Rosa Rubicondior

Refuting Creationism - Creationists Covered In Cambrian Coprolite.

2026-08-08T16:29:23.124+01:00

Life Without Poop

Life With Poop

T Klarenbeek, CC BY-SA

Surprising new theory for leap in evolution – News

It is not often that fossilised faeces take centre stage in an explanation of one of the most important episodes in evolutionary history. However, a review published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution suggests that the evolution of digestive systems—and the resulting production of faecal pellets—may have helped to transform the chemistry and ecology of the oceans during the Cambrian radiation.

In The Cambrian fecal revolution: Fueling the Cambrian Radiation, palaeontologists Julien Kimmig and Russell D.C. Bicknell bring together evidence from fossil digestive systems and coprolites—fossilised faeces—from more than 35 deposits around the world. They found that coprolites became progressively more abundant and varied during the Cambrian Period, ranging from microscopic pellets to centimetre-sized masses containing shells and fragments of other animals.

This change coincided with the evolution of increasingly sophisticated digestive systems. Early animals with blind guts had only one opening through which food entered and waste was expelled. The evolution of a through-gut, with a separate mouth and anus, permitted food to move continuously through the body. Animals could feed more frequently, process a greater variety of foods and adopt new ecological roles. Early arthropods, in particular, developed specialised foreguts and digestive glands capable of extracting nutrients from increasingly diverse prey.

According to the authors, the consequences extended far beyond the animals producing the waste. Faecal pellets packaged organic matter and nutrients—including carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and iron—and transported them through the water column and into deeper environments. In modern oceans, this sinking material forms an important part of the biological pump that carries carbon and nutrients away from surface waters. Kimmig and Bicknell propose that the beginnings of a comparable process during the Cambrian helped to fertilise previously nutrient-poor environments and support more complex food webs.

This could have created a self-reinforcing evolutionary feedback. Larger and more active animals consumed more food and produced larger faecal pellets; those pellets redistributed more nutrients; the resulting increase in biological productivity supported still larger populations, more predators and more complicated ecological relationships. The expansion of animal life was therefore not merely a response to environmental change: evolving animals were themselves changing their environment and creating new ecological opportunities.

As the authors make clear, this “faecal revolution” should not be treated as the single cause of the Cambrian radiation. Increasing oxygen concentrations, changes in ocean chemistry, the evolution of predation, greater mobility, burrowing and the development of mineralised skeletons were also involved. The review proposes an additional component of a network of interacting biological and environmental processes.

Nor is the suggestion that faeces somehow generated new genes or directly produced new animal body plans. Faecal matter altered nutrient availability and the structure of marine ecosystems, providing conditions in which existing evolutionary processes could operate in new ways. Confusing an environmental driver with a genetic mechanism would be a fundamental misunderstanding—or deliberate misrepresentation—of the hypothesis.

The so-called Cambrian “Explosion” was not the instantaneous appearance of fully formed animals, as creationist and intelligent-design propagandists habitually portray it. Animals had already begun evolving during the preceding Ediacaran Period, and the Cambrian diversification unfolded over many millions of years. Fossils preserve changing body sizes, feeding strategies, digestive systems, predator–prey relationships and patterns of nutrient cycling throughout that interval.

What emerges is not evidence of a sudden magical creation event but a recognisably evolutionary process: earlier organisms evolved new anatomical features, those features changed how they interacted with their surroundings, and the resulting environmental changes opened further opportunities for diversification. Even something as unglamorous as animal excrement became part of the accumulating ecological feedback that helped to turn relatively simple late-Ediacaran seas into the complex, animal-dominated ecosystems of the Phanerozoic.

The paper in Trends in Ecology & Evolution was accompanied by a news blog post from Flinders University and the two authors, Julien Kimmig & Russell D.C. Bicknell, have written about their work in an article in The Conversation. Their article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Published: August 4, 2026 9.06pm BST

On the origin of feces: how animal poo drove Earth’s greatest evolutionary event

Kimmig & Bicknell / Trends in Ecology & Evolution

CC BY

Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Flinders University and Julien Kimmig

As all children learn, everyone poos. But when did this begin?

And what evolutionary and environmental changes accompanied the dawn of dung? Going further, is the evolution of excrement the reason we exist?

Our new research suggests the evolution of fecal matter helped fuel one of the most important events in the history of life on Earth: the Cambrian explosion.

And poo really might be the reason animals were such a huge evolutionary success.

A hidden clue to the Cambrian explosion

Around 540 million years ago, the Cambrian explosion transformed life on Earth. During a relatively brief interval in geological time – somewhere between 13 million and 25 million years – most of the major animal groups appeared.

Around the same time, the first marine ecosystems developed and became more complex. Marine food webs began to look like those of modern oceans.

Scientists have long debated what drove this diversification. Rising oxygen levels, evolutionary innovations and increasingly complex predator-prey interactions have all been proposed as factors.

Fossilised fecal matter, or coprolites, came in many shapes and sizes during the Cambrian.

Kimmig & Bicknell / Trends in Ecology & Evolution, CC BY

However, much research on ancient and modern ecosystems steps around an important substance: feces. Scientists do look at fossilised feces, known as coprolites, but usually only for evidence of ancient diets and to figure out which creatures ate each other.

Our study considered these fossils as part of a much bigger picture. We argue they also record the emergence of a fundamental ecological process.

As animals became more abundant and evolved more sophisticated digestive systems, they were able to produce more fecal matter. More feces meant more organic material and nutrients were distributed through the oceans. This in turn sped up the development of ecosystems.

From simple guts to complex ecosystems

The earliest animals appeared around 60 million years before the Cambrian explosion began. However, until the Cambrian there is little or no evidence of complex digestive systems, nor any confirmed coprolites.

The fossil record of guts and coprolites shifts dramatically during the Cambrian. The first fossilised feces appear right at the onset of the Cambrian and become increasingly abundant.

As we move forwards in time, more diverse coprolites appear. Evidence from dozens of deposits across the globe shows an array of different shapes and sizes. The fecal matter ranges from microscopic pellets through to centimetre-scale coprolites containing crushed shells and other animal fragments.

Between roughly 560 million years ago and 500 million years ago, animal guts and the feces they produced underwent some big changes.

Kimmig & Bicknell / Trends in Ecology & Evolution, CC BY

Associated with this shift, there was an increase in very well-preserved fossils with complex digestive systems, particularly among early arthropods. These animals had evolved specialised foreguts and digestive glands that could process a wider variety of food.

Together, these fossils show animals were beginning to process and then redistribute organic matter using entirely novel pipelines.

Nutrient cycling on an evolutionary scale

The ecological significance of this innovation becomes clearer when viewed alongside modern oceans.

Today, fecal pellets are an important component of the biological pump – the process that transports organic carbon and nutrients from surface waters into deeper marine environments. As fecal pellets sink, they carry nutrition to support life well beyond the sunlit surface ocean.

Our research suggests the widespread appearance of fecal matter during the Cambrian may represent the evolutionary origin of this process.

As animal diversity and biomass increased during the Cambrian, so too would have the production of fecal pellets. This would have meant more sources of energy and nutrients sinking to deeper marine habitats, and making food more widely available in shallower waters.

How marine ecosystems looked before and after the Cambrian explosion.

T Klarenbeek, CC BY-SA

More complex marine communities

The emergence of widespread fecal production had an important ecological feedback. Greater animal diversity resulted in greater production of fecal matter, increasing the redistribution of organic carbon and nutrients through marine ecosystems.

In turn, improved nutrient availability likely supported larger populations, more complex food webs and the colonisation of increasingly diverse marine habitats. Those expanding ecosystems would then have generated even greater biological productivity.

Our observation here complements other hypotheses explaining the Cambrian explosion. Oxygenation, ecological interactions and evolutionary innovations undoubtedly played critical roles as well.
Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology, Flinders University and Julien Kimmig, Head of Palaeontology Division at the Natural History Museum Karlsruhe

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)

Highlights
The ‘Cambrian Radiation’ comprises the rapid diversification of marine organisms and ecological niches during the Ediacaran to Cambrian Periods. It is also the time during which animals with guts first appear. The appearance of guts, in turn, leads to fecal matter, fossils of which are preserved as coprolites.

Fecal matter is rarely preserved in the Cambrian. However, in a few assemblages, the diversity and development of fecal matter are observed. There was little fecal matter available at the onset of the Cambrian, while larger and more diverse fecal matter became available by the middle Cambrian.

We assess the effect that increased availability of fecal matter had on deeper water environments and how this made such environments habitable for Cambrian organisms.

Combining these observations with data on digestive tracts and biogeochemistry of nutrient cycling in the Cambrian demonstrates that fecal matter played a significant role in driving the Cambrian Radiation.

Abstract
Coprolites—fossil material extruded from an animal’s digestive system—represent a rare insight into trophic interactions in deep time. However, while the first animals appeared about 600 million years ago, the first coprolites are only observed in the earliest Cambrian. Conversely, in modern oceans, fecal pellets are an important part of the particulate organic carbon in the water column and the global flux of organic carbon to deep water. In this review, we analyze the impact of the advent of fecal matter on the Cambrian Radiation by examining coprolites, analyzing animal biology, and contextualizing this through the role of fecal pellets in the oceanic nutrient cycle. We illustrate the central position of coprolites in driving the Cambrian Radiation.

Kimmig J, Bicknell R
The Cambrian fecal revolution: Fueling the Cambrian Radiation
Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2026; 0

© 2026 Cell Press (Elsevier Inc.)
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Creationists will doubtless try to caricature this hypothesis as the claim that “poo caused the Cambrian Explosion”. That would be a convenient straw man, but it is not what Kimmig and Bicknell are proposing. Faecal matter did not manufacture genes or conjure new body plans into existence; it redistributed organic carbon and essential nutrients, altering the environments in which evolution was already occurring and helping to sustain increasingly complex ecosystems.

The fossil record shows a sequence of related developments: animals were already present during the Ediacaran Period; digestive systems became more elaborate; coprolites increased in size, abundance and variety; feeding strategies diversified; and food webs acquired more trophic levels. These changes unfolded over millions of years and affected one another through ecological feedback. That is very different from the creationist portrayal of the Cambrian radiation as the inexplicable, instantaneous appearance of fully formed animal “kinds”.

As a review, this paper does not claim to have proved that faecal production was the sole or even principal cause of the Cambrian radiation. It offers a testable synthesis that can be assessed against the timing, distribution and composition of coprolites, fossil digestive systems and geochemical evidence. It may be strengthened, modified or rejected as further evidence becomes available. That willingness to expose an idea to possible falsification is precisely what distinguishes a scientific hypothesis from a religious assertion protected from contrary evidence.

Creationism, meanwhile, explains none of the observed sequence. It cannot tell us why digestive systems changed, why coprolites became larger and more diverse, why nutrient cycling intensified or why ecological complexity accumulated gradually through the rocks. It merely replaces all those questions with an unobservable act of magic and then declares the mystery solved.

The history of life was not clean, dignified or arranged for human sensibilities. Evolution worked with whatever organisms produced—including their waste—and turned even excrement into part of an ecological feedback that opened opportunities for further change. The Cambrian seas needed no guiding intelligence to become more complex; apparently, they only needed evolving animals, enough time—and somewhere for all that food to go.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Creationism Refuted - The Neanderthal Genes We Inherited Are Still Making A Difference.

2026-08-07T20:22:47.066+01:00

Shana - the daughter of a Neanderthal father and a Homo sapiens mother
Cover illustration for my book The Way of the Wolf

AI-generated image (ChatGPT 5.2)

Neandertal growth hormone receptor increases muscle mass in people today | Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Evolutionary history is often represented as a neatly branching tree: an ancestral population divides, its descendants diverge, and each resulting lineage continues along its own independent path. Real evolution, however, is frequently much less tidy.

As I explained in my previous post on the Hawaiian honeycreepers, lineages that have begun to diverge can subsequently meet again and exchange genes through hybridisation. The result is reticulated evolution: an evolutionary history that is partly tree-like but also contains connecting branches where genes have passed between related populations.

The same principle applies to our own ancestry.

Modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans were not separately created, genetically sealed “kinds”. They were closely related human lineages produced by population separation and divergence, but that separation was never absolute. When populations encountered one another again, they sometimes interbred, allowing genes from one evolutionary branch to enter another—a process known as introgression.

Much of the resulting Neanderthal-derived DNA carried by people today may have little or no detectable effect. Some introgressed variants, however, continue to influence human biology. An international team led by Philipp Kanis of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Hugo Zeberg of Karolinska Institutet has now investigated one particularly interesting example: the Neanderthal version of the growth-hormone receptor.

Their peer-reviewed paper in Current Biology examines two amino-acid substitutions in the receptor that were characteristic of Neanderthals. The growth-hormone receptor sits on the surface of cells and transmits the signal produced when growth hormone binds to it, helping to regulate the growth of bone, muscle and other tissues.

In laboratory-grown cells, the Neanderthal form of the receptor produced a stronger response to growth hormone than the common modern-human version. Under the experimental conditions used, cells carrying it grew by about 40 per cent more, with most of the increase attributable to one of the two Neanderthal-derived substitutions.

The researchers then examined genetic and medical information from more than a million living people. Adults carrying the introgressed receptor variant had, on average, approximately 270 grams more muscle mass. They also showed subtle differences in the rear of the lower jaw and in tooth-root length—features that shifted them slightly towards the morphology seen in Neanderthals. No comparable growth effect was detected among more than 6,000 children aged eleven or younger, suggesting that its influence may become apparent later, perhaps during puberty.

The variant is unevenly distributed among modern populations. It occurs in only about 0.5 per cent of Europeans but is substantially more frequent in parts of South and East Asia, reaching frequencies of up to 24 per cent in some South Asian populations. Population-genetic evidence indicates that modern humans acquired it through interbreeding with Neanderthals roughly 47,000 years ago.

This does not mean that two receptor substitutions alone explain the characteristically robust Neanderthal skeleton. Body form is a complex product of many genes interacting with development, diet, activity and environment, and the researchers explicitly caution against attributing the entire Neanderthal physique to this one genetic variant. What the study does provide is functional evidence that a piece of Neanderthal DNA can still measurably affect the bodies of living humans.

Just as gene flow turned the evolutionary history of Hawaiian honeycreepers into a network rather than a perfectly bifurcating tree, introgression made human evolution reticulated. A genetic branch that diverged from our own did not simply terminate when the Neanderthals disappeared; fragments of it survive within modern human populations, where some remain biologically active.

For creationists, particularly those committed to a few-thousand-year-old Earth and a human population descended recently from a single founding couple, this is another awkward piece of evidence. The geographical distribution, molecular ancestry and measurable effects of the receptor variant fit the scientific account of ancient populations diverging, migrating, meeting and exchanging genes. They do not resemble the history of an independently created, unchanging human “kind”.

The human evolutionary tree, like that of the honeycreepers, therefore contains both branches and connections. Genes cross the boundaries that creationists imagine to be fixed, leaving an inherited record of encounters tens of thousands of years before their mythology says the world—or any humans—existed.

Neanderthal DNA in people today. Neanderthals disappeared as a recognisable population about 40,000 years ago, but their genetic lineage did not disappear completely. Genetic evidence shows that the ancestors of present-day humans interbred with Neanderthals, with the principal period of gene flow occurring approximately 45,000–49,000 years ago.

As a result, people whose ancestry lies mainly outside Africa commonly carry approximately 1–2 per cent Neanderthal-derived DNA. Different individuals carry different fragments, however, so collectively living people preserve a much larger proportion—estimated at about 40 per cent of the Neanderthal genome.

Neanderthal ancestry is not entirely absent from Africa. A study published in Cell detected Neanderthal-derived sequences in every modern population it examined. Much of this appears to have arrived through later migrations of people from Eurasia back into Africa, while some apparently reflects still earlier gene flow from modern-human ancestors into Neanderthals.

Why have some Neanderthal variants survived?

The inherited fragments are not distributed evenly across the modern human genome. Many Neanderthal variants were probably neutral and survived or disappeared largely through genetic drift. Others were disadvantageous in a modern-human genetic background and were progressively removed by natural selection. Conversely, variants that helped early modern humans survive unfamiliar climates, foods or pathogens could increase in frequency.

This has left a patchwork of Neanderthal-derived DNA rather than a complete miniature Neanderthal genome within each person. Examples with measurable or suspected biological effects include:

Immunity: Neanderthal-derived variants in the TLR1–TLR6–TLR10 gene cluster affect Toll-like receptors, which recognise components of invading microorganisms. These variants may have strengthened the defences of modern humans encountering Eurasian pathogens, although the same heightened responsiveness is also associated with an increased tendency towards allergies.

Responses to viral disease: The consequences of introgression depend upon both the variant and the environment. One Neanderthal-derived region on chromosome 3 was associated with an increased risk of severe COVID-19, whereas a different Neanderthal-derived form of the antiviral gene OAS1 was associated with protection against severe disease.

Pain sensitivity: Neanderthal-derived substitutions in SCN9A, which encodes the Nav1.7 sodium channel used by pain-sensing nerve cells, are associated with a lower threshold for some forms of mechanical pain. Whether increased sensitivity was advantageous to Neanderthals or early modern humans remains uncertain.

Pregnancy and fertility: An introgressed form of the progesterone receptor is expressed at higher levels in carriers. In one large modern cohort, it was associated with less bleeding during early pregnancy, fewer miscarriages and more surviving offspring, suggesting that natural selection may have favoured it.

