, none have been known to live in fully marine environments, and less than 2% exhibit some degree of salt tolerance. This is odd given that other four-limbed animals — including mammals, reptiles and birds — all have species capable of surviving without food or water from land. Additionally, no evidence of a fully marine amphibian exists in the fossil record.

Until now.

What did Gerrothorax maritimus look like?

Thanks to the pristine nature of the skeleton specimens, the researchers could reconstruct how Gerrothorax maritimus looked and lived in its ocean environment.

Notably, the amphibian had a flattened body that was covered in bony armor, a potential defense mechanism against predators like ichthyosaurs. The animal was almost three feet long with a disc-shaped body.

If you think about today’s amphibians, this animal is unusual because it’s big. It’s probably, body mass-wise, about the same as the giant salamander, but what’s different is that giant salamanders are elongated whereas this animal is really chunky.

Professor Ryosuke Motani.

Based on Gerrothorax maritimus’ bony armor and the shape of its skull, the researchers hypothesize that the creature was a bottom-dwelling suction feeder.

They would probably just wait at the bottom and then when prey comes around, they would just suck it in. [...the feeding style is similar to the wobbegong, a modern, bottom-dwelling carpet shark].

Professor Ryosuke Motani.

Why can’t today’s amphibians live in salt water?

Today’s amphibians are unable to live in marine environments due to their salt-intolerant skin.

That skin is permeable, and that allows the animals to use it for multiple purposes. They use it for respiration and water intake, so amphibians don’t drink or breathe through the mouth because they can do both through the skin.

Professor Ryosuke Motani.

This function of amphibian biology requires them to live in or near freshwater environments. While some modern species such as the crab-eating frog exhibit degrees of salt tolerance, they lose weight in brackish waters and need to recover in freshwaters.

The trunk or central part of fossilized Gerrothorax maritimus, a marine amphibian.
Ryosuke Motani, UC Davis.

The researchers propose that Gerrothorax maritimus circumvented this limitation thanks to its bony armor and more fish-like biology. The armor would have prevented water absorption through its skin, requiring the amphibian to drink salt water with its mouth, which it would absorb through its digestive tract. The creature’s gills, which are present in the Gerrothorax genus, would have allowed it to filter out the salt.

How did researchers determine Gerrothorax maritimus lived in the ocean?

In addition to the fossils being found in deep sea sediments, Motani said the fact that the specimens were nearly complete skeletons led the researchers to believe Gerrothorax maritimus was ocean-dwelling.

Carcasses at sea, unless they sink to the bottom right away, tend to dry out and lose limbs prior to sinking to the bottom, but these animals had their fingers preserved, so that means they probably died near where they lived.

Professor Ryosuke Motani.

The fossilized left hand of the newly discovered prehistoric marine amphibian Gerrothorax maritimus.
Ryosuke Motani, UC Davis.

Additionally, the researchers conducted geochemical analyses of the fossils, which revealed that the proportion of strontium isotopes in the fossils closely resembled those that would be seen in the oceans of the Late Triassic.

Publication:
Diao, L., Motani, R., Jiang, Dy. et al.
A fully marine stem amphibian from the Late Triassic of China.
Nat Ecol Evol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03209-9

Abstract
Land vertebrates colonized the sea repeatedly through geologic time with various levels of marine adaptation, from partial use of marine resources to fully marine lifestyles. Mammals, reptiles and birds all have species that survive without food or fresh water from land; however, amphibians, including both crown and stem species, lack such a member partly because of their salt-intolerant skins. Here we report the first fully marine species of a stem amphibian, Gerrothorax maritimus n. sp., based on two nearly complete skeletons from the Late Triassic (about 237 million years ago). Its articulated occurrence far from land, together with associated strontium isotope record, suggests life in fully marine regimes. It descended from a lineage with complete body armour, which would limit skin-based water, gas or salt exchanges typical of amphibians and instead enforced the use of the gill and gut that can become more tolerant of salt—this probably prepared them for marine adaptation.

Diao, L., Motani, R., Jiang, Dy. et al.
A fully marine stem amphibian from the Late Triassic of China.
Nat Ecol Evol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03209-9

copy; 2026 Springer Nature Ltd.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Gerrothorax maritimus provides another reminder that evolution has no preferred destination. Life on land is not a higher state towards which all vertebrates must progress, nor is an aquatic existence a step backwards. Natural selection favours adaptations that work in particular circumstances, using the structures and developmental possibilities inherited from earlier generations. A marine amphibian is entirely understandable within that framework.

For intelligent design creationism, the difficulty is explaining why an unrestricted, omniscient designer should produce the same pattern of inherited structures and historical constraints that descent with modification predicts. Invoking a designer adds neither a testable mechanism nor an explanation of why this animal possessed this particular combination of features. Declaring that the designer must have wanted it that way merely restates the observation with an invisible agent attached.

For young-Earth creationism, the chronology is even less accommodating. This animal inhabited a Triassic sea approximately 237 million years ago, long before the supposed “Creation Week” of biblical literalism. Its fossils belong within a geological history reconstructed from physical evidence, not a chronology calculated from ancient genealogies. Simply calling it an amphibian “kind” does nothing to explain away that history.

Meanwhile, the researchers are doing what scientists routinely do: combining anatomy, geology and chemistry to investigate the natural world, while distinguishing firm evidence from interpretations that require further testing. Evolution supplies the framework in which the findings make sense. There is no indication here of biology abandoning evolutionary theory for intelligent design — only another discovery revealing how much richer and older the history of life is than the creation myths allow.

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Creationism Refuted - Eland Collagen in Ocre In A South African Cave - From 50,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-10-26T14:34:30.746+00:00

Common eland, Taurotragus oryx

Credit: David Clode / Unsplash.

Antelope collagen found in 60,000-year-old ochre offers clues to early human practices

Some 60,000 years ago, humans occupying a shelter in southern Africa left behind traces of activities that modern science is only now learning to recover. An ochre-rich surface at Kilpdrift Shelter preserves proteins identified as belonging to the common eland, Taurotragus oryx, a large African antelope.

For those who insist that the entire Universe was created only a few thousand years ago, the difficulty begins before we even consider what these people were doing: they were already there, handling animal materials and ochre, tens of thousands of years before the supposed creation of their ancestors.

The discovery is described in a paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B by researchers from Kyushu University, the University of Bergen and the University of Copenhagen.

What that contribution represents remains an open question. Animal-derived material may have been deliberately mixed with ochre, or the surface may preserve traces of eland hides treated with it. The finding establishes an association between ochre and animal material; it does not, by itself, establish a particular recipe, a hide-processing technique or a symbolic purpose. Nevertheless, it opens a valuable window onto the technical, and possibly symbolic, behaviour of early Homo sapiens, particularly in environments where ancient DNA is poorly preserved.

Here, then, is another example of archaeology producing inconvenient evidence for biblical literalism simply by investigating the human past. The researchers are asking what people did, which materials they used and how surviving molecules can help reconstruct their activities. There is room for uncertainty about the precise activity recorded on this ancient surface. That uncertainty is not permission to compress 60,000 years of human history into a creationist chronology of six to ten thousand years.

Ancient proteins^ recovering the invisible archaeological record. Archaeology is no longer restricted to objects and remains visible to the naked eye. Even where a hide or other animal material has disappeared, surviving molecules may preserve evidence of its former presence. Palaeoproteomics — the study of ancient proteins — allows researchers to investigate some of these otherwise invisible traces.

How can a protein identify an animal?

Proteins consist of chains of amino acids. Their sequences are inherited, and differences between species can help identify the organisms from which they came. Collagen, an abundant structural protein in tissues including skin, tendons and bone, is particularly useful in archaeological investigations.

Researchers extract protein material and analyse shorter chains called peptides. Liquid chromatography separates components of the mixture, while tandem mass spectrometry measures peptide ions and their fragmentation patterns. Comparisons with reference sequences can then identify proteins and, where sufficiently diagnostic sequences survive, narrow down their biological source. Not every peptide identifies a species: many sequences are shared by related animals.

In the Klipdrift investigation, the researchers identified type-I collagen attributed to common eland in sediment from an approximately 60,000-year-old ochre-rich surface. This reveals an association between animal material and ochre that would be difficult to establish from the surface's appearance alone.

Shouldn't collagen have decayed long ago?

Most of the original protein may indeed have decayed. Detecting identifiable traces does not mean that an intact hide, fresh tissue or a complete, functioning protein has survived. Loss of a tissue's recognisable structure and disappearance of every informative molecular fragment are different things.

Nor do proteins have a universal expiry date. Their survival depends on temperature, moisture, acidity, microbial activity and the surrounding material. Conditions that expose proteins to water and microbial enzymes can accelerate destruction; other conditions can slow it. Association with minerals can help protect some protein sequences. A decay rate measured in one environment therefore cannot simply be applied to every archaeological deposit.

This distinction has practical consequences. A study of archaeological bones detected collagen peptides even in a specimen with a reported collagen yield of 0% under conventional assessment. “No recoverable bulk collagen” and “no detectable collagen sequences” are not equivalent statements.

There is also direct evidence for much longer preservation under particular conditions. Research on ostrich eggshell recovered protein sequences from material approximately 3.8 million years old and demonstrated the protective importance of binding to the shell's mineral surface. These were eggshell proteins, not collagen, so their survival does not supply a decay rate for the Klipdrift material. It does refute the blanket assertion that identifiable protein sequences cannot survive beyond a few thousand years.

None of this establishes precisely what protected the Klipdrift collagen. In particular, finding it alongside ochre does not, by itself, prove that ochre caused its preservation. That is a separate question requiring evidence.

How do researchers distinguish ancient traces from contamination?

Contamination is a real concern, which is why ancient-protein research requires careful laboratory procedures and authentication. Relevant checks include laboratory blanks, the reliability of sequence identifications, archaeological context and patterns of molecular damage. No single damage marker is an infallible clock: chemical alteration also depends on environmental conditions and sample treatment.

The scientific response to an unexpected surviving molecule is therefore to test its identity, authenticity and preservation history. Merely declaring that “proteins decay” neither demonstrates contamination nor overturns the dating of its archaeological context. To infer a recent origin, one would need evidence that actually supports a recent origin.

What does the eland collagen tell us?

The finding supports an association between eland-derived material and an ochre-rich surface. Deliberate mixing of animal material with ochre and the presence of ochre-treated hides are possible explanations. Identifying the protein does not yet distinguish between them, or establish that the activity was symbolic.

That combination — recovering previously inaccessible evidence while acknowledging what it cannot yet resolve — is precisely how science advances.

The Klipdrift study.
Ancient protein analysis in archaeology.

Researchers Found Eland Collagen on a 60,000-Year-Old Ochre Surface
Traces of eland collagen may reveal how animal materials were associated with ochre during the Stone Age.

Cpmmon eland, Taurotragus oryx

Credit: David Clode / Unsplash.

As explained in the Kyushu University report reproduced in TechnologyNetworks, the team analysed archived sediment samples using palaeoproteomics — the study of ancient proteins. Mass spectrometry and comparisons with reference databases identified type-I collagen from eland, revealing an animal contribution to an archaeological surface whose organic traces might otherwise have remained undetected.

: Publishing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences a research team from Kyushu University, Universitetet i Bergen, and the University of Copenhagen reports that they found traces of ancient collagen protein from the common eland, Taurotragus oryx, on a 60,000-year-old ochre-rich surface in the Kilpdrift Complex, a Middle and Later Stone Age archaeological site located within the coastal cliffs of the De Hoop Nature Reserve in South Africa.

To better understand how ochre was used by early humans, the team used palaeoproteomics, the high-throughput analyses of ancient proteins, to search for potential proteinaceous traces within this archaeological feature. The study identified collagen from elands in the ochre surface, suggesting that either animal-derived materials were deliberately mixed with the ochre or ochre-treated eland hides were present at the site.

These findings provide new evidence for the complex technical and possibly symbolic behaviors of early Homo sapiens.

Eland collagen links ochre to animal materials

The most significant finding is the identification of type I collagen proteins from the common eland, which provides biomolecular evidence that animal-derived materials were associated with ochre use during the Middle Stone Age. Until now, evidence of organic components mixed with ochre has been extremely rare, especially in Africa.

This discovery offers a new way to investigate how early humans used ochre and other organic materials in their daily, technical, and potentially symbolic activities.

An eland is a large plains antelope found in East and Southern Africa.

First author Zahra Haghighi pictured preparing a sample in a clean laboratory for paleoproteomic analysis.

Credit: Takumi Tsutaya/Kyushu University

Tracing proteins through sediment

The team analyzed archived sediment samples taken from the Klipdrif Complex using palaeoproteomics, a growing field of archaeology and paleontology that examines ancient proteins preserved in materials collected at archaeological sites. The proteins were extracted from the sediments and analyzed using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).

The resulting protein fragments were then compared to large protein databases and a custom collagen reference database to identify their species of origin.

These findings demonstrate that palaeoproteomics can successfully recover and identify ancient proteins from archaeological sediments, even in challenging African environments where ancient DNA rarely survives.

This creates a powerful new tool for archaeologists studying early human behavior, allowing them to investigate biological materials no longer visible in the archaeological record.

Publication:
Zahra Haghighi, Takumi Tsutaya, Elizabeth C. Velliky, Simon Armitage, Christopher Miller, Meaghan Mackie, Francesco d'Errico, Gaudry Troche, Jesper Olsen, Karen van Niekerk, Christopher Henshilwood, Enrico Cappellini;
Palaeoproteomic investigation of archaeological sediments associated with ochre use in the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa. Proc. R. Soc. B 1 October 2026; 293 (2081): 20253300. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.3300

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Abstract
The African Middle Stone Age (MSA) represents the cultural and technological context associated with the emergence of Homo sapiens and the development of complex cognition. In this setting, ochre use is considered a multifaceted proxy for modern behaviour, allowing inferences about technical and symbolic aspects of Homo sapiens. Powdered ochre is reported in multiple southern African ethnographic and archaeological contexts alongside various organic materials, some of which are protein-based. Yet, the recovery of proteinaceous residues is rare in the MSA. Since proteins can offer insights into their tissue and species of origin, identifying proteins in association with ochre may help to infer its function. At Klipdrift Shelter (South Africa), the 60 000-year-old Howiesons Poort layers contain a laterally continuous, ochre-rich sediment surface, possibly over 1 m long, 40 cm wide, and up to 1 cm thick. We used palaeoproteomics to identify proteinaceous traces from this feature. Our analysis identified type I collagen confidently matching common eland (Taurotragus oryx) in two samples. Together with the feature's highly complex nature, these findings suggest the deliberate mixing of eland-derived proteins with ochre powder. Our results confirm that palaeoproteomics can be a reliable tool for reconstructing the protein component of the early human material culture.

Figure 1.

Overview of the ochre surface in layer PBE at Klipdrift Shelter. (a) Map showing the location of the Klipdrift archaeological sites in South Africa. (b) Planar view of the potential outline of the ochre surface in layer PBE, with (c) a close-up view of the sediment in the surface and (d) a profile view during excavation. (e) Microscopic image of an ochre-rich sediment sample. Images (a–d) courtesy of Magnus M. Haaland and Ole F. Unhammer.

Zahra Haghighi, Takumi Tsutaya, Elizabeth C. Velliky, Simon Armitage, Christopher Miller, Meaghan Mackie, Francesco d'Errico, Gaudry Troche, Jesper Olsen, Karen van Niekerk, Christopher Henshilwood, Enrico Cappellini;
Palaeoproteomic investigation of archaeological sediments associated with ochre use in the Middle Stone Age of southern Africa. Proc. R. Soc. B 1 October 2026; 293 (2081): 20253300. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.3300

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by The Royal Society. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Once again, an investigation into the human past has produced evidence that sits comfortably within the scientific understanding of our history but far outside the cramped chronology of biblical literalism. Around 60,000 years ago, people at Klipdrift were leaving traces of activities involving ochre and animal materials. Whatever the precise purpose of those activities, these people lived tens of thousands of years before young-Earth creationism permits humans — or even Earth itself — to have existed.

The surviving collagen offers no escape from that chronological difficulty. Identifying ancient protein traces is not the same as finding fresh tissue, and the fact that proteins decay does not establish that every identifiable fragment must disappear within a few thousand years. A claim of recent origin requires evidence, not an assumed expiry date for organic molecules. The relevant questions concern preservation conditions, molecular identification, contamination and archaeological context — all matters for investigation rather than theological assertion.

There are uncertainties here, and the researchers acknowledge them. The association between eland collagen and ochre does not yet tell us whether people were preparing a mixture, treating hides or undertaking an activity with symbolic significance. That distinction between what the evidence establishes and what remains open is a strength of science. Uncertainty about what people were doing is not evidence that they lived at some entirely different time.

The researchers did not need to set out to refute Genesis. They simply asked questions about an ancient surface and recovered another small piece of human history. As so often happens, the difficulty for creationism lies in the answers that nature supplies.

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Creationism in Crisis - Yet Another Of Those 'Non-Existent' Transitional Fossils - From 165 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-10-25T22:54:42.989+00:00

Palaeoecological reconstruction of Sinojapyx giganteus.

Jie Sun.

Jurassic Giant Dipluran Reveals the evolution of Hexapods---- Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology Chinese Academy of Sciences

Another of those transitional forms that creationists insist are missing, has turned up in the fossil record — this time in the shape of a Jurassic relative of insects with an informative combination of ancestral mouthparts and developing tail pincers. Named Sinojapyx giganteus, it lived approximately 165 million years ago, presenting young-Earth creationism with two familiar problems: evidence of evolutionary transition and a chronology irreconcilable with a literal reading of Genesis.

The discovery, described in a paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B is a fossil from the Middle Jurassic Daohugou deposits of Inner Mongolia, China. More than five centimetres long, it is the oldest confirmed dipluran and the largest fossil representative yet described. Diplurans, sometimes called two-pronged bristletails, are six-legged relatives of insects, rather than insects themselves.

Its evolutionary significance lies in the details. Living diplurans have mouthparts enclosed within the head, but those of Sinojapyx were exposed. Its paired rear appendages, known as cerci, were already pincer-like, yet remained symmetrical and lacked the small teeth characteristic of the more specialised pincers of modern japygoids. The researchers place it on the stem lineage of this living group and interpret its cerci as an intermediate condition in the evolution of sensory appendages into specialised grasping weapons.

This is what a transitional fossil actually looks like: a functioning animal with a mixture of ancestral and derived characteristics. It does not need to be an implausible hybrid of two modern species, nor must palaeontologists demonstrate that this particular species was the direct ancestor of a living one. Its significance is that it preserves an anatomical combination which helps reconstruct how later specialisations evolved. Dismissing it as “still a dipluran” would miss the point entirely: evolution within a lineage does not require its descendants to cease belonging to that lineage.

The mouthparts also help scientists reconsider an older classification. Diplurans, springtails and proturans were traditionally grouped together because all have enclosed mouthparts. Combined with evidence about their evolutionary relationships, the exposed condition in Sinojapyx supports the researchers’ proposal that mouthpart enclosure evolved independently in these three lineages. A feature once treated as evidence of a single shared origin may instead reflect convergent evolution — another example of new evidence refining our understanding of evolutionary history.

Then there is the inconvenient matter of time. This animal inhabited Jurassic ecosystems roughly 165 million years ago, vastly earlier than the entire history of the universe allowed by the familiar young-Earth chronology of six to ten thousand years. Neither its age nor its transitional anatomy was discovered by researchers setting out to refute creationism. Both emerged from the ordinary scientific business of investigating the natural world. Once again, the difficulty for biblical literalism is simply what that investigation reveals.

What Makes a Fossil Transitional? A transitional fossil preserves a combination of ancestral and derived features that helps us understand an evolutionary change. “Ancestral” means inherited from earlier members of a lineage; “derived” means a feature that evolved subsequently. These terms are relative to the particular group or transition being studied.

There is no requirement for a transitional animal to look like a crude mixture of two living species, as in the ridiculously childish 'crocoduck' creationists parody. Evolution changes populations over successive generations, with different parts of their anatomy often changing at different rates. The result can be a mosaic: older characteristics retained alongside newer specialisations.

Fully functioning, rather than half-finished

A transitional organism was a functioning animal in its own environment, not an unfinished version of something evolution was trying to produce. Evolution has no foresight or predetermined destination. A structure can retain its original function while acquiring another, or become increasingly specialised for a different role. Intermediate anatomy does not automatically mean ineffective anatomy.

For example, an appendage originally used to sense the surroundings might also help grasp objects. Changes in its shape, strength and movement could subsequently improve its grasping ability. There need never be a stage at which it serves no useful purpose.

Does it have to be a direct ancestor?

No. Establishing that a particular fossil species was the direct ancestor of another is usually difficult. A species on a related, extinct branch can nevertheless preserve an informative combination of features, helping researchers reconstruct the sequence in which characteristics evolved.

Evolution is a branching process. Transitional fossils help reveal changes along those branches; they do not have to form a single ladder leading towards a modern species.

Why Sinojapyx giganteus is informative

The Jurassic dipluran Sinojapyx giganteus combines exposed mouthparts — interpreted as an ancestral condition — with pincer-like rear appendages, or cerci. Its pincers were symmetrical and lacked the small teeth found in the more specialised pincers of living japygoid diplurans. The researchers interpret this combination as evidence of an intermediate stage in the evolution of the grasping apparatus.

Its anatomy therefore helps illuminate evolutionary change within diplurans. It does not imply that this particular species was the direct ancestor of living forms, or that its mouthparts and pincers were changing at the same rate.

“But it was still a dipluran!”

Precisely. Evolution does not require descendants to lose their ancestry when they acquire new characteristics. Mammals remain vertebrates; birds remain dinosaurs. Likewise, changes in a dipluran’s mouthparts or cerci do not require it to cease being a dipluran. Remaining within a broader evolutionary group is entirely compatible with substantial change within that group.

The relevant question is not whether an animal can be assigned a familiar label, but whether its anatomical features help explain the evolutionary relationships and changes under investigation.

A brief glossary

Ancestral character:

A feature inherited from an earlier ancestor, relative to the group being considered.

Derived character:

A feature that evolved from an earlier condition within a lineage.

Mosaic evolution:

Evolutionary change in which different characteristics change at different rates, producing combinations of ancestral and derived features.

Cerci:

Paired appendages at the rear of the abdomen, with functions that can include sensing, defence and grasping.

Stem lineage:

An extinct lineage outside a living group’s crown group, but more closely related to that group than to its nearest living relatives.

Crown group:

The most recent common ancestor of a group’s living members, together with all its descendants.

The paper in Proceeding of the Royal Society B was accompanied by a news release from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences:

Jurassic Giant Dipluran Reveals the evolution of Hexapods
Two-pronged bristletails (Diplura) are a group of non-insect hexapods, living alongside springtails and proturans as one of the earliest branches in hexapod evolution. Because they are closely related to insects, they are key to understanding how insects originated and evolved. Two-pronged bristletails live almost everywhere, in caves, soil, and leaf litter, and play a role in soil ecosystems. Their most striking feature is a pair of highly specialized cerci. But their soft bodies and underground lifestyle make them hard to fossilize, so their fossil record is extremely sparse. The oldest known fossil before this study came from the Early Cretaceous of Brazil.
Now, a team led by Prof. HUANG Diying at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS), has described a rare giant two-pronged bristletail from the Middle Jurassic Daohugou Biota (~ 165 myr) in Inner Mongolia. They named it Sinojapyx giganteus and established a new family, Sinojapygidae. The find offers fresh anatomical evidence for the group's evolutionary history and new clues for rethinking hexapod mouthpart evolution and Jurassic soil ecosystems. The results were published online in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Mouthparts: "Hidden" jaws may have evolved more than once

Hexapods include insects plus three early-diverging groups: proturans, springtails, and two-pronged bristletails. Traditionally, only insects were thought to have exposed mouthparts (ectognathy), while the other three had mouthparts hidden inside the head capsule (entognathy) — which is why they were once grouped as "Entognatha." But Sinojapyx giganteus, though clearly a two-pronged bristletail, has exposed mouthparts, especially visible mandibles. The team proposes that the common ancestor of all hexapods had exposed mouthparts, and that the "hidden" condition evolved independently in the three non-insect groups rather than from a single shared origin.+
Pincer-like cerci: a snapshot of evolution in progress

One of the best-known groups of two-pronged bristletails, the superfamily Japygoidea, is famous for its hard, pincer-like tail cerci, usually used for hunting and defense. Evolutionary analysis places Sinojapyx giganteus on the stem lineage of living Japygoidea. Unlike modern forms with highly specialized, tooth-bearing pincers and tightly fused abdominal segments, this Jurassic giant had symmetric pincers with smooth inner edges and an abdomen that was neither shortened nor heavily armored. This mix of features suggests the fossil captures a transitional stage, cerci shifting from sensory organs into efficient hunting weapons, and points to an arms race between predator and prey lasting hundreds of millions of years.
Over 5 cm long: a top predator in the Jurassic underground

Living two-pronged bristletails are usually tiny (mostly under 2 cm) and hide deep in the soil. Sinojapyx giganteus was over 5 cm long, larger than almost all living species, making it the oldest confirmed and largest two-pronged bristletail fossil known. The team notes it had very strong mandibles with sharply curved teeth and thick, robust pincers. In the warm, humid Daohugou forest soil 165 million years ago, this giant likely played a role similar to modern centipedes or scorpions — lurking in leaf litter and soil cracks, ambushing small invertebrates with its powerful pincers and jaws, sitting at the top of the Jurassic soil food web.

Notably, although the Daohugou Biota has yielded hundreds of thousands of insect fossils, no two-pronged bristletail had ever been found there. The specimen was collected 20 years ago, and after decades of fieldwork and screening hundreds of thousands of specimens, the team found just this one.

The study is part of the institute's ongoing research on the origin and evolution of modern ecosystems; the team has previously reported the earliest fleas, webspinners, and gladiators from Daohugou. Researchers from the University of Valencia, Spain, contributed to the work. The study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Programme of China.

Fig.1 General morphology of Sinojapyx giganteus

Fig.2 Holotype details of Sinojapyx giganteus and comparison with extant taxa

Fig.3 Phylogeny and evolutionary framework of Diplura

Publication:
Yehao Wang, Chenyang Cai, Alba Sánchez-García, Alberto Sendra, Diying Huang
A giant Jurassic hunter: the earliest dipluran and its implications for hexapod body pattern evolution. Proc. R. Soc. B 1 October 2026; 293 (2080): 20261207. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2026.1207

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Abstract
Hexapoda comprises the hyperdiverse insects and three cryptic, early-diverging lineages, Protura, Collembola, and Diplura, that are key to understanding the hexapod body pattern but remain extremely rare as fossils. Here, we report the earliest dipluran, Sinojapyx giganteus gen. et sp. nov., from the Middle Jurassic Daohugou Biota (approx. 165 Mya). Its ectognathous mouthparts challenge the conventional view that all non‑insect hexapods are entognathous, providing solid evidence that entognathy evolved independently at least three times. The pincer‑like cerci of Sinojapyx are symmetrical and lack denticles, representing a transitional state preceding the sophisticated predatory appendages of extant japygoids. Exceeding 5 cm in body length and equipped with robust mandibles and pincer-like cerci, this giant soil dweller occupied the apex of the soil food web in the Jurassic, filling a niche typically held by scorpions or centipedes today. This discovery not only bridges a major gap in the dipluran fossil record but also offers critical insights into the ancestral body pattern of non‑insect hexapods and soil trophic networks in the Jurassic.

Figure 2.

Details of holotype of Sinojapyx giganteus and comparison of extant Heterojapyx sp. (A and B) Head on the part. (C) Ventral scanning electron microscopy (SEM) view of the mouthparts of Heterojapyx. (D) Mouthparts on the counterpart, with line drawings and colour differentiation to highlight individual structures. (E) Right hindleg of part. (F) Styli on abdominal segment V of the part, f’, magnified view of the styli. (G) SEM view of styli in Heterojapyx. (H) Abdominal segments IX–X with pincer-like cerci on the part, h′, magnified view of the genital appendages. (B, E, F, and H) are photographed under ethanol. Abbreviations: ad, admentum; As VIII, IX, X, abdominal segments VIII, IX, X; cl, claw; co, coxa; fu, femur; ga, galea; la, lacinia; li, ligula; lp, labial palp; ma, mandible; me, mentum; mp, maxillary palp; ph, pharynx; st, styli; ta, tarsus; ti, tibia; tr, trochanter. Scale bars: (A, B, E, F) 1000 µm; (C) 250 µm; (D) 500 µm; (G) 50 µm; and (H) 2000 µm.

Yehao Wang, Chenyang Cai, Alba Sánchez-García, Alberto Sendra, Diying Huang
A giant Jurassic hunter: the earliest dipluran and its implications for hexapod body pattern evolution. Proc. R. Soc. B 1 October 2026; 293 (2080): 20261207. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2026.1207

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by The Royal Society. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Sinojapyx giganteus adds another informative example to the fossil evidence for evolutionary transition. Its combination of ancestral mouthparts and less specialised tail pincers helps reveal how the anatomy of living diplurans came about. It need not be their direct ancestor to provide that evidence. Nor does describing it as “still a dipluran” explain away the changes: evolution proceeds through modifications within lineages, with descendants retaining their ancestry.

For young-Earth creationism, the chronology presents an equally substantial problem. This animal lived approximately 165 million years ago, long before the supposed “Creation Week” of a literalist biblical timeline. Its place in geological history cannot be reconciled with an Earth only a few thousand years old simply by invoking a recent global flood. That requires dismissing the evidence used to establish the history of the rocks and the organisms they preserve.

The discovery also illustrates how science develops. The fossil’s exposed mouthparts help researchers reassess whether enclosed mouthparts arose once or independently in several hexapod lineages. Revising that interpretation strengthens our understanding of evolution by bringing it into closer agreement with the evidence. The theory of evolution supplies the framework within which these anatomical differences become intelligible and competing explanations can be tested.

Once again, palaeontologists were investigating the history of life, not setting out to refute a religious belief. The difficulty for creationism arises incidentally: the evidence reveals ancient organisms, evolutionary relationships and anatomical transitions where a literal reading of Genesis leaves no room for them. The supposedly missing transitional forms keep turning up. What remains missing is a creationist explanation that accounts for them without first dismissing what they show.

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Creationism Refuted - Fish And Newts Share A Common Gene for Fin and LImb Growth - Common Origin

2026-10-25T13:46:46.126+00:00

The findings support a stepwise model for how the genetic program that builds vertebrate paired fins and limbs may have evolved. An ancestral Hox9–10 program may first have helped establish posterior appendages, later expanded into a broader Hox patterning system, and eventually been redeployed in anterior paired appendages.

Image after H. Nakazawa et al., (2026) CC BY-NC-ND.

Ancient Hox code reveals the developmental roots of vertebrate hind fins and limbs | EurekAlert!

Creationists who insist that fish and terrestrial vertebrates are separately created “kinds” have another piece of evidence to explain away. Beneath the obvious differences between a fish’s pelvic fins and an amphibian’s hindlimbs lies a shared developmental inheritance: related genes performing an essential early role in establishing the cells from which those structures develop. Evolutionary relationships are recorded not only in fossils and adult anatomy, but also in the processes that build living bodies.

This is illustrated by research led by scientists at Saitama University, Japan, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The researchers investigated Hox genes, regulatory genes involved in organising the developing body. Their experiments reveal a shared requirement for members of the Hox9–10 groups at the beginning of pelvic-fin and hindlimb development.

In zebrafish, disrupting five of these genes together eliminated the detectable populations of pelvic-fin progenitor cells—the cells that would normally give rise to the developing fins—and the pelvic fins failed to form. In Iberian ribbed newts, disrupting seven related genes likewise impaired the establishment of hindlimb progenitors. These results support the inference that this developmental function was already present in the common ancestor of ray-finned and lobe-finned vertebrates, before the evolutionary separation of the lineages represented by zebrafish and newts.

The significance extends beyond the discovery that different animals use related genes. The findings help connect the genetic programme that organises the rear of the body with the programme that initiates its paired hind appendages. They are consistent with an evolutionary model in which an ancestral programme was recruited, expanded and redeployed as the developmental machinery of paired fins and limbs evolved. The experiments do not directly reconstruct that entire historical sequence, but they provide functional evidence with which to assess it.

For intelligent design creationism, the familiar difficulty is that evolutionary innovation need not involve inventing every component afresh. Existing genes and developmental relationships can acquire additional roles as evolution modifies inherited systems. Calling those systems “designed” supplies no comparable account of when, where or how the changes occurred, nor does it improve the experimental explanation.

Meanwhile, the scientists are doing precisely the opposite of what creationist claims of a collapsing theory of evolution would lead us to expect: using common ancestry to frame productive questions, testing them experimentally and refining our understanding of how vertebrate bodies evolved. The question driving this research is how the evolutionary changes happened. The shared developmental machinery offers another revealing part of the answer.

What are Hox genes, and what do they do? Hox genes help establish the regional organisation of an animal’s body during development. They contribute to determining which structures develop at different positions along the head-to-tail axis, and some also have important roles in building appendages such as fins and limbs.

Genes that regulate other genes

Hox genes encode transcription factors: proteins that bind to DNA and help regulate the activity of other genes. Their effects depend on the other proteins present, the regulatory DNA available and the developmental state of the cell. They therefore work within interacting networks, rather than acting as independent instructions for complete body parts.

All Hox genes belong to the larger homeobox family, but not all homeobox genes are Hox genes. A homeobox is a DNA sequence that encodes a DNA-binding region of a protein, called a homeodomain.

A positional identity system

A useful analogy is a system of positional labels. Different combinations of active Hox genes help cells acquire the appropriate regional identity. In vertebrates, for example, this contributes to the differences between regions of the backbone. The genes do not give cells conscious knowledge of their location: their proteins influence which developmental processes occur there.

Many Hox genes occur in clusters on chromosomes. In vertebrates, their order within a cluster broadly corresponds to the order of their activity along the developing body, and often to the sequence in which they become active. This relationship is called collinearity. It is a general organisational pattern, with exceptions and additional layers of regulation.

Why disrupt several genes at once?

Gene duplication has produced related Hox genes with partly overlapping functions. One gene can sometimes compensate for the loss of another, so disrupting a single gene may reveal only part of their collective role. Experiments that disrupt several related genes can expose a requirement that would otherwise remain hidden.

Related genes produced by duplication are called paralogs. The designation Hox9–10 refers to two groups of related genes; it does not mean that there are only two individual genes involved.

From body patterning to fins and limbs

In the study discussed here, researchers found that combinations of Hox9–10 genes are needed at a very early stage of pelvic-fin development in zebrafish and hindlimb development in Iberian ribbed newts. Their role begins with establishing the progenitor cells from which these appendages develop, before a recognisable fin or limb bud appears.

The shared requirement supports an ancient evolutionary origin for this function. It also helps explain how changes in the deployment of existing regulatory genes could contribute to new structures. Evolution can modify when, where and in what combinations genes act, as well as changing the proteins they encode.

An important distinction: showing that a gene is essential for a structure in a living animal does not establish that it always had that role, or that the entire system had to originate at once. Present-day dependence and evolutionary origin are different questions.

Hox Genes: Descent with Modification.
Experimental research on Hox gene collinearity.
The zebrafish and newt study.

The paper in PNAS is accompanied by a Saitama University news release through EurekAlert!:

Ancient Hox code reveals the developmental roots of vertebrate hind fins and limbs
Paired appendages — the pectoral and pelvic fins of fishes and the forelimbs and hindlimbs of tetrapods — were a major innovation in vertebrate evolution. Their emergence greatly expanded the ways vertebrates could move through their environments and ultimately provided the developmental foundation for the evolution of limbs. Yet how the genetic system responsible for building paired appendages was assembled during evolution remains an unresolved question.
Hox genes are central regulators of vertebrate body patterning. In particular, HoxA and HoxD paralog groups 9–13 are known to control the later patterning of both fish fins and tetrapod limbs. This deeply conserved role has suggested a connection between the Hox code that specifies positions along the main body axis and the developmental program that patterns paired appendages. However, direct functional evidence showing that posterior Hox genes are required at the very earliest stages of hind appendage formation has been limited.

A research group led by Associate Professor Akinori Kawamura of the Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, working with researchers from Tottori University, the National Institute of Genetics, the National Institute for Basic Biology, and the Exploratory Research Center on Life and Living Systems, aimed to determine whether posterior Hox genes are required for the initial establishment of hind appendage progenitor cells and whether this function is conserved across distantly related vertebrates. Using zebrafish carrying combinations of Hox gene mutations, fluorescent reporter lines that visualize developing pelvic fin progenitors, skeletal imaging, and CRISPR-Cas9-mediated disruption of Hox genes in the Iberian ribbed newt, the team revealed an evolutionarily conserved requirement for Hox9–10 genes during the earliest stages of hind appendage formation. The study was published online on October 16, 2026, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

In zebrafish, the researchers found that simultaneously disrupting five HoxA/D paralog group 9–10 genes — hoxa9a, hoxa9b, hoxa10b, hoxd9a, and hoxd10a — resulted in the complete loss of pelvic fins. Fluorescent reporter analyses using markers associated with pelvic fin progenitor cells further showed that the characteristic bilateral progenitor populations could no longer be detected in these mutants, indicating that HoxA/D PG9–10 genes act before morphologically recognizable pelvic fin buds form. A hoxa10b reporter also marked cells in the presumptive pelvic fin field before fin bud formation, further supporting an early role for these genes.

The researchers then asked whether this function extends beyond ray-finned fishes. In the Iberian ribbed newt, a lobe-finned vertebrate lineage, they simultaneously disrupted all seven Hox9–10 paralogs using CRISPR-Cas9. Animals showing hindlimb loss also displayed corresponding loss or marked reduction of Prdm16 expression in prospective hindlimb-forming regions. Together, the zebrafish and newt experiments indicate that the requirement for Hox9–10 genes in establishing hind appendage progenitors predates the evolutionary divergence of these distantly related vertebrate lineages.

Our results show that Hox9–10 genes are involved not only in the later patterning of paired appendages, but also at a much earlier step, when the progenitor cells that will form the pelvic fin or hindlimb are first established. This provides a developmental connection between the posterior Hox code of the body axis and the Hox system used to build paired appendages, and gives functional support to the idea that an ancestral posterior Hox program contributed to the evolutionary assembly of this system.

Hidemichi Nakazawa, co-first author
Division of Life Science
Graduate School of Science and Engineering
Saitama University
Saitama, Japan.

The findings are consistent with a stepwise evolutionary model in which an ancestral Hox9–10 program involved in early hind appendage development was subsequently expanded to include additional posterior Hox genes and later redeployed in anterior paired appendages. The study does not directly reconstruct this evolutionary sequence, but provides developmental evidence linking an ancient posterior Hox program to the origin of the broader vertebrate paired appendage-patterning system.

This is fundamental research into how the vertebrate body plan was assembled through evolution, rather than research aimed at an immediate clinical or industrial application. Over the next five to ten years, however, understanding how Hox genes establish appendage progenitor cells should help us uncover more general principles governing vertebrate development. Combined with advances in genome editing and comparative developmental biology, this knowledge could also provide an important conceptual foundation for future research into limb development, developmental disorders, and regenerative biology.

Associate Professor Akinori Kawamura.
Integrated Medical Sciences
Graduate School of Medical Sciences
Tottori University
Yonago, Japan.

Publication:
H. Nakazawa, K. Urakawa, A. Maeno, T. Fujibayashi, M. Ishizaka, A. Ishizu, T. Asano, H. Matsubara, T. Takeuchi, I. Watakabe, S. Higashijima, G. Abe, & A. Kawamura
A conserved Hox9–10 code underlies the early establishment of hind appendage progenitors in zebrafish and the Iberian ribbed newt Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123(42) e2621291123, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2621291123 (2026).

Significance
Paired fins and limbs enabled vertebrates to explore new modes of movement and ecological opportunity, but how the developmental system that builds these structures was assembled remains unresolved. Here, we show that posterior Hox genes, long known for their roles in paired appendage patterning, are also required at an earlier step: the formation of hind appendage progenitor cells. Genetic analyses in zebrafish and CRISPR experiments in the Iberian ribbed newt reveal a shared requirement for Hox9–10 genes during pelvic fin and hindlimb initiation. These findings are consistent with a model in which the vertebrate paired appendage-patterning system evolved through recruitment of an ancestral posterior Hox code into hind appendage progenitor formation.

Abstract
The acquisition of paired appendages was a key innovation in vertebrate evolution. Although HoxA/D paralog groups (PGs) 9–13 play central roles in patterning paired fins and limbs, the evolutionary origin of this paired appendage-patterning system remains unknown. Here, we show that HoxA/D PG9–10 genes are essential for the early establishment of pelvic fin progenitors in zebrafish, and that Hox9–10 function is similarly required for hindlimb progenitor formation in the Iberian ribbed newt. In zebrafish, combined disruption of five HoxA/D PG9–10 genes abolishes the detectable pelvic fin progenitor population, resulting in complete loss of pelvic fins. A Tg(hoxa10b:EGFP) reporter labeled cells in the presumptive pelvic fin field before pelvic fin bud formation. Importantly, simultaneous CRISPR-mediated disruption of all seven Hox9–10 paralogs in the Iberian ribbed newt similarly impaired the establishment of hindlimb progenitors, suggesting that an early requirement for Hox9–10 function in hind appendage development predates the divergence of ray-finned and lobe-finned vertebrates. Together, these findings identify an evolutionarily conserved role for posterior Hox9–10 genes in the initial establishment of hind appendage progenitors. Because overlapping posterior Hox paralog groups are subsequently deployed during paired appendage patterning, this early Hox9–10 requirement provides a developmental link between the posterior axial Hox code and the paired appendage-patterning system. Our results are therefore consistent with the hypothesis that recruitment of a posterior Hox code into hind appendage progenitor formation contributed to the evolutionary assembly of the vertebrate paired appendage-patterning system.

H. Nakazawa, K. Urakawa, A. Maeno, T. Fujibayashi, M. Ishizaka, A. Ishizu, T. Asano, H. Matsubara, T. Takeuchi, I. Watakabe, S. Higashijima, G. Abe, & A. Kawamura
A conserved Hox9–10 code underlies the early establishment of hind appendage progenitors in zebrafish and the Iberian ribbed newt Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123(42) e2621291123, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2621291123 (2026).

copy; 2020 National Academy of Science of the USA.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Once again, evolutionary biology has connected apparently different structures through their shared developmental inheritance. A zebrafish’s pelvic fins and a newt’s hindlimbs differ in form and function, yet their development depends on related genes acting at a comparable early stage. This is precisely the sort of underlying continuity that descent with modification leads us to expect: inherited developmental machinery retained and modified as lineages diverge.

The findings also illustrate why the present-day necessity of a component is not evidence that an entire system must have appeared fully formed. Disrupting these genes prevents normal appendage development, but that tells us how the existing system works, not that its evolutionary predecessors required exactly the same arrangement. The creationist argument from “irreducible complexity” confuses dependence in a modern organism with an inability to evolve through earlier, different configurations.

There is an important distinction between demonstrating this shared genetic requirement and reconstructing every step by which the system evolved. The researchers provide evidence for the former and support for a model of the latter. That distinction is a strength of the science: conclusions remain proportionate to the evidence, and unresolved details become questions for further investigation. They do not become invitations to insert a supernatural designer.

Nor is there any sign here of biologists abandoning evolution because it cannot explain their findings. Common ancestry supplies the framework that makes the comparison meaningful, while experiments reveal how inherited developmental systems operate. An assertion of “common design” can accommodate the results after the event, but supplies no independently testable account of the supposed designer’s methods or intentions. Evolution, meanwhile, continues to generate questions that can be answered—and answers that deepen our understanding of the natural world.

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Refuting Creationism - A Continuous Record Of Climate History In A Peruvian Cave - From 440,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-10-24T22:40:34.995+01:00

Past and future Milankovitch cycles via VSOP model Graphic shows variations in five orbital elements:

Axial tilt or obliquity (ε).

Eccentricity (e).

Longitude of perihelion (sin(ϖ)).

Precession index (e sin(ϖ)) Precession index and obliquity control insolation at each latitude:

Daily-average insolation at top of atmosphere on summer solstice () at 65° N Ocean sediment and Antarctic ice strata record ancient sea levels and temperatures: Benthic forams (57 widespread locations) Vostok ice core (Antarctica) Vertical gray line shows present (2000 CE)

By Incredio - Own work, CC BY 3.0, Link

News and Events | Geosciences | Union College

Another awkward chapter in Earth's history has emerged from the darkness of Peruvian caves — and it stretches back some 450,000 years. For young-Earth creationists, that is an inconvenient amount of climate history to squeeze into a universe supposedly created only a few thousand years ago. For scientists, it is an opportunity to investigate how the rainfall systems on which ecosystems and human societies depend respond to a changing planet.

The research, published in Nature was led by Elizabeth Olson, a former postdoctoral researcher at Union who is now at Wesleyan University. The team examined stalagmites from caves in the Peruvian Andes, using their chemical composition to reconstruct the history of the South American summer monsoon. The resulting record has an average resolution of about 50 years, providing an unusually detailed view of changes across several glacial–interglacial cycles.

Stalagmites grow upwards as dripping water deposits minerals on cave floors. As they accumulate, their layers can preserve changes in oxygen-isotope composition that reflect the climatic history of the water reaching the cave. Uranium–thorium dating provides the chronology, while the oxygen isotopes provide evidence of past monsoon behaviour. These are complementary measurements: the researchers are reading a dated chemical archive, not simply assuming that every stalagmite grows at a constant rate.

Location of caves where speleothems were recovered.

Credit:Olson, E.J., et al (2026)

Comparison with Asian cave records reveals that the two monsoon systems generally varied in opposite directions, against a background of Milankovitch forcing — the changes in the distribution of incoming sunlight associated with Earth's orbital and axial cycles. But the relationship was not fixed. The researchers identified ten episodes of unusually synchronous behaviour, including during transitions out of ice ages. Changes in greenhouse gases, ocean temperatures and temperature differences between the hemispheres probably contributed to these departures from the usual pattern.

Some of those departures involved prolonged weakening of monsoons in both hemispheres. That matters because a rainfall system can sustain abundant life without being a guaranteed, permanently reliable water supply. The evidence describes a dynamic Earth whose climate responds to physical conditions, sometimes with disruptive consequences. It gives little comfort to the claim that our surroundings were perfectly arranged to ensure human wellbeing.

The chronological problem for biblical literalism is more direct still. A reconstruction extending across approximately 450,000 years reaches back roughly 75 times further than the familiar 6,000-year creationist chronology permits. The challenge is not merely to explain how mineral formations can grow, but to account for their dated chemical histories and the relationships between climate records on different continents. Once again, researchers investigating how the real world works have produced evidence profoundly incompatible with a literal reading of Genesis — without needing to make creationism the subject of their research.

Background^ Milankovitch Cycles — Earth's Changing Orbital Rhythms. Milankovitch cycles are long-term changes in Earth's orbit and the orientation of its rotational axis. Named after the Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovitch, who calculated their climatic effects, they alter the distribution of sunlight between seasons and latitudes. Their main climatic importance is therefore where and when solar energy arrives, rather than a large change in the total energy Earth receives each year.

Why does Earth's orbit change? Earth does not orbit an isolated Sun. Every planet exerts gravitational forces on the others, gradually changing the shapes and orientations of their orbits. These interactions produce overlapping, approximately repeating variations rather than one perfectly regular cycle. Jupiter and Saturn are particularly influential because of their enormous masses.

Earth's spin axis also responds to gravity. Rotation gives our planet a slight equatorial bulge, on which the Sun and Moon exert a gravitational turning force. Like a spinning top responding to gravity, Earth changes the direction of its axis. Meanwhile, planetary perturbations change the orientation of Earth's orbital plane. Together, these movements alter the relationship between its axis and its orbit.

The three main components

Eccentricity — changes in orbital shape. Earth's orbit varies between almost circular and slightly more elliptical. Important variations occur on timescales of approximately 100,000 years, with a prominent longer cycle of about 405,000 years. Greater eccentricity increases the difference between Earth's nearest and furthest distances from the Sun, strengthening the seasonal effects of precession.

Obliquity — changes in axial tilt. Earth's axis varies between approximately 22.1° and 24.5° from the perpendicular to its orbital plane, over about 41,000 years. Greater tilt increases seasonal contrasts, especially at high latitudes. Reduced tilt produces cooler high-latitude summers, helping winter snow survive and ice sheets accumulate.

Precession — changes in the direction of the axis. Earth's axis traces a slow circle relative to the stars in approximately 26,000 years. The orbital ellipse itself also turns. Together, these movements produce climatic precession cycles of roughly 19,000–23,000 years, changing whether a hemisphere's summer occurs nearer Earth's closest approach to the Sun or its greatest distance from it.

A useful distinction: Earth's axial tilt causes the annual seasons. Milankovitch cycles slowly modify their intensity and their relationship to Earth's position along its orbit.

How do these cycles affect climate? Summer conditions are particularly important for ice sheets. A cold winter can deliver abundant snow, but whether that snow survives depends on the following summer. If successive summers leave some snow unmelted, ice can accumulate. Expanding snow and ice then reflect more sunlight, amplifying the initial cooling. Changes in greenhouse gases and ocean circulation can further modify the response.

Monsoons also respond to changes in seasonal heating and atmospheric circulation. Precession can favour stronger summer heating in one hemisphere while reducing it in the other, helping explain why Asian and South American monsoon records often show opposing trends. However, ice sheets, greenhouse gases and ocean temperatures also influence rainfall, so the monsoons do not follow a simple astronomical timetable.

How do scientists test the explanation? Astronomical calculations predict changes in sunlight through time. Scientists compare those predictions with climate evidence preserved in marine sediments, ice cores and cave deposits. In the Peruvian study, uranium–thorium dates establish the stalagmites' chronology, while oxygen isotopes provide evidence of past monsoon behaviour. Agreement between these different kinds of evidence makes the explanation testable.

The resulting picture is of a planet governed by interacting physical processes across tens and hundreds of thousands of years. Even one of the shorter climatic precession cycles lasts several times longer than the entire history allowed by a conventional young-Earth creationist chronology.

NASA: Milankovitch cycles and their role in Earth's climate.
NOAA: Climate change and incoming sunlight.
Olson and colleagues: Interhemispheric monsoon dynamics over the past 450,000 years.

The research published in Nature is also described in a Union College news report:

Peruvian caves sound the alarm for global long-term drought, a team of researchers at Union discover
Caves in the tropical Peruvian Andes hold clues amassed over the past 450,000 years, which suggest a strong possibility for an alarming reduction in rainfall across a third of the globe, according to a new study.
The long-term drought is a troubling issue for the more than 2.7 billion people on Earth who depend on monsoon rains for fresh water.

The research was published this week in Nature, the world’s leading journal of peer-reviewed science research.

Elizabeth Olson, a former post-doctoral researcher in geosciences at Union, collecting drip waters inside Haugapo cave in the Peruvian Andes. Now a visiting professor of earth and environmental sciences at Wesleyan University, Olson is the lead author of new study that shows caves in the tropical Peruvian Andes hold clues amassed over the past 450,000 years which suggest a strong possibility for an alarming reduction in rainfall across a third of the globe. The research was published this week in Nature, the world’s leading journal of peer-reviewed science research.

The article is exciting because it provides scientists with a half-million-year rainfall history for most of the South American continent. The future of freshwater resources is increasingly uncertain as the human population grows and weather patterns shift in response to the changing climate. This record is very high-resolution, with an average resolution of 50 years. That resolution let us investigate changes between the South American and Asian monsoons at a scale that has never been accessible before.

Professor Elizabeth J. Olson, lead author.
Formerly - Union College, Schenectady, NY, USA.
Now - Wesleyan University, Connecticut, USA.

Caves in the tropical Peruvian Andes hold clues amassed over the past 450,000 years, which suggest a strong possibility for an alarming reduction in rainfall across a third of the globe, according to a new study. The long-term drought is a troubling issue for the more than 2.7 billion people on Earth who depend on monsoon rains for fresh water.

Elizabeth Olson, a former post-doctoral researcher in geosciences at Union, collecting drip waters inside Haugapo cave in the Peruvian Andes. Now a visiting professor of earth and environmental sciences at Wesleyan University, Olson is the lead author of new study that shows caves in the tropical Peruvian Andes hold clues amassed over the past 450,000 years which suggest a strong possibility for an alarming reduction in rainfall across a third of the globe. The research was published this week in Nature, the world’s leading journal of peer-reviewed science research.

Researchers spent six years examining cave stalagmites – mineral formations created by water dripping onto cave floors – to determine monsoon strength. Monsoon rainfall is the primary fresh water source for Earth’s most diverse ecosystems and for much of the Earth’s population.

Researchers sampled rainwater, cave drip water, air and rocks to determine the seasonality of stalagmite formation. At Union’s Stable Isotope Laboratory, they analyzed the samples’ isotopic composition to reconstruct monsoon strength over time. They discovered that the global monsoon system has periodically oscillated, strengthening in one hemisphere while weaking in the other. However, during intervals of warmth and warming climate, monsoons in both hemispheres failed for millennia.

These instances of monsoon systems collapsing in both hemispheres during intervals of natural warming are alarming, the study asserts, raising the likelihood of long-term drought.

The Southern and Northern Hemisphere monsoons are normally out of phase with each other but the record shows that there were times in the past when this was not the case. This means that there is a gap in our understanding of how these important systems work. In the article, we explore what might have caused that behavior. But this work has opened up a research area that will be explored for decades to come.

Professor Elizabeth J. Olson.

Co-authors include David Gillikin, the William D. Williams Professor of Geosciences and chair of the department; Osamu Miyawaki, assistant professor of geosciences; Laura Piccirillo ’20, a Ph.D. student at Duke; Donald Rodbell, the Jane and John Wold Professor of Geosciences; and Anouk Verheyden-Gillikin, senior lecturer in geosciences.

David Gillikin, the William D. Williams Professor of Geosciences and chair of the department, and Donald Rodbell, the Jane and John Wold Professor of Geosciences, with students Patrik O’Brien ’27, Lucy Andersen ’27, Sophia Gomes ’27 and Bess DiNorcia ’28 deep inside Pacupahuain cave in the Peruvian Andes.

In addition, the research was built on the senior thesis projects of 16 Union students over the past six years.

This is a prime example of how paleoclimatology can shed light on our climate future. Studying how the world has responded to warming episodes in Earth's distant past can inform us about what we might expect in our future. It is especially gratifying that so many of my colleagues in the Geoscience Department collaborated on this work, and that so many students participated through their senior thesis research projects.

Professor Donal T. Rodbell, co-author
Union College
Schenectady, NY, USA.

The latest research highlighted in Nature is part of an ongoing project, led by Rodbell and Gillikin, to develop the longest continuous paleoclimate record from the region known as the “heat engine” of Earth. Researchers are collecting lake sediments and cave deposits from the tropical Andes of Central Peru that hold important data about the Earth’s climate history and suggest what the future may hold.

Publication:
Olson, E.J., Gillikin, D.P., Parmenter, D. et al.
Interhemispheric monsoon dynamics over the past 450,000 years.
Nature 658, 943–950 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11166-3

Abstract
The global monsoon system provides freshwater to much of Earth’s biota, including its human population¹. The Milankovitch theory predicts changes in Earth’s solar insolation over geologic time, and these variations are expected to result in changes to the global monsoon². Internal climate forcings, such as ice cover and sea surface temperatures, may also affect the system. However, few records of monsoon variability in the Southern Hemisphere over glacial–interglacial cycles exist to test our understanding of the factors that drive variations in the global monsoon. Here we show that monsoons in both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres vary with Milankovitch forcing, and with internal boundary conditions over the past 450,000 years. We present a record of South American Summer Monsoon (SASM) variability, based on speleothem oxygen-isotope data from the Amazon Basin. South American Summer Monsoon variability and that of a major Northern Hemisphere monsoon—that is, the Asian monsoon^3,4—have been strikingly out of phase. However, we observe occasional synchronous behaviour in regions impacted by both monsoons. We identify a synchronicity threshold that is exceeded during ten events, including during glacial terminations. Comparison with palaeoclimatic forcing factors during these intervals indicates that greenhouse gas concentrations, cross-equatorial thermal gradients and sea surface temperatures in both the Atlantic and Pacific probably influence these events. This record demonstrates that the global monsoon can reorganize itself, especially during intervals of rapidly changing planetary boundary conditions.

Olson, E.J., Gillikin, D.P., Parmenter, D. et al.
Interhemispheric monsoon dynamics over the past 450,000 years.
Nature 658, 943–950 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11166-3

copy; 2026 Springer Nature Ltd.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Once again, scientists investigating an aspect of the natural world have produced evidence that incidentally demolishes the young-Earth creationist chronology. These stalagmites preserve a climate history extending back approximately 450,000 years, with changes that can be compared with records from another continent and understood in the context of Earth's orbital cycles. This is not simply a question of accepting an inconvenient date: it is a question of explaining the agreement between radiometric dating, cave chemistry, climate records and celestial mechanics.

The planet revealed by this research is also far removed from the reassuring picture of an environment perfectly arranged for human welfare. Rainfall systems respond to changing seasonal sunlight, ocean temperatures, greenhouse gases and ice cover. They can shift substantially, and the usual relationship between monsoons in opposite hemispheres can break down. A world capable of supporting human life is plainly not the same thing as a world engineered to guarantee its inhabitants reliable water supplies.

Nor does the discovery that the monsoons sometimes departed from their usual pattern undermine the scientific explanation. Those departures are precisely what make the findings valuable: they reveal where a simple account is insufficient and identify further processes that researchers need to investigate. Science advances by examining such complications and revising its models accordingly. Biblical literalism, by contrast, requires the evidence to accommodate a chronology fixed before the investigation begins.

The researchers did not need to invoke supernatural intervention to explain the record, nor did they need to set out to refute Genesis. They asked how Earth's climate behaved, measured the evidence and compared competing physical explanations. The embarrassment for creationism arises because the answers describe a real history that its preferred story cannot accommodate.

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Unintelligent Design - Discovering The Rules Of Evolutionary Arms Races - No Intelligence Found

2026-10-24T16:36:56.417+01:00

Uncovering the Rules of a Genetic Arms Race | HHMI

Creationists who claim that biologists are abandoning the Theory of Evolution in favour of intelligent design might benefit from looking at what biologists actually do, if only they could find the courage to read some actual science.

A good place to start would be the research of Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Harmit Malik and his colleagues, who investigate how genetic conflicts drive evolutionary change. Here, evolution is a working scientific framework: it supplies questions, generates testable predictions and helps researchers explain their experimental results.

No supernatural designer is required.

A study led by Tamanash Bhattacharya and published in Science Advances describes this research programme. Working with Sindbis virus, the researchers investigated how an unusual genetic stop signal helps the virus evade its hosts’ immune defences.

This signal, known as the opal stop codon, helps maintain the integrity of tiny compartments in which the virus copies its RNA, shielding that RNA from immune detection. Its importance therefore depends on the opposition the virus encounters. In mosquito cells with functioning antiviral defences, selection strongly favoured viruses carrying the stop signal. Within five days — approximately 24 rounds of replication — viruses that had regained it almost completely replaced a variant lacking it. When the relevant host defence was disabled, the selective advantage changed, and variants without the stop signal could prevail.

That is evolution measured in the laboratory: heritable variation, differential reproductive success and a resulting change in the genetic composition of a population. The experiment reveals a mechanism through which host immunity shapes viral evolution. It also illustrates why “fitness” has no meaning independently of circumstances. A genetic variant advantageous in one environment can become disadvantageous when that environment changes.

Such conflicts make straightforward sense in evolutionary terms. Hosts benefit from restricting infection, while viruses benefit from overcoming those restrictions. Over evolutionary time, adaptations on either side can impose selection for counter-adaptations on the other. There is no foresight, agreed destination or concern for the welfare of the opposing side — simply competing lineages leaving different numbers of descendants.

For the notion of a single, omniscient, benevolent designer, however, this raises an awkward question. Why devise an immune system to detect and suppress a virus, then equip the virus with a mechanism for concealing itself from that same immune system? What coherent protective purpose is served by supplying both the defence and the means of defeating it? Invoking an inscrutable intention can accommodate any outcome, but it explains none of the experimental detail and supplies no competing prediction.

As I discuss in my books, The Unintelligent Designer: Refuting the Intelligent Design Hoax and Unintelligently Designed Arms Races: How Nature Refutes Intelligent Design, these recurrent conflicts are precisely what we should expect from evolution without an overarching plan. Attributing them to one designer instead makes that designer responsible for undermining its own supposed protective arrangements. Treating today's solutions as problems to be overcome with fresh solutions tomorrow, ad infinitum, is the antithesis of intelligent design, but the predictable outcome of blind evolution.

Meanwhile, scientists continue to use evolutionary theory to discover how these systems work. This research provides a concrete example of that theory’s continuing productivity, whatever creationist publicity might claim.

Evolutionary Arms Races^ Why Neither Side Wins for Good. An evolutionary arms race develops when an adaptation in one lineage creates selection pressure for a counter-adaptation in another. Hosts evolve defences against infection; pathogens evolve ways of evading or overcoming those defences. Each can change the conditions under which the other must survive and reproduce.

The military terminology is a metaphor. Neither side plans its next move, recognises a problem or deliberately invents a solution. Mutations and other sources of genetic variation arise without regard to what an organism needs. Natural selection then favours heritable variants that leave more descendants under the prevailing conditions.

How the cycle works

Variation already exists or arises: some hosts resist infection more effectively than others, while some pathogen variants are better at infecting particular hosts.

Selection changes the population: if resistance improves survival and reproduction, the responsible host variants can become more common.

The selective environment changes: pathogens now encounter more resistant hosts, favouring variants capable of overcoming that resistance.

Counter-adaptation becomes advantageous: successful pathogen variants can, in turn, favour further changes in host defences.

This reciprocal evolutionary change is called coevolution. However, demonstrating that a pathogen adapts to a host defence is not, by itself, evidence that both sides evolved during the same experiment. Establishing reciprocal change requires evidence from both lineages.

The Red Queen: Running to Stay in the Same Place

The Red Queen hypothesis takes its name from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, in which running can be necessary merely to remain in the same place. In evolutionary biology, the analogy describes how a lineage may need to keep evolving to maintain its relative success because the organisms with which it interacts are also evolving.

A defence that worked well against yesterday’s pathogens may work less well against their descendants. Likewise, a pathogen’s successful means of entry may become less effective as resistant host variants spread. Evolution has no final, universally optimal solution because the conditions favouring any particular solution can change.

Nor must every arms race produce ever greater complexity or an endless escalation. Adaptations can carry costs, resistance can remain incomplete, and different variants can rise and fall in frequency. Sometimes losing or reducing a feature is advantageous. Extinction, changes in host use and ecological shifts can also alter or end a particular contest.

Fitness Depends on the Opposition

In evolutionary biology, fitness means reproductive success relative to other variants in a particular environment. It does not mean strength, sophistication or perfection.

A viral feature that helps conceal its RNA from a host’s immune machinery may be advantageous when that machinery is functioning. If the relevant defence is absent, the benefit can disappear, and a different variant may reproduce more successfully. The host’s defences are therefore part of the virus’s selective environment.

Different Evolutionary Timescales

Viruses can pass through many replication cycles within a single host generation. Large populations and rapid replication can give selection repeated opportunities to favour advantageous variants. Hosts, however, are not starting from scratch: their populations already contain inherited variation, and they possess multiple layers of defence.

It is also important to distinguish an immune response within an individual from evolution across host generations. Switching on antiviral genes during an infection does not mean that the host population has evolved. Population-level evolution involves changes in inherited characteristics across generations.

What the Sindbis Virus Study Shows

The researchers demonstrated rapid viral evolution under selection imposed by host immunity. Different viral variants prospered depending on whether a particular antiviral defence was functioning. This reveals one part of the machinery of an evolutionary arms race; it does not mean that the mosquitoes and viruses completed a reciprocal cycle of coevolution during the experiment.

Brief Glossary

Selection pressure

An environmental influence that causes heritable variants to differ in survival or reproductive success.

Fitness

Relative reproductive success in a particular environment.

Adaptation

A heritable feature shaped by natural selection because it improves reproductive success under particular conditions; also the process producing such features.

Coevolution

Reciprocal evolutionary change in interacting lineages, each imposing selection on the other.

Study: Bhattacharya and colleagues, Science Advances: “A conserved in-frame stop codon acts as a multipotent defense mechanism in alphaviruses”.
The Unintelligent Designer: Refuting the Intelligent Design Hoax
Unintelligently Designed Arms Races: How Nature Refutes Intelligent Design

The study published open access in Science Advances was announced in a news release from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute:

Surveying the Genetic Battlefield to Uncover the Rules of Rapid Evolution
HHMI Investigator Harmit Malik and his team are studying how viruses and proteins rapidly evolve to keep up with their foes, providing insights that could inform the development of new antivirals.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

HHMI Investigator Harmit Malik and his team study genetic conflicts, like virus-host competitions, to understand how different players rapidly evolve to maximize their own success.
In new research, the team discovered how alphaviruses have evolved a strategy to successfully infect both mosquitoes and humans. Uncovering the strategies molecular rivals employ in these conflicts could help researchers develop new ways to combat diseases, including new antiviral medications.

The Malik Lab thrives on competition. But for HHMI Investigator Harmit Malik and his team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, it’s the genomes — not the people — that are in conflict.

The lab studies rapid evolution — the genetic changes that happen in a species over a few generations rather than thousands of years. These fast changes are often fueled by genetic conflicts — competitions between different entities trying to maximize their success at the expense of another.

By uncovering the evolutionary rules that guide these conflicts, Malik and his team are revealing insights that could help in the development of better disease treatments.

Not only do these rules help us to look back in evolution and understand how these arms races played out, but these rules also let us look forward and come up with new strategies.

Harmit S. Malik, co author
Basic Sciences Division
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Seattle, WA, USA.

Discovering a Viral Thermometer

One of the competitions the lab studies is the conflict between mosquito-borne alphaviruses like Sindbis and Chikungunya and their hosts. These viruses are successful at infecting both insects and humans despite the different body temperatures and immune systems of these hosts. The team, including postdoc Tamanash Bhattacharya, recently uncovered a carefully calibrated system that helps enable this versatility. A special stop codon in the virus’s genome, which signals the cell to halt protein production, enables a “kinetic goldilocks”: It allows the virus to produce just enough of a critical polyprotein to survive, but not too much to slow down other processes that would lead to a decline in the virus’s fitness.

In humans, where body temperatures are hotter and replication happens quickly, the virus relies on this codon, called the opal codon, to enable this production balancing act. In mosquitoes, where temperatures are colder and replication slows down, this balancing act isn’t necessary, and the virus does not need to rely on this special stop codon.

HHMI Investigator Harmit Malik (center) with Jeremy Hollis (left) and Tamanash Bhattacharya (right) are working to understand how viruses and proteins rapidly evolve.

Credit: Aida de la Cruz.

Hiding from the Immune System

These insights led the team to another question: Why is the opal codon still found in alphaviruses that only infect mosquitoes, even though its special properties aren’t needed? In new research, also led by Bhattacharya, the team found that in both humans and insects, the opal codon enables the virus to create a compartment where it can replicate without being seen by the host’s immune system. If the opal codon is lost, viral replication becomes more visible and more susceptible to host immunity.
This is one of the simplest and most elegant ways to hide yourself from immunity, and the fact that it is universally conserved in alphaviruses just reinforces how important it is.

Harmit S. Malik.

Now, the team is working to understand other built-in strategies these viruses use to thrive in different hosts, including the ability to quickly ramp up fitness in one host at the expense of the other.
Learning the rules by which they do this gives us insight into the sheer adaptive possibilities that these genomes can experience. That’s important because any attempts to make new antivirals will have to take this into account.”.

Harmit S. Malik.

Evolution of Essential Genes

It might seem counterintuitive, but essential genes that organisms need to survive, grow, and reproduce are often among the fastest evolving. The Malik Lab is uncovering these changes and why they occur.

New research, led by graduate student Jeremy Hollis, examines HJURP, a chaperone protein that marks the centromere, the site where chromosomes are pulled apart during cell division. Despite its importance, scientists couldn’t find HJURP in many animals. The Malik Lab used remote homology detection, AlphaFold-based structural modeling, and functional genetic techniques to show that most animals do have HJURP. Because the protein evolves so rapidly, possibly to keep pace with other fast-changing centromere components, conventional tools couldn’t detect it.
Separate research, led by former postdoc Ching-Ho Chang, investigated Mst77F, a protamine that packages DNA in fruit fly sperm. Protamines, which are essential for male fertility, are among the fastest-evolving genes in animals, and scientists couldn’t figure out why. The Malik Lab found that Mst77F is rapidly evolving to suppress a form of genetic cheating that kills X-bearing sperm and skews broods toward sons.

Publication:
Tamanash Bhattacharya et al.
A conserved in-frame stop codon acts as a multipotent defense mechanism in alphaviruses.
Sci. Adv. 12, eaee6015 (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aee6015

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Abstract
Most alphaviruses maintain an in-frame opal stop codon that interrupts their nonstructural polyprotein (nsP) ORF between nsP3 and nsP4 in both vertebrate and insect hosts. We show that the nsP3 opal stop codon confers a replicative advantage to Sindbis virus (SINV) in RNAi-competent Aedes cells and mosquitoes but not in RNAi-deficient cells or mosquitoes. Mutation of the opal stop codon delays processing of the viral nsP polyprotein, disrupts viral replication spherule integrity, and renders viral RNA susceptible to Dicer 2 cleavage, resulting in higher antiviral siRNA responses against SINV. Similarly, these defects caused by opal codon mutations lead to increased viral RNA detection and enhanced immune signaling in vertebrate cells. Thus, a single stop codon in alphaviruses mediates a multipotent viral strategy to evade innate immune defenses across diverse hosts.

Tamanash Bhattacharya et al.
A conserved in-frame stop codon acts as a multipotent defense mechanism in alphaviruses.
Sci. Adv. 12, eaee6015 (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aee6015

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Far from showing biologists abandoning the Theory of Evolution, this research shows them using it to ask productive questions and obtain experimentally testable answers. Why is a particular genetic feature retained? Under what conditions does it confer an advantage? What happens when the selective pressure changes? These are evolutionary questions, and the results make sense in terms of mutation, inheritance and differential reproductive success. Intelligent design contributes no additional explanatory mechanism.

The speed of the observed changes also exposes the familiar misconception that evolution is necessarily too slow to observe. Here, substantial changes in the genetic composition of viral populations occurred within days. The researchers did not merely identify a useful viral feature and invent a plausible story about it: they investigated how its advantage depended on the host’s antiviral defences. Evolution was something they could measure, and the selective environment helped explain its direction.

For intelligent design creationism, the deeper difficulty is the conflict itself. The same putative designer must receive credit for the host’s protective machinery and for the viral mechanism that helps evade it. Praising the ingenuity of one while ignoring the other simply conceals the contradiction. As I discuss in The Unintelligent Designer and Unintelligently Designed Arms Races: How Nature Refutes Intelligent Design, attributing both sides to a single, omniscient, benevolent agency turns biological defence into an exercise in deliberate self-sabotage.

Evolution requires no such contortions. What benefits the virus need not benefit its host, and natural selection has no responsibility to reconcile their competing interests. There is no shared plan and no foresight — only heritable differences whose consequences depend on the circumstances. Once again, scientists investigating how nature works have produced findings that are readily intelligible within evolutionary biology, while leaving creationists to explain why their supposedly intelligent designer keeps undermining its own work.

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Refuting Creationism - Self-Assembly of A Complex Protein Without a Plan - No Magic Required!

2026-10-23T23:24:51.781+01:00

New method reveals how virus particles can build themselves, molecule by molecule | Oxford University

One of creationism’s favourite arguments depends on treating chemistry as a lottery in which every conceivable molecular arrangement is equally likely, and the winning combination must appear in a single lucky throw. Count enough possible combinations, announce an astronomical improbability, and declare that a supernatural designer must have intervened. Apart from the obvious false dichotomy fallacy, What this argument ignores is precisely what matters: molecules have physical and chemical properties that make some interactions more likely than others, and complex structures can assemble through successive intermediate stages, in a process that parallels the trial and error of evolution.

Research by scientists at the University of Oxford provides a striking illustration. In a study published open access in Nature, the team followed the assembly of an engineered virus-like particle containing 60 protein units. Using a technique that measures molecular mass through scattered light, they tracked individual particles as they grew. The advance was being able to observe the intermediate steps of a process whose beginning and end are much easier to study.

The components initially form weak, reversible associations. Unstable arrangements can break apart, leaving their components available for further encounters. Certain closed arrangements, however, gain stability through multiple connections. These become intermediate stages from which assembly can proceed. The result is a physically constrained pathway through a huge range of possibilities, without machinery directing the placement of every component, all depending on the relative strengths and weaknesses of chemical bonds.

There is an instructive parallel here with evolution, provided we recognise its limits. Molecular assembly does not involve reproduction, inherited variation and differential reproductive success, so it is not Darwinian evolution. Nevertheless, both expose the weakness of imagining that a complex outcome must arise in one wholly random step. “Trial and error” is useful shorthand: unsuccessful arrangements need not persist, while stable intermediates can support further construction. Neither molecules nor natural selection need to anticipate the eventual result.

A useful analogy is that of a jigsaw puzzle: it is perfectly possible to complete the picture by trying out pieces in turn until one fits, then moving on to another piece. As the puzzle grows the number of possible places to try the next piece increases until eventually the whole picture is complete. This is a vastly different process to the creationist parody of simply shaking up the pieces in the box then checking to see if the puzzle has completed yet. And the process works regardless of the eventual picture.

The relevance to prebiotic chemistry is similarly a matter of principle. This experiment did not recreate the origin of life, and its engineered proteins should not be mistaken for molecules freshly formed on the early Earth. It does, however, illustrate why calculations that ignore chemical interactions and intermediate stages cannot establish that natural assembly is effectively impossible. Whether a particular prebiotic pathway worked requires evidence about its actual chemistry, rather than arithmetic based on an imaginary lottery.

Nor does the fact that researchers engineered the experimental system establish that natural systems require a supernatural engineer. The experiment addresses how suitable components assemble; it does not settle how those components originally arose. Its challenge to creationist rhetoric is more precise: an impressive finished structure need not require an external agent to supervise its construction. Before declaring such assembly impossible, creationists would first need to account for what the molecules actually do.

Why ‘Astronomically Improbable’ Calculations Get Molecular Self-Assembly Wrong. How likely is it that a complex molecular structure could assemble without anyone directing the process? That depends on how assembly actually works. A calculation which assumes that every possible arrangement is equally likely, and that the finished structure must appear in one step, may produce an enormous number. But it describes an imaginary lottery, not necessarily a chemical process.

Molecules are not interchangeable lottery balls

Molecules have particular shapes, electrical charges and chemical properties. These influence which interactions occur and how long they last. Consequently, different arrangements are not equally probable. Counting all conceivable combinations without accounting for these differences cannot establish the probability of a particular structure forming.

The structure need not appear all at once

Self-assembly can proceed through intermediate stages. Components join, separate and rearrange, while sufficiently stable structures can provide starting points for further assembly. Calculating the chance of all the components arriving simultaneously in their final positions therefore asks the wrong question.

Weak connections can make assembly more reliable

A connection that can come apart is not necessarily a defect. Reversible interactions allow components to leave unstable arrangements and participate in further encounters. Conversely, several connections acting together can stabilise a particular structure. In the Oxford study, closed arrangements provided relatively stable intermediate stages along the assembly pathway.

‘Trial and error’ is a convenient description of this behaviour, but it does not imply awareness or purpose. Molecules neither recognise mistakes nor know what they are building. Their behaviour follows physical interactions under the conditions around them. Weak bonds are naturally replaced by stronger ones.

Self-assembly and evolution are different processes

Both undermine the assumption that complexity must emerge in a single lucky event, but they should not be confused:

Molecular self-assembly occurs when components associate into structures through their physical and chemical interactions.

Darwinian evolution involves heritable variation and differences in reproductive success across generations.

Abiogenesis concerns the emergence of living systems from non-living chemistry. Self-assembly is relevant to that problem, but self-assembly alone is not life.

What does this experiment establish?

The researchers studied an engineered virus-like particle made from existing proteins. They did not produce life from simple prebiotic ingredients or establish how the first proteins arose. Their work reveals how suitable components can assemble through a restricted set of relatively stable intermediates, despite the many arrangements theoretically available.

This does not mean that every proposed natural assembly process is probable. It means that probability must be assessed using the actual interactions, concentrations, conditions and timescales involved.

The central lesson: an astronomical number of conceivable arrangements is not evidence that natural assembly is astronomically unlikely. A probability calculation must describe the process nature actually uses.

University of Oxford: observing virus-like particle self-assembly.
Asor and colleagues, Nature (2026).

The paper in Nature was accompanied by a news item from Oxford University:

New method reveals how virus particles can build themselves, molecule by molecule
Oxford University researchers have captured the step-by-step assembly of individual virus-like particles, revealing how simple molecular interactions can reliably build these complex biological structures. The results have been published today in Nature.
Understanding how viruses assemble – and what can disrupt this process – could ultimately help researchers design novel antiviral treatments, as well as engineer vaccines and other therapies. The new study provides a molecular-level view of how the protein shells associated with viruses can spontaneously and reliably assemble from their individual components, even when there are thousands of possible ways for these to fit together.