Skin and hair: Neanderthal-derived DNA is unusually abundant around some genes involved in keratin filaments, important components of skin, hair and nails. This pattern suggests that certain inherited variants may have helped early modern humans adapt to conditions outside Africa, although the effects of individual variants are often complex.

Growth and body form: The newly studied Neanderthal growth-hormone-receptor variant produces stronger signalling in laboratory-grown cells and is associated in living adults with slightly greater muscle mass and subtle differences in jaw and tooth-root morphology. It therefore provides another example of introgressed DNA retaining a measurable biological effect tens of thousands of years after it entered the modern-human gene pool.

These associations should not be interpreted as simple “Neanderthal traits”. Most human characteristics are influenced by numerous genes together with development, diet, lifestyle and environment. A variant that was beneficial in Ice Age Eurasia may be neutral—or even disadvantageous—in a modern setting.

What these fragments provide is a molecular record of population history. Their sequences, lengths and geographical distributions allow geneticists to reconstruct when human populations separated, met and exchanged genes. They show that human evolution was not the production of separately created and genetically isolated “kinds”, but a reticulated process in which diverging branches repeatedly reconnected.

The paper in Current Biology was accompanied by a Max Planck Society research release and a report in Nature:

Neandertal growth hormone receptor increases muscle mass in people today
Scientists describe increased activity of the Neandertal growth hormone receptor and how it shapes the bodies of people who carry it today
To the point

Two Neandertal-specific changes: The study identified two amino acid changes that are unique to the Neandertal growth hormone receptor.
Increased receptor activity: When exposed to growth hormone, laboratory-grown cells carrying the Neandertal receptor grew 40 percent more than cells carrying the more common modern human version.
Inherited through interbreeding: Modern humans acquired the Neandertal version through interbreeding with Neandertals around 47,000 years ago. Today, it is carried by up to 24 percent of people in some parts of South Asia.
Increased weight and muscle mass in carriers: Adults who carry the Neandertal version have, on average, about 270 grams more muscle. They also tend to have slightly shorter tooth roots and subtle differences in the shape of the jaw.
Neandertals were generally more strongly built than most people living today. Their bones show signs of large muscles, and they had characteristic features such as prominent brow ridges and relatively short tooth roots.

Growth hormone helps shape the body by regulating the growth of muscles and bones. It is released by the pituitary gland at the base of the brain and travels through the bloodstream. To act on a cell, the hormone must bind to a receptor on its surface, which then passes the signal into the cell.

An international team led by Hugo Zeberg of Karolinska Institutet and Philipp Kanis of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology found that the Neandertal version of this receptor has two changes that are not present in the version most common in modern humans.

Neandertal variant responds more strongly to growth hormone
The study shows that laboratory-grown cells with the Neandertal receptor responded more strongly to growth hormone. They grew 40 percent more than cells with the more common modern human receptor. The researchers linked most of this stronger response to one of the two Neandertal-specific changes.

Modern humans inherited this version of the receptor through interbreeding with Neandertals around 47,000 years ago. Today, it is particularly common in South and East Asia. Up to 24 percent of people in some South Asian populations carry it, compared with around 0.5 percent of Europeans.

What struck me most was that two very different types of evidence told the same story. Cells grown in the laboratory responded more strongly, while data from more than a million people showed signs of the same effect in the body. It is rare to see laboratory and population evidence fit together so clearly.

Dr Philipp Kanis, first author.
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Leipzig, Germany.

Differences first become apparent after childhood
The difference appears to emerge only after childhood. The researchers examined body measurements from more than 6,000 children and found no link between the Neandertal version and growth up to the age of eleven. This suggests that its effects may become noticeable later, possibly around puberty, when growth hormone levels increase substantially. Among adults, people carrying the Neandertal version had, on average, around 270 grams more muscle mass.

As someone who does CrossFit, I was delighted to find Neandertal genetics and muscle mass coming together in the same study. But even a Neandertal growth hormone receptor is no substitute for training.

Miriam Berreiter, co-uthor
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology
Karlinska Institutet
Stockholm, Sweden.

The Neandertal version was also linked to subtle differences in the skull and teeth. Carriers tended to have a slightly shorter rear section of the lower jaw and shorter tooth roots. Both features are closer to what was typical of Neandertals.

It is fascinating that one genetic change inherited from Neandertals can still have an effect on the human body today. But this is only one of many genetic influences on growth and body shape. It cannot explain the Neandertal body type on its own, and it certainly does not determine a person’s overall appearance.

Hugo Zeberg, senior author.
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Leipzig, Germany.

Publication:
Kanis, Philipp; Berreiter, Miriam; Sieme, Daniel;
Increased signaling of the Neanderthal growth hormone receptor
Current Biology (2026) 36, 1-13 doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2026.07.025

Highlights

Neanderthals had two amino acid changes in the growth hormone receptor
One amino acid change drives faster cell growth and stronger STAT5 signaling
A DNA segment encoding the Neanderthal receptor entered modern humans via admixture
Carriers have greater muscle mass and some Neanderthal-like craniofacial traits

Summary
Neanderthals had a robust build and distinctive skeletal features. The hypothalamic-pituitary-somatotropic (HPS) axis, with growth hormone (GH) as a central signaling molecule, plays a crucial role in regulating skeletal development. To explore whether Neanderthal-specific genetic variations in the HPS axis contributed to their physical robustness, we examined genes encoding the relevant receptors and hormones. We find that the Neanderthal growth hormone receptor (GHR) carried two amino acid changes and one deletion. When the Neanderthal GHR is expressed in a GH-dependent cell line, the cells proliferate faster than cells expressing the modern human GHR when stimulated by pituitary GH but not by placental GH. We also show that some present-day humans have inherited the gene encoding the Neanderthal GHR. These individuals tend to have more muscle mass and exhibit some craniofacial traits reminiscent of Neanderthals. Thus, aspects of Neanderthal anatomy live on in people today.

Graphical abstract

>
Kanis, Philipp; Berreiter, Miriam; Sieme, Daniel;
Increased signaling of the Neanderthal growth hormone receptor
Current Biology (2026) 36, 1-13 doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2026.07.025

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

This study does not claim that two changes in the growth-hormone receptor can explain the entire Neanderthal physique. Muscle mass, skeletal proportions and facial morphology are complex traits produced by many genes interacting with development, nutrition, activity and environment. What the researchers have shown is more specific—and in evolutionary terms more revealing: an identifiable Neanderthal-derived receptor remains functional in living humans and is associated with measurable differences in their bodies.

The finding also provides continuity with the reticulated evolution of the Hawaiian honeycreepers. In both cases, populations diverged but did not remain permanently isolated. When their descendants encountered one another again, they exchanged genes, converting what might otherwise have been a simple branching tree into an evolutionary network. Hybridisation among birds and introgression among archaic humans are manifestations of the same natural process.

The geographical distribution of the receptor variant is part of that history. Its presence at appreciable frequencies in some Asian populations but its rarity in Europe records ancient migration, interbreeding, inheritance, genetic drift and possibly natural selection. Creationism offers no comparable mechanism capable of explaining why a functional Neanderthal-derived DNA sequence should occur in predictable patterns among living human populations.

Appealing to an undefined “human kind” does not rescue the creationist account. If Neanderthals and modern humans were supposedly different created kinds, their interbreeding and the survival of functional Neanderthal DNA breach the alleged boundary between them. If creationists instead include both within the same kind, that category must accommodate hundreds of thousands of years of divergence, anatomical change, population separation and subsequent genetic admixture. It then explains nothing that evolutionary biology does not already explain more precisely.

Nor can the evidence be compressed into the few thousand years allowed by Young-Earth mythology. The receptor entered the modern-human gene pool through interbreeding roughly 47,000 years ago, after a much longer period during which the Neanderthal and modern-human lineages had evolved separately. Its history therefore began tens of thousands of years before creationists believe the Universe was created and long before their mythical global flood.

No supernatural intervention is required at any stage. Mutation produced variation; population separation allowed lineages to diverge; migration brought them together again; interbreeding transferred genetic material; and inheritance, drift and selection determined which fragments survived. The Neanderthals may be extinct as a distinct population, but parts of their evolutionary history remain alive and biologically active in us—and our genomes bear a record that no creation myth anticipated and no appeal to magic can explain.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Refuting Creationism - Evolutionary Radiation Of Hawaiian Honeycreepers

2026-08-07T13:50:47.886+01:00

Loxiodes bailleui

By Jack Jeffrey, USGS - gallery.usgs.gov, Public Domain, Link

Smithsonian Scientists Resolve the Hawaiian Honeycreeper Family Tree | Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute

Only a few days after writing about Darwin’s famous Galápagos finches and how the Galápagos daisy had parallelled their evolutionary radiation, another group of island birds provides an even more spectacular example of adaptive radiation.

This time the setting is the Hawaiian archipelago, and the birds are the Hawaiian honeycreepers — an extraordinary collection of finches that evolved an assortment of beaks, diets and ways of life from a shared ancestral population.

More than 60 species of Hawaiian honeycreeper are known, ranging from thick-billed seed-eaters and nectar-feeders to birds with long, curved beaks for probing flowers or extracting insects from beneath bark. Some became so anatomically different that, before their evolutionary relationships were understood, naturalists found it difficult to believe that they could all be related.

But related they are. According to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) by Michael G. Campana and colleagues at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute and National Museum of Natural History, the honeycreepers form a single adaptive radiation whose history includes not only repeated branching into new species but also genetic exchange between some of those emerging lineages.

The researchers constructed the first comprehensive phylogenomic reconstruction to include every honeycreeper species known to have survived until European contact with the Hawaiian Islands. Their analysis covered all 17 surviving species, 18 species that have since become extinct and two additional species known only from fossil bones.

This was possible because modern genomic techniques allowed the team to recover DNA not only from living birds but also from historic museum skins and tiny fragments of fossil bone. Far from being dusty repositories of obsolete curiosities, natural-history collections have become genetic archives from which the evolutionary history of extinct organisms can increasingly be reconstructed.

The resulting family tree shows that most honeycreeper lineages arose during a particularly rapid burst of diversification between about 3.5 million and 2.5 million years ago, around the time the island of Oʻahu emerged through volcanic activity. Each new island created unoccupied habitats and ecological opportunities. Colonising populations became geographically isolated, adapted to different food sources and habitats, and gradually diverged into distinct species.

However, their history was not a simple succession of branches separating permanently from one another. The paper describes the radiation as “reticulated” because some branches subsequently exchanged genes through hybridisation and introgression. The researchers found evidence of genetic mixing between the now-extinct ʻōʻū and Lānaʻi hookbill, while related ʻamakihi populations occupying different islands continue to exchange genetic material. Evolutionary history is therefore sometimes better represented as a branching network than as a perfectly bifurcating tree.

For creationists, this presents several familiar difficulties. There is no evidence that the different honeycreepers were independently created for their respective ecological roles. Instead, their genomes record common ancestry, geographic isolation, descent with modification, adaptation and occasional hybridisation — precisely the processes predicted by evolutionary biology.

Nor would it help to protest that the honeycreepers are “still finches”. Evolution does not predict that descendants cease to belong to their ancestral group: birds remain dinosaurs, humans remain apes and mammals, and Hawaiian honeycreepers remain finches. What changed was the diversity within that lineage as inherited variation, mutation, recombination, natural selection, isolation and gene flow generated more than 60 specialised species from one ancestral population.

Sadly, the research also documents evolution in reverse: not the formation of biological diversity but its destruction. Only 17 honeycreeper species survive, and many of those face extinction from habitat loss, introduced predators, avian malaria and climate change. The reconstructed family tree therefore reveals both the remarkable creative power of evolutionary processes over millions of years and how rapidly human activity can prune away the diversity they produced.

How Volcanoes Built an Evolutionary Laboratory — and Why the Honeycreeper Family Tree Became a Network. The Hawaiian evolutionary conveyor belt

The Hawaiian Islands were not formed simultaneously. They were created sequentially as the Pacific tectonic plate moved north-westwards over a comparatively stationary volcanic hotspot. Once an island was carried away from the hotspot, its volcanoes became inactive and the island gradually eroded and subsided, while a new volcanic island arose to the south-east.

Consequently, the islands become progressively younger towards the south-east:

Island or island group Approximate geological age

Kauaʻi and Niʻihau About 5 million years

Oʻahu About 3–4 million years

The former Maui Nui complex Mostly less than 2 million years

Hawaiʻi Less than 1 million years and still volcanically active

Genetic evidence indicates that the finch-like ancestor of the Hawaiian honeycreepers probably reached the archipelago from Asia about 5.7 million years ago, close to the time when the oldest of the present high islands were forming. Its descendants therefore encountered not a completed island chain but a continually changing landscape in which new islands, mountains, forests and ecological opportunities appeared over time.

Each newly formed island could be colonised by a small number of birds from an older island. Geographic separation then restricted interbreeding with the original population. Founder effects, mutation, genetic drift and natural selection caused the separated populations to diverge as they adapted to different foods, habitats and ecological niches.

The process can be summarised as follows:

Stage Evolutionary consequence

A new volcanic island forms Unoccupied habitats and food sources become available

A few birds colonise it A small founder population becomes geographically isolated

Populations exploit different resources Natural selection favours different beaks, behaviours and feeding methods

Differences accumulate Populations become increasingly distinct and may form new species

Birds disperse between islands New colonisations begin and previously separated lineages may meet again

The new genomic study indicates that most honeycreeper lineages originated during an especially rapid period of diversification between about 3.5 million and 2.5 million years ago, broadly coinciding with the emergence of Oʻahu. The appearance of another substantial island apparently provided both new ecological opportunities and new geographical barriers, accelerating colonisation, isolation and speciation.

Why the family tree became a network

A conventional evolutionary tree shows an ancestral population dividing into two lineages, each of which may subsequently divide again. This is a useful representation, but it can give the misleading impression that separated branches can never exchange genes again.

During a rapid adaptive radiation, newly formed species may remain genetically similar enough to produce fertile hybrids. If those hybrids reproduce with members of either parental species, genes can pass from one lineage into another. This movement of genetic material across species boundaries is called introgression.

Because such gene flow reconnects branches that had previously separated, the result is known as reticulate evolution, from the Latin reticulum, meaning a net. The evolutionary history is still predominantly branching, but some of its branches are joined by genetic bridges.

The researchers detected evidence of genetic mixing between the now-extinct ʻōʻū and Lānaʻi hookbill, two birds that looked remarkably different. They also found that closely related ʻamakihi populations occupying separate islands continue to exchange genetic material.

Hybridisation does not mean that the species are imaginary or that speciation has not occurred. Species boundaries can be incomplete or permeable, especially during the early stages of divergence. The lineages may remain distinguishable in their appearance, ecology and overall genomes while still exchanging a limited number of genes.

Introgression can also contribute to evolution by transferring useful variants into another population. A gene that evolved in one lineage may help a related lineage adapt to a new food source, habitat, pathogen or climate. Evolutionary novelty can therefore arise not only through mutations within a lineage but also through the recombination and redistribution of variation between related lineages.

The Hawaiian honeycreeper radiation was consequently produced by an interaction between geology and biology. Volcanism repeatedly created islands; dispersal brought founder populations to them; isolation allowed those populations to diverge; natural selection adapted them to different niches; and occasional hybridisation transferred genetic material between some of the resulting species.

This is not the history of separately created, immutable “kinds”. It is a detailed record of common ancestry, divergence and genetic exchange unfolding across a changing volcanic landscape over millions of years.

Island or island group	Approximate geological age
Kauaʻi and Niʻihau	About 5 million years
Oʻahu	About 3–4 million years
The former Maui Nui complex	Mostly less than 2 million years
Hawaiʻi	Less than 1 million years and still volcanically active

Stage	Evolutionary consequence
A new volcanic island forms	Unoccupied habitats and food sources become available
A few birds colonise it	A small founder population becomes geographically isolated
Populations exploit different resources	Natural selection favours different beaks, behaviours and feeding methods
Differences accumulate	Populations become increasingly distinct and may form new species
Birds disperse between islands	New colonisations begin and previously separated lineages may meet again

The paper in PNAS was accompanied by a Smithsonian institutional news release:

Smithsonian Scientists Resolve the Hawaiian Honeycreeper Family Tree
Family Tree Includes All Species Known at the Time of European Arrival to the Hawaiian Islands

`Akiapōlā`au, Hemignathus monroi.

Photo credit: Jeffrey Jack, CC0.

Smithsonian researchers have identified the genetic relationships among all the Hawaiian honeycreeper species that were known to exist—and have subsequently faced major losses—since the arrival of Europeans to the islands. The study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) and the National Museum of Natural History, places extinct and extant species of this famously diverse group of birds in their evolutionary context, informing diversity loss studies and potential conservation priorities.

More than 60 Hawaiian honeycreeper species evolved from a single ancestor on the Hawaiian Islands across a relatively small time window, making them a prime example of adaptive radiation, the rapid diversification of one species into many new ones. When a species diversifies this quickly, it can be challenging to build a comprehensive family tree and accurately measure subsequent biodiversity loss. This problem is coming to a head today as only 17 Hawaiian honeycreeper species are still alive, with most facing extinction due to habitat loss, introduced diseases, invasive predators and climate change. To address this challenge, the Smithsonian team used genetic methods to resolve the relationships among the 17 living species, plus an additional 18 that existed when Europeans first arrived at the Hawaiian Islands in 1778 and two that are only known from fossil bones.

The findings are bittersweet because while we have a much better understanding of the relationships between the Hawaiian honeycreepers and the role hybridization played in their evolution, they also show we have lost more Hawaiian honeycreeper lineages than we previously knew.