The study found that the process works rather like finding a route through a maze in which only the productive turns lock into place. Protein building blocks initially make weak, reversible connections, allowing unsuccessful arrangements to fall apart and be tried again. But when the proteins form particular closed structures, their multiple connections make them much more stable. These structures act as a small number of molecular waypoints, progressively funnelling an otherwise highly complex process towards the completed particle.

A crucial moment occurs when five larger protein building blocks form a closed pentagonal ring - the first particularly stable structure in the pathway. After this step, fewer protein building blocks are needed to reach each new stable stage, allowing the assembly process to speed up.
A virus has to solve an extraordinary construction problem. Its components somehow have to find the right arrangement among a huge number of possibilities, without a blueprint or machinery directing the process. We can now watch what happens molecule by molecule and see the physical rules that make it possible.

Dr Roi Asor, co-lead author
Department of Chemistry and Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK.

Capturing a molecular construction process

Viruses protect their genetic material inside precisely organised protein shells called capsids. These structures can contain tens or even thousands of protein components, yet in many viruses their building blocks spontaneously assemble into the correct shape.

Scientists have studied this process for decades, but observing it directly has proved extremely difficult. Crucial intermediate structures are scarce and often short-lived, meaning that conventional experiments can show researchers what is present before and after assembly without necessarily revealing the molecular steps connecting the two.

The Oxford team tackled this problem using an engineered virus-like particle made from 60 protein units. They combined mass photometry, a technology developed at Oxford that measures the mass of individual molecules by detecting the light they scatter, with a new method for confining individual molecules so that they could be observed continuously. This allowed the team to effectively ‘weigh’ a particle repeatedly as new protein components joined it, revealing its growth step by step.

This method lets us study the assembly process directly, we just take a video!

Dan Loewenthal, so-first author
Department of Chemistry and Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK.

The findings explain how an assembly process with an enormous number of theoretically possible routes can be channelled through a relatively small number of productive stages. They also reveal why the difficult initial step, known as nucleation, is followed by much faster growth once assembly is underway.

The weak interactions give the system room to make mistakes. Most encounters don't have to be successful: the components can separate and try again. But once enough of them come together in the right closed arrangement, the structure becomes stable and assembly can move forward. That combination of trial and error followed by locking in successful structures is what makes the process so reliable.

Dr Roi Asor.

Until now, much of our understanding of how these structures assemble has had to be reconstructed from snapshots or theoretical models. Being able to both quantify the underlying interactions and follow one particle as it grows changes that. We can see the important intermediate structures appear and deduce a detailed model of the construction process.

Professor Philipp Kukura, co-lead author
Department of Chemistry and Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK.

The ability to understand these processes at the molecular level could have important applications in vaccine development and antivirals that disrupt viral assembly.

Dr Jack Tan, co-author
MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine and CAMS-Oxford Institute.
Oxford, UK.

Publication:
Asor, R., Loewenthal, D., Melnyk, D. et al.
Molecular-level observation of the self-assembly of a virus-like particle.
Nature 657, 653–660 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10948-z

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Abstract
Biomolecular assembly is a cornerstone of cellular organization. Revealing its underlying principles is essential for understanding biological function^1,2 and malfunction in disease^3,4. Viral capsid assembly is the archetypal self-assembly system^5,6,7, which has been central in establishing the fundamental principles underpinning biomolecular assembly and the development of new biomaterials^8,9,10 and therapeutics^11,12. Yet, despite decades of experimental efforts, observation and quantification of virus self-assembly pathways and dynamics have remained elusive¹³. Here we combine mass photometry (MP)¹⁴ with a single-molecule trapping method to monitor the real-time assembly of individual virus-like particles (VLPs) with molecular resolution. We show that weak and reversible multivalent interactions control the assembly process by facilitating stochastic selection of a limited set of on-path, topologically closed intermediate structures. Assembly is finely tuned by the transition rates between these intermediates, proceeding through a sequence of effectively irreversible first-passage events. The corresponding first-passage times arise from the VLP symmetry, creating temporal separation between the formation of the first topologically closed intermediate and subsequent elongation. This results in a nucleation-and-growth mechanism that yields an equilibrium distribution consistent with the law of mass action, despite the overall irreversibility of assembly. Characterization of the thermodynamics and kinetics of the process reveals how the system specifically assembles into one final structure with high fidelity despite thousands of available assembly intermediates. More broadly, our approach provides a general framework for visualizing and quantifying the dynamics of multimeric biological machines at the molecular level.

Fig. 1: Equilibrium characterization of the self-assembly process.

a, Illustration of the self-assembly process for the mi3-based dodecahedral VLP. b,c, Equilibrium solution mass distributions at two different mi3-monomer concentrations. Insets show representative MP images. Scale bars, 1 µm. Mass histograms are shown on linear (top), semilogarithmic (middle) and mass fraction (bottom) scales. Black lines correspond to the sum of three fitted Gaussian functions for the mi3-monomer, mi3-trimer and VLP. d, Experimental mass fractions for the mi3-monomer (green), mi3-trimer (orange) and assembled mi3-VLP (blue) as a function of the total protein concentration. Symbols and error bars correspond to the average and standard deviation, respectively, of three technical repeats per concentration. Solid lines correspond to a global fit (Supplementary Note 2) varying the standard free energy change for pairwise interactions between monomers (ΔG⁰₍₁₎) and trimers (ΔG⁰₍₂₎), and shaded colours and fitting errors correspond to 95% confidence interval of the fit. The expected linear relation between the total mi3-monomer concentration and the total detected mi3-monomers (Supplementary Fig. 4) is maintained, suggesting similar detection probability for all oligomeric species.

Asor, R., Loewenthal, D., Melnyk, D. et al.
Molecular-level observation of the self-assembly of a virus-like particle.
Nature 657, 653–660 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10948-z

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The important lesson here is that molecular complexity cannot be assessed by counting conceivable arrangements and assuming that nature must try them all with equal probability. Real molecules interact according to their physical and chemical properties. Reversible associations allow unstable arrangements to break apart, while relatively stable intermediates provide routes towards larger structures. What looks impossibly unlikely in a creationist calculation can become entirely explicable once the calculation is replaced by an investigation of the actual process.

This experiment did not recreate the origin of life, nor was it an example of Darwinian evolution occurring in a test tube. It used an engineered protein system to investigate self-assembly. Nevertheless, it exposes a fundamental weakness in arguments which treat natural processes as a single, blind throw of the dice. Neither chemical self-assembly nor evolution requires the finished product to appear in one step, and neither requires foresight. The mechanisms differ, but in both cases the history of intermediate stages matters.

There is also a crucial distinction between explaining how suitable components assemble and explaining how those components originated. The fact that researchers engineered this experimental system does not establish that naturally occurring systems require supernatural engineering; equally, observing its self-assembly does not, by itself, explain the origin of its proteins. A sound scientific argument recognises those limits. Creationist claims of impossibility, however, must also confront the evidence that intricate structures can assemble without anyone supervising the placement of their components.

Once again, science advances by replacing an apparent mystery with a testable account of what happens. Researchers measure interactions, observe intermediate structures and refine their explanations. Invoking an invisible designer contributes no comparable mechanism and makes no contribution to understanding the assembly process. The productive question is not who tells the molecules where to go, but what properties of the molecules explain where they end up.

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Unintelligent Design News - How RNA Can Harm The Cell - Incompetence, Malevolence Or Evolution?

2026-10-23T14:03:50.338+01:00

Too much RNA can starve cells of energy, study finds – Texas A&M Stories

What sort of omniscient designer would make a cell dependent on a molecule that, when allowed to accumulate, can damage its energy-generating machinery? Presumably, one who could foresee the problem would also be capable of avoiding it. Yet research from Texas A&M University reveals precisely this vulnerability: RNA, indispensable to the functioning of living cells, can interfere with mitochondrial energy production when its abundance escapes normal control.

The findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) concern the relationship between RNA turnover and mitochondrial function. Messenger RNA carries instructions used to manufacture proteins, but those messages must also be broken down. The researchers found that this disposal process does more than regulate gene expression: it helps protect the machinery that supplies much of a cell’s usable energy.

Working with vaccinia virus, the team found that disrupting the breakdown of RNA allowed it to accumulate and severely impaired mitochondrial respiration. Further experiments showed that excess messenger RNA and double-stranded RNA could impair mitochondria even outside intact cells. The effect therefore did not require the usual antiviral immune responses. Excess RNA reduced mitochondrial membrane potential, a crucial component of the energy gradient used to make ATP. Precisely how RNA produces this disruption remains to be established.

This is not a case of cells having no safeguards. They have elaborate systems for controlling RNA abundance. The difficulty for intelligent design is that an essential component can become a threat to another essential component, leaving the cell dependent on continual regulation and clearance. Calling the safeguards evidence of brilliant design merely invites the question of why an all-knowing, all-powerful designer chose an arrangement with this vulnerability in the first place.

There is no comparable puzzle for evolution. Natural selection has no foresight, no drawing board and no opportunity to start again with an entirely different biochemistry. It acts on heritable variation in existing systems, favouring changes whose effects improve reproductive success under prevailing conditions. Benefits can outweigh costs without eliminating them, and a mechanism that works adequately under ordinary circumstances can remain vulnerable when conditions change. This study illustrates such a vulnerability; it does not establish the precise historical trade-offs that produced it.

There is an additional irony. Poxviruses also benefit from RNA clearance because they depend on the infected cell’s machinery to reproduce. Keeping that machinery functioning can serve the parasite as well as the host. This makes sense as the outcome of competing evolutionary interests. For anyone insisting that a benevolent, omniscient designer deliberately planned the entire arrangement, however, both the vulnerability and its exploitation require rather more explanation.

Why cells must destroy the RNA they need. RNA is indispensable to life, but a cell cannot function simply by making it and allowing it to accumulate. Healthy cells continually produce, use and dismantle RNA. Maintaining the appropriate balance — known as RNA homeostasis — is an essential part of regulating their activity.

Why RNA is essential

Messenger RNA (mRNA) carries information copied from DNA to the ribosomes, where that information is used to assemble proteins. Other types of RNA help to build the ribosomes, deliver amino acids during protein synthesis, or regulate gene activity. Some RNA molecules even catalyse chemical reactions.

Different RNAs have different working lifetimes. Some remain functional for relatively long periods, while others are rapidly broken down. This variation is part of how cells control their internal chemistry.

Why messages need an expiry date

An mRNA molecule can be read repeatedly to produce multiple copies of a protein. Its abundance and lifespan therefore help determine how much of that protein a cell makes. Removing messages that are no longer needed allows the cell to change its protein production as conditions change.

RNA degradation also provides quality control. Defective or incorrectly processed messages can interfere with normal protein production, so cells have mechanisms that recognise and remove many of them. RNA disposal is therefore part of normal cellular function, rather than merely an emergency response.

How cells clear away RNA

Enzymes called ribonucleases cut RNA into smaller pieces or dismantle it progressively from its ends. For many cellular mRNAs, degradation involves shortening a protective tail or removing a protective cap before further breakdown. The resulting components can enter cellular recycling pathways.

These processes are regulated: a cell must retain useful RNA long enough for it to do its job while preventing unwanted molecules from accumulating.

What has this to do with energy?

Mitochondria produce much of the ATP used by many of our cells. Their respiratory machinery establishes an electrochemical gradient across the inner mitochondrial membrane. The flow of protons back across that membrane through ATP synthase helps drive ATP production.

The Texas A&M study found that excessive RNA accumulation can impair mitochondrial respiration and reduce membrane potential. Experiments with isolated mitochondria showed that the effect did not require an intact cell or its antiviral immune response. The precise molecular interactions responsible remain under investigation.

Why viruses complicate the balance

Viral infection can alter both RNA production and its removal. Vaccinia virus produces enzymes that help accelerate RNA degradation in cooperation with the host cell’s machinery. When this clearance was disrupted in the experiments, RNA accumulated and mitochondrial function deteriorated.

As the university’s account explains, maintaining a functioning host cell can also benefit the virus, which depends on that cell for energy and protein production. RNA clearance can therefore support cellular function while also helping an infection to continue.

Brief glossary

mRNA:
Messenger RNA; a temporary template used to make a protein.

RNA degradation:
The enzymatic breakdown of RNA.

Mitochondria:
Cellular structures with major roles in energy metabolism.

ATP:
Adenosine triphosphate; a molecule whose chemical reactions supply usable energy for many cellular processes.

Homeostasis:
The active maintenance of internal conditions within a functional range.

The paper in PNAS was announced in a Texas A&M University news report:

Too much RNA can starve cells of energy, study finds
Researchers uncover a link between excess RNA and mitochondrial damage — revealing new insights into viral infections, aging and RNA-based therapeutics.
A new study from researchers at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) has uncovered a previously unknown consequence of viral infection: too much RNA inside a cell can disrupt its ability to produce energy.

Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study found that when excess RNA builds up inside cells during poxvirus infection, it can impair mitochondria — the structures responsible for generating most of a cell’s energy — reducing the cell’s ability to function normally.

The discovery could have broad implications for understanding viral infections, aging-related diseases, and RNA-based therapeutics, including mRNA vaccines, because excess RNA can accumulate in each of these conditions.

Scientists have long known that RNA degradation helps control protein production and remove defective RNA. Our study reveals another important role: it helps cells maintain the energy they need to function properly.

Professor Dr. Zhilong Yang, senior author
Department of Veterinary Pathobiology
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Texas A&M University, TX, USA.

The findings suggest that RNA degradation serves a broader purpose than scientists once realized. In addition to controlling protein production, RNA quality control, and helping cells regulate immune responses, it also helps protect the cell’s ability to generate energy.

When RNA builds up inside cells

RNA exists in many forms. Messenger RNA (mRNA) carries the genetic instructions the cells use to make proteins, which help cells perform their normal functions. Another form, double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), is commonly produced during viral infections and alerts the immune system that something is wrong.

During viral infection, viruses can produce large amounts of RNA. If cells cannot break down the excess RNA quickly enough, the buildup can damage mitochondria and reduce the cell’s ability to generate energy.

While scientists already know that excess dsRNA can trigger immune responses and the cell’s need to control dsRNA levels, the effects of mRNA came as a surprise.

MRNA is a normal component of our cells, but it seems like with many good things, if we get too much, that can become a problem for the cell. When too much RNA builds up, including mRNA, it can damage the mitochondria and interfere with the cell’s ability to produce energy.

Professor Dr. Zhilong Yang.

Viruses, meanwhile, rely entirely on host cells for energy and protein production, but producing too much viral RNA can overwhelm the very cells viruses depend on to survive.

Yang explained that poxviruses — the family of viruses that includes smallpox and mpox — appear to use RNA cleanup systems to degrade RNAs and keep infected cells functioning long enough for the virus to continue replicating.

If the cell is not healthy, the virus would not replicate well. The virus needs to keep RNA levels balanced inside the cell.

Professor Dr. Zhilong Yang.

A novel effect on mitochondria

The researchers initially thought the mitochondrial damage was likely caused by immune responses triggered by excess RNA, since certain forms of RNA are known to alert the body’s defenses during infection.

When we isolated only the mitochondria and added RNA, we still saw mitochondrial damage. That was the moment we realized this could be a previously unknown cellular response to RNA.

Dr. Djamal Brahim Belhaouari, first author,
Department of Veterinary Pathobiology
College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Texas A&M University, TX, USA.

The team also found that mitochondrial impairment occurred before major immune responses were activated and did not depend on the immune system’s usual response to infection, further supporting the idea that RNA itself contributes to the damage.

We think the negatively charged RNA may accumulate around mitochondria and disrupt the electrical balance needed for energy production, although how it happens is unknown. This is a new concept that we are continuing to explore.

Professor Dr. Zhilong Yang.

Implications beyond viral infection

The findings may also have implications beyond viral infections.

Researchers have observed RNA accumulation in a variety of conditions — including some cancers, neurodegenerative diseases, and aging-related disorders — suggesting that mitochondrial damage may be one way excess RNA contributes to those conditions.

We think this has quite broad translational implications. Too much double-stranded RNA or mRNA that cannot be degraded effectively may contribute to disease processes in some contexts.

Dr. Djamal Brahim Belhaouari.

The study may also provide new insight into RNA-based therapeutics and vaccines by helping scientists better understand how cells respond to large amounts of RNA and may eventually help improve future RNA-based treatments.

Understanding this mechanism could help researchers design and optimize future RNA-based therapeutics and vaccines by better understanding how cells respond to large amounts of RNA.

Professor Dr. Zhilong Yang.

The researchers say the findings could reshape how scientists think about the relationship between RNA regulation and cellular energy production.

Scientists already knew that too much double-stranded RNA can be harmful. What surprised us was finding out that too much mRNA — something cells normally need every day — can also damage mitochondria and interfere with the cell’s ability to produce energy.

Professor Dr. Zhilong Yang.

Publication:
D. Brahim Belhaouari,A. Pant,S. Navarro-Forero,F. Cantu, & Z. Yang,
Perturbation of RNA homeostasis impairs mitochondrial respiration during poxvirus infection through excess RNA accumulation
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123(22) e2605194123, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2605194123 (2026).

Significance
Vaccinia virus encodes decapping enzymes that promote rapid turnover of mRNA and double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) through coordinating with host degradation factor. Here, we show that dysfunctional RNA degradation in vaccinia virus–infected cells dampens mitochondrial respiration and integrity during infection. Complementary exogenous RNA and cell-free mitochondrial assays demonstrate that excess mRNA and dsRNA can both impair mitochondrial respiration independently of innate immune signaling pathways. These findings reveal that RNA degradation is needed to preserve mitochondrial function during vaccinia virus infection, extending their roles beyond gene regulation and immune evasion. Together, this work uncovers a hitherto undescribed dimension of virus–host interaction and provides a framework for understanding how excess RNA burden may influence mitochondrial homeostasis in broad biological and therapeutic contexts.

Abstract
Induction of RNA degradation in infected cells is a strategy used by many viruses to promote efficient replication. Vaccinia virus, the prototype poxvirus and the vaccine platform for smallpox and mpox, encodes two decapping enzymes to accelerate mRNA and double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) degradation during infection, through functional coordination with host cell RNA exonuclease. Previous studies have largely focused on RNA degradation as a mechanism for regulating viral gene expression and evading innate immune sensing. Here, we show that impaired RNA degradation in vaccinia virus–infected cells, due to either depletion of viral decapping enzymes or cellular exonuclease, severely compromises mitochondrial respiration and integrity. We further demonstrated that accumulation of excess dsRNA and mRNA, including pseudouridine-modified RNAs, is sufficient to induce profound defects in mitochondrial respiration and integrity. Notably, this impairment occurs independently of interferon induction and dsRNA innate immune sensor Protein Kinase R. Moreover, excess RNA suppresses respiration in purified cell-free mitochondria and physically associates with mitochondria in cell-free and cellular contexts, supporting an immune-independent mechanism. Excess mRNA and dsRNA reduce mitochondrial membrane potential in both cells and purified mitochondria, indicating disruption of the proton gradient as the mechanism underlying impaired mitochondrial respiration and integrity. Together, these findings identify excess mRNA and dsRNA as perturbants of mitochondrial homeostasis in cells with dysfunctional RNA degradation during vaccinia virus infection, revealing a paradigm-shift concept linking RNA metabolism to mitochondrial function. The finding carries broad implications for understanding RNA and mitochondrial biology and RNA-based therapeutics and vaccines.

D. Brahim Belhaouari,A. Pant,S. Navarro-Forero,F. Cantu, & Z. Yang,
Perturbation of RNA homeostasis impairs mitochondrial respiration during poxvirus infection through excess RNA accumulation
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123(22) e2605194123, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2605194123 (2026).

© 2026 National Academy of Sciences of the USA.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

What emerges from this research is a cellular system whose functioning depends on maintaining a balance between essential activities and potentially damaging consequences. RNA is indispensable, yet its excessive accumulation can compromise the machinery that supplies usable energy. The mechanisms that control it are effective enough to sustain life, but they remain vulnerable to disruption. That is entirely consistent with evolution working through modifications of existing biochemistry, without foresight or any guarantee of perfection.

Natural selection does not calculate future risks or anticipate every possible infection. It favours heritable changes that improve reproductive success under the conditions in which they arise. Benefits can outweigh costs while leaving weaknesses unresolved. Although this study does not reconstruct the evolutionary history of RNA regulation, the vulnerability it reveals fits comfortably within that framework. There is no requirement for an evolved system to be immune to every consequence of its own chemistry.

For advocates of an omniscient, omnipotent designer, however, the questions are more awkward. Such a designer could hardly have been surprised by the interaction between RNA and mitochondria. Nor could it plead that it was constrained by inherited machinery or unable to anticipate viral exploitation. Pointing to the sophistication of RNA clearance does not explain why a supposedly perfect creator chose a system in which an essential molecule becomes damaging when that clearance fails. The safeguards and the vulnerability must both be included in any honest assessment of the alleged design. What ID advocates are left with, if they insist on intelligent design, is incompetence or malevolence.

The viral dimension makes the difficulty sharper still: maintaining the infected cell’s energy supply can help its parasite reproduce. Evolution accommodates these competing interests without difficulty, because neither host nor virus is working towards a universal good. Meanwhile, the researchers have uncovered another testable relationship between cellular processes, opening further questions about how it works. Invoking a designer adds no mechanism, makes no useful prediction and leaves the central problem untouched: why would unlimited foresight produce such a precarious arrangement?

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Refuting Creationism - The Blind Cave Snail That Evolved by LOSS of Information

2026-10-22T18:59:15.902+01:00

Erhaia dijiang.

Credit Yue-Ming He, et al., 2026.

China’s First Cave-Dwelling Freshwater Snail Named After A Mythical Mountain God | Pensoft Blog

A tiny, eyeless snail living in a Chinese cave offers an instructive challenge to two familiar creationist assumptions: that evolution must mean increasing complexity, and that the natural world was arranged for the benefit of humans. Erhaia dijiang has neither eyes nor body pigmentation, and its existence remained unknown to science until researchers investigated its obscure underground habitat. For an animal supposedly included in a creation designed around us, it has kept a remarkably low profile.

Described by Yue-Ming He and colleagues in Subterranean Biology, the species was discovered in a cave in Yuxi City, Yunnan Province, at an altitude of 2,062 metres. It is reported as China's first recorded freshwater cave snail. Its translucent shell, unpigmented body and absence of eyes are characteristic of an animal specialised for subterranean life. Appropriately, its name honours Di Jiang, a faceless being from Chinese mythology.

The evolutionary lesson is straightforward: evolution has no obligation to produce increasingly elaborate organisms. It can involve the reduction or loss of structures, just as it can produce new structures or modify existing ones. Eyes are useful where there is light to see by; in permanent darkness, their usual advantage disappears. Selection maintaining functional eyes can consequently weaken, allowing mutations that impair them to persist. Where reduced investment in unnecessary structures improves reproductive success, natural selection can also favour that reduction. The precise contributions of these processes have not been established for this particular snail, but its eyeless condition fits a familiar pattern of evolution in subterranean animals.

Comparable reductions occur in many parasites, including the loss of digestive structures in animals that absorb nutrients from their hosts. This is not evolution going backwards: evolution has no predetermined destination from which to retreat. Nor does losing one organ mean that an animal has become simpler in every respect. It means that particular features have changed within a particular ecological setting. Calling such changes “degeneration”, as creationists often do, does not place them outside evolutionary biology or explain them away.

Then there is the question of humanity's supposed centrality. Genesis gives humans dominion over other animals, and creationists frequently extend that into the claim that nature was made for our benefit, citing Genesis 2:18-20. If so, what human purpose required an eyeless snail tucked away in the waters of a mountain cave, beyond our knowledge until very recently? An unspecified divine purpose can always be invoked, but it supplies no testable explanation for why this animal exists where it does or possesses the features it has.

Evolution requires no such special pleading. Organisms persist and diversify where their inherited characteristics permit them to survive and reproduce, regardless of whether humans notice them or find them useful. This little snail belongs to an underground ecosystem with its own history, not to a biological stage set awaiting human appreciation. Its discovery adds another revealing detail to a world whose diversity makes sense through evolution, without the assumption that everything was put here for us.

Evolution by Loss^ When Less Is Enough. Evolution does not inevitably produce greater complexity. Structures can become reduced or disappear when their functions cease to be useful. Cave animals provide particularly clear examples, because permanent darkness removes the usual advantages of vision and often changes the value of pigmentation.

Mexican tetra (Astyanax mexicanus). This species includes sighted surface populations and cave populations with greatly reduced eyes and pigmentation. In blind cave forms, eyes begin to develop in embryos but subsequently degenerate. The extent of eye and pigment reduction varies between populations.

Olm (Proteus anguinus). The familiar pale form of this European cave salamander has greatly reduced eyes beneath the skin and little skin pigmentation. These features are not universal within the species: the black olm retains more developed eyes and dark pigmentation.

Texas blind salamander (Eurycea rathbuni). This inhabitant of underground waters in Texas has lost functional vision. Its eyes persist as tiny vestiges beneath the skin — an important distinction between losing an organ's function and losing every trace of the organ itself.

Chinese cave snail (Erhaia dijiang). This freshwater snail from Yunnan lacks eyes and body pigmentation. Its condition is consistent with the repeated evolutionary reduction of visual structures in animals specialised for subterranean life, although the particular genetic changes responsible have not yet been established.

Tapeworms, including Taenia solium. Evolutionary losses also occur outside caves. Tapeworms have no mouth or digestive tract: they absorb nutrients across their body covering. Their parasitic way of life makes a digestive system of their own unnecessary, while they retain specialised structures for attachment and reproduction.

How do these losses evolve?
When a feature no longer contributes to survival and reproduction, natural selection against mutations that impair it can weaken. Such mutations may then spread through genetic drift. Selection can also favour reductions that save resources, or favour changes in other traits that have the side effect of reducing an organ. The relative importance of these mechanisms differs between species; loss should not automatically be attributed to energy savings.

Loss is still evolution.
These changes occur through inherited variation across generations, not because an individual stops using an organ. Nor does the reduction of one feature make the whole organism “primitive”: losses can accompany enhanced sensory abilities or other specialisations. Evolution has no predetermined destination and no requirement to preserve complexity for its own sake.

Genetic research on eye and pigment reduction in Mexican cavefish.
Slovenian Museum of Natural History: the olm.
Eye development in surface and subterranean salamanders.
The description of Erhaia dijiang.

The paper in Subterranean Biology was accompanied by a Pensoft blog post:

China’s First Cave-Dwelling Freshwater Snail Named After A Mythical Mountain God
This study marks the first freshwater cave snail ever recorded in China, and it represents the highest-altitude distribution known among cave-dwelling species in the family Erhaiidae.
Recently published in the journal Subterranean Biology, the research marks a major milestone for the study of subterranean aquatic life in East Asia. Prior to this discovery, there were no records of freshwater cave snails within Chinese territory, and the region’s subterranean freshwater mollusks were generally poorly studied.

Mythological Namesake and Unique Adaptations

Perfectly suited to its pitch-black environment, Erhaia dijiang is a true troglobiont, having evolved without eyes entirely while its ocular structures show total degeneration. Its shell is small, conical, and highly translucent, while its body is delicate and unpigmented, with slender tentacles.

Natural habitats of Erhaia dijiang.

Credit: Yue-Ming He, et al., 2026.

Fittingly, researchers named the species dijiang after “Di Jiang,” a mountain patron god from ancient Chinese mythology described as a faceless beast in the classic text Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海经). The name suits the animal’s habits: in laboratory observations, the snails proved highly photophobic, actively seeking out dark crevices beneath rocks to escape light.

Beyond its mythological namesake, the species is also notable for where it was found. Discovered at an elevation of 2,062 meters, Erhaia dijiang sets a new record for the highest-altitude distribution among all known cave-dwelling snails in Erhaiidae, evidence that freshwater cavesnails can survive in karst caves at altitudes exceeding 2,000 meters.

Species of Erhaia dijiang.

Credit: Yue-Ming He, et al., 2026.

According to the researchers, the species inhabits underwater gravel and crushed stone at depths of less than one meter, where cave water temperatures remain consistently near 20°C. While rapid water flow during the rainy season occasionally flushes a small number of snails out through the cave’s outlet, they are never found in nearby surface streams and stay strictly within two meters of the cave entrance. In the lab, the snails fed on diatoms growing on rock surfaces as well as artificially supplied fish food.

Urgent Call for Conservation

Erhaia dijiang.
Credit: Yue-Ming He, et al., 2026.

However, despite marking a significant advance for the study of subterranean aquatic life in East Asia, the research team warns that the survival status of this newly discovered species is “far from optimistic.”

During their initial field survey in August 2025, the population density of Erhaia dijiang was found to be extremely low. The team was only able to locate three live adult individuals and a single empty shell in the shallow underground waters, and no juvenile snails were observed.

The researchers are urgently calling for extensive surveys of Chinese caves to improve our understanding of these complex ecosystems, along with the rapid formulation of conservation measures to protect these vulnerable, endemic mollusks.

Publication:
He Y-M, Xiang H-Q, Yang J-M, Zheng H, Yang S-Z, Zhou Y-F, Zheng J (2026)
A new eyeless species in Erhaiidae (Gastropoda, Truncatelloidea) from a cave in Yuxi City, Yunnan, China.
Subterranean Biology 56: 127-136. https://doi.org/10.3897/subtbiol.56.188075

Download PDF
Abstract
This article describes a new species of cavesnail, Erhaia dijiang Y.-M. He, H.-Q. Xiang, Y.-F. Zhou & H. Zheng, sp. nov., collected from a cave in Hongta District, Yuxi City, Yunnan Province, China. This species is a member of the family Erhaiidae, characterized by the absence of eyes. It represents the highest-altitude distribution among known cave-dwelling Erhaiidae species, and is the first freshwater cavesnail discovered in China.

Distribution of Erhaia dijiang sp. nov. Green circle shows the type locality.

Species of Erhaia dijiang sp. nov. A. NCUDX251201, holotype. B, C. NCUDX251202-03, paratypes. D. NCUDX251204, paratypes, SEM photo. Scale bars: 1 mm.

SEM photo of the Erhaia dijiang sp. nov. shell protoconch.

A–C. Natural habitats of Erhaia dijiang sp. nov. D. The Pomatiopsidae sp. that occurs in the same locality as the new species described in this paper.

He Y-M, Xiang H-Q, Yang J-M, Zheng H, Yang S-Z, Zhou Y-F, Zheng J (2026)
A new eyeless species in Erhaiidae (Gastropoda, Truncatelloidea) from a cave in Yuxi City, Yunnan, China.
Subterranean Biology 56: 127-136. https://doi.org/10.3897/subtbiol.56.188075

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by Pensoft Publishers. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Erhaia dijiang illustrates a point that creationist caricatures of evolution routinely obscure: evolutionary change does not have to mean greater complexity. Eyes can develop, change or disappear as lineages diversify in different environments. Losing functional vision in permanent darkness is entirely consistent with evolution; calling it “degeneration” does nothing to provide an alternative explanation. The precise genetic history of this snail remains to be investigated, but its eyeless condition belongs to a familiar pattern found across unrelated groups of cave animals.

There is also the awkward question of humanity's supposed place at the centre of creation. In Genesis 2:18–20, the formation of animals appears within the search for a suitable helper for Adam. Quite how an eyeless aquatic snail in a Chinese cave was supposed to fulfil that role is left unexplained. Invoking a mysterious divine purpose merely adds an assertion that cannot be tested. Evolution, by contrast, gives us no reason to expect that a species should exist for our convenience, within our reach or even within our knowledge.

Predictably, the researchers did not need to identify a supernatural intention before they could describe this animal and interpret its characteristics. Comparative biology and the evolutionary history of life provide a productive framework for understanding what they found. Further research can test explanations for its particular losses and specialisations; “the designer wanted it that way” offers no comparable programme of investigation.

This tiny snail is another reminder that nature is not organised around human expectations. Life diversifies in obscure underground waters as readily as in the habitats familiar to us, retaining some features, modifying others and losing those that no longer confer their former advantages. Its significance lies in what it can reveal about that history — not in whatever service we might imagine it was created to perform for the mythical Adam.

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Refuting Creationism - Closing The Gap - Life In The Early Ediacaran - 600 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-10-21T22:21:50.023+01:00

Microfossils from the Ancangping assemblage. A: Schizofusa zangwenlongii. B, C: Ericiasphaera magna (C is enlarged view of rectangle in B). D, E: Appendisphaera anguina. (E is enlarged view of rectangle in D). F: Eotylotopalla strobilata. G: Eotylotopalla quadrata. H: Megasphaera ornata. I: Sinosphaera asteriformis. J, K: Tanarium cuspidatum. (K is enlarged view of rectangle in J).

Credit: Ye, Q., An, Z., Chen, S. et al (2026)

Tiny fossils reveal a missing chapter of ocean life after Snowball Earth

More than 600 million years before the supposed creation of Earth in a literal reading of Genesis, marine communities were already living through the aftermath of a planetary ice age. Their fossilised remains now provide another inconvenient glimpse of the immense history that young-Earth creationism requires its followers to dismiss. This was a world with an evolutionary past of its own, long before the appearance of familiar animals, let alone humans and their origin myths.

A study by Qin Ye of the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan and colleagues, published in Communications Biology, describes an assemblage of microscopic and larger fossils from Ancangping in Hubei province, South China. The researchers identified 35 species of organic-walled microfossils known as acritarchs, together with six broad forms of macroscopic fossils. Preserved together, these remains provide an unusually useful window into communities that included both organisms living in the water column and algae growing on the seabed.

The assemblage is provisionally dated to approximately 620–610 million years ago. That places it around 15–25 million years after the end of the Marinoan glaciation, one of the extreme climatic episodes associated with “Snowball Earth”, when ice extended into tropical latitudes. “After” therefore needs to be understood on a geological timescale: even the interval between the thaw and these organisms exceeds the entire young-Earth creationist chronology many thousands of times over.

What was the Marinoan glaciation? The Marinoan glaciation was an exceptionally severe ice age that ended about 635 million years ago, marking the close of the Cryogenian Period and the beginning of the Ediacaran. Its starting date is less certain, but it lasted millions of years. It was the later of the two great Cryogenian glaciations associated with the “Snowball Earth” hypothesis.

How frozen was Earth?
Geological evidence indicates that ice reached tropical latitudes. The Snowball Earth hypothesis proposes that ice covered virtually the entire ocean surface, although the extent and persistence of open water remain debated. This does not mean that the oceans froze solid: liquid water could persist beneath the ice.

How could such an extreme freeze develop—and end?
Expanding snow and ice reflect more sunlight into space, causing further cooling and allowing still more ice to form. This reinforcing process is called ice–albedo feedback. A leading explanation for the eventual thaw involves volcanic carbon dioxide accumulating while ice cover greatly reduced the weathering of rocks that normally helps remove it from the atmosphere. Increasing greenhouse warming eventually overcame the cooling effect of the ice. As melting exposed darker surfaces, greater absorption of sunlight accelerated the thaw.

How did life survive?
Life already existed before the Marinoan glaciation. Microorganisms and early organisms with complex cells survived in refuges that may have included patches of open water, environments beneath sufficiently transparent ice, and surface meltwater ponds. The relative importance of these habitats remains under investigation. The postglacial biosphere therefore developed from surviving lineages; it did not begin from scratch.

Where do the Ancangping fossils fit?
Their estimated age of 620–610 million years places them roughly 15–25 million years after the thaw. They illuminate a later stage in the development of postglacial marine communities, rather than the immediate aftermath of melting. Even that intervening interval dwarfs the entire timescale proposed by young-Earth creationism.

There are qualifications, and the researchers make them explicit. The fossil-bearing horizon has not been dated directly by radiometric methods; its estimated age rests on correlations with other rock sequences and their published chronological constraints. Some proposed animal affinities are also disputed. These fossils should not be presented as unequivocal evidence of early animals, nor as a precisely dated snapshot of the immediate aftermath of deglaciation. Their significance lies in helping to reconstruct an otherwise poorly documented stage in the history of marine ecosystems.

That distinction between what the evidence establishes and what remains open to investigation is a strength of science. Researchers do not need to pretend that every identification is settled or every date exact. They can publish their reasoning, identify its limitations and explain how further discoveries could test it. Creationist certainty, by contrast, begins with a conclusion that the evidence is required to accommodate. Refining the age or identity of these fossils will improve our understanding of an ancient world; it will not turn that world into one created a few thousand years ago.

As Andrew Zinin reports for Phys.org, the discovery helps fill a gap in the record of life after Snowball Earth. Once again, palaeontologists investigating a scientific question have uncovered evidence whose implications for a literal Genesis chronology are devastating, without needing to make creationism the subject of their research.

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Abstract
Understanding of biological and ecological dynamics after the terminal Cryogenian Marinoan glaciation remains limited because the early Ediacaran fossil record is sparse and taphonomically biased toward microfossils. Here we show an early Ediacaran fossil assemblage from the Ancangping section of South China that co-preserves micro- and macrofossils in the same strata. It contains 17 genera and 35 species of acritarchs, including three new taxa, and six forms of macroscopic carbonaceous compressions. Integrated lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic correlation with published astrochronologic and radiometric data indirectly constrains its age to approximately 620–610 million years ago, thus predating the hitherto oldest-known macrofossil assemblage (the Lantian biota at 602 million years ago) in the Ediacaran Period. The assemblage comprises cyanobacteria, phytoplankton, benthic macroalgae, and possible metazoans, indicating the co-occurrence of benthic and planktonic organisms in the aftermath of the Snowball Earth. This finding fills a temporal gap and provides insight into early Ediacaran biological communities across the Cryogenian–Ediacaran transition.

Microfossils from the Ancangping assemblage.
Ye, Q., An, Z., Chen, S. et al (2026)

Ye, Q., An, Z., Chen, S. et al.
Early Ediacaran micro- and macro-fossils from South China provide insights into post-Snowball Earth marine ecosystem.
Commun Biol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-026-11094-y

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The Ancangping fossils add another small but revealing piece to the history of life on Earth. Their importance lies not simply in their antiquity, but in the picture they provide of marine communities occupying different ecological settings in the aftermath of an extraordinary climatic upheaval. These were organisms with an evolutionary history, inhabiting a planet with a geological history—both extending far beyond the few thousand years allowed by a literal reading of Genesis.

There is no need to exaggerate what the discovery establishes. The proposed age requires further testing, and some biological affinities remain uncertain. Neither qualification provides a refuge for young-Earth creationism. Uncertainty over precisely where an assemblage belongs within the Ediacaran is not evidence that it belongs within human history, and uncertainty over whether a fossil represents an alga or an early animal is not evidence of supernatural creation.

The contrast in methods is telling. The researchers explain how they reached their conclusions and identify evidence that could refine or challenge them. Biblical literalism starts with its preferred answer and requires the history recorded in the rocks to conform to it. Science advances because its conclusions are open to correction; dogma remains stationary because its conclusions are protected from correction.

Once again, the researchers did not need to set out to refute creationism. They investigated fossils, compared rock sequences and reconstructed an ancient ecosystem. The incompatibility with Genesis emerged simply from taking the evidence seriously. A world in which life survived planetary glaciation and continued to diversify over millions of years has a far richer history than the brief creation story its ancient authors imagined.

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Refuting Creationism - A Peculiar Belemnite From Wyoming - 160 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-10-21T00:22:47.847+01:00

Artists impression of Wyoteuthis linsterorum

Jasom C Poole.

“Peculiar” new species of Jurassic squid found in Wyoming

Some 160 million years ago, a peculiar, thick-bodied relative of modern squid inhabited the sea that covered parts of what is now Wyoming. That alone places it inconveniently far outside the few thousand years allowed by a literal reading of Genesis. Now, two rare fossils have revealed that this animal was also a late-surviving representative of an ancient belemnite lineage — another small but revealing piece of an evolutionary history that creationism requires its followers to deny.

The newly described species, Wyoteuthis linsterorum, is the subject of a paper in Papers in Palaeontology. Although the headline calls it a Jurassic squid, it was a belemnite: a member of an extinct group of squid-like cephalopods. Its most striking feature was its exceptionally broad internal shell component, known as the rostrum or guard. Where familiar belemnite guards resemble slender bullets, these specimens are unusually stout, earning their owner the distinction of having the thickest known belemnite guards.

The fossils come from the Sundance Formation and date to the Oxfordian stage of the Late Jurassic. Examination of their external features and CT scans of their interiors led the researchers to assign the animal to the Megateuthididae, a family that had largely disappeared earlier in the Jurassic. Rather than representing a newly created form appearing from nowhere, Wyoteuthis appears to have been a surviving offshoot of an older evolutionary lineage, persisting in a regional refuge after its relatives had declined elsewhere.

For young-Earth creationism, the chronological problem is straightforward. An animal living approximately 160 million years ago cannot be accommodated within a universe supposedly created just 6,000–10,000 years ago. Nor does calling its remains a product of Noah’s Flood explain away the geological succession in which they occur. The problem is not merely the existence of a marine fossil on dry land, but its place within an ordered history of changing environments and successive assemblages of organisms.

There is also a less decisive, but still awkward, question for believers in an intelligent, omniscient creator: why deliberately create species in the full knowledge that they will become extinct? Extinction presents no conceptual difficulty for evolution. Natural selection favours reproductive success under prevailing conditions; it neither anticipates future changes nor guarantees permanent survival. An organism can be well adapted to its environment without being equipped for every environment that might follow.

An omniscient designer, by contrast, cannot be surprised by the eventual disappearance of its creations. Their extinction must either have been intended or knowingly permitted. Believers can, of course, invoke an undisclosed divine purpose, but that supplies no testable explanation. Here, as elsewhere in palaeontology, evolutionary history provides the productive framework: descent, diversification, regional survival and eventual extinction, with no supernatural intervention required.

Belemnites^ ancient sea creatures in a gravel path. As a child in north Oxfordshire, UK, I often had a handful of belemnite fragments in my pocket, picked out of the gravel used to surface paths. Those small objects were remnants of animals that inhabited ancient seas millions of years before humans existed. If I were very lucky, I would find a larger fragment with the pointed end intact. The older folk called them 'thunder bolts', apparently the origin of the phrase. Their abundance raises an interesting question: why do we find so many pieces of these particular animals?

What were belemnites?

Belemnites were extinct marine cephalopods, related to living squid and cuttlefish. They flourished during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, and the last disappeared about 66 million years ago. They were swimming predators with squid-like bodies and ten arms bearing small hooks for grasping prey.

The familiar bullet-shaped fossil is not the whole animal, a tooth or an external shell. It is the rostrum, commonly called the guard: a substantial component of the internal shell at the rear of the body. It probably helped counterbalance the head and arms during swimming.

Why do their fossils survive so well?

The guard was made of dense calcite. Its robust construction gave it a much better chance of surviving burial and subsequent geological changes than the animal’s soft tissues. Belemnites were also widespread and locally numerous, so successive generations supplied many guards to the sea floor.

Another part of the internal shell, the chambered phragmocone, was made of aragonite, a different form of calcium carbonate that is generally less stable during fossilisation. It often disappeared while the calcitic guard survived. A conical cavity at the broader end of a fossil guard can mark where the phragmocone once fitted.

This is an example of preservation bias: the fossil record disproportionately preserves durable structures. A collection of guards tells us much more about the animals’ hard internal parts than about their original soft-bodied appearance.

Why are so many specimens broken?

Durable does not mean indestructible. Guards can fracture during burial, deformation of the surrounding rock, weathering, transport or quarrying. Broken specimens may reveal calcite crystals radiating outwards from the central axis, sometimes accompanied by concentric growth layers. These internal patterns can help distinguish a belemnite fragment from an ordinary pebble.

From a Jurassic sea to an Oxfordshire path

River gravel is a plausible source for those childhood finds, although the source cannot be established from memory alone. Oxfordshire’s river-terrace gravels commonly contain material eroded from Jurassic rocks. Weathering can release fossils from their original beds, after which rivers transport and redeposit them alongside stones and other debris.

This is called reworking. The fossil remains Jurassic even when the gravel containing it is much younger. Gravel subsequently extracted for paths can therefore bring together objects with very different geological histories. Alternatively, path surfacing may consist of crushed quarried rock or aggregate brought from elsewhere.

A handful of belemnite fragments can thus represent several stages in a long history: life in an ancient sea, burial and fossilisation, erosion, transport and eventual collection by an inquisitive child. Their commonplace appearance conceals a timescale wholly incompatible with a world only a few thousand years old.

British Geological Survey: Belemnites.
University of Cambridge: Belemnite anatomy and preservation.

The report in Papers in Palaeontology, the journal of the Palaeontological Association, was accompanied by a news report from The University of Manchester:

“Peculiar” new species of Jurassic squid found in Wyoming

Researchers have identified a new species of Jurassic squid-like animal from 160-million-year-old fossils
CT scanning showed it belongs to an ancient branch of belemnites thought to have disappeared much earlier, making the discovery exceptionally rare.
The new species, Wyoteuthis linsterorum, is the "chunkiest" belemnite ever found, with a skeleton far broader than any previously known.

A “peculiar” new species of Jurassic squid-like animal has been unearthed in Wyoming, USA, following the discovery of two exceptionally rare fossils dating back around 160 million years.

The newly named species, Wyoteuthis linsterorum, has been identified as a type of ancient cephalopod, called a belemnite, cousins of modern squid and octopus. They say unusually thick, barrel-shaped skeleton makes it the "chunkiest” or “fattest" belemnite ever discovered.

An international team of researchers from the USA, UK and New Zealand, including Dr Dean Lomax, Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Manchester, describe the discovery in the journal Papers in Palaeontology today.

Belemnites are among the most common fossils found worldwide and are recognised by their bullet-shaped remains, known as a rostrum or guard. Millions have been discovered in Wyoming's Sundance Formation, an ancient inland sea that once covered the western USA.

Co-author and Wyoming palaeontologist, Jessica Lippincott, said in Wyoming, they are nicknamed “squid butts”.

The chunkiest belemnite ever discovered

Most Wyoming belemnites are bullet-shaped measuring around 5 to 10 centimetres long and only 1 to 2 centimetres wide. By contrast, the newly discovered species had an unusually broad, barrel-shaped rostrum around 10 centimetres long but up to six centimetres wide, making it the thickest belemnite ever recorded.

Researchers estimate the living animal would have reached around 60 centimetres in total length including its arms.

The work was instigated by Wyoming palaeontologist and co-author Bill Wahl, who has spent much of his career searching for fossils in Wyoming and said this belemnite “stuck out like a sore thumb”. He brought together an international team of researchers to investigate the remarkable specimens, including belemnite expert Alexey Ippolitov, now at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Using computed tomography (CT) scanning, the team were able to examine the fossils without damaging them, revealing internal features that confirmed the animal belonged to an ancient family of belemnites previously thought to have disappeared millions of years earlier.

PhD student, Ippolitov said he was "deeply surprised" to discover a fossil from such a well-studied group that differed so radically from anything previously known. After more than 200 years of palaeontological research on belemnites, he said, discoveries like this are exceptionally rare.

A possible explanation is that their relatively large size gave them an advantage when hunting co-occurring smaller belemnites of the genus Pachyteuthis. Modern squid, after all, are hardly picky when it comes to prey: they readily hunt not only other species of cephalopods, but sometimes even their own kind.

Alexey P. Ippolitov, first author.
School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences
Victoria University of Wellington | Te Herenga Waka
Wellington, New Zealand.

30 years in the making

The discovery was almost 30 years in the making. The first specimen was unearthed in the late 1990s by Dr Burkhard Pohl, founder of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center, after he spotted a belemnite much bigger than any he had seen before. The fossil sat unstudied in the museum's collection draw for many years until a second specimen was discovered by fossil collector Cliff Linster near Ten Sleep, Wyoming, and donated to the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in 2019. Together, the two fossils provided the evidence needed to identify and formally describe the new species.

Wyoteuthis linsterorum paratype and holotype with scale bar.

Photo of Wyoteuthis linsterorum holotype on left, paratype on right.

Wyoteuthis linsterorum paratype with common Pachyteuthis example for size comparison

Photos: © Jessica Lippincott

Honouring a fossil collector's legacy

The name Wyoteuthis translates to “a squid from Wyoming”, while the species name, linsterorum, honours Cliff Linster and his family. Cliff discovered one of only two known specimens of the new species and donated it for scientific study.

After spending years fossil hunting in Wyoming and collecting countless fossils of the common Pachyteuthis belemnites here in Wyoming, this one is unlike anything I have ever seen! It goes to show that we are still finding new species of fossils all the time, and people who rockhound or collect invertebrate fossils can also contribute to science.

Jessica L. Lippincott, co-author.
Wyoming Dinosaurium Project
Cody, Wyoming, USA.

Cliff Linster passed away in June this year. He knew researchers were studying his remarkable discovery and was excited to see it formally described. The Linster family are no strangers to finding amazing fossils, perhaps most famously the dinosaur Bambiraptor.

Co-author and British palaeontologist, Dr Dean Lomax, an Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Manchester and an 1851 Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, in the UK, dug up dinosaurs with Cliff and his wife, Sandy, when he was a teenager.

I met Cliff and Sandy in 2009, when I spent a week digging up a dinosaur bonebed on their property in northern Montana. I have fond memories of that dig, listening to Cliff share his passion for fossils, including this belemnite. I’m honoured to help name this fossil after Cliff. It’s bittersweet that he didn’t get to see it published, but it’s wonderful that we can immortalise him and his family name in the history of palaeontology. The find is incredibly rare, which might be due to some ecological adaptations to the environment at the time. Perhaps its rarity is a result of narrow specialization.

Dr Dean R. Lomax, corresponding author.
Palaeobiology Research Group
School of Earth Sciences
University of Bristol
Bristol, UK.

Dr Lomax is also the author of the recently published book, “The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs”, which highlights Wyoming fossils, and he has spent time collecting fossils and excavating plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs in Wyoming’s Sundance Formation.

Both specimens are on display at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, Wyoming USA.

Publication:
Alexey P. Ippolitov, Jessica L. Lippincott, William R. Wahl, Dean R. Lomax (2026)
‘The big chunky belemnite’: a new relict megateuthidid from the Oxfordian (Late Jurassic) of Wyoming, USA, and its place in the evolutionary history of the group
Papers in Palaeontology, 09 September 2026, https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.70123

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Abstract
We describe and discuss two finds of large and untypical belemnite rostra originating from the upper part of the Sundance Formation (Oxfordian) of Wyoming, USA. With a diameter reaching c. 60 mm at the anterior end, these rostra are the thickest known for belemnites so far. Herein they are ascribed to a new genus Wyoteuthis, comprising a single new species, W. linsterorum. Both primary and secondary morphological features (rostrum shape, alveolus position, alveolar angle, details of apical grooves and striation) allow us to justify the placement of our new taxon in the family Megateuthididae, which flourished in Toarcian to middle Jurassic time but mostly disappeared during the Bathonian, and is represented by few extremely rare and stratigraphically isolated records from younger strata. In turn, externally similar rostra previously reported in the literature from the same basin belong to Cylindroteuthididae, a common and previously only known family-level group for the Oxfordian of northwestern USA. The new genus represents a relict offshoot of the family Megateuthididae, most likely deriving from the Bajocian members of the genus Brevibelus, formerly described from North America. It demonstrates the presence of a previously unrecognized megateuthidid refugium in the north-eastern Pacific. We also discuss evolutionary macro-trends in belemnites and the possible correlations between rostrum size and soft-body size.

Alexey P. Ippolitov, Jessica L. Lippincott, William R. Wahl, Dean R. Lomax (2026)
‘The big chunky belemnite’: a new relict megateuthidid from the Oxfordian (Late Jurassic) of Wyoming, USA, and its place in the evolutionary history of the group
Papers in Palaeontology, 09 September 2026, https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.70123

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Palaeontological Association. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Wyoteuthis linsterorum adds another detail to the history of life that palaeontologists are steadily reconstructing: an unusual belemnite surviving in the Jurassic seas as a late representative of an older lineage. Its significance emerges from comparisons with related fossils, its anatomical features and its position in the geological succession. Evolution provides the framework that makes those observations intelligible; invoking a supernatural designer contributes no additional explanatory power.

For young-Earth creationism, the principal difficulty remains the chronology. These animals were living approximately 160 million years ago, long before the supposed “Creation Week” of biblical literalism. The researchers did not set out to refute Genesis. They investigated two unusual fossils and, in doing so, added another piece of evidence to an ancient history that cannot be compressed into a few thousand years. Creationism’s problem is not a shortage of evidence, but its insistence that the evidence must accommodate a predetermined conclusion.

Extinction raises a different question for those who attribute every species to an omniscient designer. Evolution has no foresight and offers no guarantee of indefinite survival: a lineage can flourish for millions of years and nevertheless disappear. An all-knowing creator, however, would have foreseen that disappearance before creating the first individual. Why deliberately produce species destined for extinction? An appeal to mysterious purposes can protect the belief from contradiction, but it supplies neither a testable explanation nor a reason to prefer design over natural processes.

There is something especially telling about the familiarity of belemnite fossils. Evidence of this remote past is not confined to spectacular museum exhibits or discoveries in distant countries; fragments of it can turn up in the gravel of an ordinary path and find their way into a child’s pocket and spark an interest in fossils that would last a lifetime. The world has been preserving its history for far longer than humans have been inventing stories about its beginnings. Reading that history requires curiosity and evidence, rather than an obligation to make the rocks agree with a sacred text.

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Refuting Creationism - How Evolution Explains The Nightjar's Wing - No Magic Needed

2026-10-20T14:12:51.409+01:00

The nightjar needs to be able to fly both long distances and at lower speeds.

Photo: Urban Rundström.

Nightjar wings reveal a trade-off between hunting slowly and travelling far | Lund University

Evolution does not produce organisms that are perfect at everything. Natural selection acts on inherited variation, and an improvement in one function can come at a cost to another. A bird that must both migrate over long distances and catch insects in slow, manoeuvrable flight faces competing aerodynamic demands. The European nightjar, Caprimulgus europaeus, provides a revealing example of how these demands can produce a workable compromise.

As described in a news release from Lund University, the nightjar travels between Europe and southern Africa, yet uses the same wings to pursue flying insects at low speeds. Efficient travelling and slow-speed hunting do not necessarily favour identical wing shapes. Features that help the bird remain airborne while moving slowly can impose an aerodynamic penalty when it flies faster.

The research, published in PLOS Biology, investigated this compromise by measuring the airflow behind nightjars flying in a wind tunnel. At cruising speeds, the researchers detected an unusual double wingtip vortex associated with less efficient lift generation. They interpret this as a cost of the bird’s broad, slotted wingtips: a shape likely to help generate lift during slow flight and hovering, but which produces a less favourable distribution of lift at higher speeds.

This does not mean that nightjars are unsuccessful migrants, or that flying faster necessarily makes each kilometre more expensive. The finding concerns a particular component of aerodynamic performance. A wing can carry a bird successfully across continents while still paying a measurable price for features useful when hunting.

It would also overstate the case to present this as a decisive disproof of intelligent design, although there are good reasons to believe it refutes the idea. Human engineers encounter trade-offs too, and a compromise need not be a poor solution to a demanding combination of tasks. What the research illustrates particularly well is why evolution need not maximise every individual performance measure. Natural selection favours variants through their effects on survival and reproduction under prevailing conditions; it has no foresight and no separate ambition to produce the most efficient possible cruising wing.

The nightjar’s wing is therefore better understood as an evolved balance of competing requirements than as an example of perfection in every detail. It can be less than ideal for one task while remaining highly effective across the bird’s whole way of life. That is a more informative explanation than simply admiring its abilities and attributing them to a designer: it identifies the benefits, measures the costs, and explains why the two occur together.

This also illustrates the application of Occam’s razor: we should not add assumptions to an explanation unless they improve its explanatory power. Evolution provides a coherent, testable framework for understanding the nightjar’s combination of adaptations and aerodynamic trade-offs. Invoking a supernatural designer adds an unverified entity without specifying its methods, constraints or intentions, or explaining why it would produce this particular compromise. Unless that addition yields independently testable predictions, it contributes no explanatory advantage. The evolutionary account is therefore the more parsimonious: it explains the findings without adding a designer whose involvement remains an unsupported assertion.

Occam’s Razor: When Does an Extra Explanation Explain Anything? Occam’s razor, also called the principle of parsimony, is a guide to choosing between competing explanations. It is commonly associated with the medieval philosopher William of Ockham. Its central message is that we should not introduce additional assumptions or entities unless they do useful explanatory work.

The principle is often summarised as “the simplest explanation is usually best”, but that can be misleading. A simple explanation that fails to account for the evidence is inferior to a more complicated explanation that succeeds. The relevant comparison is between explanations that account for the evidence comparably well: unnecessary assumptions then count against an explanation.

How does science use it?

Scientists assess explanations by asking whether they fit the observations, are consistent with other well-supported knowledge, and generate predictions that can be tested. Parsimony helps distinguish between alternatives, but it does not replace these requirements. An additional mechanism or entity is justified when it explains otherwise unexplained observations or produces successful new predictions.

This matters because almost any explanation can be protected from contrary evidence by adding convenient qualifications. An explanation that needs a fresh excuse for every awkward observation becomes less informative, even if those excuses make it impossible to disprove.

Applying it to the nightjar’s wing

The evolutionary explanation combines established aerodynamic principles with natural selection acting on inherited variation. A wing feature that benefits slow flight may impose costs during faster flight. Selection acts on the consequences of that combination for survival and reproduction, rather than independently maximising every aspect of flight performance.

Adding “a supernatural designer intended this arrangement” does not, by itself, explain the trade-off any further. Why did the designer favour this balance? What constraints applied? What observations would distinguish deliberate intervention from evolution? Without independently supported answers, the designer is an additional assumption rather than an additional explanation and raises far more questions than its inclusion answers, for example, what evidence is there that it actually exists and how does it create or influence outcomes? So it's inclusion simply adds more unknowns and questionable assumptions to the proposed answer.

Nor does saying that a designer could have chosen any possible outcome provide strong predictive power and is nothing more than an assumption. Compatibility with whatever we happen to observe is not the same as predicting what we should observe.

What the razor does not establish

Occam’s razor does not prove that gods or designers do not exist. Nor does it establish that nature must always be simple, or that the currently preferred scientific explanation is complete. It tells us that an unsupported addition earns no explanatory credit merely because it can be attached to an otherwise adequate account.

The scientific question is therefore not simply whether a designer could be imagined, but whether invoking one explains or predicts anything that the evidence-based account does not. If it adds no such value, parsimony favours leaving it out.

From the Lund University news release:

Nightjar wings reveal a trade-off between hunting slowly and travelling far
The nightjar migrates thousands of kilometres, yet the same wings must also help it catch insects at low speeds. A new study from Lund University shows how these competing demands have shaped the bird’s flight performance.
The European nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus) is a nocturnal migratory bird that travels between Europe and southern Africa each year. However, its wings are not only used for long-distance journeys. When hunting insects, the nightjar must be able to slow down, turn sharply and fly at low speeds. Researchers at Lund University have now shown how this trade-off is reflected in the bird’s flight mechanics.

Using a wind tunnel, the researchers observed nightjars flying at different speeds and measured the airflow behind them. The results show that the bird’s broad wing tips, which are likely advantageous for slow flight, come at a cost. As the bird increases speed, lift production becomes less efficient.

This runs counter to the intuitive image of a long-distance migrant as a perfectly optimised flying machine. Instead, the nightjar’s wings appear to be a compromise between several different demands. The bird can fly slowly and manoeuvre while hunting, but the trade-off is reduced efficiency in lift generation at higher speeds.

Associate Professor Christoffer Johansson, lead author. Department of Biology
Lund University
Lund, Sweden.

A flying nightjar.
Photo: Lund University.

The researchers also made another unexpected discovery. The nightjar generates thrust even when its wings move upward. Such an active upstroke has previously been associated mainly with bats and insects rather than birds.

What’s interesting is that the same type of aerodynamic solution seems to appear in quite different animals. This suggests that the upstroke does not have to be merely a passive or lift generating part of the wingbeat. It can be actively used to generate thrust when the wings cannot be folded very much.

Associate Professor Christoffer Johansson.

The nightjar needs to be able to fly both long distances and at lower speeds.
Photo: Urban Rundström.

The findings provide broader insight into how evolution shapes animals that must perform several different tasks. A wing does not necessarily have to be optimised for a single type of flight. Instead, it may represent a balance between long-distance migration, foraging, slow flight and advanced manoeuvrability. The same principle may also be relevant for technology. Flapping drones and other flying robots, like birds, may be limited in how much their wings can fold during each wingbeat.
We now want to investigate how common this way of generating force is among other birds and flying animals. It could help us understand which aerodynamic principles are specific to the nightjar and which are more general. This knowledge may also inspire the development of new types of flapping aircraft.

Associate Professor Christoffer Johansson.

Publication:
Johansson LC, Norevik G, Friman S, Hedenström A (2026)
Nightjars trade off cruising speed efficiency for hovering capabilities and link upstroke thrust production with restricted wing folding. PLoS Biol 24(9): e3004023. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3004023

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Abstract
The European nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus) is a long-distance migrant that also uses slow, hovering, flight as part of its feeding ecology. This reflects complex tradeoffs in aerodynamic mechanisms and makes studies of their flight performance, in relation to their wing shape, particularly interesting. Here we reveal, using wake visualization and aerodynamic measurements of nightjars flying in a wind tunnel, a unique double tip vortex phenomenon at cruising speeds. This correlates with reduced span efficiency at these flight speeds, suggesting relatively high costs of generating lift. Our interpretation is that the nightjar’s broad, slotted wing tip shape promotes lift during slow flight while incurring reduced aerodynamic efficiency at faster speeds. In addition, we found outer wing upstroke thrust generation during cruising flight—a characteristic previously attributed to bats and hummingbirds—in nightjars. This challenges an existing paradigm that considers an active upstroke to primarily add weight support in birds. Our kinematic analysis suggests this phenomenon may stem from constraints on wing folding during the upstroke, something that may apply generally to flapping flight. Our results highlight the tradeoffs seen in animals engaged in multiple costly behaviors with different aerodynamics optimization criteria based on ecological demands and offer potential solutions applicable in bioinspired engineering.

Johansson LC, Norevik G, Friman S, Hedenström A (2026)
Nightjars trade off cruising speed efficiency for hovering capabilities and link upstroke thrust production with restricted wing folding. PLoS Biol 24(9): e3004023. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3004023

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by PLoS. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The nightjar’s wing illustrates an important feature of evolution: adaptations have costs as well as benefits. Features that help sustain slow flight while hunting can reduce the efficiency of lift generation at cruising speeds. The result is neither a failure nor perfection in every department, but a functional compromise between competing demands. Natural selection can favour such a compromise because reproductive success depends on the organism’s whole way of life, not on achieving the highest possible score in one isolated measure of performance.

This finding is not, by itself, a decisive refutation of intelligent design. Designers also make compromises. The difficulty for intelligent design is explaining what its proposed designer contributes to our understanding. Evolutionary biology and aerodynamics provide mechanisms through which researchers can investigate the nightjar’s flight, measure its costs and benefits, and test explanations. Simply declaring that a designer wanted the observed result supplies none of that explanatory detail.

This is where Occam’s razor becomes relevant. Once natural processes account for the findings, adding an unseen designer with unspecified intentions and methods does not improve the explanation. It merely introduces another assertion requiring evidence. A designer who can be credited with both aerodynamic efficiency and its limitations, whatever researchers discover, offers little guidance about what they should expect to find. It's inclusion thus serves only to satisfy the emotional need to include one and the political objective of those who seek to elevate religious superstition above science.

The scientific interest lies in discovering how the compromise works, what it costs, and whether similar constraints produce comparable solutions in other flying animals. Those are productive questions because evidence can answer them. The nightjar needs no exemption from physics and no appeal to supernatural craftsmanship: its remarkable abilities, together with their limitations, make sense within the evolutionary framework.

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Creationism Refuted - Humans Were Leaving Footprints In Lakeside Mud 11,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-10-20T00:34:34.278+01:00

Fig. 2. Ancient human footprints and other ichnological features.

(A) A large canid track superimposed on a human footprint excavated on TH3. Photo Credit: K.B.S., US Geological Survey (USGS). (B) Linear features (LF) on TH2 that have been interpreted as travois pulled by humans, presumably during transport of resources (2). Photo Credit: K.B.S., USGS. (C) Orthomosaic of the surface of TP15 showing human footprints (Photo Credit: M.R.B., Bournemouth University). (D) Color rendered height map of multiple human footprints on TH0. (E) Color rendered height map of human footprints on TH(−3).

From: Kathleen B. Springer et al.(2026).

Footprints in the (white) sand: Humans experienced abrupt environmental shifts during the last ice age | University of Arizona News

More than 20,000 years before the present, people were walking along a lakeshore in what is now New Mexico, leaving footprints that would eventually become a serious inconvenience for biblical literalists. At White Sands National Park, those tracks preserve evidence of human lives during the Last Glacial Maximum — long before the supposed creation of the Universe in the chronology favoured by young-Earth creationists, let alone their alleged global flood and subsequent repopulation of the Americas.

Now, research published open access in Science Advances reaffirms that the footprints date to approximately 23,500–21,700 years ago. It also reconstructs a changing landscape: retreating Lake Otero, shifts from conifer forest towards steppe vegetation, and episodes of severe aridity. Some changes occurred within a human lifetime. These were people inhabiting a dynamic Ice Age environment, leaving their tracks alongside those of mammoths, giant sloths and dire wolves.

The history of the dating is itself an instructive example of how science works. The original age estimates, announced in 2021, attracted criticism because they relied on seeds from aquatic plants. Such plants can absorb dissolved ancient carbon, potentially making radiocarbon dates appear older than they really are. That was a legitimate methodological objection, and the appropriate response was to test it. A follow-up study reported in 2023 used pollen from terrestrial conifers and an independent technique that measures when mineral grains were last exposed to sunlight. Both supported the ancient chronology.

The latest investigation builds on that work with refined dating and environmental evidence from pollen and sediment chemistry, including hydrogen isotopes in preserved plant waxes. Together, these provide a record of changing vegetation and water availability against which the human presence can be understood. The footprints are therefore part of a much richer history than a single ancient walk across wet ground.

For young-Earth creationism, the problem is fundamental. Within its preferred chronology, these people were living in North America before there was supposedly an Earth for them to inhabit. Invoking a later dispersal from Noah’s Ark does nothing to explain evidence that predates the alleged creation itself. Meanwhile, the scientific account has become stronger through criticism, additional measurements and independent checks. Its conclusions remain open to revision, but revision requires evidence — and the evidence from White Sands continues to place human history far beyond the confines of Genesis.

Dating the White Sands footprints — and reading the climate recorded in plant wax. The White Sands sediments preserve two complementary records: evidence of when people walked there, and evidence of the environment they experienced. Different methods answer these different questions.

Radiocarbon dating: establishing the age

Plants incorporate carbon as they grow, including a small proportion of radioactive carbon-14. After plant material forms and ceases exchanging carbon with its surroundings, its carbon-14 gradually decays, with a half-life of approximately 5,730 years. Measuring the amount remaining allows researchers to estimate its age. Radiocarbon measurements are then calibrated against independently established records of past atmospheric carbon-14 to obtain calendar-age estimates.

A footprint itself contains no organic material that can necessarily be dated. Researchers therefore date suitable material in the surrounding sedimentary layers and establish its relationship to the surface on which the footprint was made. Careful excavation and the sequence of layers are essential: an ancient object washed into younger sediment would not automatically date that sediment.

The original White Sands chronology relied on seeds of the aquatic plant Ruppia. This raised a reasonable concern: aquatic plants can absorb dissolved carbon that is already old. If this happens, their apparent radiocarbon ages can exceed their true ages — a problem known as a reservoir effect.

To test this, researchers dated pollen from terrestrial conifers in the same layers. These plants obtain their carbon from atmospheric carbon dioxide, avoiding the particular old-carbon problem affecting aquatic plants. The pollen dates agreed with the seed dates. Improved pollen extraction and refined radiocarbon methods underpin the latest chronology, which places the footprint-bearing sequence at approximately 23,500–21,700 years ago.

Luminescence dating: an independent check

An earlier investigation also used optically stimulated luminescence, or OSL. Mineral grains accumulate energy from natural background radiation while buried. Exposure to sunlight can empty these energy traps, effectively resetting the clock. In the laboratory, light stimulates the grains to release their stored energy as a faint luminescence signal.

By comparing that signal with the rate at which the surrounding environment supplies radiation, researchers estimate how long the grains have been buried since their last sufficient exposure to sunlight. At White Sands, quartz grains provided a minimum age of approximately 21,500 years, independently supporting the radiocarbon chronology. This check was reported in 2023; it should not be confused with the new study's environmental reconstruction.

Plant-wax hydrogen isotopes: reconstructing water and climate

Many plants coat their leaves with waxes that help limit water loss. Some of these wax molecules resist decomposition and survive in sediments long after the rest of the plant has decayed. Their chemistry preserves information about the water used by the plant when the wax was made.

Hydrogen occurs naturally in different isotopic forms:

Hydrogen-1: the common, lighter form, with one proton and no neutron.
Hydrogen-2, or deuterium: a rarer, heavier form, with one proton and one neutron.
Both are stable isotopes. Neither acts as a radioactive clock. Researchers instead measure their relative abundance in selected wax compounds, usually expressing the result as δ²H, also written δD: the isotope ratio relative to an international reference, reported in parts per thousand.

Water containing the lighter isotope evaporates more readily. Evaporation therefore tends to leave the remaining water relatively enriched in deuterium. Condensation and rainfall also separate the isotopes, so the isotopic composition of precipitation varies with moisture source, temperature, season and the history of an air mass.

Plants take up this water and incorporate some of its hydrogen into organic molecules, including leaf waxes. Evaporation from soils and leaves, together with the biochemical processes that manufacture wax, modifies the original signal. Nevertheless, the wax retains a measurable relationship to the plant's water supply and growing conditions.

Researchers extract wax compounds from successive sediment samples and measure their hydrogen isotope ratios using mass spectrometry. Changes through the sequence can reveal changes in the water cycle. However, a higher deuterium value is not a universal, stand-alone measure of drought: shifts in rainfall source, seasonality and vegetation can also affect the result. Interpretation requires evidence from the local setting and other environmental indicators.

Combining the evidence

At White Sands, plant-wax isotope measurements were interpreted alongside fossil pollen and sedimentary evidence. Pollen helps identify changes in vegetation; sediments record changes in the lake and its margins; wax chemistry provides additional evidence about water availability. Together, these indicate substantial environmental change, including a major episode of aridity.

The dating methods supply the timeline on which these changes can be placed. The distinction is straightforward: radiocarbon and luminescence help establish when; plant-wax hydrogen isotopes help explain what conditions were like. Their combination allows researchers to reconstruct a changing landscape inhabited by people during the Last Glacial Maximum.

Brief glossary

Isotope:

a form of an element with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons.

Half-life:

the time required for half the atoms of a radioactive isotope in a sample to decay.

Reservoir effect:

an apparent radiocarbon-age offset caused by an organism incorporating carbon from a source whose carbon-14 content differs from that of the contemporary atmosphere.

Fractionation:

a process that changes isotope ratios because lighter and heavier isotopes behave slightly differently.

Proxy:

a measurable feature used to infer a past environmental condition that cannot be observed directly.

Biomarker:
a molecule derived from an organism that can preserve evidence of past life or environmental conditions.

University of Arizona: the White Sands environmental reconstruction.
USGS: independent checks on the footprint dates.
Research on leaf-wax hydrogen isotopes as a climate proxy.

A University of Arizona news release accompanied the paper published in Science Advances:

Footprints in the (white) sand: Humans experienced abrupt environmental shifts during the last ice age
Expanded excavations at White Sands National Park in New Mexico have provided researchers an opportunity to refine the age of the oldest human footprints in North America and establish a deeper understanding of the landscape and environmental conditions at the time humans were present there.

Listen to the story

The new study, published in Science Advances by a team of researchers including the University of Arizona, the United States Geological Survey and other partners, reveals a dynamic environment indicating the humans who left their tracks along an ancient lake shore experienced abrupt changes in temperature and water availability within their lifetimes.
The research team previously discovered and confirmed the White Sands human footprints to be the oldest evidence of human presence in North America, placing people on the continent thousands of years earlier than once thought.

The research details innovative extraction procedures used to isolate up to 75,000 individual pollen grains per sample and refined dating methods used at the USGS Radiocarbon Laboratory. This resulted in a more precise age of the site and reaffirmed the White Sands footprints date to between 23.5 and 21.7 thousand years ago, or during the Last Glacial Maximum. The new chronology was key to unlocking the rest of the story, which includes a deeper understanding of the abrupt environmental changes that early humans in North America faced.

The researchers used the new chronology to investigate the climate and environmental changes at a timescale equivalent to a human generation, or approximately 50 years, which is rare for terrestrial paleoclimate archives of this time period from the southwestern U.S.

The White Sands sediments are unique in that they allow us to reconstruct environmental conditions during the last ice age at a very high temporal resolution, so that we can see fluctuations that were relevant for the humans present at that time.

Professor Jessica Tierney, co-author
Department of Geosciences
The University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ, USA.

Tierney applied her expertise in the analysis of geochemical signatures captured in sediments, which she combined with fossil pollen from the plants growing in the surrounding landscape, to reconstruct temperature, precipitation, aridity and plant communities. The results show the climate at White Sands was dynamic. Humans witnessed a complete turnover of the landscape from conifer forest to sagebrush and oak steppe and the recession of Lake Otero, a massive lake that would have covered most of what is White Sands National Park during the last ice age. By measuring isotopes – elemental atoms that differ by their number of neutrons, in this case, hydrogen – in leaf waxes of preserved plant material, Tierney's group at the U of A discovered that there were also swings in water availability within a century that included severe aridity during an abrupt warming event also recorded in ice core samples from Greenland.

This tells us that local changes in aridity at White Sands were quite large and followed global climate shifts.

Professor Jessica Tierney.

During the last glacial maximum, when the humans left their footprints in what likely was a muddy plain, temperatures in the Southwest were generally cooler, around 50 degrees Fahrenheit, as opposed to today's annual mean temperatures around 60 degrees in that area, Tierney explained. During the sudden shift documented by pollen in the sedimentary layers, vegetation changed from pine forest to pinyon and juniper, all within about 100 years.

Tierney said that varying amounts of pollen left behind by Ruppia, an aquatic plant that likes to grow in desert streams and springs, indicate Lake Otero's water level went up and down over the course of about 1,500 years.

Eventually the lake shrunk more and more until it gave way to a flat playa. And throughout that whole sequence, people were walking there, leaving their tracks alongside those of mammoths, giant sloths and dire wolves.

Professor Jessica Tierney.

Having an exquisitely preserved record of the environmental conditions and changes, such as rainfall, temperatures and vegetation in the same place with tracks left by humans and wildlife at the same time is extremely unique for the Southwest, if not globally, Tierney added.

Even though these footprints have been buried in the gypsum mud for more than 20,000 years, they look like someone walked out on the playa yesterday. This is an incredibly rare opportunity to be able to do paleoclimate reconstruction and combine it with archeology in the same exact place.

Professor Jessica Tierney.

Next, the researchers want to delve deeper into what exactly happened at the time – what mechanisms may have been at work that would have caused a warming event in Greenland to cause drying in the American Southwest.

This study fulfilled a long-term research goal at White Sands – to expand the originally published footprint site and sample for environmental indicators to help further our understanding of the complete context of conditions at the height of the Last Glacial Maximum. It's remarkable that early humans in the region were real-time witnesses to a rapidly changing environment discernible within a human lifetime – that is really food for thought.

Kathleen Springer, co-lead author.
US Geological Survey
Denver, CO., USA.

[the findings] humanize the deep Indigenous past of the Americas. This research continues to remind scientists and the wider public that these resilient ancient human populations are the ancestors of contemporary Indigenous peoples, providing important scientific evidence in support of sovereign Native nations' oral traditions and reinforcing the fact that we have been here since time immemorial.

Associate Professor Edward A. Jolie, co-author.
Arizona State Museum and School of Anthropology
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ, USA.

Publication:
Kathleen B. Springer et al.
Humans experienced abrupt environmental changes at White Sands during the Last Glacial Maximum. Sci. Adv. 12, eaeh0707 (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeh0707

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Abstract
Expanded excavations at White Sands National Park have unearthed 20 stratigraphic horizons containing in situ human footprints, megafaunal trackways, and linear features created by travois. Advances in radiocarbon dating of conifer pollen, combined with ages of aquatic seeds, refines the chronology of the footprint-bearing sequence to between 23.5 and 21.7 thousand years ago (ka). Biomarker, pollen, and stratigraphic evidence indicate a complete overturning of the environment from a perennial lake to a playa and capture a large aridification episode coincident with Dansgaard-Oeschger event 2 at 23.2 ka, which shrank pluvial Lake Otero and allowed people to traverse the former shoreline area for nearly two millennia. This well-dated and highly resolved paleoclimate record provides compelling evidence that humans in North America experienced marked environmental changes during the Last Glacial Maximum.

Fig. 1. Geologic context and ichnological summary.