Michael G. Campana, lead author.
Center for Conservation Genomics
National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. USA.

The research team presents the first comprehensive map of the Hawaiian honeycreeper radiation. They found that most species originated during a “big bang” of diversification that took place approximately 2.5–3.5 million years ago, around the same time that the island of O’ahu formed. The team speculates this period facilitated a burst of diversification among honeycreepers because the new island afforded them unoccupied habitats with room to form multiple, distinct populations that then contributed their new genetic material back to other lineages on older islands. While breeding between two animals of different species is often a genetic dead end, the team confirmed genetic mixing between two honeycreeper species, ‘ō‘ū (Psittirostra psittacea) and Lāna‘i hookbill (Dysmorodrepanis munroi), and that a group of closely related honeycreepers called ‘amakihi (Chlorodrepanis spp.), which occupied different islands, continue to share genetic material today.

Researchers were able to gain a fuller understanding of the honeycreeper radiation by using minimally invasive techniques to collect samples from extant and extinct species held within museum collections in the United States and Europe. The work demonstrates the crucial nature of museum and paleontological specimens for genomics research.

I marvel at the amount of genetic data that my colleagues recovered from tiny bits of epidermis cut from old museum specimens of extinct honeycreepers. They even succeeded at getting genetic data out of small fossil bones of the honeycreepers. This really highlights how improvements in genetic sequencing have transformed traditional natural history museum collections into vast repositories of historical and comparative genetic information. This is especially true for birds and mammals, which were often preserved in the form of dried skins and bones, and we are now good at getting DNA from those types of specimens.

Helen F. James, co-author
Department of Vertebrate Zoology
National Museum of Natural History
Washington, DC. USA.

As the team looks ahead, they are focused on investigating the impacts, evolution and control of introduced diseases that have decimated honeycreeper populations, including avipoxvirus and avian malaria. Specifically, they are seeking to understand how both the birds and the pathogens have evolved since the diseases’ introductions.

The genomic data we generated for this study should also be useful for understanding the morphological evolution of the honeycreepers, as well as to offer clues about how the genomic variation of some honeycreeper species may have influenced their ability to survive disease.

Robert C. Fleischer, senior author.
Center for Conservation Genomics
National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. USA.

Publication:
M.G. Campana, M.X. Venkatraman, M.T.N. Tsuchiya, A.M. Kearns, N.M. VanTassel, A.E. Henschen, N.A.S. Przelomska, N.R. McInerney, M. Ochirbat, H.R.L. Lerner, T.E. Callicrate, M. Hagemann, E.H. Paxton, L. Cassin-Sackett, H.F. James, & R.C. Fleischer
Reticulated adaptive radiation and phylogenomic diversity loss in the Hawaiian honeycreepers
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123 (32) e2536533123, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2536533123 (2026).

Significance
The Hawaiian honeycreeper clade is a pre-eminent example of both adaptive radiation and human-mediated rapid extinction. We present an exhaustive phylogeny of nearly all extant and historically known Hawaiian honeycreeper taxa. We identify a burst of adaptive radiation correlating with the formation of O‘ahu. We find evidence of interspecies admixture across the Hawaiian honeycreeper radiation, spanning ancient and contemporary timescales. The taxonomic resolution obtained here has implications for both the proportion of Hawaiian honeycreeper diversity lost and the setting of conservation priorities in the extant ‘amakihi clade.

Abstract
The Hawaiian honeycreepers, one of the world’s most iconic adaptive radiations, are facing a human-mediated extinction crisis. More than 60 Hawaiian honeycreepers (Fringillidae: Carduelinae: Drepanidini) evolved from a single rosefinch-like ancestor that colonized the Hawaiian Islands. Only 17 Hawaiian honeycreeper taxa are known to be extant, of which only the common ‘amakihi (Chlorodrepanis virens) and ‘apapane (Himatione sanguinea) are classified as “Least Concern.” Using mitogenome, whole-genome, and hybridization-capture data, we present a comprehensive phylogeny of the historically known Hawaiian honeycreeper radiation. We also place two taxa known only from paleontological specimens (Vangulifer neophasis and cf. Xestospiza conica) in their phylogenomic context. We demonstrate that most Hawaiian honeycreeper lineages diversified in a “Big Bang” of adaptive radiation correlating with the formation of O‘ahu and that interspecies introgression likely played a role in this process. Using whole-genome data, we confirm putative interspecies admixture [N. A. S. Przelomska et al., Biol. Lett. 21, 20250265 (2025)] between the ‘ō‘ū (Psittirostra psittacea) and Lāna‘i hookbill (Dysmorodrepanis munroi) and document ongoing gene flow across the ‘amakihi species complex. Furthermore, we reject the synonymization of Vestiaria (‘i‘iwi) and Drepanis (Hawai‘i and black mamo). Instead, the mamo species form an extinct clade with no close extant relatives, demonstrating a greater loss of phylogenomic diversity than previously understood.

M.G. Campana, M.X. Venkatraman, M.T.N. Tsuchiya, A.M. Kearns, N.M. VanTassel, A.E. Henschen, N.A.S. Przelomska, N.R. McInerney, M. Ochirbat, H.R.L. Lerner, T.E. Callicrate, M. Hagemann, E.H. Paxton, L. Cassin-Sackett, H.F. James, & R.C. Fleischer
Reticulated adaptive radiation and phylogenomic diversity loss in the Hawaiian honeycreepers
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123 (32) e2536533123, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2536533123 (2026).

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by National Academy of Science of the USA. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

What the researchers have reconstructed is not merely a collection of similar birds but an evolutionary history written simultaneously in their genomes and in the geology of the islands they inhabit. As new volcanic islands appeared, founder populations colonised them, became isolated, adapted to different ecological opportunities and diverged into new species, illustrating the close connection between environment and evolution, just as the theory predicts. When some of those populations subsequently met again, hybridisation allowed genes to cross the developing species boundaries, turning a simple branching tree into a partially interconnected network.

That reticulation is not a weakness in evolutionary theory or an awkward exception added to rescue it. It is one of the processes evolutionary biology predicts when closely related populations diverge rapidly while retaining some capacity to interbreed. Modern genomics has merely given scientists the means to detect those ancient episodes of gene flow and produce a more accurate account than was possible from anatomy alone.

Creationists may respond that the honeycreepers remained finches, as though evolution predicts that descendants should cease to belong to their ancestral group. In fact, their continued membership of the finch family is exactly what common descent predicts. The important fact is that one ancestral population generated more than 60 species with different beaks, diets, behaviours and ecological roles through mutation, recombination, natural selection, isolation and introgression. No boundary corresponding to a separately created “kind” appears anywhere in that history.

Nor is there any shortage of new genetic information. Mutations produced new variants, recombination assembled them into new combinations, selection preserved those that worked in particular environments, and hybridisation sometimes transferred useful variants between lineages. Given millions of years and a succession of new islands and ecological opportunities, ordinary biological processes produced an astonishing range of specialised forms without requiring either foresight or supernatural intervention.

There is, however, a sobering conclusion. Evolution generated this diversity over millions of years, but human activity has destroyed much of it within a few centuries. Museum skins and fossil bones now preserve genetic information from lineages that no longer exist, while many of the remaining 17 species face introduced disease, habitat loss and climate change. The honeycreeper family tree therefore records both the creative power of evolution and the alarming speed with which its products can be erased.

Once again, scientists had no difficulty explaining the evidence within the framework of evolution. The volcanic history supplied the changing stage; inheritance, isolation, selection and gene flow supplied the mechanisms; and the genomes of living and extinct birds supplied the record. The only element for which the researchers found neither evidence nor explanatory need was a supernatural creator manufacturing immutable species by magic.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Refuting Creationism - Reassessing The 'Bite Marks' on 66-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Fossils

2026-08-06T23:12:30.042+01:00

Tooth traces on ulna HRS10076.

A) Ulna with black boxes indicating areas with tooth traces. B-C) Magnification of corresponding boxes from Fig 7A. White arrows indicate pits and red arrows indicate parallel scores.

C. T. Siviero B, et al (2026)

Study finds marks in fossilized dinosaur bones may not always be bite marks | News

Last month produced the usual crop of research papers which, quite incidentally, refuted creationism simply by revealing evidence utterly incompatible with its basic dogmas. It also produced another answer to a favourite creationist conspiracy theory: that scientists are not permitted to publish anything that challenges the supposedly ‘materialist orthodoxy’ of the scientific establishment.

This allegation confuses philosophical materialism with methodological naturalism. Science confines itself to explanations that can be tested against evidence. That is a working method, not a compulsory metaphysical belief. Findings that challenge established interpretations are not prohibited; provided they are supported by evidence and survive critical scrutiny, they are an essential part of the way science advances.

Literalist creationism works in the opposite direction. It begins with the non-negotiable conclusion that scripture must be inerrant, so any contrary evidence must be denied, explained away or forced into conformity with that predetermined belief. Changing one’s mind in response to evidence is therefore treated not as intellectual honesty but as a failure of faith.

Creationists consequently try to have it both ways. When scientists agree, this is presented as evidence of a conspiracy suppressing dissent; when scientists challenge or refine an earlier interpretation, it supposedly proves that scientists are always changing their minds and that science is therefore unreliable. It is a convenient rhetorical trick in which both consistency and self-correction are declared to be evidence against science.

A modest but revealing example is a study published recently in PLOS ONE by researchers from Loma Linda University, Western University of Health Sciences, The Master’s University, Southern Adventist University and Southwestern Adventist University. Four of those five institutions are explicitly Christian: Loma Linda, Southern Adventist and Southwestern Adventist are Seventh-day Adventist universities, while The Master’s University declares a commitment to Christ and ‘biblical fidelity’. So much for the supposed exclusion of religious scientists from mainstream scientific publication.

The paper itself is not creationist research: it employs standard palaeontological methods and places the fossils within the conventional Maastrichtian stage of the Late Cretaceous. What it does show is that evidence-based research can be published and scrutinised irrespective of the religious affiliations of the institutions involved.

The researchers examined 3,013 dinosaur bones, most belonging to Edmontosaurus annectens, excavated between 1997 and 2017 from the Hanson Ranch Station bonebed in the Lance Formation of eastern Wyoming. Thirteen bones initially displayed perforations or other features that resembled tooth traces. Closer examination—including microscopy, comparison with other fossils and, in an ambiguous case, CT scanning—showed that one specimen contained normal openings in the bone, or foramina, rather than bite marks. The remaining 12 bones, just under 0.4 per cent of the total examined, preserved genuine tooth traces.

Four of those bones carried particularly diagnostic traces known as Knethichnus parallelum and Linichnus serratus. By comparing the spacing of the preserved striations and serrations with the denticles on carnivorous dinosaur teeth recovered from the same bonebed, the researchers identified Tyrannosaurus rex as the most likely culprit. Other, less diagnostic marks may have been produced by crocodilians living in the same ecosystem.

Most of the tooth traces showed no associated bone remodelling, suggesting that they were inflicted at or after the time of death. The evidence therefore points more strongly towards scavenging than successful predation, although the two cannot always be distinguished. Weathering, bioerosion and characteristic fractures in fresh bone also indicate that the carcasses remained exposed for some time before burial and were probably exploited by theropods, crocodilians or both.

The wider importance of the study lies in showing how easily natural foramina, disease-related lesions, infection channels, bone necrosis, bioerosion and other alterations can resemble tooth marks when they are considered without sufficient anatomical and taphonomic context. The researchers consequently refined the criteria used to identify fossil tooth traces and produced a guide that can be applied to other fossil assemblages. This should lead to more reliable reconstructions of feeding behaviour, scavenging and predator–prey relationships in extinct ecosystems.

No major palaeontological conclusion has been overturned here: T. rex really did bite some of these animals. Instead, an interpretation has been tested, qualified and made more precise. That is not evidence that science is unreliable; it is evidence that science possesses a mechanism for detecting possible errors and improving its explanations.

Creationists will doubtless ignore the fossils’ Late Cretaceous origin, tens of millions of years before their mythical ‘Creation Week’, and concentrate instead on the fact that scientists have refined their criteria. The Bible’s supposed ‘inerrant truth’, by contrast, remains eternally unchanged only because no contrary evidence is ever permitted to count against it. That is not reliability. It is immunity from testing.

The Hanson Ranch Station Bonebed. The Hanson Ranch, or Hanson Ranch Station, Bonebed lies in the Lance Formation of northeastern Wyoming, on the eastern side of the Powder River Basin. The Lance Formation dates from the latest Cretaceous, during the late Maastrichtian, approximately 69–66 million years ago. It records river, floodplain and deltaic environments that existed near the western margin of the retreating Western Interior Seaway.

The bonebed is overwhelmingly dominated by the large herbivorous hadrosaur Edmontosaurus annectens, one of the last non-avian dinosaurs to inhabit North America. It is described as monodominant rather than monospecific because, although Edmontosaurus accounts for about 94 per cent of identifiable material from the principal quarries, fossils of many other animals are also present.

These include ceratopsians, pachycephalosaurs, armoured dinosaurs and small ornithischians, together with tyrannosaurids, dromaeosaurids and troodontids. Crocodilians, turtles, gars and other fish, molluscs, lizards, mammals and possible birds are also represented. Many of the carnivorous dinosaurs are known principally from teeth shed while feeding or scavenging.

Excavation began in the mid-1990s and intensified from 2000 onwards. By the end of the 2016 field season, five principal quarries and three exploratory quarries had exposed about 508 square metres of the deposit and produced more than 13,600 catalogued elements. These included approximately 8,460 identifiable Edmontosaurus bones, as well as teeth, ossified tendons and unidentifiable fragments.

The figure of more than 13,000 elements does not mean that 13,000 dinosaurs are represented. Counting the most abundant left-sided skeletal element gave a conservative minimum of 61 individual Edmontosaurus. The animals were predominantly subadults and adults, with very young individuals conspicuously scarce. This may indicate that Edmontosaurus lived in age-segregated herds.

The fossils occur in a grey claystone-to-siltstone layer approximately one to two metres thick. It is a normally graded deposit: large bones tend to occur near the bottom, while progressively smaller elements are found higher in the bed. Almost all the skeletons had become disarticulated before burial, with fewer than 0.1 per cent of the bones retaining any anatomical connection.

Despite their disarticulation, about 97 per cent of the examined bones showed little or no abrasion and 98.5 per cent showed no significant weathering. This combination suggests that the carcasses remained exposed for long enough—probably weeks or months—for decay and scavenging to separate the skeletons, but not for the bones to undergo prolonged weathering. Their excellent preservation also suggests that they were transported within a thick, sediment-rich flow that protected them from repeated impacts.

The researchers therefore proposed that a large group of Edmontosaurus died during a local mass-mortality event, possibly involving drowning. The carcasses accumulated and decomposed in or near water, where scavengers fed on them. A later flood, sediment collapse or seismic disturbance then remobilised the disarticulated bones in a cohesive, probably subaqueous debris flow and deposited them in their present graded layer. The precise cause of the animals’ deaths remains uncertain, and the proposed seismic trigger for the debris flow is an interpretation rather than an established fact.

The 2026 tooth-trace study examined 3,013 bones from the North and South quarries, rather than the entire Hanson Ranch collection. Only 12 contained convincing tooth traces—just under 0.4 per cent of the sample. Four preserved diagnostic marks attributable to Tyrannosaurus rex, while some of the less distinctive traces may have been produced by crocodilians.

The site is scientifically valuable because its enormous sample permits researchers to investigate herd composition, decomposition, scavenging, hydraulic sorting and the biases that determine which parts of a skeleton enter the fossil record. It also illustrates that a “catastrophic” fossil deposit need signify only a rapid, local event. The Hanson Ranch fossils record death and exposure followed by decay, disarticulation, remobilisation and eventual burial within an ordered succession of Late Cretaceous sediments—not a single, recent global flood.

The paper in PLOS ONE was accompanied by a news item from Loma Linda University Health:

Study finds marks in fossilized dinosaur bones may not always be bite marks
Marks in fossilized dinosaur bones may have several causes ranging from pre-mortem natural causes to postmortem alterations, including bite marks, according to a new study.

Excavation of dinosaur fossil bones from a bonebed of the Upper Cretaceous Lance Formation near Lance Creek, Wyoming.
Photo by Bethania C. T. Siveiero.

Researchers said the study of marks on fossil bones is important because it provides valuable insights into animal living conditions, diseases, behavior and interactions between species.
Distinguishing between these different types of bone modifications is essential, as they can provide valuable information about an animal’s condition before death as well as the processes that affected its remains after death. Figuring out what caused holes and other marks on fossil bones is not always easy. Context is important. Many are labeled as bite marks, even though they may have other causes, leading to mistaken conclusions about the behavior of extinct animals.

Assistant Professor Dr. Bethania C. T. Siviero, PhD, lead author.
Department of Pathology and Human Anatomy
Loma Linda University
Loma Linda, California, USA.

Researchers published their findings last week in a manuscript titled Identification of Tooth Traces from a Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Edmontosaurus annectens Bonebed in the Lance Formation, Wyoming, U.S.A. The study, by C. T. Siviero and colleagues, appeared in PLOS One Journal.

The team studied more than 3,000 dinosaur bones, with only less than 0.4% showing clear evidence of bite marks. The size, shape, and spacing of some of these marks closely match the teeth of Tyrannosaurus rex, making it the most likely animal to have left them, although some of the other bones analyzed may have been marked by other animals living at the same time, such as crocodiles, Siviero said.

Most of the bitten bones show no signs of healing, indicating that the bites were made either around the time the animals died or after they were already dead. Other evidence, including surface alterations by weathering, and damage caused by other organisms, suggests that the carcasses remained exposed on the landscape for some time before they were buried, Siviero said.

As a result of this study, the authors’ revised and refined the criteria for the identification of bite marks on fossil bones considering also other types of holes that could potentially be mistaken by bite marks.

The team examined bones that had been excavated from a bone bed in Wyoming from 1997 to 2017. The bones are now stored at Southwestern Adventist University in Keene, Texas.

Publication:
C. T. Siviero B, Rega E, McLain MA, Brand LR, Nelsen D, Chadwick AV (2026)
Identification of tooth traces from a Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Edmontosaurus annectens bonebed in the Lance Formation, Wyoming, U.S.A.
PLoS One 21(7): e0351939. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0351939

Abstract
Identifying the origin of perforating lesions on fossil bone is often difficult, and many are considered tooth traces, in spite of more likely and more parsimonious etiologies. Much of this confusion stems from tooth trace criteria that are ambiguous when the context for the lesions is not considered. Mistaken identification of tooth traces has led to misleading interpretations of animal behavior. This study of tooth traces on fossil bones critically reviews previous criteria and applies them to assessing bones from an Edmontosaurus annectens bonebed within the Lance Formation, Wyoming, USA. Of the 3013 bones examined, thirteen bones had features indicative of tooth traces based on gross appearance. Of these, one bone had perforations determined to have a different etiology. Twelve bones had traces attributed to tooth marks, including four bones with Knethichnus parallelum and Linichnus serratus ichnotaxa. Tyrannosaurus rex was identified as the likely inflictor of traces attributable to both ichnotaxa, by comparison of denticle density of carnivore teeth within the bonebed with striation/serration density of the traces. The importance of context in the analysis of perforating lesions on fossil bones is shown through the mistaken identification of features such as neurovasculature foramina and lesions associated with pathology as tooth traces. This study contributes to the literature on biting behavior and refines the criteria used to identify perforations caused by bite marks. The application of these refined criteria also proved useful in accurately identifying tooth traces on bone. This, in turn, enhances the guidelines for recognizing perforations as tooth traces and encourages further research on this topic.

Fig 1. Bone perforation on surangular HRS05499.

A) Lateral view of surangular. B) Medial view of surangular. Red arrows indicate different bone perforations and blue arrow indicates a different type of perforation. C) Comparison of bone perforations alignment and spacing of surangular with the tooth alignment and spacing of a modern crocodile maxilla.

Fig 2. CT scanning of surangular HRS05499.

A-H) Sequential images in coronal view (due to crossing angle of perforations). Numbers indicating the perforations correspond to Fig 1A and 1B. Red arrows indicate perforations continuing deep into the bone. I) Rostral view of bone. Blue arrow corresponding to blue arrow on Fig 1B, indicates different types of perforation on which several of the smaller ones (red arrows) connect.

Fig 3. Tooth trace types on rib specimens.

A) Prominent furrow tooth trace on rib fragment HRS09477. B) Two puncture traces on rib fragment HRS09477 indicated by arrows on the opposing side of a furrow on Fig 3A. C) Magnified image of the puncture on HRS09477 indicated by arrow 2 on Fig 3B, indicating the pull and drag from the bite. D) Rib fragment HRS03161 with puncture and associated drag from the bite. E) Rib fragment HRS09551 with parallel scores. F) Rib HRS03387 with prominent scores and associated tooth trace ichnotaxon Knethichnus parallelum. G) Magnification of area indicated by the white box on Fig 3F featuring prominent and detailed parallel Knethichnus parallelum traces. H) Rib HRS09954 with a long score trace indicated by the arrow.

Fig 4. Tooth trace types on neural spine fragments.

A) Punctures on opposing surfaces in neural spine HRS01295. The image only depicts one of the punctures indicated by the white box. An arrow indicates the location of the other puncture not visible in the image. B) A magnified view of the puncture within the white box area on Fig 4A. C) A view of the puncture opposing the puncture on Fig 4B and indicated by arrow on Fig 4A. D) Neural spine fragment HRS03650 with a score indicated by an arrow. E) A view of the opposing surface from HRS03650 (Fig 4D) shows a deep and curved score with associated tooth trace ichnotaxon Linichnus serratus.

Fig 5. Tooth trace types on caudal vertebrae.

A) Distal caudal vertebra HRS00428 (from middle-distal region of tail) with the distal end of the neural spine missing. Note bone proliferation on the distal neural spine. B) HRS00428 with curved scores on the neural spine associated with the tooth trace ichnotaxon Linichnus serratus. C) Magnification of the scores from the white box on Fig 5B depicting details of the prominent Linichnus serratus traces. D) Neural spine HRS09830 from a caudal vertebra (middle-distal region of tail) with scores within the white box area. E) Magnification of the scores associated with the white box from Fig 5D. F) Distal caudal vertebra HRS00473 with arrows indicating tooth traces on the centrum. G) Score on HRS00473 associated with arrow “G” on Fig 5F. Note another score closer to the junction of the centrum with the neural spine. H) Puncture on the centrum HRS00473 associated with arrow “H” on Fig 5F.

Fig 6. Tooth traces on radius HRS13582.

A) Radius with several scores indicated by white boxes and corresponding letters. B) Magnification of white box B depicting score with also associated ichnotaxon for Knethichnus parallelum. C) Magnification of white box C depicting parallel scores. D-F) Magnification of associated white boxes from Fig 6A with deep scores for tooth traces and associated ichnotaxon Linichnus serratus with serrations especially clear with associated score in Fig 6D.

Fig 7. Tooth traces on ulna HRS10076.

A) Ulna with black boxes indicating areas with tooth traces. B-C) Magnification of corresponding boxes from Fig 7A. White arrows indicate pits and red arrows indicate parallel scores.

Fig 8. Striation density associated with scores of ichnotaxon Knethichnus parallelum.

A) Scores on rib HRS03387 with striation density of three per 2 mm. B) Score on radius HRS13582 with striation density of three per 2 mm.

C. T. Siviero B, Rega E, McLain MA, Brand LR, Nelsen D, Chadwick AV (2026)
Identification of tooth traces from a Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Edmontosaurus annectens bonebed in the Lance Formation, Wyoming, U.S.A.
PLoS One 21(7): e0351939. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0351939

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

In the end, this study neither banishes Tyrannosaurus rex from the Hanson Ranch story nor overturns the evidence that it fed upon Edmontosaurus. On the contrary, it confirms genuine tooth traces on 12 bones and identifies T. rex as the probable maker of the most diagnostic examples. What it removes is unwarranted certainty: not every hole, groove or depression in a fossil bone was necessarily made by a predator.

That is how science improves. Researchers test earlier interpretations, identify possible sources of error and develop better criteria with which to distinguish competing explanations. The result is not weaker knowledge but greater precision—fewer questionable bite marks, stronger evidence for the genuine ones and a more reliable reconstruction of what happened to these animals before burial.

Meanwhile, the Hanson Ranch Bonebed itself remains another substantial problem for creationism. It records a population of dinosaurs living during the Late Cretaceous, some 66–69 million years ago. Their carcasses lay exposed for long enough to decay, become almost completely disarticulated and attract scavengers before their bones were transported and buried in a later, local sediment flow. This is a sequence of biological and geological events preserved within an ordered stratigraphic succession, not an indiscriminate jumble produced by a recent global flood.

Nor does the paper sit comfortably with claims that a militantly atheistic scientific establishment excludes religious researchers. Four of the five participating institutions are explicitly Christian, yet their work was published in a mainstream peer-reviewed journal because it employed testable methods and presented evidence that other researchers could examine. Religious affiliation was no barrier; replacing evidence with supernatural assertion would have been.

Creationists may nevertheless present this refinement as another occasion on which scientists have “changed their minds”. Yet the ability to correct an interpretation is one of science’s greatest strengths. Creationism offers the appearance of certainty only because its central conclusion is protected from every possible test: conflicting evidence must always be rejected, reinterpreted or blamed upon a conspiracy.

Science changes its mind when the evidence requires it; creationism merely changes the subject. An explanation that survives repeated testing and correction earns confidence. A belief that survives only because nothing is permitted to count against it has earned nothing at all.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Refuting Creationism - How Spiders Got Their Fangs - 518 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-08-05T12:00:22.703+01:00

UROKODIA! 518-million-year-old fossil shows beginning of spider’s bite | News | University of Leicester

The World Spider Catalog currently recognises more than 54,000 living species of spider, and tens of thousands more may remain undiscovered. Every one of them possesses a pair of specialised mouthparts called chelicerae, each of which terminates in a fang. In most spiders, these fangs inject venom, although a few lineages have lost their venom glands and subdue their prey by other means.

Chelicerae are not, however, unique to spiders. They are the defining appendages of the Chelicerata, the major arthropod group that also includes scorpions, mites, ticks, harvestmen and horseshoe crabs. Scorpions possess small, pincer-like chelicerae near the mouth; their conspicuous claws are modified pedipalps, while their venom is delivered through a sting at the end of the tail. In other chelicerates, the same basic pair of appendages has been modified into pincers, piercing mouthparts or other feeding structures.

This shared anatomy strongly suggests that chelicerae were inherited from a common ancestor and subsequently modified as the different chelicerate lineages evolved. But what did the ancestral appendage look like, and when did it first appear?

Such questions inevitably involve gaps in the fossil record—gaps that creationists routinely misrepresent as evidence against evolution. Their argument depends upon portraying evolutionary theory as little more than a story constructed from fossils and therefore requiring an unbroken succession of specimens linking every species to its ancestors. Evolutionary theory requires no such thing. Fossilisation is an exceptionally rare event, and evolutionary relationships are reconstructed from multiple independent lines of evidence, including comparative anatomy, embryology, genetics and the fossils that happen to have survived.

Nevertheless, creationists will be disappointed to learn that another important part of this particular gap has now been bridged. A paper published in Nature by a Chinese-British research team led by Yu Liu and Lorenzo Lustri of Yunnan University describes the remarkably preserved anatomy of Urokodia aequalis, a small marine arthropod recovered from the famous Chengjiang fossil site in Yunnan Province, southern China. The rock formation containing it dates from approximately 518 million years ago.

Urokodia was not a spider, nor can it be identified as the literal common ancestor of modern chelicerates. Instead, phylogenetic analysis places it on the chelicerate stem lineage—as an early evolutionary relative close to the line from which true chelicerates arose. Crucially, it possessed a pair of pincer-like “short great appendages” that appear intermediate between the multi-segmented grasping appendages of earlier Cambrian arthropods and the true chelicerae of later chelicerates.

Using X-ray microtomography, the researchers examined anatomical structures hidden inside the surrounding rock. They reconstructed much of the exceptionally preserved soft anatomy of this 2–3-centimetre-long animal, including its stalked eyes, segmented body, jointed limbs and the pair of pincer-like appendages immediately behind its eyes. Features of its trunk limbs also support the hypothesis that the book gills of aquatic chelicerates evolved from the limb structures of earlier arthropods.

Urokodia lived during the early Cambrian, a period creationists habitually misrepresent as one in which complex animals appeared suddenly and without evolutionary ancestry. In reality, the Cambrian radiation was an extended episode of evolutionary diversification in which increasing mobility, new feeding strategies and escalating predator–prey arms races helped produce an extraordinary range of defensive and offensive adaptations. Many of the fundamental body plans associated with the major animal groups were assembled and modified during this evolutionary experimentation.

Background^ The Chengjiang Fossil Site. The Chengjiang Fossil Site lies near Chengjiang City in Yunnan Province, south-western China. It is one of the world’s most important fossil localities because it preserves an exceptionally detailed record of marine life during the early Cambrian, approximately 518 million years ago.

The protected UNESCO property covers 512 hectares around Maotianshan Hill, with an additional 220-hectare buffer zone. However, the term “Chengjiang biota” is also applied more widely to fossils recovered from the same geological interval at numerous localities across eastern Yunnan.

A Cambrian Lagerstätte

Chengjiang is described as a Konservat-Lagerstätte—a fossil deposit in which organisms are preserved with exceptional completeness. Most fossil sites preserve only durable structures such as shells, teeth and mineralised skeletons. At Chengjiang, even entirely soft-bodied animals were sometimes preserved, together with delicate anatomical details such as:

gills and other respiratory structures;

digestive tracts and their contents;

eyes and sensory organs;

muscles and jointed appendages;

nervous systems and, in some arthropods, parts of the brain; and

fine external structures such as bristles, flaps and limb branches.

This extraordinary preservation gives palaeontologists information that would be entirely absent from a conventional shelly fossil deposit.

Where did the animals live?

The fossils occur principally in fine-grained mudstones of the Maotianshan Shale Member of the Yu’anshan Formation. During the Cambrian, this region formed part of a shallow marine environment on the edge of the South China continental block.

Recent sedimentological research indicates that the animals inhabited an oxygenated, nutrient-rich delta front affected by waves, river discharge and storm floods. Some carcasses were carried into the quieter waters of the prodelta, where sediment-laden flows buried them rapidly in fine mud. Low-oxygen or oxygen-free conditions within these sediments discouraged scavengers and burrowing animals and slowed decomposition, allowing soft tissues to leave detailed impressions or mineral films before they decayed completely.

The Chengjiang fossils are therefore not the victims of a single catastrophic event. They occur through a succession of sedimentary layers produced by repeated episodes of deposition within a changing deltaic environment.

Discovery and scientific importance

Cambrian fossils had long been known from Yunnan, but the exceptional character of the Chengjiang biota became apparent in 1984, when Chinese palaeontologist Hou Xianguang uncovered remarkably preserved soft-bodied arthropods at Maotianshan Hill. Subsequent excavations revealed an entire marine ecosystem rather than merely a collection of hard-shelled animals.

Hundreds of species representing more than 20 animal phyla have now been reported from the broader Chengjiang biota. They include sponges, comb jellies, worms, brachiopods, trilobites, molluscs, lobopodians, early arthropods, radiodont predators and some of the earliest known chordates and vertebrates.

Notable Chengjiang organisms include:

Myllokunmingia and Haikouichthys—among the earliest animals interpreted as vertebrates;

Fuxianhuia—an early arthropod in which parts of the brain, nervous system and circulatory system have been preserved;

Amplectobelua and Innovatiocaris—large radiodont predators equipped with grasping frontal appendages;

Hallucigenia, Microdictyon and other lobopodians—worm-like animals with legs that help illuminate the ancestry of modern panarthropods;

Vetulicola and Yunnanozoon—unusual animals whose precise evolutionary relationships remain debated; and

Urokodia—a stem-group chelicerate whose pincer-like frontal appendages help explain the origin of chelicerae.

Older than the Burgess Shale

Chengjiang is frequently compared with the famous Burgess Shale of British Columbia, Canada. Both preserve soft-bodied Cambrian organisms, but Chengjiang is approximately ten million years older. It consequently provides an earlier view of the evolutionary diversification that produced complex animal communities during the Cambrian.

What Chengjiang tells us about evolution

The site captures a major phase of the Cambrian radiation, but it does not show modern animal groups suddenly appearing fully formed. Many Chengjiang organisms belong to stem groups and possess combinations of ancestral and derived features. They record stages in the assembly of body plans rather than a collection of unrelated acts of creation.

Moreover, Chengjiang dates from roughly 20 million years after the beginning of the Cambrian, while the evolutionary roots of many animal lineages extend still further back into the Ediacaran. High-precision dating indicates that the so-called Cambrian “explosion” was a prolonged evolutionary radiation lasting more than 20 million years, not a single instantaneous event.

In recognition of its exceptional record of this formative period in animal evolution, the Chengjiang Fossil Site was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2012.

Far from showing spider fangs appearing fully formed from nowhere, Urokodia reveals an earlier anatomical stage: existing jointed appendages being reshaped into the characteristic chelicerae that evolution would later modify into pincers, piercing mouthparts and, eventually, the venom-delivering fangs of spiders.

The paper in Nature was accompanied by a news release from the University of Leicester:

UROKODIA! 518-million-year-old fossil shows beginning of spider’s bite
The earliest evidence of spiders’ fangs has been identified in a 518-million-year-old fossil by scientists at the University of Leicester and Yunnan University.
From the infamous Black Widow spider to the radioactive spider that gave Spider-Man his superpowers, the arachnid’s bite has been a key part of its enduring image and chilling reputation.

Now, the evolution of the powerful fangs that make spiders such formidable hunters has been traced back to its earliest known appearance in the fossil Urokodia, detailed in a new study for the journal Nature published today (1 July).

Spiders, along with scorpions and ticks, form part of a group of invertebrates known as chelicerates, currently comprising over 100,000 described species. They have jointed limbs and external skeletons but are particularly noted for the specialised limbs called chelicerae at the front of the animal which are used as pincers or fangs for stabbing prey.

The fossils of Urokodia were recovered from the famous Chengjiang fossil site of Yunnan Province in southern China and this latest study is published on the 42-year anniversary of the discovery of the site. Urokodia was quite small at around 2-3 cm long with large eyes protruding on stalks from the front, a segmented skeleton and jointed limbs strung from the underside of its slender body. At first glance, it doesn’t resemble the spiders and scorpions that are its modern-day descendants.

Using X-ray analysis, the team of scientists at Yunnan University, China, and the University of Leicester probed the rock in which the fossil was entombed, revealing that most of its soft anatomy was still mummified after hundreds of millions of years.

Their analysis also revealed two pincer-like limbs emerging just behind its eyes that are the beginnings of chelicerae. Urokodia also shows some features on its legs that suggest they were acting as book gills for breathing, similar to modern aquatic chelicerates like the horseshoe crab.