(A) Composite stratigraphy, track horizons (THs) and track packages (TPs), linear features (LFs), and chronologic samples (Ruppia seeds, pollen, and OSL) at WHSA Locality 2. Numbers of human tracks and individuals per square meter; megafaunal tracks of Proboscidea, Folivora (ground sloth), Carnivora (canid and possible ursid), and Aves; and travois pulled by humans are also shown. The red box depicts the extent of the stratigraphy at WHSA Locality 2 reported previously (1, 3). Low-quality tracks in TH(−2) were noted but not counted. (B) Size frequency distribution of human footprints from tracked surfaces of all ages. The four subgroups correspond to ages of (1) <4 years (n = 8), (2) 6.3 ± 0.1 years (n = 72), (3) 11.8 ± 0.2 years (n = 12), and (4) at least 13.8 ± 0.2 years (male) or 14.6 ± 0.2 years (female) (n = 60 total) (table S1). (C) Modeled dates (using model 4) for all THs and TPs based on the corrected ¹⁴C ages of the Ruppia seeds. This figure was generated using the Sequence function in OxCal v.4.4.4 (57) and the IntCal20 calibration curve (58).

Kathleen B. Springer et al.
Humans experienced abrupt environmental changes at White Sands during the Last Glacial Maximum. Sci. Adv. 12, eaeh0707 (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeh0707

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The White Sands footprints present young-Earth creationism with a straightforward chronological problem. People were walking across this landscape more than 20,000 years ago, thousands of years before biblical literalists claim the Earth existed. Their tracks occur within a sedimentary sequence that also records changing vegetation, water availability and lake conditions. Explaining this evidence requires an account of the whole sequence, not simply dismissing an inconvenient radiocarbon date or invoking a global flood. The latter strategy raises an additional problem for creationists who insist that geological strata were laid down in a single catastrophic flood lasting a year: how would such a flood preserve footprints in lakeside mud, and arrange for them to appear in successively deeper layers?

The history of the research also illustrates the value of scientific scepticism. Questions about the original dating prompted further investigation using terrestrial pollen and an independent mineral-dating method. Those checks supported the ancient ages, while subsequent work refined the chronology and revealed more of the environment these people experienced. Confidence in the findings rests on this convergence of evidence and their survival under scrutiny. Scientific conclusions earn their credibility by being tested.

There are still questions about how and when people first reached the Americas, and about precisely how the environmental changes at White Sands affected their lives. The footprints do not settle every aspect of that history. But uncertainty about the details does not make every proposed explanation equally plausible, and it provides no support for compressing this deep human past into a recent dispersal from Noah’s Ark.

Once again, researchers investigating the natural world have incidentally exposed the inadequacy of a literal reading of Genesis. Their purpose was to understand ancient people and their changing surroundings; the difficulty for creationism follows from what they found. Those people left no written rebuttal of biblical literalism. They simply walked across a muddy lakeshore — and the evidence of their existence has outlasted the assumptions that would deny them a place in history.

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Creationism Refuted - Dinosaur Tracks Record Transition From Crawling to Bipedalism

2026-10-19T18:53:07.927+01:00

Holotype of Pachychirotherium gardenaensis

Photo: @ University La Sapienza of Roma.

From Sprawling to Bipedalism: How Locomotion Evolved in Dinosaur Ancestors - Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

One of the familiar refrains of creationism is that the fossil record contains no transitional forms. Yet transitions need not be preserved only in bones: sometimes, animals left evidence of evolutionary change in the footprints they made. A new study of ancient reptile tracks reveals a stepwise acquisition of features associated with upright locomotion — changes that helped establish the conditions for the later evolution of two-legged movement in dinosaurs and their close relatives.

The research, by Lorenzo Marchetti of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and Hendrik Klein of the Saurierwelt Paläontologisches Museum, is published in Palaeontology, concerns early archosauriforms, members of the wider evolutionary group that includes archosaurs — dinosaurs, pterosaurs, crocodilians and their relatives. Their history extends back into the Late Permian, more than 250 million years ago: already an insurmountable chronological problem for a literal reading of Genesis.

Marchetti and Klein re-examined footprints from the Val Gardena Sandstone Formation of northern Italy, including previously undescribed specimens, and recognised a distinctive track type, which they named Pachychirotherium gardenaensis. This is a name for the fossil traces, rather than a newly identified species of skeletal animal. Comparisons with fossil feet suggest that their makers were early archosauriforms with an anatomy resembling that of erythrosuchids.

The wider comparison with Permian and Triassic tracks is particularly revealing. Late Permian forms retain evidence consistent with sprawling locomotion; some Early Triassic forms show transitional characteristics; and a fully erect stance probably emerged during the Middle Triassic. Increasing reliance on the toes, changes in toe proportions and a reduction in the relative size of the forefoot impressions accompanied this evolutionary transition. These features were assembled progressively, rather than appearing together as a completed package.

This does not mean that the footprints identify an unbroken succession of direct ancestors leading to dinosaurs. They reveal something more defensible and scientifically useful: a sequence of changing anatomical and locomotor characteristics across related groups. Nor does an upright stance necessarily mean walking on two legs. Bringing the limbs beneath the body and reducing reliance on the forelimbs were distinct developments, with bipedality emerging later in some lineages.

For creationism, the difficulty is therefore twofold. These animals were walking the Earth hundreds of millions of years before the supposed “Creation Week”, and their tracks preserve evidence of the incremental changes that creationist rhetoric so often declares absent. For palaeontologists, meanwhile, the study shows how an incomplete skeletal record can be supplemented by another source of evidence: the impressions living animals left as they moved across an ancient landscape.

Faced with this evidence however, the standard response of creationists is to insist that the physical evidence they also assert their creator god created, is a forgery or otherwise unreliable because it conflicts with the claims in a book they also attribute to the same creator god. Given the choice allowing the evidence to change their fixed unchangeable minds, they will even condemn the god they purport to worship to the status of a celestial trickster who deliberately tries to mislead us. As Francis Collins points out in The Language Of God, this reflects the scientific and theological bankruptcy of creationism.

Fossilised Behaviour^ What Footprints Tell Us That Bones Cannot. A fossil skeleton preserves parts of an animal’s body. A fossil footprint preserves evidence of something that animal did: placing a foot on the ground. A succession of footprints — a trackway — can therefore supply information about movement that bones alone cannot provide. The study of these and other traces of biological activity is called ichnology.

Reading a Trackway

Researchers examine the shape, depth, spacing and orientation of footprints, together with the relationship between forefoot and hindfoot impressions. Several features can be informative:

Trackway width: the distance between the left and right tracks can help constrain how the limbs were positioned during movement. It is a clue to posture, rather than a conclusive measurement on its own.
Stride length:the distance between successive impressions of the same foot helps describe the animal’s gait. Combined with estimates of body dimensions, it can sometimes support an estimate of speed, although this involves assumptions.
Foot contact: impressions may show whether much of the sole contacted the ground or whether support was concentrated on the digits.
Forefoot and hindfoot relationships: their relative sizes and positions help researchers investigate differences in limb proportions and how the animal moved.
Walking on Soles or Toes

A plantigrade animal places much of the sole on the ground, as humans and bears do. A digitigrade animal walks on its digits with the heel raised, as cats and dogs do. These terms describe foot contact, rather than whether an animal walks on two legs or four.

In the archosauriform study, comparisons among Permian and Triassic footprints indicate a progressive acquisition of digitigrady, changes in toe proportions and a reduction in the relative size of the forefoot. Together with skeletal evidence, these changes help reconstruct the evolution of locomotion.

Upright Does Not Mean Two-legged

Posture and bipedality are different things. In a sprawling posture, the limbs extend substantially out to the sides. In an erect posture, they support the body more directly from underneath. An animal can have an erect posture while remaining quadrupedal: a horse is an obvious living example.

Consequently, the evolution of upright locomotion was not automatically the evolution of two-legged walking. The study identifies changes that preceded, and helped make possible, the later emergence of bipedality in some dinosaur-line relatives.

Why Give a Footprint Its Own Name?

The name Pachychirotherium gardenaensis identifies a distinctive type of fossil footprint — an ichnotaxon. It does not name a skeletal species whose identity has been established beyond doubt. Different animals with similar feet can leave similar tracks, while one animal can leave different-looking impressions as ground conditions or its movements change.

Matching tracks to their makers therefore requires comparisons with fossil anatomy. Researchers can sometimes identify a likely group of trackmakers without being able to identify a particular species.

Clues, Not Perfect Recordings

A footprint is the product of a foot interacting with a surface. Soft mud, firm sand, slipping, erosion and later deformation can all influence its appearance. An indistinct heel impression, for example, need not mean that the heel never touched the ground.

Reliable interpretations therefore depend on well-preserved specimens, repeated patterns and comparisons with other tracks and skeletal remains. Footprints complement bones: they can preserve evidence of animals and their behaviour even where suitable skeletal fossils have not been found.

Brief Glossary

Trace fossil:

preserved evidence of biological activity, such as a footprint, burrow or feeding mark.

Ichnology:

the study of traces made by organisms.

Ichnotaxon:

a named category of traces, classified by their characteristics.

Manus:

the hand or forefoot.

Pes:

the foot or hindfoot.

Plantigrade:

walking with much of the sole contacting the ground.

Digitigrade:

walking on the digits with the heel raised.

Bipedal:
moving on two limbs.

Marchetti and Klein (2026), the stepwise evolution of archosauriform posture and locomotion, Palaeontology.

The paper in Palaeontology was accompanied by a news release from the Berlin museum:

From Sprawling to Bipedalism: How Locomotion Evolved in Dinosaur Ancestors
A research team led by Dr. Lorenzo Marchetti of the Museum fur Naturkunde Berlin described the earliest archosauriform footprints (Pachychirotherium gardenaensis) from the GEOPARC Bletterbach - UNESCO World Heritage Dolomites, Italy. This study discovered that the transition from sprawling to erect locomotion was a stepwise process started in the late Permian and completed only by the Middle Triassic, leading shortly after to the acquisition of bipedality among the first dinosaurs and dinosaur relatives. This was published in the journal Palaeontology.
Archosaurs are iconic animals that ruled the Mesozoic, their most derived group being dinosaurs. Their direct ancestors, the archosauriforms, appeared during the late Permian. This was shortly before the catastrophic end-Permian extinction. However, their fossil record in the Permian is rather scattered. Additional information comes from their footprints, which have been first found in the GEOPARC Bletterbach - UNESCO World Heritage Dolomites, Italy. Until now, this material has been considered similar to Early Triassic archosauriform footprints such as Protochirotherium, known from Germany, Poland and Morocco. Also, it has been assumed that these footprints already indicated an erect stance while the animal walked.

In the frame of a research project on archosauriform footprints carried out at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin , Dr. Lorenzo Marchetti, in collaboration with Hendrik Klein of Saurierwelt, re-analysed the material with the addition of some newly-described specimens. These footprints are now stored at the University "La Sapienza" of Rome and the Naturmuseum Südtirol of Bozen (Italy). The scientists concluded that these specimen belong to the ichnofamily Chirotheriidae and are taxonomically different from all other footprints belonging to this group. So they named these footprints Pachychirotherium gardenaensis, meaning "thick chirotheriid from Gardena".

A comparative study on Pachychirotherium and on the feet and hands of archosauriforms based on morphology and measurements allowed an attribution of these footprints to archosauriforms, and more specifically Erythrosuchidae or animals with a very similar limb morphology.

An additional analysis of archosauriform trackways from the Permian and Triassic revealed a stepwise transition from a sprawling posture (in the late Permian) to an erect posture (by the Middle Triassic) of these animals while walking. This happened together with an increase in cursoriality (so longer middle digits of the foot), digitigrady (so only the digits touched the ground) and a reduction in size of the hands. All of these features were essential for the later evolution of bipedality in dinosaurs and their close relatives.

It is amazing to see how many details on the biology and locomotion of archosauriforms are preserved in fossil footprints, and this becomes even more important when the skeletons are scarce. In fact, trace fossils are the only fossils to directly register the locomotion of living animals.

Dr. Lorenzo Marchetti, first author
Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Berlin, Germany.

Holotype of Pachychirotherium gardenaensis

Photo: @ University La Sapienza of Roma.

Publication:
Marchetti, L. and Klein, H. (2026)
The new archosauriform track Pachychirotherium and the stepwise acquisition of digitigrady, cursoriality and erect stance in the group between the Permian and Triassic.
Palaeontology, 69: e70089. https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.70089

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Abstract
Archosauriforms were the most successful reptiles of the Mesozoic, becoming widespread and diverse during the Triassic. Yet, little is known of their origin, although it seems clear that it was before the end-Permian mass extinction. An additional source of information comes from the early archosauriform footprint record. Based on well-preserved material including newly described specimens, we revise the earliest footprints attributed to archosauriforms from the late Permian Val Gardena Sandstone Formation of northern Italy. This material clearly belongs to the ichnofamily Chirotheriidae, but differs from all known ichnogenera belonging to this group. Accordingly, we introduce the new ichnotaxon Pachychirotherium gardenaensis. Biostratigraphically this ichnotaxon marks the first appearance of Chirotheriidae and belongs to the late Wuchiapingian–Induan Paradoxichnium footprint biochron. Through a synapomorphy-based track–trackmaker correlation, we attribute the newly described ichnotaxon to Erythrosuchidae or non-eucrocopod archosauriforms with a similar pes morphology. We analysed posture and locomotion of early archosauromorphs using six different late Permian to Early Triassic ichnogenera. Some key features of non-eucrocopod archosauromorph footprints (e.g. Paradoxichnium, Pachychirotherium) and skeletons are consistent with a sprawling locomotion during the late Permian (Lopingian), while some Early Triassic forms (Synaptichnium, Protochirotherium) were transitional. A fully erect posture in archosauriforms was acquired probably during the Middle Triassic (Isochirotherium, Chirotherium). Moreover, there is evidence of a stepwise acquisition of digitigrady (favoured by the appearance of a crurotarsal ankle) and mesaxony, as well as a progressive reduction of the manus. These factors were important for the later transition to an erect posture and bipedality.

FIG. 1
Type material of Pachychirotherium gardenaensis igen. et isp. nov. A–D, UR 75/2, holotype, right pes–manus couple, convex hyporelief: A, photograph with oblique light from the upper side; B, photograph with oblique light from the right side; C, false-colour depth map; D, interpretive drawing. E–H, UR-NN 5, paratype, left pes–manus couple, convex hyporelief: E, photograph with oblique light from the upper side; F, photograph with oblique light from the right side; G, false-colour depth map; H, interpretive drawing. All scale bars represent 5 cm.

FIG. 2
Pachychirotherium gardenaensis igen. et isp. nov. A–B, PZO 5753, left pes imprint, convex hyporelief: A, photograph; B, false-colour depth map. C, MGR 50, right pes imprint, convex hyporelief. D–E, UR 73/91, left pes imprint, convex hyporelief: D, photograph; E, false-colour depth map. F, MGR 32, right manus imprint, convex hyporelief. All scale bars represent 5 cm.

FIG. 3
Protochirotherium, right pes–manus couples, convex hyporelief. A–B, Protochirotherium wolfhagense from Detfurth Fm. (Olenekian) of Germany (artificial casts stored at MLUH): A, holotype RGMW 10.14.9.1; B, paratype RGMW 10.14.9.4. C–F, Protochirotherium hauboldi from Wióry Fm. (Olenekian) of Poland: C, syntype, ZPAL R.7/35; D, MPT. P. W4; E–F, MPT. P. W3. All scale bars represent 5 cm.

FIG. 6
Evolution of posture and locomotion of early Archosauromorpha based on both the footprint (A–E, convex hyporelief) and the skeletal fossil (F–J) records. A, Paradoxichnium problematicum, FG 20/1. B, Protochirotherium wolfhagense, RGMW 10.14.9.1, artificial cast stored at MLUH. C, Pachychirotherium gardenaensis igen. et isp. nov. UR 75/2. D, Isochirotherium herculis, NHMS I.B.a10. E, Chirotherium barthii, FG 114/1. F, Protorosaurus speneri. G, Proterosuchus fergusi. H, Shansisuchus shansisuchus. I, Erythrosuchus africanus. J, Euparkeria capensis. F–J, reconstructions redrawn from Gower (1996), Gottmann-Quesada & Sander (2009), Demuth et al. (2020) and Petti et al. (2020.1). Red and green skeletal elements indicate central and distal tarsals. All footprints and skeletons have digit I on the right. F, H and J have been mirrored.

Marchetti, L. and Klein, H. (2026)
The new archosauriform track Pachychirotherium and the stepwise acquisition of digitigrady, cursoriality and erect stance in the group between the Permian and Triassic.
Palaeontology, 69: e70089. https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.70089

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

These footprints present creationism with the same familiar difficulties, this time impressed into ancient sediment. Their Late Permian and Triassic ages place them hundreds of millions of years before the supposed “Creation Week”, while their changing characteristics document the progressive acquisition of features associated with upright locomotion. The transition is not an imaginary sequence invented to fill a gap: it is an interpretation grounded in measurable differences between fossil traces, supported by comparisons with skeletal anatomy.

The Theory of Evolution is central to making sense of these findings. It provides the framework within which researchers compare related groups, recognise transitional combinations of characteristics and reconstruct how locomotion changed over time. There is no requirement that every trackmaker be a demonstrable direct ancestor of dinosaurs, nor any expectation that all relevant adaptations appeared simultaneously. A branching evolutionary history, in which different features emerged at different stages, is precisely what makes the evidence intelligible.

For those creationists who retreat to the claim that such evidence was planted to mislead us, the theological cost is considerable. If their creator deliberately manufactured the appearance of an ancient world and an evolutionary history that never happened, they are accusing the god they supposedly worship of being a cosmic trickster: one who supplies evidence of falsehoods and then expects us to reject the conclusions that evidence supports. That is no defence of divine truthfulness. It makes deception part of the proposed creation process, and is based on the absurd idea that a liar can be trusted when it writes its claims in a book, but not when it writes it in rocks.

Once again, palaeontologists have incidentally exposed the inadequacy of a literal reading of Genesis simply by investigating the natural world. Their purpose was to understand ancient animals and how they moved, not to refute a religious narrative. The conflict arises because the rocks preserve a history that the narrative cannot accommodate — a history in which evolutionary change left its evidence, quite literally, step by step.

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Refuting Creationism - Kyushu, Japan Was Devastated By A Volcano 73,000 Years Ago - But There Is No Trace Of Noah's Global Flood

2026-10-18T21:28:37.037+01:00

Kikai caldera (dotted outline) is mostly below sea level. Iōjima in on its northern rim.

By Batholith - Topographic data: NASA's SRTM-1 30m Mesh (ver.3 2014) Rendering software: KASHMIR 3D, Public Domain, Link

How one of Earth’s worst volcanic disasters affected societies | Lund University

A real catastrophe leaves evidence. In prehistoric Japan, an enormous volcanic eruption left a recognisable layer of ash, devastated ecosystems and disrupted human communities. Thousands of years later, archaeologists can still investigate its consequences. Yet the supposedly global catastrophe described in Genesis — a flood intended to destroy almost all terrestrial life — finds no corresponding place in Japan’s long archaeological history. The contrast could hardly be more awkward for biblical literalism.

The real disaster was the Kikai-Akahoya eruption, which occurred about 7,300 years ago, approximately 5300 BCE. That places it roughly three millennia before the Flood date of 2348 BCE in Archbishop Ussher’s chronology, and even before his supposed creation of the world in 4004 BCE. Japan was already inhabited by Jōmon communities who obtained their food through hunting, fishing and gathering. These were real people living in established societies, confronting a natural disaster in a world that, according to that biblical timetable, did not yet exist.
Now, an international team has investigated how those communities responded. Their findings, published in Science Advances reveal a more complicated history than either universal collapse or undisturbed survival. Southern Kyushu was already experiencing population decline before the eruption, whereas population growth in northern Kyushu continued through the disaster and its aftermath. Some more distant regions experienced stagnation or decline.

How can researchers reconstruct population changes without written records or a prehistoric census? They used radiocarbon dates from archaeological remains as an indirect measure of human activity, analysing their distribution through time and across the landscape with Bayesian statistical models. The underlying principle is that larger populations generally leave more traces of occupation that can subsequently be recovered and dated. Such evidence provides estimates of demographic trends rather than exact headcounts, and its interpretation must allow for dating uncertainty and the limitations of the archaeological record.
Population growth in a particular area need not mean that more babies were being born there. It can also reflect immigration. The researchers suggest that people escaping the worst-affected areas contributed to growth elsewhere, while changes in settlement and the exploitation of marine resources helped communities adapt. These are explanations involving human movement, resourcefulness and changing environments, rather than a simple story in which everyone either perished or carried on unaffected.

The eruption study does not itself test the biblical Flood narrative. Its relevance becomes especially clear when placed within the much longer Jōmon archaeological sequence, which extends from well before the eruption to well after the date assigned to Noah’s Flood. That sequence records changing communities and cultural traditions, not the extermination of Japan’s inhabitants followed by replacement by descendants of a single family arriving from the Near East. Continuity does not mean an absence of migration or local disruption; it means that the evidence provides no support for the universal demographic reset required by a literal reading of Genesis.

Here, then, is the uncomfortable comparison: a prehistoric volcanic disaster can be identified and its uneven human consequences investigated, while the allegedly greater, worldwide catastrophe has no corresponding archaeological signature. The evidence tells a history of people surviving, moving and adapting — a history that refuses to conform to the mythology.

A Lund University news report accompanied the paper in Science Advances:

How Can Archaeologists Reconstruct Prehistoric Populations? There were no censuses in Jōmon Japan, so how can researchers tell whether populations grew or declined after the Kikai-Akahoya eruption? The answer lies in the traces people left behind, their radiocarbon dates, and statistical methods that turn an incomplete archaeological record into estimates of demographic change.

Counting traces of people

Human occupation produces material that can sometimes be dated: charcoal from hearths, charred seeds, animal bones and food residues on pottery, for example. Radiocarbon dating estimates the age of suitable organic material from its remaining radioactive carbon-14. Archaeological context is essential for establishing how a sample relates to human activity.

The underlying demographic principle is straightforward: other things being equal, more people undertaking more activities will leave more archaeological traces. Changes in the frequency of dated remains can therefore provide an indirect indication of changes in population. This is a population proxy, not a headcount: one radiocarbon date does not represent one person, family or settlement.

From dates to demographic trends

For the Kikai-Akahoya study, the researchers used archaeological radiocarbon dates drawn from a database maintained by Japan’s National Museum of Japanese History. They analysed these using Bayesian statistical models to investigate demographic patterns before and after the eruption.

A radiocarbon determination does not usually identify a single calendar year. It must be calibrated to allow for past changes in atmospheric carbon-14, producing a range of possible calendar dates with different probabilities. Statistical modelling allows researchers to work with that uncertainty when estimating population trends, rather than assigning every sample an artificially precise date.

The resulting reconstructions concern relative population change and growth rates. They do not tell us exactly how many people lived in a particular district.

Why caution is necessary

The surviving evidence is an uneven sample of the past. Some materials preserve better than others; some sites have been destroyed or buried; some areas have received much more archaeological attention. Several dates may also come from a single episode of occupation. Changes in settlement patterns or the use of resources can alter the quantity of datable material without an equivalent change in population.

These are reasons to examine sampling, model assumptions and uncertainty carefully. A statistical model cannot automatically recover evidence that has disappeared or eliminate every source of bias.

Growth can mean immigration

A growing regional population does not necessarily indicate a rising birth rate. Following a disaster, survivors may move into less severely affected areas. Northern Kyushu’s continued growth could therefore partly reflect an influx of people from elsewhere — an interpretation suggested by the researchers, rather than something demonstrated by radiocarbon dates alone.

A disaster with a physical marker

The eruption also deposited a recognisable volcanic ash layer, known as the Akahoya tephra. Where this survives undisturbed, archaeological remains below and above it help establish a sequence of activity before and after the catastrophe. The ash provides a shared chronological marker across widely separated sites; it does not, by itself, measure population size.

What does this mean for the Flood comparison? This study investigates responses to a particular volcanic eruption, not Noah’s Flood. The separate argument against a literal global Flood rests on the wider archaeological sequence: Jōmon societies existed long before the conventional biblical Flood date and continued afterwards. That history includes migration, disruption and cultural change, but provides no evidence for the extermination and subsequent replacement of the entire population required by the Genesis narrative.

Research paper in Science Advances.
Researchers’ data and analytical code.
Lund University research report.
Jōmon culture and chronology.

How one of Earth’s worst volcanic disasters affected societies
A new international study led by Lund University examines what happened to population levels after the Kikai-Akahoya volcanic eruption in prehistoric Japan. The results, published in Science Advances, paint a more complex picture than what has previously been believed.
The Kikai-Akahoya eruption took place in Japan some 7,300 years ago. At the time, Jomon foraging communities lived in Japan, surviving as hunter-gatherers.

This eruption must have been devastating, exploding out of the sea bed with little warning. It battered the Japanese islands with powerful earthquakes and enormous tsunamis, and then blanketed the landscape with meters of volcanic ash.

Professor Peter D. Jordan, co-author
Department of Archaeology and Ancient History
Lund University
Lund, Sweden.

The consequences of the eruption have been widely debated by archaeologists for decades. Some argue that it was an ‘apocalypse’ in which all human life abruptly ended closest to the epicentre, while others have started to argue for a local population survival, even in areas quite close to the eruption.

The research team found that both these versions - total collapse or continuity - were too simplistic.

On one hand, populations did decline, as ecosystems suffered and areas became uninhabitable. On the other hand, the researchers found evidence that humans were in fact resourceful in the face of dire circumstances. In some cases, the population actually increased in the period after the eruption.

Coping with sudden shocks

The disaster caused major loss of life. However, survivors migrated, forged new social relations, innovated new kinds of economy, and appear to have found creative ways to exist and later thrive in the new post-disaster conditions.

Professor Enrico R. Crema, lead author.
Department of Archaeology
University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK.

Kikai-Akahoya volcanic deposit in southern Kyushu. This is the “disaster layer” of volcanic ash that runs across the landscape. Archaeologists look at what life was like below this line and also above it to understand human impacts and responses.
Photo: Junzo Uchiyama.

According to Peter Jordan, the research demonstrates how unpredictable and complex the aftermath of a major disaster can be.

This study helps in creating a deeper understanding of the contingent ways in which cultures and societies cope with sudden shocks and catastrophes. Even in the most impossible situations, survivors and communities have choices, however limited: they need to act and make decisions, they need to adjust, collaborate and find new connections and social networks.

Professor Peter D. Jordan.

Population patterns identified by the study:

Jomon forager populations were already in decline in southern Kyushu long before the eruption, and so the disaster hit a region that was already sparsely populated and only being visited by highly mobile groups.
Populations were growing in northern Kyushu and this population growth trend actually continued right through the disaster and its aftermath, despite the massive and enduring damage to ecosystems. The authors suggest this resilient growth trend may be the result of ‘refugees’ moving out of the worst hit areas immediately after the disaster.
Inland survivors appear to have moved away and clustered along northern coastlines, where marine ecosystems quickly recovered. Population growth may have been accelerated by new kinds of adaptation focusing on exploiting the abundant resources of the sea.
The more distant areas of Japan had experienced population growth prior to the eruption, but saw demographic stagnation or even decline after the disaster. These far-reaching effects have never been identified before, and may be linked to short-term climate change triggered by the eruption, or to catastrophic tooth attrition among the deer and boar that the Jomon relied on for their food supplies (possibly a consequence of the animals grazing in ash covered landscapes), or to a suite of other volcanic impacts on human health and well-being.

Publication:
Enrico R. Crema et al.
Divergent demographic responses to the Kikai-Akahoya volcanic catastrophe in mid-Holocene Japan.
Sci. Adv. 12, eaeh7197 (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeh7197

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Abstract
We examine human demographic responses to one of the Holocene’s largest volcanic eruptions, which devastated East Asia 7300 years ago. Archaeologists have intensively debated the impacts of massive environmental shocks, highlighting either societal collapse or cultural continuity, although few studies situate such catastrophic events within longer-term demographic trajectories. We address this gap in knowledge by using statistical models to infer the demographic and environmental impacts of the Kikai-Akahoya (K-Ah) eruption on Jomon foraging communities occupying the Japanese archipelago. Traditionally framed as an apocalyptic “forcing” mechanism that changed the direction of Japanese prehistory, our results identify a more complex and contingent suite of demographic outcomes. Although we do find evidence of major population collapse in immediately adjacent regions to the volcano, some proximal populations actually increased after the catastrophe, whereas some distal communities were affected by environmental consequences that have hitherto been overlooked. Demographic perspectives on ancient disasters are useful in generating a deeper understanding of the contingent ways in which cultures and societies cope with sudden shocks and catastrophes.

Fig. 1. K-Ah volcanic deposit in southern Kyushu.

This distinctive tephra layer offers a precise chronological “disaster horizon” across Western Japan. This stratigraphic cross section is from the Aihara archaeological site, located only 150 km from the eruptive epicenter. The local landscape experienced very heavy ashfall, likely ranging between 1000 and 2000 mm in total depth (see Fig. 3). The heavily compacted layer still averages 400 to 500 mm in thickness, with a shallow pumice layer overlain by thicker tephra deposits. Photo taken by the authors.

Fig. 2. Main typochronological sequences in Kyushu.

Fig. 3. Map of the study area.

(Left) Distribution map of the sampling location of 14C dates overlaid on the hexagonal areal units used to fit the Bayesian models; labeled areal units are discussed in the text. (Right) Tephra model deposit for the K-Ah eruption, after (23).

Enrico R. Crema et al.
Divergent demographic responses to the Kikai-Akahoya volcanic catastrophe in mid-Holocene Japan.
Sci. Adv. 12, eaeh7197 (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeh7197

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

This is another example of archaeologists incidentally refuting creationism simply by uncovering inconvenient facts. The researchers did not set out to investigate Genesis or disprove Noah’s Flood. They wanted to understand how prehistoric communities responded to a devastating volcanic eruption. Yet the history they reconstruct places established human societies in Japan before Ussher’s supposed ‘Creation Week’, adapting to a catastrophe thousands of years before his date for the biblical Flood.

The distinction between the study’s findings and their wider implications matters. This research examines the eruption and its demographic consequences; the longer Jōmon archaeological sequence supplies the context that makes the Flood story untenable. That record contains regional disruption, migration and cultural change, but no corresponding extermination of Japan’s inhabitants followed by repopulation by descendants of Noah’s family. A literal global Flood requires precisely the historical rupture that the evidence fails to reveal.

Meanwhile, the real catastrophe left abundant evidence: volcanic deposits, damaged environments and changes in human activity that researchers can investigate and debate. Uncertainty concerns the scale and distribution of its effects, and the responses of particular communities. Such questions are addressed by testing explanations against evidence, not by insisting that the evidence must accommodate a predetermined sacred conclusion.

For biblical literalists, this is the recurring problem. Archaeology keeps revealing a human past that is older, more complex and more firmly rooted in natural events than Genesis permits. No campaign against religion is required. Researchers need only continue doing their work, and the inconvenient facts accumulate.

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Refuting Creationism - Yet Another of Those 'Non-Existent' Transitional Fossils - From 150 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-10-17T21:47:21.494+01:00

Life reconstruction of the Late Jurassic bird Yuezhuornis yangyuanensis.

Image by Chung-Tat Cheung

Not All Early Birds Evolved Toward Better Flight, Jurassic Fossil Suggests----Chinese Academy of Sciences

Creationists who insist that there are no transitional fossils might wish that palaeontologists would stop finding animals that refuse to respect their imaginary boundaries. A newly described Jurassic bird from China is another such inconvenience: an evolutionary mosaic combining bird-like features with conspicuously dinosaurian anatomy. And, to compound the difficulty for Bible literalists, it lived approximately 150 million years ago — long before their supposed ‘Creation Week’.

The animal, Yuezhuornis yangyuanensis, discovered in the Late Jurassic Zhenghe Fauna of Fujian Province, is described in a paper published in Nature. This crow-sized animal possessed bird-like pelvic and hindlimb features alongside serrated teeth and a hyperextensible second toe bearing a sickle-shaped claw — a combination reminiscent of its close dinosaurian relatives.

Its unusually short forelimbs provide another intriguing part of the story. Analyses of its limb proportions strongly support a terrestrial, flightless lifestyle, despite its placement within Avialae, the evolutionary group containing living birds and their closest extinct relatives. The researchers interpret it as evidence of exceptionally early flight loss. That interpretation necessarily involves reconstructing ancestral capabilities: the fossil provides anatomical evidence about how this animal lived, rather than a direct record of either its behaviour or its ancestors’ flight.

This matters because evolution has no destination. Early birds were not obliged to become progressively better flying machines, any more than every mammalian lineage was obliged to become a bat. Natural selection favours traits according to their consequences in particular environments; it does not work towards a predetermined ideal. A lineage exploiting opportunities on the ground could follow a different evolutionary course from one increasingly dependent on flight.

Nor does a transitional fossil have to be a direct ancestor of modern birds, or a conveniently half-finished version of one. Evolution branches, and different anatomical features change at different rates. A combination of ancestral and derived characteristics is therefore precisely what evolutionary biology leads us to expect. Birds are themselves theropod dinosaurs; fossils such as this help reveal how their distinctive anatomy emerged within that larger family.

What this discovery complicates is our reconstruction of the early branches of bird evolution, not the evidence that evolution occurred. Science advances by testing and refining those reconstructions. Creationism, meanwhile, is left trying to squeeze another revealing fossil into fixed ‘kinds’ and a chronology that the evidence will not accommodate.

What Makes a Bird a Bird~ Understanding Evolutionary Mosaics. Is it a bird or a dinosaur? In evolutionary biology, these are not mutually exclusive categories. Birds belong to the theropod dinosaurs, just as humans belong to the mammals. The evolution of distinctive features does not erase a lineage’s ancestry: modern birds are the surviving branch of the dinosaur family tree.

A body assembled through evolution

The familiar features of modern birds did not appear together in a single evolutionary event. Feathers evolved before modern birds, and their early functions need not have involved flight. Changes to the forelimbs, shoulders, pelvis and tail occurred at different stages, while teeth persisted in many extinct bird lineages.

Consequently, early birds and their close relatives possessed different combinations of features. An animal could have feathered wings while retaining teeth, clawed fingers and a long bony tail. Another could possess more bird-like features in its pelvis and hindlimbs without having forelimbs suited to powered flight.

This is called mosaic evolution: different parts of an organism change at different rates, producing combinations of ancestral and newly evolved characteristics. There is no requirement for every anatomical feature to cross some imagined boundary between “dinosaur” and “bird” simultaneously.

Transitional does not mean unfinished

A transitional fossil is not an unsuccessful attempt to produce a later animal. Nor must it represent a creature with half a wing, half a useful limb or some other non-functional structure. It records a combination of characteristics that helps us understand an evolutionary transition.

These animals lived in their own environments, where their anatomy served their immediate needs. Evolution has no foresight: a feature is not retained because it will prove useful to a distant descendant. Feathers that originally served functions such as insulation or display could later acquire additional roles in aerial movement.

A family tree, not a ladder

Evolution produces branching relationships, rather than a single procession from “primitive” to “advanced”. A fossil therefore need not be a direct ancestor of living birds to illuminate their origins. An extinct side branch can preserve an informative combination of features inherited from shared ancestors.

Researchers reconstruct these relationships by comparing many anatomical characters across numerous species. Classification depends on the overall evidence of ancestry, rather than on a single supposedly decisive feature such as feathers, teeth or the ability to fly. Particular relationships can be revised as new fossils and better analyses become available.

A bird need not fly

Ostriches, penguins and kiwis remain birds despite their inability to fly. Their ancestry determines their place in the evolutionary tree; flight is a capability that can be modified or lost.

For a fossil animal, however, two questions must be distinguished: could it fly? and had its ancestors been able to fly? Limb proportions and skeletal anatomy can provide evidence for the first. Answering the second also requires a reconstruction of evolutionary relationships and ancestral capabilities. Evidence of flightlessness does not, by itself, establish that flight was lost.

The significance of an evolutionary mosaic is therefore not that it defeats classification, but that it helps reveal how the characteristics used in classification evolved.

Glossary

Theropod

A member of the dinosaur group that includes animals such as Allosaurus, Velociraptor and all birds.

Avialae

The evolutionary branch containing living birds and their closest extinct relatives. Its precise definition and the placement of some early species vary between studies.

Ancestral and derived traits

An ancestral trait was inherited from an earlier ancestor; a derived trait evolved relative to the ancestral condition being considered. These terms describe particular features, not an organism’s overall level of “advancement”.

Evolutionary mosaic

A combination of ancestral and derived characteristics resulting from different features evolving at different rates.

Secondary flightlessness

The loss of flight in a lineage descended from ancestors capable of flying.

The paper in Nature was accompanied by a Chinese Academy of Sciences news report:

Not All Early Birds Evolved Toward Better Flight, Jurassic Fossil Suggests
For early birds, evolution wasn't always about becoming better flyers. This conclusion is supported by the recent discovery of a remarkably well-preserved, 150-million-year-old bird fossil from Fujian Province, China, which is challenging long-held assumptions about early bird evolution.
A study published in Nature discusses the newly discovered species, Yuezhuornis yangyuanensis, which lived during the Late Jurassic period (150–148 million years ago). The research suggests that the evolution of the avian body plan was not a straightforward progression toward improved flight capabilities, but a complex process involving the exploration of different ecological niches, including some that did not require flight.

Discovered in the recently recognized Zhenghe Fauna of southeastern China by researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Fujian Institute of Geological Sciences, the crow-sized fossil represents the earliest known example of flight loss in the evolutionary history of birds.

Yuezhuornis challenges the traditional view that the avian body plan evolved almost exclusively under selective pressures associated with flight. Instead, it exhibits a striking mosaic of primitive and derived features, combining characteristic avian traits with features inherited from earlier dinosaur ancestors.

The fossil preserves closely packed, serrated teeth, which are typically found in deinonychosaurs but not birds. Most notably, Yuezhuornis possessed a hyperextensible second toe with a sickle-shaped claw, a characteristic feature of deinonychosaurs, including dromaeosaurids and troodontids.

When we examined Yuezhuornis, we were struck by its extraordinary mix of features. It possesses bird-like pelvic and hindlimb structures yet retains the specialized predatory foot and teeth of a small meat-eating dinosaur. It shows us that early bird evolution was far more complicated than we previously realized.

Professor WANG Min, corresponding author.
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP)
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Beijing, China.

To determine where this enigmatic species fits on the evolutionary tree, the research team conducted comprehensive phylogenetic analyses using both maximum parsimony and Bayesian tip-dating methods.