General body shape of Urokodia under macrophotography.

Chelicerates are one of the most successful groups to live on the land and in the sea. On land they have become remarkable hunters and the fossil record shows that their ancestors have been doing this for hundreds of millions of years.

But while monster movies such as Arachnophobia portray spiders as a horrifying threat to humans, most spiders are completely harmless to us because their bites and venom are designed for much smaller prey.

The study was led by Professor Yu Liu of Yunnan University who is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Leicester.

We were using x-ray tomography analysis of these fossils to reveal their soft anatomy buried in the rocks for hundreds of millions of years, when suddenly we noticed the pincer-like limbs at the front of the animal. We knew immediately that this was a very exciting fossil and indeed a distant ancestor of living chelicerates like scorpions and spiders.

Professor Yu Liu, lead author
Yunnan Key Laboratory for Palaeobiology
Institute of Palaeontology
Yunnan University
Kunming, China.

Urokodia was part of an ancient ecosystem of over 200 different types of animals living in the seas over 500 million years ago. These spectacularly preserved fossils provide real insights into how life was evolving on our planet at the very dawn of animals.

Professor Mark Williams, co-author.
School of Geography, Geology and the Environment
University of Leicester
Leicester, UK.

Soft anatomy in the head of Urokodia exposed under X-ray analysis.

Publication:
Liu, Y., Lustri, L., Mai, H. et al.
Urokodia sheds light on the origin of chelicerae and book gills of Chelicerata.
Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10713-2

Abstract
Chelicerates are a diverse group of terrestrial and aquatic arthropods, yet their origin and early evolution remain debated^1,2,3,4,5,6. Among different hypotheses^7,8,9,10,11, one proposes that the front appendages, known as chelicerae, of chelicerates evolved from the short great appendages (SGAs) of Cambrian megacheirans^{12,13,14,15,16} and that book gills originated from their trunk limbs⁷. Although taxa such as Mollisonia plenovenatrix⁷ and Megachelicerax cousteaui¹⁶ provide important clues to the early evolution of chelicerates, the morphological transition from megacheiran-like appendages to true chelicerae and book gills remains unresolved. Here we use X-ray microtomography to reveal the three-dimensional anatomy of Urokodia aequalis, an early Cambrian euarthropod from the Chengjiang biota of China. Urokodia has a seven-segmented head with a sclerotized hypostome, pincer-like SGAs and biramous trunk appendages with overlapping exite flaps. Its pincer-like SGAs represent a bridge structure between the appearance of multisegmented SGAs and true chelicerae, and its trunk appendages support a megacheiran origin of book gills. Phylogenetic analyses consistently confirm the monophyly of Cheliceromorpha¹⁷, with Urokodia being the earliest-branching upper stem-group chelicerate that links lower stem-group megacheirans to crownward forms such as Mollisonia and Megachelicerax.

Liu, Y., Lustri, L., Mai, H. et al.
Urokodia sheds light on the origin of chelicerae and book gills of Chelicerata.
Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10713-2

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

Urokodia was neither a spider nor necessarily the direct ancestor of spiders and scorpions. Its importance lies in its combination of features. Its pincer-like short great appendages occupy an anatomical position between the multi-segmented grasping limbs of earlier Cambrian arthropods and the true chelicerae of later chelicerates, while its trunk limbs offer corresponding evidence for the origin of book gills. It is exactly the sort of transitional mosaic expected when new structures evolve through the modification of existing ones.

Nor is this an isolated curiosity. Urokodia forms part of the extraordinarily diverse Chengjiang biota, in which numerous animals preserve different stages in the assembly of the characteristic body plans of later groups. The Cambrian record is not one of fully formed creatures materialising without ancestors but of branches dividing, structures being modified and ecological innovations accumulating during a prolonged evolutionary radiation.

At approximately 518 million years old, Urokodia also lived more than half a billion years before creationists imagine their god created the world. It inhabited an established marine ecosystem with predators, prey, specialised feeding appendages and complex respiratory structures. Its remains were preserved in sediments deposited repeatedly within an ancient delta—not in the chaotic debris of a global flood a few thousand years ago.

Creationists may continue to complain that the fossil record is incomplete, as it inevitably must be, but incompleteness is not the absence of evidence. Every discovery such as this replaces a broad gap in our knowledge with a finer and more detailed evolutionary sequence. Science can now investigate how the grasping appendages of Cambrian arthropods became the pincers, mouthparts and fangs of their descendants. Creationism can offer only the unsupported assertion that they were created that way—an assertion that explains neither the transitional anatomy nor the half-billion-year history preserved in the rocks.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Creationism in Crisis - Speciation in Progress? - Genetic Isolation In A British Dolphin.

2026-08-04T19:42:42.815+01:00

Risso's dolphin, Grampus griseus

British Risso’s dolphins belong to single population - University of Exeter News

According to newly published research in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (JMBA), Risso’s dolphins, Grampus griseus, around the British Isles appear to form a single, genetically connected population. At the same time, their mitochondrial DNA distinguishes them from dolphins sampled elsewhere in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, suggesting that the British population has experienced relatively little genetic exchange with more distant populations.

The research was conducted by an international team whose joint first authors were Nicola K. Hodgins, a visiting researcher at the University of Exeter, UK, and Ing Chen of National Taiwan Normal University, with Michael Krützen of the University of Zurich as corresponding author.

At first sight, describing the British dolphins as both a single population and genetically distinct might seem contradictory, but the two findings concern different geographical scales. Within British waters, the dolphins appear to interbreed freely enough to prevent significant regional genetic divisions from developing. Compared with populations farther afield, however, reduced gene flow has allowed the British population to acquire a distinctive genetic signature.

This is not evidence that the British dolphins have become a separate species, nor that they are inevitably on their way to becoming one. It does, however, illustrate the population-level processes from which allopatric divergence can begin. When a small colonising population becomes geographically or behaviourally separated from its source population, the founder effect and genetic drift can alter its genetic composition. If the new environment imposes different selection pressures, natural selection may drive further divergence.

The British dolphins have relatively low genetic diversity, and all six mitochondrial haplotypes identified by the researchers were unique to the British Isles. These haplotypes formed a single evolutionary lineage closely related to those found in the Azores. The researchers suggest that the population may descend from a relatively recent, possibly one-off colonisation event after the retreat of the British–Irish Ice Sheet made the region accessible about 16,000 years ago.

Population divergence is not the same thing as completed speciation. Before barriers to interbreeding have evolved, separated populations may remain fully capable of exchanging genes. If they come back into contact, renewed gene flow may halt or partly reverse their divergence; if separation persists, the differences may continue to accumulate until reproductive isolation eventually develops. There is no predetermined point at which this must happen, and no sharp boundary that can always be identified while the process is under way.

Something broadly comparable appears to have characterised the evolution of Homo sapiens, although over much greater distances and involving several human lineages. Populations within Africa repeatedly became separated and later reconnected, while expanding populations of Homo sapiens subsequently interbred with Neanderthals, Denisovans and probably other archaic humans in Eurasia. Human evolution consequently resembles a branching network with occasional reconnections rather than a succession of completely isolated forms.

The team analysed DNA obtained from 72 Risso’s dolphins stranded on British coasts between 1992 and 2016. Fifty-two individuals were included in the analysis of 16 nuclear microsatellite markers, while mitochondrial DNA sequences were obtained from 60. The nuclear and mitochondrial results both revealed low genetic diversity and no significant geographical division among dolphins sampled from eastern, western and southern British waters.

Because dolphins from every neighbouring part of the Atlantic were not sampled, however, the researchers cannot yet define the geographical boundary of this British population or determine how much it mixes with dolphins from places such as Norway, the Celtic Sea, the south-western English Channel and the Bay of Biscay. More extensive sampling and whole-genome analysis will be needed to resolve those questions.

Nor does the absence of detectable genetic divisions exclude behavioural or cultural subdivisions within the British population. Photo-identification studies have found fewer than 3% of individual dolphins matched between the western and northern coasts of Scotland. This does not mean that the two groups were only 3% genetically alike; it means that very few of the same identifiable animals were photographed in both regions, suggesting strong preferences for particular areas despite continuing gene flow across the wider population.

There are several excellent examples. One qualification is needed, however: the traditional *Larus* “ring species” is no longer regarded as a simple ring. Genetic evidence revealed a more complicated history of divergence and later gene flow, with no support for the supposed closure of a circumpolar ring ([Liebers, de Knijff & Helbig, 2004](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1691675/)). The *Parus major* complex is also taxonomically unsettled, with some former subspecies now treated as separate species by some authorities ([Kvist et al., 2003](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1691391/)).

Population Divergence^ Speciation as a Continuum. Species are not genetically uniform entities. Populations can become geographically, behaviourally or ecologically distinct while retaining some capacity to exchange genes. Such populations may be described as ecotypes, host races or subspecies, depending upon the nature and extent of their differences.

Nor is complete inability to hybridise an absolute requirement for recognition as separate species: even well-established species occasionally exchange genes. The more important question is whether the populations remain on independent evolutionary trajectories despite that gene flow.

Common bottlenose dolphins — Tursiops truncatus

Coastal and offshore bottlenose dolphins in the North Atlantic occupy different habitats, eat different prey and show pronounced genetic differentiation, despite the absence of any physical barrier preventing them from meeting. Feeding specialisation, natal-site fidelity and socially transmitted behaviour appear to restrict gene flow. They are generally retained within the same species, although some populations may be approaching independent evolutionary status. Research paper.

Three-spined sticklebacks — Gasterosteus aculeatus

Marine sticklebacks repeatedly colonised freshwater lakes after the last Ice Age. Different populations subsequently evolved changes in body shape, armour, feeding structures and behaviour suited to their particular lakes. Many marine and freshwater populations can still interbreed, but hybrids between the most strongly divergent forms may possess poorly matched combinations of traits and reduced fitness. Different populations therefore occupy different positions along the speciation continuum. Research paper.

Rough periwinkles — Littorina saxatilis

Populations of this marine snail have repeatedly evolved into “Wave” and “Crab” ecotypes. Wave-exposed shores favour small snails with relatively thin shells and large apertures, whereas sheltered shores containing predatory crabs favour larger, thicker and more resistant shells. The ecotypes meet and exchange genes, but natural selection continually recreates their differences. Swedish populations show weak reproductive barriers, while comparable Spanish populations are much closer to reproductive isolation—all within the same recognised species. Research paper.

Apple maggot flies — Rhagoletis pomonella

The ancestral population bred on native hawthorn, but some flies switched to introduced apple trees. Because apples ripen earlier than hawthorns, apple-associated flies emerge and mate earlier. The flies also prefer the smell of their respective host fruit and usually mate on or near it. Apple and hawthorn flies therefore form genetically differentiated host races living in the same geographical area. Gene flow continues, however, so reproductive isolation remains incomplete. Research paper.

European house mice — Mus musculus musculus and M. m. domesticus

These two subspecies evolved separately before expanding across Europe and meeting in a narrow hybrid zone. They differ genetically and behaviourally, show preferences for mates of their own subspecies, and some hybrid males have reduced fertility. Nevertheless, hybridisation and gene flow continue wherever their ranges meet. They consequently remain subspecies rather than completely isolated species. Research paper.

Walking-stick insects — Timema cristinae

Populations living on Ceanothus and Adenostoma shrubs have evolved different colour patterns that camouflage them against their respective host plants. They also differ in host preference and are more likely to mate with insects from the same ecotype. Hybrids and migrants are less effectively camouflaged, but interbreeding still occurs. Natural selection therefore promotes divergence while continuing gene flow prevents complete separation. Research paper.

These examples show why there is no universal point at which one population instantaneously becomes a new species. Divergence may increase until the populations become independently evolving species, remain stable with limited gene flow, or disappear if environmental change brings the populations back together. Speciation is a process with several possible outcomes, not a single predetermined event.

This nested pattern—local genetic connectivity, regional differentiation, founder effects, drift, incomplete lineage sorting and the possibility of renewed contact—is precisely the dynamic and historically contingent pattern predicted by evolutionary biology. It bears no resemblance to the magical creation of discrete, immutable ‘kinds’ a few thousand years ago.

Publication of the paper in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom was accompanied by a news release from the University of Exeter:

British Risso’s dolphins belong to single population
Risso’s dolphins around the British Isles are part of a single population – genetically distinct from those elsewhere in the Atlantic, new research shows.
Scientists studied the DNA of dolphins that stranded in England, Scotland and Wales from 1992 to 2016.

The results showed that that Risso’s dolphins found around the British Isles are their own genetic entity, suggesting they don’t mix much with other Risso’s dolphins from further away and are genetically distinct from the closest populations in the Azores, the Mediterranean, and possibly the wider north Atlantic.

The results support the notion of Risso’s dolphins in British waters having been isolated from other populations for some time. However, we did not sample every nearby part of the Atlantic, so it’s not yet clear where the boundaries of this unit lie.

Nicola Hodgins, co-lead author
Centre for Ecology and Conservation
School of Biosciences
University of Exeter
Exeter, UK.

While the study found no significant genetic differences between the animals around different parts of the British Isles, there may still be evidence of “sub-structuring” – meaning that the dolphins may still live in or return to specific areas around the British Isles, in addition to remaining in specific groups over their lifetime.

For example, recent analysis of Risso’s dolphins in Scottish waters found less than 3% matches between individual dolphins photo-identified on the west and northern coasts, implying that Risso’s dolphins exhibit a significant level of preference for particular areas. This is particularly important because Risso’s dolphin numbers may be decreasing in some regions.

To explore these boundaries and find out whether Risso’s dolphins in British waters are truly unique to this area, more genetic samples are needed, with comparisons from nearby regions such as Norway, the Celtic Sea, the south‑west English Channel and the Bay of Biscay.

Using more advanced DNA techniques could further add resolution and give a fine-grained picture of connectedness between groups of Risso’s dolphins around the British Isles – key information needed to accurately assess their conservation status.

It could be argued that the population should be recognised as a “sub-population” by the IUCN – as has been done for the Mediterranean sub-population, which is classified as Endangered.

Future research combining information on behaviour, appearance, movements, vocalisations and genetics will help researchers better understand how Risso’s dolphins around the UK are connected, how they use different habitats, and how best to protect them.

Good conservation requires habitat-specific management. While Risso’s dolphins are currently managed as a single UK population, local populations can face different threats and use habitats in different ways. Effective protection must therefore focus on safeguarding important habitats and addressing pressures at a local scale, where conservation measures can have the greatest impact.

Nicola Hodgins.

The research team included MARA, Nova Atlantis, Environmental Investigation Agency, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Zoological Society of London, and the universities of Exeter, Glasgow, Zurich, Western Australia and Taiwan.

Samples used in this study were collected by the UK Government funded stranding programmes, the Scottish Marine Animal Strandings Scheme (SMASS) and the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP).

Publication:
Hodgins NK, Chen I, Bizzozzero MR, et al. Genetic data indicate a lack of population structure of Risso’s dolphins (Grampus griseus) around the British Isles.
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. 2026;106:e50. doi:10.1017/S0025315426101386

Abstract
Risso’s dolphin (Grampus griseus) is a widely distributed oceanic species; its global and regional population structure remains poorly understood. To assess their genetic diversity and connectivity in British waters, we analysed tissue samples from stranded individuals collected between 1992 and 2016 using 16 nuclear microsatellite loci and a 433-bp mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence. Microsatellite analyses (STRUCTURE, AMOVA, and PCA) consistently indicated a single genetic cluster with no significant geographic differentiation among sampling sites, suggesting a panmictic population. BayesAss results further supported high gene flow and limited isolation among regions. The mtDNA dataset identified six haplotypes with low haplotype and nucleotide diversity, showing no spatial structuring within the British Isles. Phylogenetic reconstruction revealed that all British haplotypes were endemic and formed a monophyletic clade closely related to haplotypes from the Azores in the North Atlantic. Together, the nuclear and mtDNA data indicate low genetic diversity and a lack of population subdivision among British Risso’s dolphins. These findings imply recent colonisation and high dispersal capability, consistent with patterns observed in other wide-ranging marine mammals. Continued monitoring, broader geographic sampling, and large-scale photo-identification are needed to refine understanding of Risso’s dolphin population dynamics and to inform conservation management.

Hodgins NK, Chen I, Bizzozzero MR, et al. Genetic data indicate a lack of population structure of Risso’s dolphins (Grampus griseus) around the British Isles.
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. 2026;106:e50. doi:10.1017/S0025315426101386

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

What the researchers have found is not a newly formed species but something equally instructive: a population caught at one point along an evolutionary continuum. Risso’s dolphins around the British Isles remain genetically connected to one another, yet their low diversity and distinctive mitochondrial lineage preserve evidence of colonisation, isolation and restricted gene flow with populations farther afield.

Whether that divergence will ever produce a separate species cannot be predicted. Continued isolation could allow genetic differences to accumulate until reproductive barriers develop; renewed contact could restore gene flow and erase some of those differences. Evolution has no predetermined destination. Populations diverge, reconnect, merge or become permanently separated according to changing environments and historical circumstances.

This is precisely why creationist appeals to immutable “kinds” are biologically meaningless. There is no detectable boundary at which permissible variation supposedly ends, no genetic mechanism preventing differences from accumulating, and no objective test by which creationists can identify the limits of a “kind”. Every stage that evolutionary biology predicts—from local variation and population structure to partial reproductive isolation and completed speciation—is found in nature.

The British Risso’s dolphins are also a reminder that evolutionary significance does not depend upon whether taxonomists award a population a new species name. Their distinctive ancestry, low genetic diversity, specialised habitat use and possible behavioural subdivisions make them a population worth protecting in their own right. No magical creation event is needed to explain them—only migration, inheritance, isolation, selection and genetic drift operating, as they demonstrably do, generation after generation.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Malevolent Design - More Evidence That Malaria Was 'Designed' By Creationism's Putative Designer God? - Or Just Evolution Again?

2026-08-03T23:37:39.260+01:00

Figure EV1: Blood-stage immunofluorescence expression profile of PfSFA2 and ultrastructure expansion microscopy (U-ExM) of PfSFA1 localization.

(A) IFA of PfSFA2-smV5 expression across the asexual blood stages, stained with an anti-V5 antibody (green), an anti-PfGAP45 antibody (magenta), and Hoechst (DNA, blue). “Ring” stage with one nucleus, trophozoite stage (“Troph”) with 2, and several stages throughout schizogony, including segmentation, are shown with the number of nuclei. The minimum and maximum displayed values for the PfSFA2-V5 and PfGAP45 channels follow the “Reset” values of the first segmentation image. Scale bars: 2 µm. (B) U-ExM of PfSFA1-smV5 schizonts stained with an anti-V5 antibody (cyan), an anti-CrCen antibody (outer-CP, magenta), SYTOX (DNA, blue), and an NHS ester-conjugated dye (grayscale). Sub-z-slices of a 7-nuclei (top) and a 14-nuclei (bottom) schizont are maximally projected and shown to the left. Representative centriolar plaque regions are numbered and shown as insets to the right. Z-depth of each maximum projection is shown to the right. Scale bars: 5 µm for full schizont; 1 µm for inset.

He, B., Ali, I., Dorner, L.P. et al. (2026).

News - Research in Germany

Creationists insist that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved. If several interacting components are required for a system to function, they label it “irreducibly complex”; if genes encode proteins that perform a particular function, they call the DNA “complex specified information”. Both are then presented as evidence that the system must have been deliberately designed by an intelligent agent.

Curiously, however, this supposedly reliable design-detection method tends to be applied only to systems that creationists find impressive or beneficial. When comparable complexity enables a parasite to invade its host, evade its defences, reproduce rapidly and cause suffering and death, the inference to design is quietly abandoned. The parasite is instead blamed on “the Fall”, “genetic degeneration” or some other evidence-free theological excuse.

But a method that gives different answers according to whether its conclusion is theologically convenient is not a method at all. If molecular complexity, functional interdependence and genetically encoded organisation really demonstrate intelligent design, then they must do so just as reliably in a malaria parasite as in a bacterial flagellum, an eye or a blood-clotting system. And that would make them evidence not merely of intelligent design, but of intelligent malevolent design.

Two recent studies have now uncovered more of the extraordinarily elaborate machinery by which malaria parasites multiply. Instead of dividing into two daughter cells in the familiar way, Plasmodium parasites repeatedly copy their DNA and multiply their nuclei within a shared cell before producing numerous daughter parasites more or less simultaneously. The process must ensure that each viable daughter receives a nucleus and the cellular structures required to invade another host cell.

In the first study, published in The EMBO Journal, researchers identified two proteins, SFA1 and SFA2, that assemble into a fibre-like molecular tether. This tether connects the centriolar plaque associated with a parasite nucleus to the apical end of a developing daughter cell. It helps to draw the nucleus into the daughter and to organise structures, including the rhoptries and subpellicular microtubules, that the mature parasite needs for invading host cells.

When the researchers removed either SFA component, nuclear DNA could still be replicated, but the orderly construction of viable daughters was seriously disrupted. Some developing parasites lacked nuclei or possessed malformed invasion structures. In the mosquito stage of the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei, loss of either protein prevented the normal incorporation of nuclei into budding sporozoites and virtually abolished the production of infectious parasites capable of reaching the mosquito’s salivary glands. In creationist language, remove one essential component and the supposedly “designed” system collapses. This is the very kind of result they usually advertise as evidence of irreducible complexity—except that, in this case, the machinery produces malaria parasites.

The second study, published in Nature Communications, revealed another layer of organisation. Using live-cell microscopy and biophysical modelling, the researchers found that the asynchronous replication of Plasmodium falciparum nuclei is best explained by competition for a limited shared supply of one or more proteins needed for DNA replication. Rather than all the nuclei attempting to replicate simultaneously, the resource is allocated sequentially. One nucleus copies its DNA while others wait for the replication machinery to become available.

Far from being inefficient, this staggered arrangement minimises the time for which the limited molecular resource lies idle. It allows the parasite to use what is available almost continuously and accelerates the production of new nuclei. The parasite therefore possesses not only interconnected structural machinery but also a remarkably economical system for scheduling access to scarce replication resources—all ultimately dependent upon genetic sequences carrying the functional information needed to produce and regulate the components.

By creationist reasoning, we should therefore conclude that an intelligent agent supplied Plasmodium with the “specified information” and interdependent molecular apparatus needed to manufacture infectious daughter parasites efficiently. That designer also arranged for the resulting sporozoites to enter a mosquito’s salivary glands, pass into a human during a blood meal, multiply inside the liver and then invade red blood cells. If complexity and efficiency identify the designer, they also identify what the designer intended the system to accomplish.

Evolutionary biology has no such theological difficulty. Natural selection does not care about human welfare: anything that helps a parasite survive and reproduce can be favoured, however harmful the consequences for its host. Moreover, SFA proteins did not appear without ancestry. Related proteins occur in other apicomplexan parasites, while members of the same wider protein family were first identified in the flagellar rootlet fibres of green algae. The evidence points towards inherited components being modified and redeployed during evolution, not a complete system being assembled suddenly by an invisible engineer.

Glossary of Terms. Apical complex
A specialised collection of structures at the front end of an apicomplexan parasite. It helps the parasite attach to and penetrate a host cell.

Apical pole
The front end of a developing parasite, where the structures needed for invading host cells are assembled.

Apicomplexa
A large group of single-celled parasites characterised by an apical complex. It includes Plasmodium, which causes malaria, and Toxoplasma, which causes toxoplasmosis.

Apicoplast
A specialised organelle found in most apicomplexan parasites. It is descended from a photosynthetic organism acquired through ancient endosymbiosis, although it no longer carries out photosynthesis. It performs metabolic functions essential to the parasite.

Asynchronous replication
A process in which different nuclei within the same cell copy their DNA at different times rather than simultaneously. In Plasmodium, this allows limited replication resources to be used almost continuously.

Centriolar plaque (CP)
A structure associated with the parasite’s nuclear envelope that performs some of the organisational functions carried out by centrosomes in other eukaryotic cells. It helps to organise the microtubules involved in nuclear division.

Complex specified information (CSI)
A creationist term for information claimed to be both improbable and associated with a recognisable function or pattern. It has no generally accepted, independently measurable definition in biology and provides no scientific method for distinguishing evolved genetic sequences from supposedly designed ones.

Cytokinesis
The physical division of a cell’s cytoplasm and membrane to form separate daughter cells. In Plasmodium, numerous nuclei may be produced before a final cellularisation process creates many daughters at once.

Host
An organism in or upon which a parasite lives. Malaria parasites require both a vertebrate host, such as a human, and a mosquito host to complete their life cycle.

Inner membrane complex (IMC)
A system of flattened membrane sacs beneath the parasite’s outer membrane. It supports the cell, helps determine its shape and participates in movement and daughter-cell formation.

Irreducible complexity
A creationist claim that a system requiring several interacting components could not have evolved because removing one component prevents the present system from working. This ignores evolutionary processes such as modification, duplication, co-option and changes of function, through which components can acquire their present interdependence gradually.

Karyokinesis
The division of a cell nucleus. During Plasmodium proliferation, repeated rounds of DNA replication and karyokinesis can occur before the cytoplasm divides into individual daughter parasites.

Knockout
An experimental organism in which a particular gene has been disabled or deleted. By observing what subsequently fails, researchers can investigate the gene’s normal function.

Merozoite
A daughter stage of the malaria parasite that invades red blood cells. Repeated cycles of merozoite production, release and reinvasion cause the symptoms of malaria.

Microtubules
Microscopic protein tubes forming part of a cell’s internal skeleton. They help maintain cell shape, move cellular components and separate genetic material during nuclear division.

Molecular tether or rootlet fibre
The fibre-like structure investigated in the first study. It connects the centriolar plaque associated with a nucleus to the apical pole of a developing daughter parasite, helping to guide the nucleus and organise other cellular structures correctly.

Oocyst
A cyst-like stage that develops on the outer wall of a mosquito’s intestine after fertilisation. Large numbers of sporozoites are produced within it.

Plasmodium
The genus of apicomplexan parasites that causes malaria. Its complex life cycle alternates between a vertebrate and a mosquito.

Plasmodium falciparum
The malaria parasite responsible for most severe and fatal human malaria. It was used in these studies to investigate proliferation during the red-blood-cell stage.

Plasmodium berghei
A malaria parasite that naturally infects rodents and is widely used as an experimental model. It enables researchers to study stages of the parasite’s life cycle that occur inside mosquitoes and vertebrate hosts.

Rhoptries
Club-shaped secretory organelles at the parasite’s apical end. They release proteins that help the parasite attach to, penetrate and modify a host cell.

SFA1 and SFA2
Two striated-fibre-assemblin proteins that form major components of the molecular tether connecting a nucleus to the developing daughter parasite. Disabling either gene seriously disrupts the production of properly organised offspring.

Schizogony
An unusual form of asexual reproduction in which the parasite repeatedly copies and divides its nucleus before separating into numerous daughter parasites. It occurs during proliferation in vertebrate liver cells and red blood cells.

Spore
A general biological term for a reproductive or dispersal cell. Despite their name, malaria sporozoites are specialised invasive parasite stages rather than spores in the everyday fungal sense.

Sporogony
The proliferation process within a mosquito oocyst that produces thousands of sporozoites.

Sporozoite
The slender, mobile and infectious stage that travels from the mosquito’s intestine to its salivary glands. Sporozoites enter a vertebrate host during a mosquito bite and subsequently invade liver cells.

Subpellicular microtubules
Microtubules positioned beneath the parasite’s surface. They support its elongated shape and help organise the cellular machinery required for movement and host-cell invasion.

Vector
An organism that carries a pathogen from one host to another. Female Anopheles mosquitoes are the vectors of human malaria.

These discoveries are therefore not evidence of genuine irreducible complexity. They reveal how evolution has produced intricate, interdependent systems from pre-existing biological components. But if creationists insist upon calling such complexity evidence of intelligent design, consistency requires them to acknowledge the character of the designer their argument implies: one that has equipped a deadly parasite with exquisitely effective machinery for multiplying, invading its hosts and perpetuating human suffering.

The two papers were acomapnied by a news release from Heidelberg University Hospital:

New Insights into Malaria Research: How Molecular Tethers and Asynchronous Replication Drive Parasite Proliferation
Researchers from Heidelberg University’s Faculty of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have uncovered key mechanisms underlying the proliferation of the malaria parasite Plasmodium. The molecular processes that govern the formation of infectious daughter parasites and new nuclei are essential for parasite survival and may therefore represent targets for future antimalarial therapies. The findings have recently been published in The EMBO Journal and Nature Communications.

A daughter parasite forms through budding from the mother cell: To do this, the membrane of the mother cell (yellow) invaginates. At the same time, an elongated fiber (dark blue) forms, which, like a molecular safety rope, connects the tip of the developing daughter cell to a cell nucleus (blue; the anchor point of the safety rope on the cell nucleus is turquoise). A structure (pink) also forms on this fiber, which will later play a key role in invading host cells.

© UKHD

Malaria parasites proliferate in an unusual way. Rather than dividing into two daughter cells like human cells, they first amplify their genetic material tenfold, hundredfold, or even thousandfold before simultaneously producing a corresponding number of daughter parasites. Until now, the mechanisms controlling these processes were only partly understood. Two recently published studies by researchers from Heidelberg University’s Faculty of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) provide important insights into the molecular basis of this proliferation strategy and reveal how the parasite makes particularly efficient use of limited resources within infected blood cells. The findings open new perspectives for the development of future antimalarial drugs.

Growing Daughter Parasites Secure Their Nucleus with a Molecular Tether.

The first project, published in The EMBO Journal, was conducted through a close collaboration between the research groups of Professor Friedrich Frischknecht of Heidelberg University’s Faculty of Medicine and the Department of Parasitology at the Center for Infectious Diseases of Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD), and Professor Jeffrey Dvorin of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA. Together, the teams investigated an enigmatic structure within the malaria parasite that had previously been observed in electron microscopy images, but whose function remained unknown. The researchers identified two proteins that form this structure, creating a molecular tether that links each of the parasite new nucleuses to the tip of a budding daughter parasite. In the absence of this tether, the formation of daughter parasites within blood cells was severely impaired.

As budding of the daughter parasite progresses and membrane protrusion increases (yellow), the molecular safety rope (blue) lengthens, holding the cell nucleus (light blue, turquoise: anchor point) as well as other vital organelles (green, orange, pink) within the developing parasite.

© UKHD

Genetically modified parasites lacking one component of the tether were still able to replicate their genomes normally but could no longer produce viable progeny. The consequences were particularly dramatic in mosquitoes, where the formation of sporozoites, the infectious stage transmitted to humans during a mosquito bite, was almost completely abolished.

Without this connecting structure, the entire process of daughter parasite formation collapses. The developing parasites are unable to pull their nucleus inside and cannot orient cellular structures correctly that are important for host-cell invasion. These Plasmodium parasites are not viable.

Professor Friedrich Frischknecht, co author of the EMBO Journal paper.
Department of Parasitology
Center of Infectious Diseases
Medical Faculty
Heidelberg University
Heidelberg, Germany

A Limiting Protein Resource Coordinates Nuclear Multiplication.

In the second project, recently published in Nature Communications, the researchers investigated how parasite nuclei are generated. For this study, the group of Dr. Markus Ganter of Heidelberg University’s Faculty of Medicine and the Department of Parasitology at UKHD collaborated with scientists from Heidelberg University’s Institute for Theoretical Physics and BioQuant Center, as well as the Division of Theoretical Systems Biology at DKFZ led by Dr. Nils Becker. During the blood stage of infection, the malaria parasite multiplies its nuclei through an unusual asynchronous process, despite residing in a shared cell. While one nucleus may be replicating its genome, a neighbouring nucleus may already be undergoing division. Using high-resolution live-cell microscopy and mathematical modelling, the researchers demonstrated that the nuclei compete for a shared and limiting protein resource required for genome replication. As a result, the nuclei replicate their genomes at different times. While one nucleus gains access to this limiting protein resource and duplicates its genetic material, the remaining nuclei must wait until the resource becomes available again. That way, asynchronous nuclear multiplication can be established within the parasite.

Unexpectedly, this system does not slow parasite proliferation. On the contrary, mathematical modelling and experimental validation showed that available resources are used with virtually no idle time, allowing the parasites to proliferate particularly efficiently and even somewhat faster than would be possible if all nuclei replicated in a fully synchronized manner.

If all nuclei were to duplicate their genomes simultaneously, they would have to share the available protein resources, which would ultimately slow down the process.

Dr. Ganter, co-corresponding author
Center for Infectious Diseases—Parasitology
Medical Faculty
Heidelberg University
Heidelberg, Germany.

[Dr. Ganter] carried out his earlier research together with Jeff Dvorin during their time together as postdoctoral fellows at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Highly Specialized Proliferation Mechanisms May Prove to Be an Achilles’ Heel

Malaria parasites have evolved highly specialized strategies to reproduce as rapidly and efficiently as possible. These unusual mechanisms may prove to be their Achilles’ heel. The better we understand them, the more precisely we can identify new targets for future drug development.

Professor Friedrich Frischknecht.

Currently used antimalarial drugs interfere with parasite multiplication in blood cells, while some also target parasites in the liver. However, the pathogens adapt rapidly and frequently develop drug resistance.

Malaria parasites proliferate both in humans and in the mosquito vector. In humans, a single parasite inside a liver cell can generate a population of many tens of thousands of offspring that subsequently disperse and infect red blood cells. Within red blood cells, each parasite produces approximately 30 daughter parasites. In mosquitoes, the parasite undergoes extensive multiplication within cyst-like structures in the wall of the mosquito intestine. A single parasite can give rise to around 5,000 offspring, which migrate to the salivary glands and are transmitted to a human host during the mosquito’s next blood meal.

Publications:
He, B., Ali, I., Dorner, L.P. et al.
Essential nucleus-apical pole linkage maintains division fidelity during Plasmodium progeny formation. EMBO J 45, 5388–5422 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44318-026-00836-7
Binder, P., Kudulytė, A., Klaus, S. et al.
Competitive resource allocation drives asynchronous and rapid nuclear multiplication in the malaria parasite. Nat Commun 17, 7413 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75378-x

Abstract
Plasmodium parasites, the causative agents of malaria, undergo complex replication within vertebrate and insect hosts, presenting unique opportunities for therapeutic intervention. A key challenge during these replication events, i.e., schizogony in vertebrate red blood cells and sporogony in oocysts within mosquitos, is ensuring the faithful partitioning of nuclei and organelles into the numerous daughter cells that form at once from a single parental cell. While nuclear microtubule-organizing centers, or centriolar plaques (CPs), have been hypothesized to play a central role in this process, the molecular mediators linking CPs and organelles remain incompletely defined. Here, we characterize the roles of two striated fiber assemblin (SFA) homologs, SFA1 and SFA2, in replication of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium berghei across two hosts. We show that these SFAs form a physical bridge between the CP and the nascent apical poles of daughter cells, facilitating high-fidelity progeny formation during schizogony and sporogony. Loss of SFA function disrupts merozoite and sporozoite formation, with profound consequences for transmission. These findings identify striated fiber assemblins as essential organizers of parasite morphogenesis and potential targets for anti-malarial therapies.