The results consistently placed Yuezhuornis firmly within Avialae (the group containing modern birds and their closest extinct relatives), just crownward of Archaeopteryx and as a sister taxon to Zhengheornis.

Professor ZHOU Zhonghe, co-author of the study.
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP)
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Beijing, China.

Given its unique anatomy, the team investigated the ecological niche of Yuezhuornis using ecomorphometric and multivariate statistical analyses. The analyses revealed that the limb proportions of Yuezhuornis were similar to those of living terrestrial birds and some non-avialan paravians, suggesting a terrestrial, flightless lifestyle and shedding new light on the ecological diversification of early-diverging avialans.

The discovery of a flightless, ground-dwelling bird from the Late Jurassic challenges the notion that aerodynamic selection was the dominant force shaping early avialan evolution. Instead, it suggests that some early birds followed evolutionary paths that did not favor flight, highlighting the remarkable ecological and morphological diversity that emerged during the early evolution of birds.

The ongoing discovery of early avialans also highlights the potential of the Zhenghe Fauna to shed light on a poorly documented stage of Jurassic bird evolution.

Fossil skeleton of the new Jurassic bird, Yuezhuornis yangyuanensis.
Image by WANG Min.

Publication:
Xu, L., Wang, M., Lin, G. et al.
Jurassic flightless bird reveals early ecological diversity of avialans.
Nature 658, 690–697 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10972-z

Abstract
The origin and early diversification of birds remain highly debated in vertebrate evolution. Although estimates of the evolutionary timescales suggest a Jurassic period radiation^1,2, a profound scarcity of fossils from this period has hampered how the distinctive bird bauplan was assembled^3,4,5. Selection for powered flight has been viewed as the primary driver of early avialan skeletal modifications^3,6,7, attesting to the independent occurrences of aerodynamic features among paravian lineages⁸. Here we report on the discovery of a Late Jurassic avialan, Yuezhuornis yangyuanensis, gen. et sp. nov., from the Zhenghe Fauna of southeastern China⁹. As one of the earliest diverging avialans, Y. yangyuanensis exhibits a striking mosaic of features, combining a mixture of avialan- and troodontid-like cranial characters, paired with derived postcranial traits and a deinonychosaur-like hyperextensible second pedal digit. Phylogenetically informed analyses show that Y. yangyuanensis possesses markedly short forelimbs—a condition present widely among non-avialan theropods. These findings provide strong evidence for a terrestrial, flightless lifestyle of Y. yangyuanensis. Our study demonstrates that evolution works intensively as exemplified by the occurrence of several, divergent ecological pathways being exploited in the initial diversification of birds.

Xu, L., Wang, M., Lin, G. et al.
Jurassic flightless bird reveals early ecological diversity of avialans.
Nature 658, 690–697 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10972-z

© 2026 Springer Nature Ltd.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Yuezhuornis yangyuanensis presents creationism with two familiar problems: an age irreconcilable with a literal Genesis chronology and an anatomical mosaic that makes nonsense of the supposed unbridgeable divide between birds and other dinosaurs. Calling it “just a bird” does nothing to explain its combination of characteristics. Classification names the branch; evolution explains how that branch acquired its distinctive features while retaining others inherited from its ancestors.

Its apparently flightless lifestyle also challenges the mistaken idea that evolution is a purposeful march towards ever-greater sophistication. Early avialans were diversifying, not following a predetermined flight-development programme. Whether this species represents an early loss of flight depends on reconstructing its ancestry, but its anatomy supplies strong evidence that life on the ground was already part of that diversification. There was no evolutionary obligation to take to the air.

Notice, too, what the researchers used to interpret the discovery: comparative anatomy, evolutionary relationships and evidence about the connection between form and function. The theory of evolution provided the framework within which this unusual combination of features became intelligible. Revising the details of early bird evolution is precisely what that framework enables scientists to do; it is no more a failure of evolutionary theory than adding a newly discovered branch to a family tree disproves genealogy.

Science can accommodate an unexpected Jurassic bird by examining the evidence and refining its explanations. Biblical literalism must instead accommodate approximately 150 million years of history within a few thousand, while explaining away the very combinations of ancestral and derived features its advocates insist should not exist. The fossil has no obligation to conform to either demand.

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Creationism Refuted - How Cephalopods Evolved Intelligence - No Magic Needed

2026-10-17T16:58:58.132+01:00

Californian two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides). Embryo at the final stage before hatching. The species is named after the two prominent blue eyespots that can help deter predators.

3D structure of DNA may explain how cephalopods evolved complex brains

How much new DNA does evolution need to produce a new biological capability? Intelligent design creationists commonly assume that new functions require new “complex specified information”, then insist that only an intelligent designer can supply it. But this overlooks something fundamental about genomes: what matters is not simply which genes an organism possesses, but how, where and when those genes are used. Rearranging existing components can change what a biological system does, without requiring every component to be invented afresh, and, importantly, no new DNA being inserted into the genome.

A new study published in Nature Communications explores this possibility in coleoid cephalopods — octopuses, squid and cuttlefish. These animals have elaborate nervous systems and remarkable behavioural capabilities. The research suggests that part of the explanation for their evolutionary innovations may lie in the three-dimensional organisation of their genomes.

DNA does not lie inside a cell as a neatly stretched-out sequence. It folds, bringing regions that are distant along a chromosome into physical proximity. Those contacts can influence gene regulation. An ancient episode of extensive genome rearrangement in the ancestors of coleoids created opportunities for previously separated regions to acquire new regulatory relationships. The researchers describe the resulting interdependence as “regulatory entanglement”.

Comparing genome organisation and gene activity across species, tissues and developmental stages, the team found a combination of stability and flexibility: larger chromatin domains were broadly conserved, while hundreds of smaller DNA loops varied with species and biological context. Their experiments also went beyond comparisons: deleting a candidate regulatory sequence using CRISPR–Cas9 demonstrated a role for these long-range interactions in neural development.

This is not proof that genome rearrangement alone produced cephalopod intelligence, nor does it mean that no new DNA evolved. The study also considers genome expansion. Its importance is more interesting than either oversimplification: evolutionary novelty can involve changes in the relationships between genetic components, as well as changes to the components themselves.

That leaves the intelligent design argument with a familiar problem. Calling a biological outcome “information” does not demonstrate that it required a supernatural author. Here, scientists are investigating physical mechanisms through which genome evolution can generate new regulatory possibilities. Whether creationists choose to call those possibilities “new information” changes neither the mechanisms nor the evidence. The scientific question is how complexity evolved — and this research offers another testable part of the answer.

Same Genes, Different Instructions^ How Genome Organisation Changes What Cells Do. A genome is more than a collection of genes. Its biological effects also depend on how those genes are controlled and how DNA is arranged inside the cell. Evolution can therefore modify an organism by changing the use of existing genes, as well as by changing their sequences or producing new copies.

Genes and their switches Protein-coding genes contain instructions for making proteins, but producing the right protein in the right place and at the right time requires regulation. Regulatory DNA sequences help control this process. These include promoters, where transcription begins, and enhancers, which can increase the activity of particular genes in suitable cellular conditions.

This distinction helps explain how cells with essentially the same genome can become such different things as nerve cells, muscle cells and skin cells. Much of the difference lies in which genes they express, and at what levels.

A genome has three dimensions Inside the nucleus, DNA is packaged with proteins into chromatin. This material folds into a complex, changing three-dimensional arrangement. Consequently, two sequences far apart along a chromosome can become neighbours in physical space.

Such folding can bring an enhancer close to a gene whose activity it influences. However, proximity alone does not guarantee regulation: the sequences involved, the proteins present and the cellular context also matter. DNA folding helps determine which interactions are possible.

What happens when DNA is rearranged? Chromosomal rearrangements can move, reverse or join stretches of DNA. A gene may consequently acquire a different regulatory neighbourhood, even if its protein-coding sequence remains unchanged. Existing regulatory elements can gain access to different targets, while established interactions may be weakened or lost.

Most importantly, a different pattern of gene expression can have a biological effect without requiring a wholly new protein. Changing when a developmental gene becomes active, where it acts or how much of its product is made can influence the development of tissues and organs. Such changes can be harmful, neutral or beneficial; rearrangement is not automatically an improvement.

Stability alongside evolutionary innovation In the cephalopod study, researchers found that larger chromatin domains were broadly conserved, whereas many finer-scale loops differed between species, tissues and developmental stages. They propose that genome rearrangement can establish new regulatory relationships which subsequently become interconnected — a process they call regulatory entanglement.

This offers a potential route to innovation while essential functions are retained. The work supports a role for long-range regulation in neural development, but does not establish that genome folding alone explains cephalopod intelligence.

Does this count as “new information”? DNA quantity, gene number and biological capability are not interchangeable measures. An organism need not acquire an entirely new set of genes every time evolution produces a new feature. Changes to the organisation and regulation of existing material can also produce new functional relationships.

Calling such a relationship “new information” does not explain its origin, still less demonstrate supernatural intervention. The useful scientific questions are specific: what changed, how did it affect gene activity, and what consequences followed? Those questions can be investigated experimentally. An assertion that “information requires a designer” cannot substitute for that investigation.
Brief glossary

Gene expression

The use of a gene’s DNA sequence to produce RNA and, for protein-coding genes, a protein.

Chromatin

DNA together with the proteins that package and organise it inside the cell.

Enhancer

A regulatory DNA sequence that can increase a target gene’s expression, sometimes acting over a considerable distance along a chromosome.

Chromatin loop

A folded arrangement that brings separated regions of chromatin into proximity.

Chromatin domain

A region within which chromatin tends to interact more frequently internally than with neighbouring regions.

Regulatory entanglement

The proposed development of interconnected regulatory relationships between genomic regions, potentially helping to preserve their association over evolutionary time.

Rogers et al., Nature Communications (2026).
University of Vienna research announcement.

The paper in Nature Communications was announced by a news release from the University of Vienna:

3D structure of DNA may explain how cephalopods evolved complex brains
Octopuses, squid and cuttlefish, collectively known as coleoid cephalopods, have evolved exceptionally large and elaborately structured nervous systems capable of complex behaviours such as problem-solving and rapid camouflage. A new study by scientists at The University of Vienna suggests that the origins of this complexity may lie not just in the genes themselves, but in how the genome is organised in 3D. The researchers found that ancient, extensive reorganisation of the genome altered how DNA is arranged inside the cell. These shifts brought previously distant regions of DNA into contact, changing the way genes are regulated. Understanding this process could change how we think about how new traits emerge during evolution. The findings are currently published in the renowned journal Nature Communications.
The team studied the 3D structure of the genome across octopus, squid and cuttlefish, combining data on DNA structure with gene activity.

The genome isn't just a sequence of genes. It's folded into a complex three-dimensional structure. Understanding how that structure evolves is becoming increasingly important for understanding how new forms of biological complexity arise.

Dr Thea M. Rogers, lead author
Department of Neuroscience and Developmental Biology
Division of Molecular Evolution and Development
University of Vienna
Vienna, Austria.

"Regulatory entanglement" as a consequence of genome reorganisation

In cephalopods, a large-scale burst of genome reorganisation, which occurred hundreds of millions of years ago, dramatically reshuffled the genome and brought previously distant regions of chromosomes into close proximity.

The researchers found that when regions of DNA are brought into contact, they can begin to interact and influence each other's activity. Over time, these interactions can become embedded, forming increasingly interconnected regulatory networks.

"Regulatory entanglement" balances innovation and stability in genome evolution

This process, described by the researchers as "regulatory entanglement", may allow genomes to generate new patterns of gene expression while maintaining essential functions.

Not all aspects of genome structure appear to respond to genome reorganisation in the same way. The researchers found that large structural units of the genome, known as chromatin domains, remained largely stable over evolutionary time.

In contrast, finer-scale connections known as chromatin loops were far more dynamic. These loops bring distant regions of DNA into contact. They varied widely across species, tissues and developmental stages, and were often found near genes involved in key cephalopod traits, including those linked to the nervous system. This suggests that these more flexible regions may be particularly affected by large-scale changes in DNA organisation.

3D structure of DNA shapes evolutionary processes actively.

Together, these findings challenge the idea that genome architecture is a passive consequence of evolution. Instead, they suggest that the 3D organisation of DNA actively shapes how evolution unfolds. In cephalopods, this may have played a key role in the emergence of their unusually complex nervous systems.

Summary

Scientists at the University of Vienna reconstructed the 3D organisation of the genome in octopus, squid and cuttlefish to investigate how genome architecture evolved following an ancient burst of genome reorganisation.
The study found that this large-scale reorganisation brought previously distant regions of DNA into contact, creating new networks of regulatory interactions that became embedded over evolutionary time.
The researchers describe this process as "regulatory entanglement", whereby new DNA interactions become increasingly interconnected, allowing genomes to generate novel patterns of gene regulation while maintaining essential biological functions.
The researchers found that not all aspects of the 3D genome respond to genome reorganisation in the same way. Large chromatin domains remained remarkably stable, whereas finer-scale chromatin loops were far more dynamic.
The findings challenge the view of genome architecture as a passive consequence of evolution and instead suggest that the 3D organisation of DNA can actively influence evolutionary change.

Publication:
Rogers, T.F., Stock, J., Schulz, N.G. et al.
Genome reorganisation and expansion shape 3D genome architecture and define a distinct regulatory landscape in coleoid cephalopods. Nat Commun 17, 10319 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-77625-7

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Abstract
How genomic changes translate into organismal novelties is often confounded by the multi-layered nature of genome architecture and the long evolutionary timescales over which molecular changes can accumulate. Coleoid cephalopods (squid, cuttlefish, and octopus) provide a unique system to study these processes due to a large-scale chromosomal rearrangement in the coleoid ancestor that gave rise to highly modified karyotypes, followed by lineage-specific repeat expansions, fusions, and translocations. How these events have shaped gene regulatory patterns underlying the evolution of coleoid innovations, including their large and elaborately structured nervous systems, novel organs, and complex behaviours, remains poorly understood. To address this, we integrate Micro-C, RNA-seq, and ATAC-seq across multiple coleoid species, developmental stages, and tissues. We find that while chromatin domains are broadly conserved, hundreds of chromatin loops are species- and context-specific, with distinct regulation signatures and dynamic expression profiles. CRISPR–Cas9 knockout of a putative regulatory sequence within a conserved region demonstrates the role of loops in neural development and the prevalence of long-range interactions that extend beyond chromatin domains. We propose that differential evolutionary constraints across the coleoid 3D genome allow macroevolutionary processes to shape genome topology in distinct ways, facilitating the emergence of novel regulatory entanglements and ultimately contributing to the evolution and maintenance of complex traits in the coleoids.

Fig. 1: The subclass Coleoidea has undergone large-scale genome rearrangements and genome expansions compared to their molluscan ancestors.

A Phylogenetic relationships among major cephalopod lineages, including representative species from Decapodiformes (dark green) and Octopodiformes (light green), as well as Nautilus, a non-coleoid cephalopod species representing the sister clade Nautiloidea, and Pecten, the molluscan outgroup used in this study^{23,30,115,116}. B Representative photos of cephalopod embryos used in this study, showing the developmental stages used for species-level comparisons: E. scolopes (stage 29), S. officinalis (stage 29), and O. bimaculoides (stage 20), the final stage before hatching in all species. C Schematic showing two modes of genomic reorganisation that generated new gene linkages during the ancient chromosomal rearrangement event in the coleoid ancestor: intrachromosomal mixing (within a single chromosome) and interchromosomal mixing (between different chromosomes). D Genome sizes across selected cephalopod species with chromosome-scale genomes. The molluscan outgroup P. maximus is shown for comparison.

Rogers, T.F., Stock, J., Schulz, N.G. et al.
Genome reorganisation and expansion shape 3D genome architecture and define a distinct regulatory landscape in coleoid cephalopods. Nat Commun 17, 10319 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-77625-7

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

What makes this research significant is that it reveals another way in which evolution can generate biological novelty: by changing the relationships between genetic components. A genome is not merely a list of protein recipes. Its organisation helps determine how those recipes are used, and rearranging existing DNA can create opportunities for new patterns of regulation. The researchers have identified a mechanism that may have contributed to the evolution of the elaborate nervous systems of octopuses, squid and cuttlefish, without pretending that this alone explains their intelligence.

For intelligent design creationism, the difficulty is not resolved by attaching the label “complex specified information” to the outcome. If altered regulatory relationships count as new information, then the question becomes how those relationships arose — precisely the sort of question evolutionary biology investigates. If creationists decline to call them new information, they must acknowledge that important functional changes can arise through the reorganisation of existing material. Neither choice establishes a need for supernatural intervention.

Nor does the study suggest that evolution has run into an explanatory barrier. Evolutionary history provides the framework for comparing these genomes, identifying conserved interactions and investigating how new ones emerged. The remaining uncertainties are questions for further research, not evidence of a designer. Once again, science advances by examining what nature actually does, while the creationist objection depends on insisting that natural processes cannot do what the evidence increasingly helps us understand.

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Creationism Refuted - How Archaeopteryx Was Able To Fly - 150 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-10-16T22:24:44.601+01:00

An illustration of Archaeopteryx

Mark Witton.

How the ‘first bird’ leapt into the sky and soared above the dinosaurs

About 150 million years ago, a small, feathered dinosaur was negotiating one of the most consequential transitions in vertebrate evolution: getting airborne and remaining there under its own power. Archaeopteryx, with its feathered wings, toothed jaws, clawed fingers and long, bony tail, combined features that creationists prefer to imagine belong in separate, independently created categories. It also lived almost 150 million years before the supposed ‘Creation Week’ of young-Earth creationism. Both its anatomy and its antiquity present awkward problems for anyone trying to compress the history of life into a literal reading of Genesis.

Now, a paper in Developmental Biology, by Erik A. Meilak and colleagues, addresses a particularly interesting question: how could an animal with a less specialised flight apparatus than that of modern birds get off the ground? Their modelling suggests that powerful hindlimbs could have supplied the answer. A succession of forward leaps, potentially assisted by a wingbeat between jumps, could have built up sufficient speed for flapping flight.

For a modelled Archaeopteryx weighing about 400 grams, the researchers calculated that three leaps using both legs, or two with an intervening downward wingbeat, could have brought it to a sustainable flight speed of approximately seven metres per second. This provides a plausible route into the air without requiring the powerful, explosive take-off of many living birds. It is a proposed biomechanical solution, rather than direct evidence of an observed Jurassic behaviour, but it makes a specific evolutionary possibility testable.

That distinction matters because evolution does not require a modern bird’s entire flight apparatus to appear in one miraculous event. Existing structures can acquire additional functions, and useful intermediate combinations can precede the more specialised arrangements found in descendants. Legs already capable of propelling an animal across the ground could also launch it into the air; feathered forelimbs could contribute to that movement before acquiring all the refinements of modern wings. No foresight is required, only advantages available to the animal at the time.

Nor does describing Archaeopteryx as transitional mean it was an unfinished creature waiting for evolution to complete it. It was an animal in its own right, with a revealing combination of ancestral and derived features. Birds are themselves theropod dinosaurs, so the transition concerns the emergence of avian specialisations within the dinosaur lineage, not a magical crossing between unrelated ‘kinds’. Calling Archaeopteryx “just a bird” does nothing to explain away its dinosaurian anatomy or its position in evolutionary history.

The study does not settle every question about the origin of flight, and it need not do so to expose the weakness of the creationist alternative. Science can investigate how a transitional animal functioned, compare competing explanations and refine its conclusions. A literal Genesis chronology cannot even accommodate the time in which that animal lived. In the following article, reproduced from The Conversation, co-author Neil J. Gostling explains how the research brings us closer to understanding the steps — or, in this case, leaps — by which early birds took to the air. His article is reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Published: September 7, 2026 4.02pm BST

How the ‘first bird’ leapt into the sky and soared above the dinosaurs

An illustration of Archaeopteryx

Mark Witton.

Neil J. Gostling, University of Southampton

Archaeopteryx is an icon of evolution and is often called the first bird. Scientists have long debated just how it took off from the ground but a recent study published by my colleagues and I has brought new insights to the mystery.

Our study compared Archaeopteryx with the anatomy of modern birds, and our findings suggest it generated the force needed to take off by taking several jumps forwards.

Archaeopteryx, a fossil uncovered from the Jurassic rocks of Germany, dates back 150 million years. It was covered in feathers and it had wings. But it retained a number of distinctly dinosaur features such as a long bony tail, claws on separate fingers and teeth in a beakless jaw.

Charles Darwin predicted, in the first edition of On the Origin of Species published in 1859, that fossils would later be found linking major groups of animals. A year after publication a feather, and within two years, an entire skeleton of Archaeopteryx had been discovered, showing clear links between birds and the dinosaurs. Archaeopteryx is one of those transitional forms that links one group to another.

The “first bird” was not perfectly developed, as birds have evolved to be today. We would not expect them to be. It had relatively weak flight muscles, with no keeled sternum for strong muscle attachment, and could not have raised its wings above the horizontal.

Rather than call it the first bird, it is better to describe it as the earliest branching species, yet known, on the lineage of birds after the whole bird group split from non-avian dinosaurs some time more than 150 million years ago.

In 2016 my friend Colin Palmer asked a colleague, Markus Heller (professor of biomechanics) and me to join him in exploring a tricky problem: how did early birds slip the bonds of Earth and take to the sky?

Palmer had been working on the flying cousins of dinosaurs, the pterosaurs for over a decade, and also a peculiar (although now one among several known) four-winged, feathered and flying dinosaur called Microraptor. However, pterosaurs are not dinosaurs and Microraptor is a dinosaur closer to Velociraptor (small meat-eating dinosaurs) than to birds.

How ancient flying reptiles ruled the skies – new research

There have been a number of suggested mechanisms for the evolution of flight and takeoff, quite literally from the ground up, or the trees down, to flapping while running to climb a slope. The problem is that these are difficult to test experimentally. So we turned instead to the best example of takeoff there is: birds themselves.

Palmer had already filmed a number of birds, out of curiosity. As some other scientists had observed, but had never followed up, Palmer saw that they all showed the same sort of pre-takeoff behaviour. Two leg jumping. The wings appeared to do little in getting the bird off the ground, and this opened up some possibilities for research into the earliest of birds.

The ancestors of birds, the theropod dinosaurs, had powerful legs. They could definitely jump, and jumping could provide an important evolutionary advantage. Being able to get out of the way of a hunter, and maybe adding in a flap of your feathered arms to extend your leap, might just save your life.

The first bit of this research, which we carried out with then undergraduate student Erik Meilak, was developing a means to see how much force the hindlimbs of birds generate in getting off the ground. We used a force plate (a modified kitchen scale) and a Raspberry Pi computer controlling some high-speed photography, along with CT scanning of the skeleton to see exactly how bones were articulated. We worked out how magpies got off the ground. They used their legs as the primary generator.

This undergraduate summer project became a fully-fledged PhD project, with Meilak looking at several birds such as starlings and crows. We worked with evolutionary biologist Pauline Provini in Paris who had done work with doves and finches, demonstrating how all of these birds used their legs in takeoff.

And with detailed kinematics, all of the forces and moments generated by the muscles around the hindlimb joints, we fitted the model to Archaeopteryx and looked to see if the first bird could get into the air in a similar way to modern birds.

Archaeopteryx is by definition 150 million years behind the “leaps” of modern birds, and couldn’t take off as we had observed modern birds do when startled, explosively, with a single jump and then add flapping into the sky. Archaeopteryx couldn’t do that, and as I said couldn’t rely on its wings for powerful flaps. So we had asked what its legs could do. And like birds today, when taking off more leisurely, we demonstrated that Archaeopteryx could have got into the air with two leg leaps. Archaeopteryx could have used three jumps increasing in velocity, and once airborne its flapping wings could have maintained a flight speed of 7 metres per second.

How Archaeopteryx could have taken flight.

Credit: Science Graphic Design

However, if Archaeopteryx had added in a flap, it would have got to that speed – jump-flap-jump – with just two leaps. And all this without the highly evolved and flight-adapted anatomy of pigeons, crows, hawks and even chickens.

In the future we may find a fossil that is still a bird rather than a non-avian dinosaur, but is less, well, “birdy” than Archaeopteryx, and then that would become the earliest branching taxon. But we haven’t yet. So Archaeopteryx still sits on its perch as the first bird that we know of.
Neil J. Gostling, Associate Professor in Evolution and Palaeobiology, University of Southampton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Published by The Conversation.
Open access. (CC BY 4.0)

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Highlights

In the most basic bird, Archaeopteryx, long legs allowed for powerful hops or leaps.
Three unassisted bipedal leaps, or two minimally wing-assisted hops, then flapping, could generate sufficient take-off velocity for sustained flight.
A multi-hop take-off, used by modern birds when not stressed, may have been the forerunner for their explosive single-hop take-off.

Abstract
Archaeopteryx, the iconic 150-million-year-old basal bird, lies at the heart of the debate on the origin of avian flight. While its asymmetric wing feathers indicate some flight capability, its limited shoulder mobility and reduced feather asymmetry suggest it lacked the capacity for the single, powerful leap used by modern birds for rapid take-off. Observations of extant birds reveal that many species, including corvids, employ multiple bipedal leaps with minimal wing assistance to gradually accelerate during take-off, particularly in low-stress contexts. Given Archaeopteryx's robust hindlimbs, we hypothesized that it could have used a similar multi-leap strategy to become airborne. We therefore tested the hypothesis that Archaeopteryx could generate sufficient take-off velocity via multiple hops or leaps. To test this, we developed a biomechanical model based on experimental take-off data from living birds, adapted to Archaeopteryx's anatomy. By analysing joint moments at the hip, knee, and ankle, alongside muscle capacity, we estimated its take-off velocity. Our results demonstrate that Archaeopteryx could have achieved its minimum sustainable flight speed in as few as two to three leaps, without requiring the energetically demanding single leap of modern birds. This study provides the first quantitative support for a ground-up, multi-leap take-off mechanism in early birds, distinct from the single-leap strategy usually observed today. We propose that the modern avian take-off may have evolved from this primitive multi-leap behaviour, offering new insights into the biomechanical transition from terrestrial locomotion to powered flight.

Graphical abstract

Meilak, Erik A.; Gostling, Neil J.; Palmer, Colin; Provini, Pauline; Heller, Markus O. (2026)
Hop, hop and away: On the take-off of Archaeopteryx using a multiple leaping mechanism
Developmental Biology 539(57) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ydbio.2026.07.018

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by Elsevier B.V. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

What makes this research particularly instructive is that it moves beyond identifying a transitional fossil to investigating how that animal could have functioned. Archaeopteryx possessed neither the anatomy of a typical non-avian theropod nor the fully specialised flight apparatus of a modern bird. Yet the modelling suggests that its particular combination of powerful legs and feathered wings could have provided a workable means of taking off. An intermediate arrangement need not be useless simply because it differs from the arrangements found in living descendants.

This is precisely what evolutionary theory leads us to investigate: how existing structures and abilities could acquire additional functions, with natural selection favouring useful changes without anticipating their eventual consequences. There was no requirement for a dinosaur to evolve towards some predetermined goal called “bird”. A movement that improved escape or extended a leap could confer an immediate advantage, irrespective of whether its descendants would eventually become accomplished fliers. The proposed take-off mechanism illustrates a plausible pathway; it does not require us to pretend that every detail of flight’s origin has now been settled.

For young-Earth creationism, however, the difficulties begin long before the biomechanics. An animal living approximately 150 million years ago cannot be reconciled with a world supposedly created a few thousand years ago without rejecting the evidence on which that chronology rests. Its mosaic anatomy creates a further problem for claims that major groups appeared separately, complete with their distinctive features. Calling it “just a bird” merely attaches a label to the very combination of characteristics that needs explaining.

While creationist apologetics seeks ways to dismiss that evidence, science uses it to ask increasingly precise questions. Here, evolutionary relationships provide the framework for comparing fossils with living animals and testing what an ancient body could have done. The remaining uncertainties are opportunities for further research, not evidence for a supernatural intervention. There is no need to insert a miracle between a dinosaur’s leap and an early bird’s flight.

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Refuting Creationism - Another New Dinosaur From The Isle of Wight For Creationists To Ignore

2026-10-16T00:29:38.764+01:00

An artist’s illustration of the new theropod dinosaur, Invictibellatrix amberina (centre of the image), in its ecosystem on the Isle of Wight, United Kingdom in the Early Cretaceous (around 120 million years ago). It lived in what was likely a seasonally wet-to-dry floodplain environment and is surrounded by other dinosaurs including large long-necked rebbachisaurid sauropods (directly behind Invictibellatrix, centre) and relatives of Iguanodon (right). A spinosaurid theropod, potentially the apex predator of the time, fishes (left). Invictibellatrix has just caught and is consuming two small mammals. Gymnosperms dominate the environment as flowering plants (angiosperms) were not common at this time. Other reptiles including relatives to modern lizards, crocodiles and turtles enjoy the warm Early Cretaceous weather of the UK.

Credit: Sergey Krasovskiy and Pedro Salas.

UK dinosaur fossil identified as new long-clawed predator | UCL News

Palaeontologists do not need to set out to refute biblical creationism. They merely need to investigate the history of life, and the evidence does the job for them. Another example comes from the Isle of Wight, where a fossil has revealed a previously unrecognised predatory dinosaur that lived about 120 million years ago — long before the supposed ‘Creation Week’ of a literal reading of Genesis. While creationists struggle to squeeze the history of an entire planet into a few thousand years, researchers are reconstructing the evolutionary relationships and geographical movements of animals separated from us by immense stretches of geological time.

The fundamental problem creationists have created for themselves is that, because there is vastly more history pre-'Creation Week' than there is post-'Creation Week', by several orders of magnitude, virtually every palaeontological, geological and archaeological discovery incidentally refutes creationism, so the most risible and dishonest mental gymnastics have to be invoked to dismiss it all, and creationists end up looking both intellectually and morally bankrupt.

For example, as described in a study, published in Royal Society Open Science, a team led by University College London (UCL) researchers has identified Invictibellatrix amberina, the first recognised European member of a group of carnivorous dinosaurs known as megaraptorans. The discovery concerns a partial skull acquired by the Natural History Museum in 1924. CT scanning and anatomical comparisons have now revealed its significance. From its relatives, the researchers infer an animal around three to four metres long, probably feathered and equipped with substantial grasping arms and curved claws.

The discovery also helps fill a geographical gap in the group’s known distribution, supporting the hypothesis that megaraptorans dispersed from Asia through Europe towards the southern continents. This is the sort of question evolutionary science can investigate: how related animals diversified, where they lived, and how changing geography influenced their distribution. A fossil becomes evidence within a wider, testable account of life’s history.

For young-Earth creationism, however, the difficulty begins before any discussion of the animal’s family tree. Its Early Cretaceous age is already irreconcilable with the proposed biblical chronology. Calling it a victim of Noah’s Flood does not resolve that contradiction; it merely substitutes a preferred story for the geological evidence. The claim would still need to explain why fossils occur in their particular stratigraphic sequence, and why that sequence records successive ecosystems rather than one recently overwhelmed world.

Here, then, is the familiar contrast. Science revisits an old museum specimen and extracts new knowledge from it, allowing evidence to refine its conclusions. Biblical literalism starts with conclusions that must remain untouched, then demands that the evidence somehow accommodate them. The resulting mental gymnastics may preserve a belief, but they provide no explanation of the fossil. A fragment of dinosaur skull has no theological agenda. Its inconvenience lies simply in belonging to a real history far older and more complex than the childishly simplistic chronology creationists insist on extracting from Genesis.

Megaraptorans — An Evolutionary History with a European Gap. Before the identification of Invictibellatrix amberina on the Isle of Wight, palaeontologists already knew that megaraptorans had a long evolutionary history and a wide geographical distribution. What remained uncertain was their precise relationship to other predatory dinosaurs and how they had spread between continents.

What were megaraptorans?

Megaraptorans were two-legged carnivorous dinosaurs with powerful arms and enlarged, curved hand claws. Despite their name, they were not simply oversized versions of Velociraptor. Their characteristic weapons were on their hands, rather than the specialised sickle-shaped foot claws associated with dromaeosaurs.

Their position in the dinosaur family tree has been debated. Earlier analyses sometimes grouped them with allosauroids; others placed them among coelurosaurs, either within the wider tyrannosaur lineage or as its closest related branch. The 2025 study describing Joaquinraptor supported a sister-group relationship with Tyrannosauroidea. Calling them close relatives of tyrannosaurs is therefore reasonable, but their exact evolutionary position remains an active research question.

Where had they been found?

Region Examples Significance

Asia Fukuiraptor from Japan; Phuwiangvenator and the more uncertain Vayuraptor from Thailand. Early Cretaceous animals placed close to the base of the megaraptoran family tree in several analyses.

Australia Australovenator, the specimen nicknamed “Lightning Claw”, and other fragmentary remains. Evidence that megaraptorans were established in the southern continents early in their known history.

South America Megaraptor, Murusraptor, Aerosteon, Tratayenia, Maip and Joaquinraptor, particularly from Patagonia. A later radiation that included large predators and persisted until close to the end of the Cretaceous.

These discoveries documented a lineage that existed over many tens of millions of years. However, incomplete skeletons and disputed identifications meant that some details of its distribution and relationships remained provisional.

How did they spread between continents?

Several studies favoured an Asian origin followed by dispersal into Gondwana, the southern supercontinent. A 2016 study of Australian material proposed that Australia played an important role in the subsequent diversification of megaraptorids, with interchange between Australia, Antarctica and South America.

These continents did not occupy their present positions or have their present climates. Former connections offered opportunities for animals to spread between regions that are now separated by oceans. Antarctica was therefore a plausible part of a dispersal route, although an inferred route should not be confused with direct fossil evidence from every stage along it.

A 2025 analysis of megaraptoran biogeography also reconstructed a widespread early distribution and anticipated further discoveries in the northern continents. Before the Isle of Wight identification, however, Europe remained a conspicuous gap in the accepted fossil record.

From smaller predators to giants

The known fossils suggest a broad increase in body size among later South American megaraptorans. Some became major predators in Patagonian ecosystems. Maip, described in 2022, was estimated to have reached about nine to ten metres in length, while Joaquinraptor, described in 2025, showed that the group persisted near the end of the Cretaceous.

This was a branching evolutionary radiation, not a ladder in which each named species became the next. Different lineages occupied different regions and ecological roles, and the fossils preserve only part of that diversity.

What does the European discovery change?

Invictibellatrix amberina provides the first recognised European megaraptoran, supporting the hypothesis that Europe formed part of a dispersal route between Asia and the southern continents. One specimen cannot establish every stage of that journey, but it supplies evidence from a region where it had previously been missing.

The important point is that this discovery enters an evolutionary framework developed before the fossil was identified. Researchers had already inferred a wider distribution than the known specimens directly demonstrated. The new evidence allows that reconstruction to be tested and refined — an example of how science turns gaps in knowledge into questions that further discoveries can answer.

Brief glossary

Megaraptora

The broader evolutionary group containing megaraptorans.

Megaraptoridae

A subgroup within Megaraptora, including many of the Australian and South American forms.

Tyrannosauroidea

The wider tyrannosaur lineage, including early relatives as well as later animals such as Tyrannosaurus rex.

Biogeography

The study of the geographical distribution of organisms and the processes that produced it.

Evolutionary radiation

The diversification of an ancestral lineage into multiple descendant lineages.

Region	Examples	Significance
Asia	Fukuiraptor from Japan; Phuwiangvenator and the more uncertain Vayuraptor from Thailand.	Early Cretaceous animals placed close to the base of the megaraptoran family tree in several analyses.
Australia	Australovenator, the specimen nicknamed “Lightning Claw”, and other fragmentary remains.	Evidence that megaraptorans were established in the southern continents early in their known history.
South America	Megaraptor, Murusraptor, Aerosteon, Tratayenia, Maip and Joaquinraptor, particularly from Patagonia.	A later radiation that included large predators and persisted until close to the end of the Cretaceous.

The paper in Royal Society Open Science was accompanied by a UCL news report:

UK dinosaur fossil identified as new long-clawed predator
A new species of dinosaur, a long-clawed predator up to four metres long, has been discovered by a UCL-led team from a fossil found on the Isle of Wight.
The dinosaur, described in a new paper in the journal Royal Society Open Science, belongs to a group of agile, two-legged carnivores called megaraptorans and is the first of this group to be found in Europe.

Megaraptorans were closely related to tyrannosaurs including Tyrannosaurus rex but had slender heads, attacking prey with their large arms and giant curved claws instead of their jaws.

While some species grew to gigantic sizes, just as tyrannosaurs did, this new species is one of the smallest and earliest of the group to be found, living in the UK in the Early Cretaceous period about 120 million years ago.

It has been named Invictibellatrix amberina. Invictibellatrix means “unconquered female warrior” – honouring megaraptorans’ future role as massive apex predators.

The fossil, a chunk of the back of a skull, was acquired by the Natural History Museum in 1924 and had been overlooked for study until now.

Based on what we know about its closest relatives, Invictibellatrix would have been three to four metres long and just over a metre and a half in height - about as tall as a human. It would likely have had feathers and its claws might have been about 10cm to 20cm long. It would have eaten small dinosaurs, lizards and mammals – occupying a similar role in the food chain to the hyena today. It was not the apex predator of its time, but for humans this dinosaur would have been more dangerous than a T. rex. We would have been perfectly sized prey, about a third of their body weight. They definitely would have chased us. A T. rex would not have bothered, as we would have been too small. It is a real mystery that this fossil was overlooked for so long, sitting in a drawer for nearly 100 years. Lots of bones are found on the Isle of Wight – who knows what else is waiting to be discovered.

Dr Cassius Morrison, lead author
Department of Earth Sciences
University College London
London, UK.

Megaraptors are regarded as the most mysterious of the large, meat-eating dinosaurs, as few megaraptor fossils have been found.

They are thought to have originated in Asia, before migrating through Europe and becoming apex predators throughout the southern land mass of Gondwana (including present-day Africa, South America and Antarctica).

But until now, this theory was missing key fossil evidence, as no megaraptorans had been found in Europe.

This new species is the first proof we have that megaraptorans were also present in Europe and that they reached Gondwana this way rather than island-hopping further south.

Charlie Scherer, co-author
Department of Earth Sciences
University College London
London, UK.

For the study, researchers undertook a CT scan of the fossil, creating a 3D model of this part of the skull as well as a model of the interior of the skull, i.e. the brain.

The researchers compared the fossil with skulls and brain cases from tyrannosaurs, spinosaurs, raptors and other two-legged meat-eating dinosaurs.

A unique combination of skull features, including an oval hole where the spinal cord entered the brain and an hour-glass-shaped crest, led researchers to conclude it was a new species.

Fossil of newly identified theropod dinosaur, Invictibellatrix amberina. The oval hole is where the brain would have been.

Credit: The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London

Computer algorithms analysing how the traits of the skull fit in with those of other species consistently found the specimen belonged to the megaraptoran family.

The research team also used mathematical modelling to investigate how the spread of megaraptors around the world might have changed over time, based on fossils discovered so far, dinosaurs’ evolutionary trees, geography and climate.

The team concluded that megaraptors were globally widespread in the Early Cretaceous (i.e., at the time of Invictibellatrix), but by the Late Cretaceous tens of millions of years later they had likely become extinct in the giant northern landmass of Laurasia (including modern-day Europe).

During this later period, megaraptors became apex predators throughout Gondwana in the south, reaching gigantic sizes, with claws up to 35cm (14in) long.*

The study did not explain why megaraptors likely died out in the north, but this may have been a result of shifts in climate or environment, or the presence of competing predators such as other tyrannosaurs.

The Invictibellatrix fossil was originally found at the foot of a cliff on the south-west coast of the Isle of Weight by amateur palaeontologist Reginald Walter Tooley. It was one of more than 1,000 specimens discovered by Tooley that were acquired by the Natural History Museum after his death.

Despite over 200 years of collecting, the Isle of Wight continues to surprise us with new dinosaur species, and finds of carnivorous dinosaurs, such as Invictibellatrix, have been particularly elusive. Work like this shows the exceptional value of working with historical museum collections where there are still many discoveries to be made.

Professor Paul M. Barrett, senior author
Fossil Reptiles, Amphibians and Birds Section
Natural History Museum
London, UK.

In the paper, the researchers said the name Invictibellatrix was intended to “give hope and strength to all those who are bullied, discriminated, victimised, and oppressed that tomorrow will be theirs and not to give up in face of such odds”. Amberina, meanwhile, refers to the amber found in the rocks where the fossil was discovered, as well as to the female name.

*Maip macrothorax, for instance, found in what is now Argentina, was an estimated nine to 10 metres long and weighed as much as an elephant.

Publication:
Cassius Morrison, Charlie R. Scherer, Philip Mannion, Laura B. Porro, Brett Clark, Daniel D. Folkes, Paul M. Barrett
A new megaraptoran dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Wessex Formation, UK, and its implications for theropod evolution and biogeography. R. Soc. Open Sci. 1 October 2026; 13 (10): 260937. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.260937

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Abstract
Theropod dinosaur remains from the Barremian (Lower Cretaceous) Wessex Formation of the Isle of Wight, UK, are rare and often fragmentary. Here, we present a previously undescribed braincase from this formation that represents a new coelurosaurian, Invictibellatrix amberina gen. et sp. nov. Phylogenetic analysis and comparative anatomy indicate that Invictibellatrix is distantly related to all previously named theropods from this stratigraphic unit. Theropod braincases are often regarded as morphologically and phylogenetically conservative, but we demonstrate that neurocranial characters provide essential data that can help clarify the phylogenetic relationships of theropods. The sub-circular occipital condyle, sub-oval foramen magnum and presence of a sagittal nuchal crest indicate that Invictibellatrix is referable to Megaraptora, with phylogenetic analyses recovering it as an early-diverging member of this clade, within a paraphyletic array of Eurasian taxa. Incorporation of Invictibellatrix into a biogeographical analysis suggests that non-megaraptorid megaraptorans likely had a cosmopolitan distribution in the Early Cretaceous, and that the absence of megaraptorans in the Late Cretaceous of Laurasia is best explained by regional extinction. The recognition of this new genus increases our knowledge of Early Cretaceous European coelurosaurian diversity, which now includes tyrannosauroids, maniraptoriforms and megaraptorans.

Figure 1.

Photographs of the holotype braincase (NHMUK PV R6775) of I. amberina gen. et sp. nov. in A: anterior, B: posterior; C: right lateral; D: left lateral; E: ventral; F: dorsal views. Abbreviations: atr, anterior tympanic recess; boc, basioccipital crest; bpr, basipterygoid recess; bsr, basisphenoid recess; bt, basal tubera; btw, basituberal web; CN, cranial nerves V, VII; cp, cultriform process; cvl, crista ventrolateralis of basisphenoid; fm, foramen magnum; oc, occipital condyle; ova, fenestra ovalis; pcr, paracondylar recess; pit, depression of the pituitary gland within the pituitary fossa; pp, paraoccipital process; prp, preotic pendant; psncr, parasagittal nuchal crest recess; scr, sub-condylar recess; snc, parasagittal nuchal crest; sok, supraoccipital knob; sta, sella turcica. Scale bar equals 50 mm.

Figure 2.

Line drawings of the holotype braincase (NHMUK PV R6775) of I. amberina gen. et sp. nov. in A: anterior, B: posterior; C: right lateral; D: left lateral; E: ventral; F: dorsal views. Abbreviations: atr, anterior tympanic recess; boc, basioccipital crest; bpr, basipterygoid recess; bsr, basisphenoid recess; bt, basal tubera; btw, basituberal web; CN, cranial nerves V, VII; cp, cultriform process; cvl, crista ventrolateralis of basisphenoid; fm, foramen magnum; oc, occipital condyle; ova, fenestra ovalis; pcr, paracondylar recess; pit, depression of the pituitary gland within the pituitary fossa; pp, paraoccipital process; prp, preotic pendant; psncr, parasagittal nuchal crest recess; scr, sub-condylar recess; snc, parasagittal nuchal crest; sok, supraoccipital knob; sta, sella turcica. Scale bar equals 50 mm.

Cassius Morrison, Charlie R. Scherer, Philip Mannion, Laura B. Porro, Brett Clark, Daniel D. Folkes, Paul M. Barrett
A new megaraptoran dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Wessex Formation, UK, and its implications for theropod evolution and biogeography. R. Soc. Open Sci. 1 October 2026; 13 (10): 260937. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.260937

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by The Royal Society. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The significance of Invictibellatrix amberina extends beyond adding another name to the dinosaur catalogue. Its identification helps fill a geographical gap in an evolutionary history reconstructed from fossils, anatomy and the changing arrangement of continents. Evolution provides the framework that makes these observations intelligible: related animals inherited shared features, diversified and spread as opportunities arose. No special creation event is needed to explain their relationships or distribution.

There are still questions about precisely where megaraptorans belong in the dinosaur family tree and which routes they followed between continents. Those uncertainties are subjects for further research, not evidence that the entire evolutionary account is in doubt. Revising a branch of the family tree does not bring a 120-million-year-old dinosaur within the few thousand years permitted by young-Earth creationism. Nor does calling its burial a consequence of Noah’s Flood explain the geological context in which it was preserved.

For biblical literalists, accommodating this evidence requires the familiar mental gymnastics: rejecting the chronology, invoking a global catastrophe and treating whatever remains unexplained as support for the preferred story. But an explanation must do more than protect a belief from contradiction. It must account for the evidence and offer some means of testing whether it is wrong. A conclusion that cannot be revised, whatever the fossils reveal, is an article of faith rather than a scientific finding.

Meanwhile, a skull fragment collected more than a century ago has yielded fresh knowledge because researchers asked new questions and applied new techniques. That is how understanding advances. The specimen was never obliged to conform to Genesis, and its history does not become shorter because an ancient text requires it. Once again, science has made creationism’s problem worse simply by getting on with the business of finding out what happened.

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How Science Works - And Why Religions Don't

2026-10-15T01:02:29.419+01:00

New JWST images of abnormally well-developed galaxy cluster open up the “cosmic noon” frontier | IPAC

This two-panel image shows a distant galaxy cluster as it has been observed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). At over 10 billion light-years away, the cluster XLSSC 122 is the most distant known example of a cluster found to act as a strong gravitational lens, magnifying and distorting images of yet more distant galaxies behind it.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA; Kyle Finner (Caltech/IPAC)
Image processing: Robert Hurt (Caltech/IPAC-SELab)

Young-Earth creationism, with its insistence on the literal, inerrant truth of Genesis, is a prisoner of its own conclusions. Evidence may be disputed, dismissed or reinterpreted, but the sacred account must remain beyond correction. Science proceeds on a fundamentally different basis: even its most successful explanations must remain open to revision when observations expose their limitations. Where creationism demands that reality conform to an ancient text, science requires its explanations to conform to reality.

A striking example comes from new James Webb Space Telescope observations of the distant galaxy cluster XLSSC 122. First identified in an X-ray survey in 2014, this cluster is now seen in extraordinary detail, revealing an unexpectedly high concentration of mass in its core. The problem is not that gravity should have been incapable of binding galaxies together, but that such a concentrated structure appears to have developed earlier than standard models would lead astronomers to expect.

JWST revealed arcs of light from more distant galaxies, distorted by the cluster’s gravity. This phenomenon, known as strong gravitational lensing, allows astronomers to investigate how mass, including invisible dark matter, is distributed within the cluster. The resulting measurements suggest that massive cosmic structures may sometimes assemble more rapidly than current models predict.

That is a challenge worth investigating, not a declaration that cosmology has collapsed. An unusual object can expose limitations in our modelling, assumptions or understanding of how structures grow without overturning an entire theoretical framework. The scientific response is to check the measurements, examine competing explanations and study more examples. The conclusions must follow the evidence, wherever it leads.

Notice, too, what happened to these potentially awkward findings. They were published in three papers in The Astrophysical Journal Letters by an international team including researchers at Caltech’s IPAC and Yonsei University, and presented at a press conference on 17 June 2026 during the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Far from being suppressed for challenging scientific orthodoxy, the results were publicised as an opportunity to test and improve our understanding.

The researchers are not announcing that everything we thought we knew was wrong. They are doing something more useful: identifying a possible mismatch between observation and prediction, explaining how they measured it, and inviting further scrutiny. A scientific model earns its standing by surviving such tests; it has no entitlement to protection from them.

For biblical literalism, the difficulty is more fundamental. Once an ancient creation narrative has been declared infallible, there is no equivalent freedom to conclude that its chronology or cosmology is mistaken. Interpretations may shift, but the requirement to vindicate the text remains. Science can advance by discovering where its explanations fail; creationism must continually explain away the possibility that its starting assumptions were wrong.

How Galaxy Clusters Grow — And Why XLSSC 122 Is Surprising. A galaxy cluster is much more than a collection of galaxies. It also contains enormous quantities of hot, diffuse gas and an even larger component of dark matter, whose presence is inferred from its gravitational effects. Together, these components form some of the largest gravitationally bound structures in the universe.

From small irregularities to enormous structures

The early universe was remarkably uniform, but not perfectly so. Some regions contained slightly more matter than others. Their extra gravitational attraction drew in surrounding material, allowing these initial differences to grow. Dark matter accumulated into structures called haloes, within which ordinary matter could collect and galaxies could develop.

Over billions of years, gravitational attraction, continuing infall and mergers assembled larger structures from smaller ones. Galaxy groups combined into clusters, which continued to grow as they collected more matter. This process is known as hierarchical structure formation. It does not imply that every cluster follows an identical timetable: individual histories depend on their surroundings and the structures with which they interact.

Looking into the past

Because light takes time to travel, observing distant galaxies means seeing them as they were in the past. XLSSC 122 has a redshift of approximately 1.98, placing it in the era often called cosmic noon, when the universe’s overall rate of star formation was near its peak.

Observations of clusters from this period allow astronomers to compare earlier stages of structure formation with the mature clusters around us today. They also provide a test of whether simulations reproduce how rapidly matter assembled and how it became distributed.

Weighing a cluster with bent light

Gravity curves spacetime, changing the paths followed by light. When a massive cluster lies in front of more distant galaxies, it can distort and magnify their images. This is gravitational lensing.

Strong lensing produces conspicuous distortions, such as stretched arcs or multiple images of the same background galaxy. It can reveal how mass is distributed in a cluster’s central region.

Weak lensing produces subtler distortions that must be measured statistically across many background galaxies. It helps astronomers map mass over a wider area.

Both methods respond to the cluster’s total gravitating mass, including dark matter. They therefore allow astronomers to investigate matter that cannot be mapped simply by adding up the light from visible galaxies.

What is unusual about XLSSC 122?

JWST observations revealed strong-lensing arcs around this previously known cluster. Analysis of those arcs indicated an exceptionally concentrated distribution of mass in its core. The surprise concerns how such a concentrated structure developed so early, rather than whether gravity could bind galaxies together at all.

Other observations indicate that the cluster is still undergoing merger activity. Its unusually developed core therefore does not mean that the whole system is fully settled or has finished assembling.

A challenge to investigate, not a verdict on all cosmology

An unexpected cluster does not, by itself, disprove the Big Bang or establish that the entire standard cosmological model is wrong. Astronomers must assess measurement uncertainties, modelling assumptions, merger history and how representative the object is. Observations of more clusters from the same period will help establish whether XLSSC 122 is an unusual case or part of a broader pattern requiring changes to our understanding of structure formation.

This is precisely why such discoveries matter: they turn an apparent mismatch between theory and observation into a question that further evidence can answer.

Glossary

Dark matter

Matter detected through its gravitational effects rather than emitted light. Its physical nature remains unresolved.

Dark matter halo

An extended concentration of dark matter associated with a galaxy, galaxy group or cluster.

Redshift

The stretching of light to longer wavelengths. For distant galaxies, cosmological redshift principally reflects the expansion of the universe while their light was travelling.

Cosmic noon

The broad period, roughly 10 billion years ago, when the universe’s overall rate of star formation was highest.

Gravitational lensing

The distortion and magnification of background objects by the gravity of intervening matter.

IPAC’s account of the XLSSC 122 observations.
strong gravitational lensing.
weak lensing and merger activity.

The three papers, available here, here and here, are discussed in this news release from IPAC:

New JWST images of abnormally well-developed galaxy cluster open up the “cosmic noon” frontier
New observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope add to the intrigue surrounding a young, but surprisingly mature galaxy cluster from the early universe that challenges prevailing theories of cosmic evolution.
A stunningly concentrated and hefty galaxy cluster, from a time in the universe’s history when such massive structures aren’t expected to have fully formed yet, is challenging cosmic evolution theories. Across a series of three recent papers, a team led by researchers from IPAC—a science and data center for astrophysics and planetary science at Caltech—have revealed that the cluster is the most distant example of strong gravitational lensing with a galaxy cluster. The new results, based on observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), were presented in a press conference on June 17, 2026 at the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

When astronomers first laid eyes on this galaxy cluster dubbed XLSSC 122, they knew they had found something special. The cluster appeared highly evolved—meaning big and organized like a galaxy cluster in the nearby, modern universe—despite being more than 10 billion light-years away, back in an era when other galaxy groupings had only just started to come together.

Now thanks to the unmatched resolving and light-gathering power of JWST, researchers have discovered that XLSSC 122 is luckily aligned with one or more even more distant galaxies. This chance alignment is causing the giant cluster’s gravity to warp the far-off galaxy’s light—an ultra-rare phenomenon called strong gravitational lensing—in a way that enables newly precise mass measurements of XLSSC 122.

When we got those first images back from JWST, we said, ‘wow, look at this, there's strong lensing coming from this cluster!’ XLSSC 122 has now set the record for the most distant galaxy cluster displaying strong lensing, which is a valuable tool for astronomers.

Kyle Finner, lead author of the first paper.
IPAC, California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA, USA;

The serendipitous lensing has provided the most detailed look yet at mass distribution in an early galaxy cluster from the period known as “cosmic noon,” around 10 billion years ago. In this critically formative era, galaxy clusters began to form in bulk as the universe hit its peak in star formation, cranking out stars at a torrid place [sic] as much as 100 times faster than the present-day cosmos.

In keeping with XLSSC 122’s iconoclastic reputation, its mass turned out to be extremely concentrated toward the cluster’s center. Such a feature at so early a time in cosmic history challenges conventional cosmological models that chronicle a far slower buildup of massive structure.

XLSSC 122 is one of the first clusters we know of that formed in the universe, and it has a mass concentration that doesn't agree with our cosmological model predictions.

Kyle Finner.

Following up their strong lensing discovery, Finner and colleagues have recently published two more papers, first authored by Zachary Scofield and Hyungjin Joo at Yonsei University, examining other aspects of XLSSC 122 with JWST. Their slew of new results have positioned XLSSC 122 as a trailblazer of galaxy clusters at cosmic noon.

Seeing in the dark

XLSSC 122 first literally came to light in 2014 during an x-ray survey conducted by the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton spacecraft. Subsequent observations by the Hubble Space Telescope helped firm up the cluster’s distance, about 10.4 billion light-years away, and its unexpectedly mature features.

Hubble data, however, showed no definitive signs of strong lensing, which appears as arcs of light around the cluster center in JWST images. Capturing these arcs with JWST thus proved a very welcome surprise.

Before JWST, we couldn’t do this level of science in the early, distant universe.

Kyle Finner.

The directly observable mass of XLSSC 122—its bright stars, its illuminated gases, and so on—actually contributes little to the strong lensing effect, however. Instead, the overwhelming source is dark matter—astronomers’ term for an invisible, little-understood, and yet deeply evidenced substance that exerts gravity but otherwise no detectable signatures. Estimates hold that dark matter outweighs regular matter—the stuff of stars, planets, and us—five times over.

Dark matter is a cornerstone of cosmology, responsible for holding galaxies together and creating the large-scale structure of the universe, where galaxies glom together in groups that scale up into gargantuan filaments stretching across space. Gauging the dark matter distribution in XLSSC 122 is a robust test of this framework and how well it describes the origins of structure since the big bang 13.8 billion years ago.

Strong lensing is a way to measure the dark matter without actually seeing the dark matter. It gives us a sensitive probe of our cosmological models.

Kyle Finner.

This image shows the distant galaxy cluster XLSSC 122 as it has been observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The brightest clump of orange-red fuzzy objects at the very center of the image are the central galaxies of the cluster. The gravitationally lensed background galaxies can be seen as a series of blue-gray arcs that extend around the fuzzy bounds of the central galaxies, particularly to the lower right.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA; Kyle Finner (Caltech/IPAC)
Image processing: Robert Hurt (Caltech/IPAC-SELab)

A complete view of the galaxy cluster

For their second paper, Finner and colleagues turned to the subtler version of gravitational lensing, called weak lensing. Unlike strong lensing, which jumps off the page, weak lensing involves slight distortions of galaxies caused again by gravity, but so fine that statistical analyses must be run to tease out weak lensing’s effects.

Whereas strong lensing let the research team weigh the core of the cluster, weak lensing offered better coverage of the broader cluster, extending to its peripheral galactic members.

Weak gravitational lensing can constrain mass much further out, so you can get a better picture of the surrounding cluster area.

Kyle Finner.

This overall perspective, combined with X-ray and radio wave data from a suite of other telescopes, showed that XLSSC 122 is in the process of merging, with its constituent galaxies still coming together. The second study also corroborated the first study regarding XLSSC 122’s whopping, centrally concentrated mass.

In the third and most recent paper, Finner and colleagues used JWST to trace XLSSC’s so-called intracluster light, a glow generated by stars that float freely between galaxies in clusters. This detection—the earliest known instance of intracluster light—further tells the story of XLSSC 122. The broad extent of the intracluster light bolsters that the cluster is undergoing a merger, where stars scattered out of the colliding galaxies have not yet settled into the cluster’s gravitationally powerful core.

Intriguingly, the researchers noticed that the shape of the intracluster light, where centrally located, matches up well with the dark matter mass concentrations disclosed by strong gravitational lensing. This result, if found in other galaxy clusters and especially in the early universe, could prove to be another tool for astronomers to suss out where hidden dark matter resides.

In this cluster, the intracluster light essentially traces the dark matter. That light tells us that the cluster is in a merging state.

Kyle Finner.

The more, the merrier

Looking ahead, Finner and colleagues hope to find and study dozens more ultra-distant galaxy clusters.

Discovery of such rarefied objects does not happen with JWST, which intentionally has a narrow, targeted field of view. Instead, wide-area surveys of the sky conducted in X-rays—like that which turned up XLSSC 122—as well as radio telescope surveys are needed to spot candidates. One particularly promising avenue is the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect, where telltale “holes” sometimes show up in observations of the afterglow from the big bang, called the cosmic microwave background. Those holes happen when afterglow light gets scattered by high-energy particles in galaxy clusters, betraying the clusters’ locations.

Should more objects like XLSSC 122 emerge, with skewed dark matter concentrations and otherwise unexplainable precociousness, then cosmologists might have to significantly revamp their foundational frameworks of the universe’s development.

It's still early in the JWST, and if we can start to get data on tens or hundreds of these types of objects at this stage in the universe, then we can really start putting our cosmological models to the test.

Kyle Finner.

More about these results:

IPAC at Caltech is a science and data center for astrophysics and planetary science. IPAC provides science operations, user support, archives and data services, and scientific vision to maximize discovery with observatories both in space and on the ground. JWST is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). The Space Telescope Science Institute hosts the science and mission operations centers for JWST.

Publications:
Kyle Finner et al 2025
JWST Discovery of Strong Lensing from a Galaxy Cluster at Cosmic Noon: Giant Arcs and a Highly Concentrated Core of XLSSC 122
ApJL 994 L35 DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ae1d80
Zachary P. Scofield et al 2026
An Active Galaxy Cluster Merger at Cosmic Noon Revealed by JWST Weak Lensing and Multiwavelength Probes
ApJL 999 L1 DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ae447a
Hyungjin Joo et al 2026
Mature but Still Growing: JWST Detection of the Earliest Intracluster Light at z ∼ 2
ApJL 1002 L17 DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ae5c9f

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Abstract
Our observations with the James Webb Space Telescope have made the remarkable discovery of strong gravitational lensing arcs from XLSSC 122 (z = 1.98)—setting the record for the most distant galaxy cluster that exhibits strong lensing. The discovery of giant arcs enables a strong-lensing analysis and a measurement of the concentration of the dark matter halo. We perform a strong-lensing analysis of the cluster and measure the radial projected mass density profile. Our measurements reveal an exceptionally high concentration in the core of XLSSC 122. A Navarro–Frenk–White profile fit to the inner 100 kpc estimates the concentration to be 6.3 ± 0.5. The high concentration of XLSSC 122 contributes to the emerging picture that massive structure formation in the early Universe may proceed more rapidly than standard models suggest. We estimate the mass within 100 kpc to be M(R < 100 kpc) = 6.5 ± 0.7 × 10¹³ M_⊙ and find M_200c = 2.6 ± 1.1 × 10¹⁴ M_⊙.

Figure 1. The left panels show the color-composite image (top) and denoised color-composite image (bottom) of the core of galaxy cluster XLSSC 122 with red, green, and blue colors from F356W, F277W, and F090W+F200W, respectively. The denoised image was produced using a Transformer-based reconstruction method (H. Park et al. 2024; Z. P. Scofield et al. 2025). The middle and right panels show the log-scale, single-filter images as labeled. The cluster galaxies are much fainter in the F090W filter because, at z = 1.98, the filter probes rest-frame wavelengths below the 4000 Å break. The candidate strong-lensing arcs are labeled with purple arrows in the top-left image and are visible in all filters. The intracluster light is prominent in the redder filters and stretches from the BCG to the southwest (H. Joo et al. 2025, in preparation).

Kyle Finner et al 2025
JWST Discovery of Strong Lensing from a Galaxy Cluster at Cosmic Noon: Giant Arcs and a Highly Concentrated Core of XLSSC 122
ApJL 994 L35 DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ae1d80

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by IOP Publishing. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

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Abstract
The galaxy cluster XLSSC 122 is a rare system at z = 1.98, hosting surprisingly evolved member galaxies when the Universe was only one-third of its present age. Leveraging deep JWST/NIRCam imaging, we perform a weak-lensing analysis and reconstruct the cluster’s mass distribution, finding a mass peak that coincides with both the X-ray peak and the position of the brightest cluster galaxy. Consistent with recent strong-lensing analyses, we obtain a mass estimate of 1.60 ± 0.30 (stat.) ± 0.26 (LSS) × 10¹⁴ M_⊙ and an implied concentration of c_200c = 6.3 ± 0.4, where the uncertainty represents the propagation of the mass error through the adopted concentration–mass relation and excludes intrinsic scatter. Placing our weak-lensing mass map in the context of Chandra X-ray data, MeerKAT radio imaging, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array + Atacama Compact Array/Atacama Cosmology Telescope Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (SZ) mapping, and new JWST intracluster light measurements, we identify consistent NE–SW elongation across datasets and a pronounced offset along the same axis between the SZ and mass/X-ray peaks, pointing to significant merger activity. XLSSC 122 thus serves as a JWST pilot study for high-z lensing, demonstrating the telescope’s unique ability to map cluster mass distributions at z ∼ 2. The concordance of the multiwavelength analysis here, together with the high concentration relative to ΛCDM expectations, motivates a uniform sample of analogous systems with joint lensing, X-ray, SZ, and radio data to probe cluster assembly at cosmic noon.

Figure 1. Color composite image of JWST/NIRCam module A for the XLSSC 122 field. Spectroscopically selected cluster members (green) and photometrically selected members (magenta) are indicated, and the BCG is marked with a yellow square.

Zachary P. Scofield et al 2026
An Active Galaxy Cluster Merger at Cosmic Noon Revealed by JWST Weak Lensing and Multiwavelength Probes
ApJL 999 L1 DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ae447a

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by IOP Publishing. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Download PDF
Abstract
We present a JWST analysis of intracluster light (ICL) in XLSSC 122 at z = 1.98, currently the most distant known strong-lensing galaxy cluster with an evolved member population. Using deep JWST imaging complemented by Hubble Space Telescope data and careful control of systematics, we robustly detect diffuse emission extending to several hundred kiloparsecs from the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) down to ~29 mag arsec^-2. Multicomponent point-spread-function-convolved Sérsic modeling separates the surface brightness profiles into three components: a BCG core, a BCG envelope, and an ICL component, with stable Sérsic indices across wavelengths. Nearly flat color profiles indicate minimal radial variation in the stellar populations of the BCG envelope and the ICL. The median ICL fraction measured across seven bands is ∼17%, demonstrating that the buildup of intracluster stars in massive halos was already well underway by z ∼ 2. The ICL fraction peaks near 5000 Å in the rest frame, which provides the first confirmation at z > 1 that this characteristic rise is a feature of dynamically active clusters. We also detect a southern excess of ICL relative to the best-fit Sérsic model and quantify it using wavelet-based modeling, providing additional support that this system is dynamically active. The BCG + ICL light distribution and strong-lensing mass map show strong morphological agreement within ∼100 kpc. These findings establish the ICL as an early forming and dynamically informative component of massive halos.

Hyungjin Joo et al 2026
Mature but Still Growing: JWST Detection of the Earliest Intracluster Light at z ∼ 2
ApJL 1002 L17 DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ae5c9f

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by IOP Publishing. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The significance of XLSSC 122 is not that cosmology has collapsed, but that increasingly precise observations are exposing questions our models must answer. Its unusually concentrated mass may reveal something important about how rapidly cosmic structures assemble. Whether the eventual explanation involves its particular history, refinements to existing models or more substantial changes, the deciding factor will be evidence.

That is precisely what distinguishes science from a belief system committed to defending predetermined conclusions. These researchers have published an awkward finding, explained their methods and invited the scientific community to investigate. The possibility that an established explanation may need revision is a reason to pursue the evidence, not suppress it. Scientific understanding advances because its conclusions remain open to correction.

Nor does uncertainty about how quickly a galaxy cluster assembled provide an escape route for young-Earth creationism. A question about the development of structures billions of years ago supplies no evidence for a universe created a few thousand years ago. Even a substantial revision to models of cluster formation would not, by itself, validate Genesis. Creationism would still need evidence for its own claims; pointing to an unresolved scientific problem cannot supply it.

Science can acknowledge that an explanation is incomplete and then do the work needed to improve it. Biblical literalism begins by declaring its preferred account beyond correction. XLSSC 122 illustrates the productive consequence of allowing observations to challenge expectations: an opportunity to learn something new about the universe, rather than another reason to insist that an ancient text must have been right all along.

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Refuting Creationism - A Newly-Discovered Giant Fungus from A Family That Evolved 65 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'.

2026-10-14T14:19:20.084+01:00

Stromata of Dianjunus rex attached to host root.

Song, Yan, Pérez-Moreno, et al (2026)

Scientists discover ‘D-rex’, a giant fungus from Chinese forests whose unique lineage dates back 65 million years | EurekAlert!

Another newly described species has brought with it an evolutionary history that refuses to fit into creationism’s abbreviated chronology. This time it is a giant fungus from China’s Yunnan Province, named Dianjunus rex, whose family lineage is estimated to have diverged about 65 million years ago — almost 65 million years before the supposed ‘Creation Week’ of young-Earth creationism. Apparently, this fungus’s ancestors failed to wait for the universe to be created.

Described in a new paper in Frontiers in Fungal Biology, the fungus produces imposing reproductive structures reaching 50 centimetres high and weighing up to 2.2 kilograms. Its anatomy and genetic relationships justified the recognition of not merely a new species and genus, but a new family: Dianjunaceae.

The date needs a little care. The researchers are not claiming that today’s species has remained unchanged for 65 million years. Their evolutionary analysis estimates when its family lineage separated from its closest relatives, with a reported range of approximately 50–80 million years. That uncertainty is scientifically significant, but offers no refuge for biblical literalism: even the youngest end of the range is vastly older than the entire history permitted by a young-Earth reading of Genesis.

There is a further irony here. Genesis offers no recognition of fungi as a distinct group of organisms. Although biblical passages refer to conditions translated as mould or mildew, these are hardly an account of fungal biology or evolutionary relationships. We cannot know that the authors simply assumed mushrooms were plants, but we can say that their creation narrative supplies none of the distinctions needed to understand this discovery. That is unsurprising in an ancient religious text; it becomes a problem only when that text is presented as authoritative natural history.

The scientists, meanwhile, approached their discovery by comparing anatomy, analysing DNA and reconstructing evolutionary relationships. The result is a testable account of where this remarkable organism belongs in the history of life. Once again, evolution provides the framework that makes a discovery intelligible, while creationism is left with millions of years of history for which its preferred mythology has no room.

Fungi are not plants. Mushrooms may grow from the soil and remain rooted to one spot, but appearances can be misleading. Fungi belong to a kingdom of their own, separate from plants and animals. Indeed, evolutionary evidence shows that fungi are more closely related to animals than to plants: fungi and animals share a common ancestor more recently than either shares one with plants. This does not mean that fungi evolved from animals, or vice versa.

A different way of obtaining food

Most plants use chlorophyll to capture sunlight and manufacture sugars from carbon dioxide and water through photosynthesis. Fungi lack chlorophyll and cannot photosynthesise. Instead, they obtain organic nutrients from their surroundings.

Many fungi release digestive enzymes into the material on which they grow, breaking complex substances into smaller molecules that they can absorb. In effect, they digest their food outside their bodies. Depending on the species, they may feed on dead material, exploit a living host, or exchange nutrients with a partner organism.

Feature Plants Fungi

Nutrition Most manufacture sugars by photosynthesis. Absorb organic nutrients; do not photosynthesise.

Cell walls Typically reinforced with cellulose. Usually contain chitin and glucans.

Energy reserves Commonly store carbohydrates as starch. Store carbohydrates as glycogen, also used by animals.

Body structure Land plants usually have organised tissues; many have roots, stems and leaves. Many consist of branching microscopic threads; yeasts grow mainly as single cells.

Reproduction Varies widely; includes seeds in seed plants and spores in mosses and ferns. Often involves sexual or asexual spores; some reproduce by budding or fragmentation.

These are broad comparisons, not exception-free rules. Some plants have lost photosynthesis and obtain their carbon from other organisms. Nor does producing spores distinguish fungi from all plants: ferns and mosses produce spores too.

A mushroom is only part of the fungus

The familiar mushroom is a reproductive structure, rather than the whole organism. Much of a typical mushroom-producing fungus consists of fine threads called hyphae, collectively forming a mycelium. This network grows through soil, wood or other material, absorbing nutrients. The reproductive structures emerge when conditions favour spore production and dispersal.

Not all fungi produce mushrooms. The kingdom also includes yeasts, moulds, rusts, smuts, truffles and many other forms. Their diversity cannot be captured by the familiar image of a stalk topped with a cap.

Partners, recyclers and parasites

Fungi perform several fundamental ecological roles. Decomposers break down dead organic material, returning nutrients to circulation. Others form mycorrhizal associations with plant roots: the fungus typically receives carbon compounds from the plant while helping it acquire mineral nutrients and, in some circumstances, water. Still others are parasites or pathogens of plants, animals or other fungi.

Plants and fungi are therefore distinct evolutionary lineages whose lives are often closely intertwined. Recognising that distinction helps explain both their different biology and the partnerships on which many terrestrial ecosystems depend.

Kew: What in earth? Understanding what fungi really are.
Kew: Mycelium — exploring the hidden dimension of fungi.
Kew Grow Wild: Fungi, friend or foe?.

Feature	Plants	Fungi
Nutrition	Most manufacture sugars by photosynthesis.	Absorb organic nutrients; do not photosynthesise.
Cell walls	Typically reinforced with cellulose.	Usually contain chitin and glucans.
Energy reserves	Commonly store carbohydrates as starch.	Store carbohydrates as glycogen, also used by animals.
Body structure	Land plants usually have organised tissues; many have roots, stems and leaves.	Many consist of branching microscopic threads; yeasts grow mainly as single cells.
Reproduction	Varies widely; includes seeds in seed plants and spores in mosses and ferns.	Often involves sexual or asexual spores; some reproduce by budding or fragmentation.

The paper in Frontiers in Fungal Biology was accompanied by a news release on EurekAlert!:

Scientists discover ‘D-rex’, a giant fungus from Chinese forests whose unique lineage dates back 65 million years
‘Fungal giant’ with one of the tallest fruiting bodies known represents new family which arose soon after extinction of the dinosaurs
Deep in the forests of Yunnan, China, scientists have discovered a ‘fungal giant’ that challenges our understanding of how large fungi can become. The newly described species, Dianjunus rex, produces vertical fruiting bodies up to 50 cm high and weighing up to 2.2 kg – the largest known within the phylum Ascomycota.

This remarkable species represents a new fungal family, Dianjunaceae, and provides a rare window into the evolution of extreme fungal body forms. The discovery illustrates how much fungus biodiversity remains to be discovered in East Asian forests.

Associate Professor Dr Indunil C Senanayake, co-author Germplasm Bank of Wild Species
Kunming Institute of Botany
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Kunming, Yunnan, China.

During fieldwork in temperate coniferous forests near Damaidi and Yipinglang and in tropical rainforest near Nanbang, scientists from the Kunming Institute of Botany found large whitish fruiting bodies (‘stromata’) clearly belonging to an unknown ascomycete fungus. These grew on woody roots of Chinese cork oak, emerging from the rhizosphere. Ascomycetes, with more than 64,000 species the largest group of fungi, don’t grow true mushrooms but instead release spores from tiny, sac-like structures inside or on the surface of such fruiting bodies.

The scientists collected the fruiting bodies and deposited voucher specimens in the collections of the Kunming Institute of Botany. They grew spores on media to study the morphology of the fungus, and also sequenced its genome, including the ensemble of protein-coding genes.

A king among fungi

Genetic results confirmed by a detailed study of its morphology revealed that the fungus represented a new species, a new genus and even a new family (Dianjunaceae) within the order Xylariales. The authors named it Dianjunus rex, for its regal size and the ancient Dian kingdom. The closest known relative to ‘D-rex’ is Graphostroma platystoma, which grows on dead hardwood across the northern hemisphere and by itself forms the family Graphostromataceae.

Xylariales are famous for their production of secondary compounds as well as enzymes which can degrade complex plant molecules. Such enzymes might likewise help ‘D-rex’ to digest dead wood.

Evolutionary origin shortly after dinosaur Armageddon

From a ‘molecular clock’ analysis of the new species’ DNA, while comparing it to the genome of hundreds of fungi with known evolutionary age, the authors were able to estimate that the Dianjunaceae arose around 65 million years ago. Strikingly, this is only one million years after the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event – famous for wiping out the dinosaurs besides countless other animals and plants.

This timing raises an intriguing possibility. After the mass extinction, forests experienced dramatic changes, including the sudden availability of large amounts of dead plant material. For wood-associated decomposing fungi, such environmental disruption may have created new ecological opportunities.

Associate Professor Dr Indunil C Senanayake.

Why does ‘D-rex’ grow so uncommonly big? Until now, the record-holders among ascomycete fruiting bodies measured 20 to 30 cm tall.

A fruiting body which towers above surrounding vegetation and debris could have better dispersal of spores by wind in dense forests. However, such a large structure requires substantial energy investment, suggesting that this strategy likely evolved only where the ecological benefits outweighed the costs.

Associate Professor Dr Indunil C Senanayake.

The researchers predicted that more discoveries of fungi from subtropical China lie in store.
This region combines exceptional habitat heterogeneity, climatic stability, and complex biotic interactions that promote fungal diversification. Historically, however, fungal diversity in these ecosystems has been underestimated due to logistical difficulties in field sampling, the seasonal and cryptic nature of fungal fruiting, and a historical emphasis on economically important fungi.

Associate Professor Dr Indunil C Senanayake.

Publication:
Song J, Yan Z, Pérez-Moreno J, Zhang F, Yang S, Xie T, Su L, Liu J, Wang Y, Liu D, Yang Z, Yang C, Liu W, Shi X, Wan S, Cheewangkoon R, Dai D, Senanayake IC and Yu F (2026)
Unearthing a fungal giant: Dianjunaceae fam. nov., a novel Paleocene lineage of Xylariales harboring Dianjunus rex gen. et sp. nov.
Front. Fungal Biol. 7:1940464. doi: 10.3389/ffunb.2026.1940464

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Abstract
During mycological surveys in Yunnan Province, China, specimens of a fungus producing massive, upright stromata up to 50 cm high and individually 2.2 kg in weight were sampled. Through an integrative taxonomic approach combining detailed morphology, multilocus phylogeny [internal transcribed spacer (ITS), large subunit ribosomal DNA (LSU), RNA polymerase II subunit 2 (RPB2), and beta-tubulin (TUB2)], and phylogenomic analyses, this fungus is proposed as the new species Dianjunus rex gen. et sp. nov., the type of the new family Dianjunaceae (Xylariales). Phylogenetic analyses robustly place Dianjunaceae as a distinct sister clade to Graphostromataceae. Divergence time estimation dates the origin of this family to the early Paleocene (~65 million years ago), coinciding with the period following the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction, when an estimated 75% of all plant and animal species went extinct, and a significant ecological reorganization of life on Earth happened. The stromata of D. rex represent the largest fructifications documented within the Ascomycota, significantly expanding the known morphological range of the Xylariales. The study provides a comprehensive description, including a nodulisporium-like anamorph with periconiella-like branching patterns, and discusses the taxon’s phylogenetic placement and distinctive morphology. This discovery highlights the unexplored fungal diversity in East Asian forests.