Synopsis
Cell divisions of the malaria parasite Plasmodium produce multiple daughter cells from a single parent, posing a challenge to faithful partitioning of the organelles. This study identifies a role of striated fiber assemblins, SFA1 and SFA2, in bridging the nucleus and apical poles of daughter cells for correct Plasmodium replication at blood and mosquito stages.

SFA1 and SFA2 localize between the centriolar plaque and nascent apical pole of forming daughter cells during P. falciparum schizogony and P. berghei sporogony.
SFA depletion impairs blood-stage replication and disrupts segmentation fidelity, producing anucleate daughter cells with abnormal rhoptry secretory organelles and subpellicular microtubule organization.
PfSFA2 interactome analysis identifies candidate components of the centriolar plaque-apical pole linkage, contributing to segmentation fidelity.
In mosquito-stage, PbSFA1 or PbSFA2 loss abolishes SFA rootlet fiber formation, prevents nuclear incorporation into budding sporozoites, and leads to sporozoite absence in salivary glands.

He, B., Ali, I., Dorner, L.P. et al.
Essential nucleus-apical pole linkage maintains division fidelity during Plasmodium progeny formation. EMBO J 45, 5388–5422 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44318-026-00836-7

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)

Abstract
The unicellular malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum proliferates within red blood cells of its human host, where it generates approximately 20 new parasites within a two-day developmental cycle. Before cellularization and release of the daughter cells, the nuclei multiply in a shared cytoplasm. In stark contrast to highly synchronized nuclear division cycles seen in other developing eukaryotes, Plasmodium nuclear cycles desynchronize rapidly. Combining live-cell imaging with biophysical modeling, we elucidate the mechanism of desynchronization and study its impact on parasite proliferation. We find that standard models of autonomous nuclear cycles cannot account for the experimental data, and therefore desynchronization requires nuclear coupling. Competition for a limiting pool of proteins needed for DNA replication explains the data, provided that they are allocated sequentially to individual nuclei. Sequential allocation can be achieved by reversible but stable association of the resources with DNA. Remarkably, the resultant asynchronous nuclear cycles accelerate parasite proliferation by minimizing idling times of the resource. This mechanism may be a general strategy to maximize proliferation in suboptimal growth conditions. Together, our findings identify nuclear cycle asynchrony as a resource-efficient means to achieve rapid proliferation.

Binder, P., Kudulytė, A., Klaus, S. et al.
Competitive resource allocation drives asynchronous and rapid nuclear multiplication in the malaria parasite. Nat Commun 17, 7413 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75378-x

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 these two studies reveal, then, is not merely another layer of complexity in the life cycle of Plasmodium, but exactly the combination of specialised proteins, coordinated processes and functional genetic information that creationists routinely present as evidence of intelligent design. Remove a critical component of the molecular tether and the production of viable infectious parasites collapses; disrupt the coordination of nuclear replication and the parasite loses the efficiency with which it exploits its host’s limited resources. By creationist standards, these systems should qualify as exhibits for both “irreducible complexity” and “complex specified information”.

The problem is that their function is not to benefit humanity. It is to manufacture thousands of infectious parasites, deliver them to a mosquito’s salivary glands, inject them into another host and enable them to invade liver cells and red blood cells. If functional complexity proves design, then the supposed designer did not merely permit malaria to exist: it furnished the parasite with the molecular machinery needed to spread, proliferate and cause disease with remarkable efficiency.

Creationists cannot escape that conclusion by invoking “the Fall”. No evidence shows that these structures were once designed for some harmless purpose and later became corrupted. They are specialised components of an integrated life cycle involving both vertebrate and mosquito hosts. Moreover, claiming that mutation and degeneration transformed something benign into such an elaborate and effective parasitic system would concede the very point creationists normally deny: that inherited variation and natural selection can generate new functions, new interactions and complex biological information.

Evolutionary biology explains the findings without inventing either a benevolent or a malevolent supernatural engineer. Plasmodium inherited cellular components from its ancestors and, over immense periods, natural selection modified and redeployed them. Variants that packaged daughter parasites more reliably, used replication proteins more economically or reached the next host more successfully left more descendants. Natural selection has no foresight, conscience or concern for human suffering; it preserves whatever increases reproductive success in the organism concerned.

The researchers therefore had no need to insert magic into the remaining gaps in their knowledge. They investigated the proteins, altered the relevant genes, observed the consequences and constructed testable models of the replication process—all within the evolutionary framework that makes sense of both the parasite’s complexity and its harmfulness.

Creationists cannot have it both ways. Complexity cannot be the unmistakable signature of their god when it inspires admiration but cease to indicate design when it produces suffering and death. Either these malaria systems evolved, in which case “irreducible complexity” and “specified information” are not evidence of design, or they were deliberately designed, in which case the evidence points not towards a loving creator but towards an intelligent and extraordinarily inventive malevolence.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Creationism In Crisis - After Darwin's Finches It's Darwin's Daisies - Evolution In Progress

2026-08-03T08:12:03.975+01:00

Botany’s answer to Darwin’s finches shows evolution in real time

The Galápagos Islands occupy an iconic place in the history of evolutionary biology. The animals and plants Darwin encountered there during the voyage of HMS Beagle contributed important evidence to the theory he developed after returning to England: that living species are not fixed and immutable but are the products of a long historical process.

Darwin eventually realised that natural selection acting upon inherited variation could produce organisms that appeared designed for their environments, without foresight, planning or divine intervention. Individuals possessing variations that gave them an advantage in their particular circumstances tended to leave more descendants, causing those variations to become more common over successive generations.

Like the uniformitarian geologists—particularly Charles Lyell—Darwin recognised that the world as we see it is not a fixed unchangeable result of a single act of perfect creation, but is the product of natural processes operating over immense periods of time. The processes that shaped the past are still operating today and will continue to shape the future.

The familiar story that Darwin saw the Galápagos finches and immediately conceived his theory is, however, an oversimplification. During the voyage, he believed he had collected birds belonging to several different groups, including finches, grosbeaks, blackbirds, wrens and warblers. Only after the ornithologist John Gould examined the specimens in England did it become apparent that these apparently disparate birds belonged to a distinctive group of closely related species—what we now call Darwin’s finches, although taxonomically they are members of the tanager family.

Darwin then appreciated the evolutionary significance of their shared characteristics and striking differences. Their varied body sizes and beaks could be understood as modifications of a common ancestral form, associated with different diets and ecological niches throughout the archipelago. One ancestral population had diversified into numerous related forms: a process now known as adaptive radiation.

The standard creationist response is to dismiss Darwin’s finches as evidence for evolution because they remain recognisably finch-like. This objection depends upon the childish parody of evolution in which one species should turn suddenly into an entirely different and supposedly unrelated species. Such an event would not demonstrate evolution; it would contradict the branching process of descent with modification. Descendants necessarily remain related to their ancestors and inherit modified versions of ancestral structures.

This misconception lies behind such familiar creationist “Gotchas!” as “Why do we never see evolution happening?” and “Why has evolution stopped?” Evolution has not stopped. What creationists demand to see is not evolution but an instantaneous transformation that evolutionary biology neither predicts nor requires.

Darwin knew nothing of Mendelian genetics or DNA, of course. Modern genomic research has confirmed the common ancestry of his finches while revealing a history more complicated than a simple, neatly branching tree. Rapidly diverging lineages can retain genetic variants inherited from their common ancestor and can occasionally exchange genes through hybridisation.

Now, genomic research into a family of plants—the genus Scalesia, commonly known as the Galápagos giant daisies—has provided a botanical counterpart to Darwin’s finches. In only about one million years, the founding lineage has diversified into 15 recognised species occupying habitats ranging from dense, humid highland forests to hot, dry and exposed lowlands. They vary from low-growing shrubs to trees, with leaves ranging from large and unlobed to small, deeply lobed and intricately serrated.

The research was conducted by a large international team led by Vanessa C. Bieker of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and Professor Michael D. Martin of the NTNU University Museum. The researchers included scientists from the University of California, Davis; the University of Copenhagen; the Charles Darwin Foundation in the Galápagos; the University of Georgia, Athens; the University of British Columbia; and several other institutions. Their paper was published on 16 April 2026 in the journal Nature Communications.

Using population-level genomic data from 396 individual plants representing all 15 recognised Scalesia species, together with measurements of leaf shape and gene-expression data from different developmental stages, the researchers reconstructed this remarkably rapid adaptive radiation.

They found that much of the plants’ morphological and ecological diversity arose through natural selection acting upon shared genetic variation inherited from the founding population. That ancestral variation was unusually rich, partly because Scalesia has an allopolyploid history—its ancestors combined chromosome sets derived from different ancestral lineages.

One particularly revealing finding concerned lobed and serrated leaves, which are thought to help plants cope with hot, dry conditions by reducing water loss and improving heat dissipation. These leaf forms evolved independently several times in different branches of the Scalesia family tree. Yet natural selection did not repeatedly alter the same gene. Instead, it acted upon different regulatory genes within the same developmental network controlling leaf growth and polarity.

This is a striking example of parallel evolution: similar environmental pressures producing similar adaptations in related lineages, but through different genetic routes. Evolution does not require a single “master gene” for a complex characteristic. Selection can modify different components of an interacting genetic network and arrive at broadly similar phenotypic results.

The finding also sits awkwardly with the traditional creationist claim that common design is evidence of a common designer. If superficial similarity is supposed to reveal the hand of a designer, why did this supposed designer repeatedly alter different parts of the same developmental network to produce essentially the same leaf shape? Evolution explains both the similarity of the outcome and the untidy diversity of its genetic foundations. “Design” merely applies a label to the result.

Moreover, the researchers discovered unexpectedly large genetic differences among geographically isolated populations currently classified as members of the same species. Some have remained separated for long periods and may already constitute distinct evolutionary lineages. In other words, speciation may be under way even though the differences are not yet obvious enough for a casual observer to recognise them. The authors consequently recommend that isolated populations should be treated as separate conservation units.

There has been no sudden transformation and no magical appearance of a new “kind”. Instead, there is inherited variation, geographical isolation, differential selection, genetic divergence and the gradual emergence of separately evolving lineages.

Evolution is a process, not an event.

Evolution’s Raw Material^ Standing Genetic Variation and Allopolyploidy. Evolution does not always have to wait for a useful new mutation to appear. Populations normally contain a reservoir of genetic differences accumulated over many previous generations. This is known as standing genetic variation.

These differences arise through mutation, recombination, migration and hybridisation. Many may have little effect under existing conditions, but their importance can change when the environment changes. A variant that was previously neutral—or even slightly disadvantageous—may then improve survival or reproductive success.

Natural selection does not produce a required mutation because an organism needs it. Instead, it changes the relative frequencies of variants already present or generated without foresight. If individuals carrying a useful variant leave more descendants, that variant becomes more common in subsequent generations.

Adaptation from standing variation can occur comparatively quickly because the useful allele may already be carried by numerous individuals. A new mutation, by contrast, begins as a single copy and may disappear through chance before selection can increase its frequency.

What is allopolyploidy?

Most animals and many plants are diploid, possessing two sets of chromosomes—one inherited from each parent. Polyploid organisms possess more than two complete chromosome sets.

Allopolyploidy occurs when two related species hybridise and their chromosome sets become combined and duplicated. An ordinary hybrid may be sterile because its chromosomes cannot pair correctly during the production of eggs or pollen. Chromosome duplication can give each chromosome a corresponding partner, restoring fertility and creating a reproductively distinct lineage.

Allopolyploidy is especially important in plant evolution. By bringing together two previously separate genomes, it can:

greatly increase the amount of inherited genetic variation;

provide additional copies of genes that can acquire new or specialised functions;

allow different versions of a gene to be used under different environmental conditions;

alter gene regulation and interactions between developmental pathways; and

produce immediate reproductive isolation from the parental species.

Gene duplication does not guarantee evolutionary novelty, and many duplicate genes are eventually lost or disabled. Nevertheless, the additional genetic material creates opportunities for evolutionary change that would not exist in a genome containing only one copy of each gene.

The Scalesia example

The ancestral lineage that colonised the Galápagos carried unusually high genetic diversity associated with an allopolyploid history. Consequently, its descendants inherited a rich collection of genetic variants upon which natural selection could act as populations encountered the different environments of the islands.

Much of the remarkable diversity among the 15 recognised Scalesia species therefore arose from different uses of shared ancestral variation. The species did not require an entirely new genetic toolkit for each habitat. Natural selection modified different components of the toolkit they had inherited.

This is particularly apparent in the repeated evolution of lobed and serrated leaves. Similar leaf shapes arose independently in several lineages, but selection acted upon different regulatory genes within the same developmental network. Similar environmental problems therefore produced similar visible adaptations without requiring identical genetic changes.

Standing genetic variation supplied the alternatives; allopolyploidy helped preserve a particularly diverse supply of them; environmental conditions determined which variants improved reproductive success; and geographical isolation allowed the populations to diverge.

Nothing anticipated which variants would be needed. There was no genetic instruction inserted because a plant required it and no plan directing each population towards a predetermined result. There was inherited variation, differential reproduction and selection—evolution working with whatever material history had made available.

The paper in Nature Communications was accompanied by an article in Norwegian SciTech News, the research news service of NTNU and SINTEF:

Botany’s answer to Darwin’s finches shows evolution in real time
A new study reveals how a remarkable group of plants on the Galápagos Islands developed their diverse leaf shapes – offering unique insight into evolution at the genetic level.
The Galápagos Islands hold an iconic place in the history of evolutionary biology. When Charles Darwin landed there in 1835 during his voyage on the HMS Beagle, he collected birds that he later brought back to England. Darwin believed he had gathered sparrows, woodpeckers, finches – and a single tit. But he soon learned that all of them were, in fact, closely related finches. Their different appearances were the result of beaks adapted to different diets.

These finches became a key argument for Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection – that species can change in ways shaped by the environments they inhabit.

More than 150 years after Darwin’s work on the Galápagos transformed our understanding of life on Earth, these islands continue to reveal new biology.

Professor Michael D. Martin, co-corresponding author.
Department of Natural History
NTNU University Museum
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Trondheim, Norway.

[Professor Michael D. Martin] is part of a large international team of researchers from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; the University of California, Davis; the University of Copenhagen; the Charles Darwin Foundation, Galápagos; the University of Georgia, Athens; the University of British Columbia; and several other institutions. Together, they have studied evolution in the plant group Scalesia, also known as the Galápagos giant daisies. The research was recently published in Nature Communications.

Unusually rapid evolution

Just like Darwin’s famous finches, these plants evolved rapidly after arriving on the Galápagos from mainland South America.

Vanessa Bieker, first-author
Royal Botanic Gardens
Kew, Richmond, Surrey, UK.

The genus Scalesia is evolutionarily young. All species living today emerged within the last one million years. Yet they have managed to adapt to the wide range of environments found across the islands – from dense, humid highland forests to dry, open lowlands.

Serrated leaves of Scalesia affinis (radiate-headed scalesia).

The appearance of different species varies dramatically, from low shrubs to tall trees. Most striking are the leaves, which range from large and entire to small and deeply lobed.

Professor Michael D. Martin.

Lobed leaves, with their sometimes complex and serrated edges, are thought to help the plants survive in hot, dry environments by reducing water loss and dissipating heat. Until now, however, researchers have not understood how this important adaptation evolved at the genetic level in these plants.

Multiple evolutionary paths to the same leaf shape

By analyzing the complete genomes of all known Scalesia species, the researchers discovered that lobed leaves evolved several times – each time in different parts of the Scalesia family tree.

Close-up of serrated leaves of Scalesia affinis (radiate-headed scalesia).

Photo: Michael Martin, NTNU University Museum.

Even more surprising was that each time this trait evolved, it did so through different genes – even though all of them belong to the same biological system controlling leaf development. This provides a clear example of parallel evolution: nature arriving at the same solution multiple times, but through different genetic pathways. Instead of being controlled by a single ‘master gene’, evolution appears to draw on an entire network of interacting genes, tweaking different components to produce similar outcomes.

Vanessa Bieker.

This gives researchers important insight into how complex traits can arise again and again in nature.

Evolution still in progress

In addition to uncovering how these plants evolved, the researchers found that evolution is still ongoing.

Herbarium sheet with Scalesia incisa collected by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle in the Galápagos Islands from 1831-1836.

Photo: GBIF, Cambridge University Herbarium (CGE) collection, CC BY-NC 4.0

Populations within the same species show large genetic differences and have been isolated from one another for long periods. This means new species may be in the process of forming. Many Scalesia populations may represent distinct evolutionary lineages that have not yet been formally described.

Professor Michael D. Martin.

The researchers therefore argue that each isolated population should be treated as its own conservation unit – a shift that could influence how the unique nature of the Galápagos is protected in the future. The study also offers a rare, detailed look at the process by which one species rapidly diversifies into many different forms.
Our findings highlight the flexibility and creativity of evolution.

Vanessa Bieker.

She added that Darwin also collected many plants on the Galápagos. Seventy‑eight of them were later used to describe species entirely new to science – including four species of Scalesia.