Song J, Yan Z, Pérez-Moreno J, Zhang F, Yang S, Xie T, Su L, Liu J, Wang Y, Liu D, Yang Z, Yang C, Liu W, Shi X, Wan S, Cheewangkoon R, Dai D, Senanayake IC and Yu F (2026)
Unearthing a fungal giant: Dianjunaceae fam. nov., a novel Paleocene lineage of Xylariales harboring Dianjunus rex gen. et sp. nov.
Front. Fungal Biol. 7:1940464. doi: 10.3389/ffunb.2026.1940464

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by Frontiers Media SA. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

For young-Earth creationism, the difficulty is straightforward: this newly recognised fungal family has an evolutionary history estimated to extend back some 65 million years. The uncertainty surrounding that estimate does not bring it remotely within the few thousand years allowed by a literalist reading of Genesis. Nor does the discovery of a previously undescribed species represent a recent act of creation. It represents a recent addition to human knowledge of a lineage that was already ancient long before humans existed.

Equally revealing is how the researchers established what they had found. Anatomy, DNA comparisons and evolutionary relationships supplied the evidence needed to recognise a new species, genus and family. The theory of evolution was integral to interpreting the discovery, providing a framework within which the organism’s similarities, differences and ancestry made sense. There was no explanatory gap that required an intelligent designer, and no indication that evolutionary biology had reached the limits of its usefulness.

The contrast with biblical literalism could hardly be clearer. Science can recognise that familiar appearances conceal unexpected relationships, revise classifications and uncover branches of life’s history that had escaped notice. An ancient creation narrative cannot acquire that explanatory power merely by being declared infallible. Dianjunus rex is another reminder that the natural world has a history of its own — one we discover by examining the evidence, not by requiring nature to conform to mythology.

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Unintelligent Design - The Prolific Waste of Spawning Coral

2026-10-13T23:57:51.650+01:00

Spawning coral release quintillions of eggs each year: new research

spawning coral on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

One of the most conspicuous features of the living world is its reproductive extravagance. Organisms manufacture enormous quantities of eggs, sperm, seeds and spores, only for the overwhelming majority to leave no descendants. Coral spawning provides a spectacular example: an underwater blizzard of reproductive material, produced at considerable biological expense, from which only a tiny fraction will ultimately contribute to the next generation of breeding corals. If this is intelligent design, its designer appears remarkably comfortable with failure on an industrial scale.

New research by M. M. Bilodeau and K. M. Quigley, published in Ecology and Evolution puts a staggering figure on this reproductive output. The researchers estimate that Indo-Pacific corals could produce approximately 3.46 quintillion eggs — 3.46 × 10¹⁸ — during a single hypothetical spawning period. This is a first approximation based on reproductive traits and coral cover, with missing measurements estimated from other traits. It is neither a direct count nor a precise total for all coral reproduction worldwide each year.

Each egg and sperm normally carries one set of chromosomes: half the usual chromosome complement of the parent’s body cells, including a reshuffled selection of its inherited genetic variants. Producing these cells requires resources, and eggs also contain provisions for early development. Yet many gametes never achieve fertilisation, while many resulting larvae fail to establish themselves and survive to reproductive maturity. The study estimates the scale of egg production, not the precise proportion lost, but the distinction between producing eggs and producing successful descendants is fundamental.

This is the sort of extravagance I discuss in my book, The Unintelligent Designer: Refuting The Intelligent Design Hoax. The waste here is reproductive: material that fails to transmit the parent’s genes to another breeding generation. Some of it feeds other organisms or returns nutrients to the ecosystem, but that does not turn an unsuccessful reproductive investment into a successful one for the coral that made it.

Evolution readily explains how such a system can arise. Natural selection can favour producing vast numbers of relatively inexpensive reproductive cells when that strategy yields more surviving offspring than available alternatives. Synchronised spawning improves the prospects of fertilisation, while sheer numbers help compensate for losses. Resource costs still matter, but selection favours reproductive success within existing constraints; it does not require every gamete to succeed. There is no foresight, no concern for the fate of each individual egg, and no requirement for an economical system by human engineering standards.

For advocates of a perfect, all-knowing designer, the question is rather more awkward. Why would a being supposedly responsible for both the organisms and their environment arrange reproduction around such enormous losses? Calling this a clever way of overcoming the hazards of ocean life merely leaves unanswered why the same designer imposed those hazards in the first place. Coral spawning makes sense as an evolved compromise. Its spectacular abundance provides little reason to mistake that compromise for evidence of perfect planning.

One of the authors of the paper in Ecology and Evolution, Kate Marie Quigley of James Cook University, has also written about these findings in an article in The Conversation. Her article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency.

Published: October 13, 2026 7.54pm BST

Spawning coral release quintillions of eggs each year: new research

Auscape / Getty Images

Kate Marie Quigley, James Cook University

Most kinds of coral spawn once a year. In an enormous multi-day event synchronised to specific phases of the moon, they release vast slicks of eggs and sperm into the ocean to be mixed together by the drifting currents.

Imagine hundreds of thousands of Olympic swimming pools filled with tiny pinkish spheres, all dumped into the sea at once.

In new research published in Ecology and Evolution, my colleague and I have for the first time estimated just how many eggs are involved in one of these spawnings, and it’s a mind-boggling number.

According to our calculations, in a single spawning event, corals across the Indo-Pacific region release around 3.5 quintillion eggs (that’s 3,500,000,000,000,000,000 if you write out all the zeroes).

This isn’t a just a curious piece of trivia, either: it’s basic information we need to help preserve Earth’s coral species for the future.

Coral spawn form large pinkish slicks in the ocean.

Credit: Philippe Max Rouja.

Why count coral eggs?

Counting Earth’s ecological assets reveals how our planet functions. Knowing the total number of ants living in the ground (around 20 quadrillion) allows scientists to estimate how much carbon they can remove, for example.

Scientists have mapped half a trillion adult coral colonies, as well as tracking global fish egg production. These numbers tell us about the function and health of ecosystems.

Counting nature also tells us about its power to regenerate. Ocean life, and coral reefs in particular, are bearing the brunt of global warming. Since 1950, roughly 50% of global coral reef cover has disappeared.

This is why we want to know about coral’s capacity to reproduce and regenerate.

A baseline for coral reproduction

Our new study provides the first estimate of coral reproductive potential across the Indo-Pacific region, which is a hotspot for marine biodiversity.

Our estimate of 3.5 quintillion eggs released in a spawning establishes an essential baseline of what these reefs produce at peak capacity.

Measuring across hundreds of coral species, we found most eggs came from a few key groups. Branching Acropora, Porites (bommies or massive boulder corals), and Montipora accounted for around half the total egg supply.

How to count a quintillion eggs

How did we figure this out? We were looking at almost 190,000 square kilometres of tropical reef, so we couldn’t just swim out with a clipboard and start counting eggs.

Instead, we looked at what we knew about coral and eggs at the small, medium and large scales.

First we examined coral polyps. A single coral is a colony of many, many individual polyps. We calculated how many eggs fit inside the average polyp.

Next we estimated how many polyps are in each whole coral. This let us work out how many eggs an average-sized colony of each coral species produces.

Finally, we combined these figures with real-world data about coral cover and geographic distribution for hundreds of species.

This might seem like a straightforward process, but direct counts of eggs only exist for a handful of coral species. It’s a tricky task, and for many species we still don’t even know exactly when they spawn.

To fill in the gaps in the data, we made estimates based on patterns in data from related species.

Not all coral species are equal

We discovered many interesting things about coral egg production. Massive boulder corals produced the most eggs per square centimetre of living tissue, for example, while branching corals dominated overall egg production across the region.

So, our research uncovered an important scale mismatch. This means that polyp or colony-level output does not necessarily translate to high regional egg output.

We also found that while some groups of species produced fewer eggs on average, there were individual species within those groups that were highly productive egg factories.

Even within the group of branching Acropora species, one species produced ten times more eggs per square centimetre than the others.

This kind of species-level information tells us about what might be the true workhorses of reef repair. We need more of it – and that means genuine species-level measurements.

What now?

Why is this so critical for reef conservation? Reproduction is the fundamental bridge to recovery after severe marine heatwaves. Damaged reefs cannot recover without a supply of fresh coral babies onto the reef.

Our study provides a practical, data-driven blueprint for coral protection and rehabilitation. Knowing that a handful of coral groups carry most of the potential for repair, managers and conservationists can deliver their attention to these heavyweights.

Our work is what is called a “first-order” estimate: a rough draft with a large (but quantifiable) amount of uncertainty. It’s a good start, as it allows us to get an idea of the scale of coral reproduction and the differences between coral groups.

We now need to refine our estimates by going out and directly measuring egg release across new and diverse coral species. It’s an exciting but also daunting prospect – 190,000 square kilometres is a lot of area to cover with a clipboard.
Kate Marie Quigley, DECRA Research Fellow in molecular ecology, James Cook University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Published by The Conversation.
Open access. (CC BY 4.0)

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ABSTRACT
Coral reproductive potential is a fundamental component of reef resistance and recovery, yet large-scale estimates of reproductive potential remain limited. This study generated the first large-scale approximation of coral reproductive potential across the Indo-Pacific by integrating coral fecundity, trait-based imputation, and coral cover data. Reproductive potential was estimated for 277 coral species from 55 genera, including key genera such as Acropora, Isopora, Montipora, and Porites, for a single, hypothetical spawning period. We combined empirical coral fecundity datasets with trait-based imputation approaches to estimate reproductive potential at three levels: fecundity per cm², colony fecundity, and total fecundity across the Indo-Pacific. These fecundity estimates were then integrated with regional coral cover to derive a first-order approximation of reproductive potential. The estimated total reproductive potential of Indo-Pacific corals was approximately three quintillion eggs (3.46 × 10¹⁸) for one hypothetical spawning period. Fecundity varied significantly across genera and growth forms, with Isopora, Acropora, and Montipora contributing disproportionately to total egg production (mean totals of 3.9 × 10¹⁶, 4.2 × 10¹⁵, and 3.49 × 10¹⁵ eggs, respectively). Branching and massive growth forms collectively accounted for roughly 50% of total fecundity across all levels. Species-level fecundity was not consistently aligned with genus-level trends, with some species exhibiting exceptionally high fecundity at the species level despite relatively low average fecundity at the level of genus. Concordance across the three fecundity levels was low, highlighting substantial variation within genera and potential gaps in our current understanding of coral reproductive potential, likely both. This study provides the first quantitative approximation of Indo-Pacific coral reproductive potential, demonstrating high variation across species, genera, and growth forms. These findings underscore the importance of multi-scale reproductive assessments and offer a data-driven foundation for identifying key taxa for conservation or restoration efforts based on their disproportionately high contribution to reef recovery.

Bilodeau, M. M., and K. M. Quigley. 2026.
Patterns in Coral Fecundity Across the Indo-Pacific.
Ecology and Evolution 16(10): e74441. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.74441.

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The remarkable feature of coral spawning is therefore not simply the number of eggs produced, but the gulf between reproductive output and reproductive success. Each gamete represents an investment of resources and carries genetic material that could contribute to another generation. Almost all will fail to do so, either because fertilisation never occurs or because the resulting offspring do not survive to reproduce. The spectacle is impressive, but abundance should not be confused with efficiency.

There is no difficulty explaining this in evolutionary terms. Natural selection favours heritable characteristics that improve reproductive success under prevailing conditions, even when the successful strategy involves enormous losses. Producing many small reproductive units can yield a better return than producing fewer, more expensive ones. Such a strategy requires neither foresight nor a plan: it persists because, within the constraints of coral biology and the marine environment, it has enabled successive generations to leave descendants. Its apparent wastefulness is entirely compatible with its evolutionary effectiveness.

The difficulty arises when this evolved compromise is presented as the work of a supreme intelligence. An engineer obliged to work within an existing hazardous environment might reasonably adopt such a strategy; an omnipotent designer supposedly responsible for the environment itself has no such excuse. Invoking the needs of predators or the recycling of nutrients merely shifts the question to why the entire system was arranged around reproductive failure. As I argue in The Unintelligent Designer: Refuting The Intelligent Design Hoax, nature’s extravagance is readily understood as the outcome of evolution without foresight. Calling it perfect design adds an assertion, but no explanatory value and simply invites criticism of the putative designer as grossly incompetent.

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Creationism In Crisis - A Jurassic Crocodile With Needle Teeth - 170 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-10-13T16:45:30.460+01:00

An artist’s restoration of Ctenosuchus tenuidens.

Artwork by Nathan Dehaut.

New species of Jurassic crocodile had unusually slender teeth | University of Portsmouth

Some 170 million years ago, in the rivers and lakes of what is now Morocco, a crocodile relative was exploiting a feeding niche very different from that of the large-prey predators familiar today. Named Ctenosuchus tenuidens, it had a long, narrow snout armed with exceptionally slender, closely spaced teeth. For young-Earth creationists, its existence presents the familiar chronological problem: an animal was living, feeding and participating in a complex ecosystem more than 169 million years before their preferred biblical chronology allows Earth itself to have existed.

The discovery is described in a paper in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology by Hamzah Imran of the School of the Environment and Life Sciences, University of Portsmouth, and colleagues. The animal belonged to the thalattosuchians, an extinct group of crocodile relatives. Its delicate dentition suggests a diet of small aquatic prey, such as tiny fish, shrimps and worms, rather than large, struggling animals capable of breaking those fine teeth.

This makes the fossil particularly informative about evolutionary specialisation. Teeth are not simply more or less effective in some universal sense: their usefulness depends on what an animal eats and how it feeds. A robust tooth suited to restraining substantial prey and a fine tooth suited to retaining small organisms represent different solutions to different ecological problems. An adaptation can therefore open up one feeding opportunity while limiting another. Evolution produces such compromises because natural selection favours reproductive success under particular conditions, rather than engineering an organism that excels at everything.

There is no need for a species to anticipate a vacant niche or deliberately remodel its anatomy. Across generations, heritable variations that improve access to available food can spread through a population, gradually producing specialised feeding structures. This fossil does not preserve every step in that process, but its unusual combination of features adds to the evidence that crocodile relatives diversified into a much broader range of ecological roles than their living representatives might suggest.

For creationism, then, the difficulty goes beyond accommodating an inconveniently ancient date. Here is evidence of an extinct ecological specialist, intelligible in terms of descent with modification and adaptation to particular feeding opportunities. Calling it “still a crocodile” would explain neither its distinctive teeth nor its place in evolutionary history. Evolution does not require descendants to cease belonging to their ancestral lineages; it explains how those lineages diversify. Ctenosuchus tenuidens offers another glimpse of that diversification, deep in a past that a literal young-Earth reading of Genesis cannot accommodate.

This species, along with all other extinct species, also presents a problem for those who have a childishly simplistic, anthropocentric view of evolution as a process of increasing complexity and perfection leading inexorably to humans and them in particular. This is a fully-formed species, occupying its own twig on the tree of life, and fitted to survive in its environment, not some incomplete, half-way species.

Crocodile Evolution: Far More Than “Living Fossils”. Modern crocodiles can give a misleading impression of their evolutionary history. Their familiar combination of elongated jaws, armoured bodies and semi-aquatic habits represents only a small part of the diversity found among their extinct relatives. The wider family tree includes land-based hunters, plant-eaters and marine predators, with different branches evolving adaptations to very different ecological niches.

Which group are we talking about?

Crocodylia comprises living crocodiles, alligators, caimans and gharials, together with their last common ancestor and all its descendants. Crocodylomorpha is a broader group that also includes numerous extinct relatives outside Crocodylia. Ctenosuchus tenuidens, a thalattosuchian, belongs to this broader evolutionary history. It should not be assumed to be a direct ancestor of any living crocodile.

From land animals to ecological diversity

The crocodylomorph fossil record extends back approximately 230 million years, into the Late Triassic. Early members included slender, relatively long-legged terrestrial animals, quite unlike the low-slung aquatic predators most people associate with crocodiles.

The subsequent history was a branching radiation, with different lineages exploiting different habitats and foods. Research on major habitat shifts in crocodylomorph evolution supports multiple transitions involving terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments, rather than a single, irreversible move from land into water.

Extinct crocodylomorphs included:

Terrestrial predators, adapted to hunting on land.

Herbivores and omnivores, demonstrating that meat-eating was not the only successful feeding strategy.

Marine hunters, including forms specialising in fish and others taking larger prey.

Small-prey specialists, apparently including Ctenosuchus, whose exceptionally fine teeth suggest a diet of small aquatic animals.

Specialisation means trade-offs

Different foods favour different feeding structures. Fine teeth may help retain small prey, but they are vulnerable to damage from larger, struggling animals. Robust teeth can withstand greater forces, but do not necessarily perform the same task as a closely spaced array of slender teeth.

Such differences illustrate how natural selection can modify inherited structures as populations exploit particular resources. There is no foresight involved: heritable variations that improve survival and reproduction under local conditions can become more common over generations. A feature advantageous in one niche may be disadvantageous in another.

Extinction shaped the surviving branches

Evolutionary history also includes losses. At the end-Triassic mass extinction, approximately 201 million years ago, crocodylomorphs were the only surviving branch of the wider crocodile-line archosaurs. Later changes in climate, geography and ecosystems continued to influence their diversification and extinction. The living species therefore represent surviving branches of a once much more varied evolutionary tree.

Why “living fossil” can mislead

A comparative study of crocodylomorph skulls and jaws found that anatomical variety peaked during the Cretaceous. Although the surviving crocodylians have generally evolved more conservatively, the study found no evidence of long-term evolutionary stagnation. Retaining a broadly similar body form does not mean that evolution has stopped.

Ctenosuchus adds another specialised branch to this history: evidence of ecological diversification in the Jurassic, approximately 170 million years ago, rather than an unchanged “crocodile kind” appearing a few thousand years ago.

Glossary

Crocodylia

The group comprising living crocodiles, alligators, caimans and gharials, their last common ancestor and all its descendants.

Crocodylomorpha

The broader evolutionary group containing Crocodylia and many extinct crocodile relatives.

Ecological niche

The combination of resources, environmental conditions and interactions through which an organism makes its living.

Adaptive radiation

The evolutionary diversification of an ancestral lineage into descendants adapted to different ecological roles.

How environmental and biological factors shaped 250 million years of crocodile-line archosaur diversity.

The paper in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology was supported by a news item from the University of Portsmouth:

New species of Jurassic crocodile had unusually slender teeth
The discovery of an ancient crocodile relative in Morocco reveals surprising feeding habits
A new species of ancient crocodile relative that lived around 170 million years ago has been discovered by scientists at the University of Portsmouth and Hassan II University of Casablanca, Morocco.

Unlike most crocodiles, this animal had a long, narrow snout filled with exceptionally thin, needle-like teeth. The teeth were so slender that they are unlike those of any known close relative.

The animal, named Ctenosuchus tenuidens, belonged to a group of marine and freshwater reptiles known as thalattosuchians, which lived during the age of the dinosaurs.

The fossils were found in rocks that were formed in ancient rivers and lakes in what is now the Atlas Mountains of southeastern Morocco.

Hamzah Imran from the University of Portsmouth’s School of the Environment and Life Sciences is lead author of the research.

We noticed these little black circles on either side of the long bone in the middle of one of the fossils, so we put it under a microscope. We carefully scratched around one of the black circles with a scalpel, and as we uncovered more of it, it became longer and longer. That’s when we realised these little black circles were actually incredibly thin teeth. These comb-like teeth inspired the name Ctenosuchus tenuidens as ‘cteno’ means ‘comb,’ ‘suchus’ means ‘crocodile,’ and ‘tenuidens’ means ‘thin teeth.’

Hamzah Imran, lead author.
School of the Environment and Life Sciences
University of Portsmouth
Portsmouth, U.K.

An artist’s restoration of Ctenosuchus tenuidens.
Artwork by Nathan Dehaut.

By studying the fossil teeth under powerful microscopes and examining their internal structure, Hamzah and his colleagues found they had specialised ridges and were closely spaced together. These features suggest that Ctenosuchus had a very unusual diet. Rather than hunting large prey, it likely fed on very small fish, crustaceans such as fairy shrimps, and other small aquatic creatures.

The teeth are so fine that we don’t think it was catching normal prey. If it caught a big fish, and the fish wriggled, those delicate teeth would get smashed. We think the animal was probably eating soft prey like shrimp, worms and tiny fish, so nothing that would break its teeth. These feeding habits make this particular species very different to other long-snouted crocodiles, so it really is quite an exciting discovery!

Hamzah Imran

The research helps scientists better understand the diversity and ecology of ancient crocodile relatives that lived in the southern supercontinent Gondwana, which included modern-day Africa.

It also shows that different groups of prehistoric animals evolved similar feeding adaptations independently. The teeth of Ctenosuchus resemble those seen in some ancient aquatic reptiles called mesosaurs, and even certain long-snouted pterosaurs that lived millions of years later.

In fact, the jaws and teeth of Ctenosuchus have many similarities with the jaws of some Jurassic pterosaur such as Gnathosaurus and Ctenoschama that scientists believe were filter feeders.

Overall, the fossils reveal that Jurassic crocodile relatives occupied a wider range of habitats and feeding roles than previously realised, highlighting the rich prehistoric ecosystems that once existed in Morocco.

The fossil Ctenosuchus tenuidens

It just shows there is much more out there that needs to be explored. Morocco has an incredibly rich fossil history, but there is still so much waiting to be discovered.

Hamzah Imran

Publication:
Imran, H., Martill, D. M., Smith, R. E., Zouhri, S., Gunn, J., & Ibrahim, N. (2026).
A new teleosauroid (Crocodylomorpha, Thalattosuchia) with a unique dentition from the Middle Jurassic of eastern Morocco. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2026.2728670

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ABSTRACT
The Mesozoic and early Paleogene of Morocco provides a rich and extensive record of crocodylomorphs encompassing a wide range of skull, dental morphologies, and paleoecologies. Here we describe a new longirostrine teleosaurid thalattosuchian, Ctenosuchus tenuidens, gen. et sp. nov. with a needle-like dentition from a Middle Jurassic fluvio-lacustrine sequence of the Talsint–Anoual area of Figuig Province, southeastern Morocco. The record of thalattosuchians in Laurasia is extensive, but their diversity on Gondwana remains poorly understood. The new taxon is identified as Teleosauridae on account of a short premaxilla where the maxilla occupies the majority of the rostrum length and slenderly tapering nasals. Its needle-like teeth are autapomorphic possessing an aspect width:height (w:h) ratio of ∼1:10.4, with a fine interdental spacing (2.3 mm). Scanning electron microscopy and thin-sectioning reveals prominent apicobasal and densely packed vertical ridges on the lingual surface of the tooth crowns. This combination of dental characters implies an unusual feeding ecology and specialized diet, likely of small crustaceans and fishes as well as soft-bodied organisms. This broadens the paleoecological diversity of Jurassic freshwater teleosauroid thalattosuchians and reveals previously unreported convergences between marine Jurassic and Cretaceous teleosaurs, Permian mesosaurs and perhaps some Late Jurassic ctenochasmatid pterosaurs.

FIGURE 1. Geological map of the Talsint–Anoual region. A, map of Morocco showing the field area; B, satellite image of Talsint to Anoual region, eastern High Atlas Mountains, Morocco; C, geological map of the Talsint to Anoual region (Stumpf et al., 2023).

The figure comprises three maps of the Talsint-Anoual region of eastern Morocco. Panel A shows the location of the study area within Morocco. Panel B is a satellite image showing the field area between Talsint and Anoual. Panel C is a geological map of the same region showing the distribution of major rock units, localities, faults, roads and diorite dykes. A scale bar and geological legend are provided.

FIGURE 10. Reduced consensus (pruned) analysis of Ctenosuchus tenuidens (K = 15). Star indicates the new taxon.

A reduced consensus phylogenetic tree illustrating the position of Ctenosuchus tenuidens within Teleosauroidea and Thalattosuchia. The new taxon is highlighted and recovered within Teleosauridae close to Seldsienean megistorhynchus and Aeolodontini.

Imran, H., Martill, D. M., Smith, R. E., Zouhri, S., Gunn, J., & Ibrahim, N. (2026).
A new teleosauroid (Crocodylomorpha, Thalattosuchia) with a unique dentition from the Middle Jurassic of eastern Morocco. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2026.2728670

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by Informa UK (Taylor & Francis). Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Ctenosuchus tenuidens presents young-Earth creationism with two familiar difficulties: a chronology that cannot be reconciled with its biblical timetable, and an anatomical specialisation that makes sense in the context of evolution. Approximately 170 million years ago, this animal was participating in a freshwater ecosystem, apparently exploiting small aquatic prey with its unusually delicate teeth. That history cannot be compressed into a few thousand years simply by calling the animal a member of a created “crocodile kind”. Naming a category does not explain its origins, its diversity or its place in the geological record.

Its teeth also illustrate an important feature of adaptation: usefulness depends on circumstances. A feeding apparatus suited to retaining tiny fish and shrimps need not withstand the forces generated by large, struggling prey. Specialisation brings opportunities and limitations together. This is precisely what we expect when natural selection modifies inherited structures under particular ecological conditions, without foresight or a plan for every eventuality.

The researchers have not recovered every evolutionary step that produced this dentition, and the proposed diet remains an inference from anatomy. Those limitations are part of an honest scientific explanation. The theory of evolution provides the framework for investigating the animal’s relationships, comparing its features and interpreting its ecological role. Another discovery adds detail to that framework and expands our understanding of what crocodile relatives could become.

Far from revealing an unchanging lineage of “living fossils”, Ctenosuchus adds another specialised branch to a long history of diversification and extinction. The picture is of populations adapting to available opportunities over immense spans of time, with no need for advance planning or magical creation events. For a literal young-Earth reading of Genesis, the problem remains the evidence itself.

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Creationism In Crisis - An Extinct Egyptian Crocodile Fossil In the Same Rock The Sphynx Was Carved From - 45 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-10-12T22:43:04.301+01:00

The holotype skull (SMNS 10575) of H. cairensis n. gen. n. comb. (a) Photograph of SMNS 10575 in dorsal view, (b) interpretative drawing of SMNS 10575 in dorsal view, (c) photograph of SMNS 10575 in ventral view and (d) interpretative drawing of SMNS 10575 in ventral view. Abbreviations: f, frontal; ic, internal choana; j, jugal; m, maxilla; ma, maxillary alveoli; n, nasals; o, orbit; oc, occipital condyle; p, parietal; pa, palatines; pf, prefrontal; po, postorbital; pt, pterygoid; q, quadrate; sof, suborbital fenestra; sq, squamosal; sqp, squamosal prong; stf, supratemporal fenestra. Scale bar, 10 mm.

From: Paul M. J. Burke, et al (2026)

New crocodile species discovered in rocks used to build the Great Sphinx | UCL News

The Great Sphinx of Giza is an ancient monument carved into something vastly more ancient: rocks recording a world that existed long before humans, let alone Egyptian civilisation. A newly recognised crocodilian from the same geological formation lived about 45 million years ago. For anyone attempting to reconcile Earth's history with a literal reading of Genesis and its young-Earth chronology, the difficulty begins with the material from which the monument itself was carved.

As UCL News reports, researchers have identified Herugavialis cairensis, an extinct gavial, or long-snouted crocodilian, from Egypt's Mokattam Formation. Its nearly complete skull was discovered in the 1920s and had long been assigned to Tomistoma, the genus containing today's false gharial. CT scanning revealed distinguishing anatomical features, including a raised ridge around the eyes, supporting its recognition as a separate genus. The findings are published in Royal Society Open Science.

This is a useful example of how science corrects itself. A fossil does not cease to be informative because it has spent a century in a museum, and an identification does not become unchallengeable merely because generations of researchers have accepted it. Better tools and renewed scrutiny can expose distinctions that earlier investigators missed. Revising the classification strengthens our understanding of evolutionary history; it does not undermine the evidence that such a history occurred.

The animal also belonged to a very different Egypt. Shallow seas covered areas that are now land, and several gavial species inhabited its coastal waters. UCL describes a wider Mediterranean history in which crocodilian diversity fluctuated alongside changes in temperature and sea level, before the region lost its crocodilians around the Mediterranean drying crisis roughly six million years ago. Even that much later episode predates the conventional young-Earth creationist date for the entire Universe by orders of magnitude.

Marine fossils in Egyptian rocks are therefore not, by themselves, evidence of Noah's Flood. The relevant questions are when those rocks formed, what environments they represent, and how they fit into the sequence of geological and biological change. A single recent catastrophe cannot explain that history merely by putting everything underwater. Beneath the familiar monument lies evidence of an unfamiliar world — one whose immense antiquity cannot be accommodated within a literal young-Earth reading of Genesis.

The paper in Royal Society Open Science was accompanied by the UCL News report:

The Great Pyramid^ A Monument to the Problem with Flood Chronology. The Great Pyramid presents young-Earth creationists with an awkward chronological problem. Khufu's pyramid is conventionally dated to around 2560 BCE, whereas Answers in Genesis places Noah's Flood in 2348 BCE. On those dates, the pyramid had already been standing for approximately two centuries before the supposed worldwide catastrophe.

Precise estimates for Khufu's reign vary between scholarly chronologies, so 2560 BCE should not be treated as an exact construction date. Likewise, 2348 BCE is a calculation from a particular interpretation of biblical genealogies, not a date explicitly stated in Genesis. Nevertheless, the conventional archaeological dating places the Great Pyramid before the Flood date promoted by Answers in Genesis.

How Answers in Genesis handles the discrepancy

In its article Dating the Pyramids, Ken Ham's organisation, Answers in Genesis, makes its starting assumption explicit. Discussing dates that would place Egypt's earliest dynasties before the Flood, it declares: but we know that this cannot be true.

It suggests that Egyptian reigns may have been exaggerated or overlapped, permitting a shorter chronology. It also speculates, citing Josephus, that advances in pyramid building might reflect knowledge brought to Egypt by Abraham. Neither suggestion establishes a post-Flood construction date for Khufu's pyramid, and a much later literary claim about Abraham is not contemporary evidence of his involvement. Bear in mind when assessing the reliability of Josephus as a historical source, that he recorded popular beliefs as facts, and that he is the source of the belief that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible (The Pentateuch) which, if it were true would have Moses posthumously recording his own death and burial (by God) in a secret place when no-one else was present! (Deuteronomy 34: 1-6)

The article itself acknowledges that its proposed foundation date for Egypt, 2188 BCE, is unconfirmed. Its certainty therefore comes from its theological starting point, not from an independently demonstrated archaeological chronology.

What evidence do archaeologists actually use?

Dating Egypt's monuments involves more than accepting a single ancient author's list of kings:

Historical and archaeological context. The pyramids belong within a sequence of royal monuments, settlements, burials and inscriptions. The University of Memphis Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology places Khufu's pyramid at approximately 2585–2560 BCE.

Contemporary administrative documents. The logbook of Inspector Merer records the transport of limestone from Tura to Akhet-Khufu, the Great Pyramid complex, during Khufu's reign. This is direct evidence of the royal building operation. It does not, by itself, supply a BCE date, but it anchors the work to a named ruler.

Radiocarbon measurements. Researchers have dated organic material associated with pyramid construction, including charcoal and plant remains. Ancient Egypt Research Associates explains that results broadly support the monuments' historical setting while also revealing complications: reused timber can make charcoal older than the construction in which it was incorporated. These limitations are investigated openly; they do not establish AiG's proposed replacement chronology.

The rocks create a second problem

The age of a monument and the age of its stone are separate questions. As the UCL report explains, the newly recognised crocodilian came from the approximately 45-million-year-old formation from which the Great Sphinx was carved. The sculptors shaped existing rock; they did not create it.

Any Flood-geology explanation attributing a monument's building stone or bedrock to Noah's Flood must therefore demonstrate that the monument was constructed afterwards. A structure cannot predate the formation of the rock from which it was built. Declaring the archaeological dates unacceptable because they conflict with Genesis does not resolve that contradiction and demands acceptance of the absurd claim that tradition and myth take precedence over testable and verifiable scientific evidence.

The contrast with the crocodilian study is revealing: researchers revised an inherited classification when better evidence became available. AiG's article instead makes conformity with its interpretation of scripture the condition that an acceptable history must satisfy. One approach allows evidence to change the conclusion; the other fixes the conclusion in advance.

New crocodile species discovered in rocks used to build the Great Sphinx
A team co-led by UCL researchers has identified a new species of extinct crocodile that lived in the Mediterranean Sea about 45 million years ago.
The species, described in a new paper in Royal Society Open Science, was discovered in Egypt in the same rock formation that the Great Sphinx of Giza was carved from more than 4,000 years ago. In addition, the skull is missing the tip of its snout, just as the Great Sphinx is missing the tip of its nose.

Given this coincidence, we decided to name the new crocodile after the Egyptian god Heru, who was possibly the inspiration for this monument.

Professor Philip Mannion, co-author.
Department of Earth Sciences
University College London
London, UK.

The name of the species is Herugavialis cairensis.

The new species is a gavial – one of a group of fish-eating crocodiles characterised by long, thin snouts. Only two gavial species are alive today, in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Both are critically endangered.

However, the fossil record shows gavials once lived nearly all over the world, particularly across South America and the Caribbean, but also in Africa, Asia and Europe, including the Isle of Sheppey in the UK, in a period spanning more than 100 million years.

The research team, from the UK, Sweden, Germany and Egypt, analysed several fossils, including a nearly complete skull, that were discovered in the 1920s in the 45-million-year-old Mokattam Formation. At the time they were misidentified as belonging to the still alive species Tomistoma schlegelii (also known as the “false gharial”).

The researchers used CT (computed tomography) scanning to look inside the skull, identifying several features that distinguished it from Tomistoma, including a raised ridge around the eyes.

Herugavialis was not the only crocodile in prehistoric Egypt, whose coastal regions were submerged by the Mediterranean at the time. The shallow marine environments that covered these regions were also home to at least two other species of gavials.

Gavials are critically endangered today but they have so much history that few people know about. They lived all over the world, from Europe and the Americas to Asia. A number of gavials lived in the Mediterranean region. In fact, throughout much of the last 50 million years, this region hosted a high diversity of crocodiles, with a shallow sea covering much of what is now southern Europe and northern Africa. This crocodile diversity fluctuated over time, seemingly corresponding to changes in global temperature and sea level. Then, about six million years ago, the Mediterranean got cut off from the Atlantic Ocean and dried up, losing much of its water, resulting in the loss of all crocodiles in the region.

Dr Paul M. J. Burke, lead author.
Department of Earth Sciences
University College London
London, UK.
And now Department of Palaeobiology
Naturhistoriska riksmuseet
Stockholm, Sweden.

The research received funding from the Wallenberg Foundation, the German Research Foundation, the Royal Society and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

The skull of Herugavialis is kept at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart and was first described in a 1927 study by Lorenz Müller.

Artists impression of Herugavialis cairensis

Publication:
Paul M. J. Burke, Stephan N. F. Spiekman, Belal S. Salem, Sara Saber, Hesham M. Sallam, Philip D. Mannion;
Cranial anatomy of the Middle Eocene Egyptian crocodylian Herugavialis cairensis provides new insights into gavialoid diversity in the Mediterranean region.
R. Soc. Open Sci. 1 October 2026; 13 (10): 261173. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.261173

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Abstract
Gavialoidea is presently composed of only two extant crocodylian species, the Indian gharial Gavialis gangeticus, and the false gharial Tomistoma schlegelii, both from southeast Asia. However, Gavialoidea displays a rich and near-cosmopolitan diversity in the fossil record, with over 40 species currently recognized. Several of these gavialoids are recovered from Cenozoic deposits in the Mediterranean region, with many assigned historically to the genus Tomistoma. However, recent phylogenetic analyses do not typically recover these species as closely related to the false gharial, with several fossil species in need of taxonomic revision. Here, we present a detailed re-evaluation of one of these species, Tomistoma cairense from the Middle Eocene Mokattam Formation of Egypt, based on the holotype skull and several referred specimens. Supplemented by endocranial anatomy revealed via computed tomography (CT), we identify numerous anatomical differences with T. schlegelii and other gavialoids, including the approximately contemporaneous Egyptian species, Eogavialis africanum and Paratomistoma courti. These differences are reinforced through phylogenetic analysis under maximum parsimony, in which T. cairense is recovered as a gavialoid that does not cluster with T. schlegelii or Mediterranean taxa. We erect a new genus name for T. cairense, with the resultant new combination of Herugavialis cairensis diagnosed by several characteristics, including telescoped orbits. An apparent decline in Mediterranean gavialoid diversity during the Late Eocene–Oligocene is potentially driven by a reduction in habitat, as a result of global cooling and declining eustatic sea level. Warming in the Miocene might have facilitated a subsequent rebound in gavialoid diversity, prior to the extirpation of crocodylians in the Mediterranean region in the Late Miocene, which might have been caused by the Messinian Salinity Crisis. The taxonomic revision of additional Mediterranean gavialoid species should facilitate greater insight into their evolutionary history and demise.

Paul M. J. Burke, Stephan N. F. Spiekman, Belal S. Salem, Sara Saber, Hesham M. Sallam, Philip D. Mannion;
Cranial anatomy of the Middle Eocene Egyptian crocodylian Herugavialis cairensis provides new insights into gavialoid diversity in the Mediterranean region.
R. Soc. Open Sci. 1 October 2026; 13 (10): 261173. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.261173

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by The Royal Society. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

A crocodilian skull collected a century ago has therefore yielded a clearer picture of life in Eocene Egypt, thanks to improved imaging and renewed analysis. Its reclassification illustrates science doing precisely what makes it reliable: treating inherited conclusions as open to revision when the evidence warrants it. The recognition of Herugavialis cairensis changes one branch of the evolutionary family tree; it does not call the existence of that tree into question.

For young-Earth creationism, the difficulties run considerably deeper than an inconvenient species name. Here is evidence of an ancient marine environment, an extinct crocodilian lineage and a regional history of environmental change extending over tens of millions of years. Compressing that history into a recent, year-long flood requires far more than pointing to marine fossils and declaring that water must once have covered the land. It requires an explanation of the ages, relationships and geological sequence that the evidence actually records.

The monuments at Giza add a particularly revealing irony. The Great Pyramid conventionally predates the Flood date promoted by Answers in Genesis, while the rocks from which the Sphinx was carved are vastly older than either monument. AiG's response is to make its interpretation of scripture the standard against which archaeological dates must be judged. That protects the belief from contradiction, but it supplies no independent evidence that the belief is correct.

The contrast could hardly be clearer. Scientists can acknowledge that a fossil was misclassified and improve their explanation without abandoning evolution or deep time. Biblical literalists must reject well-supported history to preserve a predetermined answer. Egypt's ancient crocodilians, and the rocks that preserved them, belong to the history revealed by evidence — whether or not that history fits Genesis.

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