Publication:
Bieker, V.C., Li, S., Cerca, J. et al.
The genomic basis of adaptive leaf variation in the Galápagos giant daisies. Nat Commun 17, 5319 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71865-3

Abstract
Scalesia (Asteraceae) is the largest endemic plant genus of the Galápagos archipelago and an example of adaptive radiation. While Scalesia species are highly varied in habit and morphology, most remarkable is their variety of leaf shapes, especially in the differential presence of leaf lobing/serration, a derived trait that evolved multiple times as a likely adaptation to the islands’ hot and dry equatorial climate. Using population-level genomic data from 396 individuals representing all 15 recognized Scalesia species, we characterize this young radiation (around 1 million years ago), and reveal that their substantial morphological divergence and ecological specialization are primarily based on shared genetic variation. To further elucidate the repeated adaptive evolution of leaf lobing in Scalesia, we integrate genomic and leaf morphometric data, with transcriptomes from different developmental stages, and conclude that leaf lobing evolved through diversifying selection. Natural selection occurs independently on different regulators in the pathway controlling development of adaxial-abaxial leaf polarity, highlighting the importance of the founder populations’ high genetic diversity maintained via allopolyploidy. Finally, our findings have implications for the conservation of Scalesia’s threatened biodiversity, as unexpectedly high intra-specific genetic structure and long-term isolation among populations indicate widespread nascent speciation.

Bieker, V.C., Li, S., Cerca, J. et al.
The genomic basis of adaptive leaf variation in the Galápagos giant daisies. Nat Commun 17, 5319 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71865-3

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 the researchers found in Scalesia is not merely evidence that evolution happened in the past, but evidence that it is continuing today. Inherited variation, natural selection and geographical isolation have already produced 15 recognised species, while the pronounced genetic separation of some populations suggests that further species are now beginning to emerge.

The inevitable creationist response—that they are “still daisies”—only exposes a misunderstanding of evolution. Descendants never escape their ancestry: a new Scalesia species remains a member of the daisy family, just as humans remain apes and birds remain dinosaurs. Evolution adds new branches to the tree of life; it does not detach them from the branches upon which they arose.

Nor does the genomic evidence resemble the work of an engineer repeatedly applying a standardised solution. Similar lobed leaves evolved through changes to different regulators within the same inherited developmental network. This historically contingent genetic patchwork is exactly what we should expect when natural selection works with whatever variation happens to be available. Invoking an intelligent designer explains neither why the routes differed nor why an allegedly intelligent process needed to duplicate, modify and repurpose inherited material in the first place.

Almost two centuries after the voyage of HMS Beagle, the Galápagos Islands continue to teach the same lesson: species are not fixed, “kinds” are not biological realities, and apparent design can arise through entirely natural processes. The islands have not stopped evolving merely because creationists refuse to recognise evolution while it is happening.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Refuting Creationism - The Complex Origins of Modern Humans - No Just A Single Couple - Not Even A Single Species

2026-08-02T16:45:54.304+01:00

New technique pinpoints human DNA inherited from ‘ghost’ ancestors - Berkeley News

Using genealogical relationships in DNA, UC Berkeley researchers have uncovered hidden contributions from extinct human populations that left no sequenced genomes.

Meaghan Marohn

The evolutionary ancestry of modern Homo sapiens is far more complex than anything the authors of the Bible’s absurdly simplistic origin myths could have imagined. We already know that populations of our species migrating out of Africa interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans, and that these two archaic lineages also exchanged genes with one another. Consequently, most people with ancestry outside Africa carry some Neanderthal DNA, while many Asian and especially Oceanian populations also carry Denisovan DNA.

Now, according to a paper just published in Science, our ancestry is even more complicated. A team led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, with colleagues at Johns Hopkins University and 54Gene, has identified genetic material inherited from two previously unknown archaic hominin lineages. These are described as “ghost” lineages because no sequenced genome from either population is available: their existence must be inferred from the traces they left in the genomes of living people.

The researchers developed a computational method called TRACE — TRacking Archaic Contributions via ARG Estimation — which reconstructs genealogical relationships among segments of DNA. By identifying regions whose ancestry extends unusually far back in time, TRACE can detect contributions from extinct populations without requiring DNA recovered from their bones.

One of these ghost populations interbred directly with H. sapiens in Africa more than 50,000 years ago, before the principal expansion of modern humans into Eurasia. This unknown lineage appears to have separated from the ancestors of modern humans about 800,000 years ago, around the time that the lineage ancestral to Neanderthals and Denisovans also became distinct from ours.

Because the interbreeding occurred before the major migration out of Africa, its genetic legacy is now present in both African and non-African populations. The researchers estimate that each living person has inherited approximately 0.5–1 per cent of their genome from this ghost lineage — an amount comparable with the Neanderthal contribution found in many non-African genomes.

The second population was even more ancient. This “super-archaic” lineage had separated from other hominins approximately 1.8 million years ago and apparently interbred with Denisovans in Eurasia more than 200,000 years ago. Denisovans later interbred with H. sapiens, thereby passing a small quantity of this much older DNA into modern human populations. Its signal is clearest in Oceanian genomes, which contain the highest proportions of Denisovan ancestry.

The identities of these ghost populations remain unknown. Their estimated ages overlap with those of Middle Pleistocene Homo populations in Africa and Homo erectus in Eurasia, but the genetic evidence does not yet justify assigning either lineage to a named fossil species.

The picture emerging from modern genetics is therefore not a simple family tree in which one human species replaced another in an orderly succession. It is a tangled web of populations that separated, migrated, met again and exchanged genes repeatedly across Africa and Eurasia. Several genetically differentiated hominin populations existed at overlapping times and remained sufficiently closely related to produce fertile offspring.

That is vastly different from the tale invented by the authors of Genesis. Their mythology reduces the origin of humanity to a recently manufactured couple, followed a few generations later by the extermination of almost everyone alive and a second population bottleneck consisting of Noah’s household. Had the entire human population passed through two such extreme bottlenecks only a few thousand years ago, our genomes would contain an unmistakable signature of very recent common ancestry and a catastrophic loss of genetic diversity. No such signature exists.

Instead, our DNA records population divisions, migrations and repeated episodes of interbreeding extending across hundreds of thousands of years — and, through this super-archaic contribution, back into lineages more than a million years old. The authors of Genesis did not merely overlook a few incidental details: they got the timescale, geography, population history and fundamental shape of human ancestry wrong.

It is understandable therefore that creationist cult leaders, whose livelihood depends on it, feed their followers on a diet of deliberate disinformation while discouraging scientific enquiry and encouraging instead the view that science is unreliable and scientists are untrustworthy, so the best test of reality is 'faith' and dependence on a book which they declare to be the inerrant word of a creator god, with no more substantive evidence than the claim in the same book.

How TRACE Detects DNA from Unknown Ancestors. TRACE stands for TRacking Archaic Contributions via ARG Estimation. It is a computational method for finding pieces of DNA inherited from archaic hominins—even when no DNA from those hominins has ever been recovered.

A genome contains many different family trees

Because chromosomes exchange sections during the production of eggs and sperm, each person’s genome is a mosaic assembled from many ancestors. Consequently, different sections of a chromosome can have different genealogical histories.

An ancestral recombination graph, or ARG, is a computational reconstruction that joins these local genetic family trees together while allowing for the recombination events that occurred between them.

Looking for unusually deep branches

In an ordinary section of the genome, copies of that DNA carried by living people eventually converge, or coalesce, upon a relatively recent common ancestor.

DNA inherited from an archaic population behaves differently. That population may have separated from the ancestors of modern humans hundreds of thousands of years earlier. When it later interbred with Homo sapiens, it introduced DNA belonging to this much older branch of the human family tree.

Within an ARG, such DNA appears as an unusually long, isolated branch that does not join the other modern human lineages until much farther back in time. While that branch remains separate, numerous other human DNA lineages may already have coalesced with one another.

TRACE therefore examines two principal features:

how long a particular DNA lineage remains separate before joining the others; and

how many other lineages coalesce during the same period.

The combination helps distinguish DNA introduced by an archaic population from genetic variation produced by the normal history of a single population.

No archaic reference genome is required

Earlier methods often identified archaic DNA by comparing modern genomes with sequenced Neanderthal or Denisovan genomes. That approach cannot identify ancestry from a population whose DNA has never been recovered.

TRACE instead reconstructs relationships using present-day human genomes alone. Once it has located candidate archaic segments, researchers can compare them with known Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA. Segments that match can be classified accordingly; deeply divergent segments that match neither provide evidence of an otherwise unknown “ghost” population.

The researchers tested TRACE using computer simulations and showed that it could recover known Neanderthal and Denisovan contributions. Its ability to rediscover these independently identified sequences provided an important check that it was detecting genuine archaic ancestry rather than random genetic variation.

What TRACE cannot tell us

TRACE can reveal that a deeply separated population contributed DNA, estimate when its lineage diverged and identify the parts of modern genomes that it affected. It cannot, by itself, tell us what those hominins looked like or assign them confidently to a named fossil species. Connecting a ghost lineage with Homo erectus or another known hominin would require additional fossil, protein or ancient-DNA evidence.

The paper in Science was accompanied by an article in UC Berkeley News, written by Robert Sanders:

New technique pinpoints human DNA inherited from ‘ghost’ ancestors
Neanderthals and Denisovans interbred with modern human ancestors, leaving behind telltale DNA in our genomes. Now we have evidence of modern human interbreeding with two much older but unknown ancestors.
July 30, 2026

Two mysterious human relatives left their genetic footprints in the modern human genome alongside the DNA of Neanderthals and Denisovans, underscoring the fact that our ancestors interbred with many groups of hominins they encountered over millions of years of evolution.

While previous research found hints that modern humans had interbred with ancient hominins in addition to now-extinct Neanderthals and Denisovans, a new study by UC Berkeley researchers pinpoints areas of the genome inherited from these unknown ancestors and establishes a timeline. This was possible using a new technique the researchers developed that leverages hundreds of genomes from modern-day humans to find ancient genealogical relationships.

One of the unknown ancestors, which the researchers refer to as a ghost ancestor, interbred with modern humans in Africa prior to 50,000 years ago, before the most recent migration of Homo sapiens out of Africa into Europe and Asia. These genes comprise around 1% of the genomes of modern humans, comparable to the amount of Neanderthal DNA in the human genome. That unknown hominin lineage actually split off from the modern human lineage around the same time that Neanderthals and Denisovans diverged around 800,000 years ago, though they interbred with modern humans earlier.

Previous publications suggested that there might be ghost ancestry — ancestry from unknown archaic lineages in modern humans — but they hadn’t concluded whether this unknown ancestry is present only in Africans or not, and when this introgression event happened. We were actually able to find and map genomic locations in modern humans that are from this ghost lineage and show that this ghost ancestry is in all modern humans, not only in Africans.

Yulin Zhang, co-first author.
Center for Computational Biology
University of California Berkeley
Berkeley, CA, USA.

The other mysterious ancestor — what the researchers call a super-archaic ancestor — was a hominin descended from a 1.8 million-year-old lineage that interbred with Denisovans in Eurasia, likely more than 200,000 years ago. Denisovans later shared some of the super-archaic DNA with modern humans through interbreeding with Homo sapiens.

The super-archaic finding is particularly exciting because it reveals genetic contributions from a human lineage that lived over a million years ago, despite the absence of any sequenced DNA from that population.

DR. Arjun Biddanda, co-first author.
Department of Biology
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD, USA.

The findings highlight the fact that early modern humans not only lived side-by-side with numerous related hominin groups in Africa and Eurasia over the past million years, but that they were close enough genetically to interbreed with many of them.

With ancient DNA from Neanderthals and Denisovans and with these new genealogical methods, we are learning that mixture among human populations has been very pervasive across time, and that this is also likely to be true at ancient time scales. We often think of human evolution as a branching tree, but new genomic data and analytical methods reveal a much more interconnected history — more like a complex web of populations connected by repeated episodes of migration and mixing.

Associate Priya Moorjani, co-corresponding author.
Center for Computational Biology
University of California Berkeley
Berkeley, CA, USA.

Though it’s unclear who these ghost and super-archaic ancestors were, the inferred divergence time overlaps with the existence of Middle Pleistocene Homo groups in Africa 800,000 years ago and Homo erectus in Eurasia 1.8 million years ago, respectively.

Zhang, Biddanda, Moorjani and their colleagues published their findings online July 30 in the journal Science.

Tracing archaic DNA

When modern humans first moved out of Africa some 50,000 years ago, they interbred with two much older hominin lineages in Eurasia, the Neanderthals and Denisovans. While those older lineages went extinct, they left some of their DNA in the modern human genome — a discovery made possible by the extraction and sequencing of ancient DNA from Neanderthal and Denisovan fossils.

A timeline showing four separate instances (colored arrows) of archaic hominins interbreeding with early Homo sapiens. The dates were inferred from a genealogical analysis of present-day human genomes using TRACE, a technique developed at UC Berkeley.
Yulin Zhang and Priya Moorjani/UC Berkeley

But researchers also saw hints in the human genome of much earlier interbreeding. Because we have no DNA from other extinct hominins, however, it was challenging to identify their contributions.

Moorjani’s team developed a technique called TRACE (TRacking Archaic Contributions via ARG Estimation) that locates these regions by analyzing complete genomes from present-day humans only. Using genome data from modern individuals from around the world, the team reconstructed genealogical relationships — what’s called an ancestral recombination graph (ARG) –– across the genome, creating a detailed map of how DNA segments are related through shared ancestry over time.

Genealogies preserve a record of our evolutionary past. TRACE reconstructs those histories across the genome. By identifying regions whose ancestry extends unusually far back in time, we can uncover genetic contributions from extinct human populations, even in the absence of ancient DNA.

Associate Priya Moorjani.

Some of the regions with the oldest ancestry matched DNA from sequenced Neanderthal genome, which makes up about 1% of the human genome. Looking exclusively at genomes from people in Asia and Oceania, the only populations having substantial Denisovan DNA, they also correctly identified known regions of Denisovan introgression.

But many of the ancient regions contained neither Neanderthal nor Denisovan DNA. The researchers determined that these stretches of DNA came from two distinct lineages, with different introgression times. The ghost lineage was found in all humans, non-Africans and Africans, indicating that the gene flow occurred before modern humans made their final excursion out of Africa and spread rapidly throughout the world.

We discovered that about 2% of the modern human genome is from archaic hominins. In the case of the ghost lineage, modern-day Africans and non-African populations both inherited similar amounts of ghost ancestry. Each individual has about 0.5 to 1% of their genome inherited from this ghost lineage.

Yulin Zhang.

The researchers recovered the other lineage by analyzing only genomes from populations in Oceania — peoples living in the island nations of the Pacific Ocean — which have been shown to have higher proportions of Denisovan DNA, sometimes up to 4%. The super-archaic ancestry popped up in regions of Denisovan DNA, suggesting that this DNA came via gene flow through Denisovans into modern humans. Since Denisovans harbor between 3% and 5% super-archaic DNA, only a small fraction of that is inherited by modern humans, Moorjani said.

TRACE allowed us to contextualize how the ancestry segments from these previously uncharacterized hominins are distributed throughout the human genome. We found that these contributions are widespread throughout the genome, and ghost ancestry is detected even in regions previously thought to be intolerant of Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry.

DR. Arjun Biddanda.

Many archaic segments are enriched in regions associated with immunity and metabolic function, according to Moorjani.
This pattern is not entirely surprising. Adaptation to new pathogens and food sources has been one of the strongest selective pressures in human evolution. Interbreeding with other human groups introduced new genetic variation, providing additional raw material for natural selection. Beneficial variants could then be retained and spread over many generations. I think these new computational methods that allow us to reconstruct genealogical relationships are really the next frontier in this field because they are allowing us to uncover hidden episodes from our past without requiring ancient DNA,

Associate Priya Moorjani.

Moorjani hopes to detect faint signals of additional lineages in human DNA as the world’s genome databases become more diverse, sampling a broader variety of humanity. The discovery of more Denisovan genomes — currently only one has been published — would also help. Protein sequences recently obtained from Homo erectus fossils could even help identify who the super-archaic ancestor was.
Moorjani noted that TRACE should also work with other species, “allowing us to also uncover really different patterns across the tree of life.” Other co-authors of the paper are Sarah Johnson of Berkeley’s Center for Computational Biology and Colm O’Dushlaine of 54Gene, Inc., in Washington, D.C. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Publication:
Yulin Zhang et al.
Recovering signatures of archaic hominin introgression using ancestral recombination graphs.
Science 0, eaef8874 DOI: 10.1126/science.aef8874

Abstract
Admixture between modern humans and extinct hominins has shaped the genomes of present-day individuals, but reconstructing this history has been constrained by the scarcity of archaic samples and unadmixed outgroup populations. We introduce TRACE, a reference- and outgroup-free approach that uses features of ancestral recombination graphs to identify archaic ancestry. Simulations show TRACE has high precision and low false discovery rates. Applied to 1000 Genomes, TRACE recovers known Neanderthal and Denisovan introgression and uncovers ghost admixture from uncharacterized hominins in both Africans and non-Africans. Ghost ancestry persists in Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry deserts, challenging their interpretation as Homo sapiens–specific regions. In Oceanians, TRACE finds deep lineages are enriched in Denisovan compared to Neanderthal regions, supporting super-archaic introgression. TRACE enables mapping archaic introgression without archaic genomes.

Yulin Zhang et al.
Recovering signatures of archaic hominin introgression using ancestral recombination graphs.
Science 0, eaef8874 DOI: 10.1126/science.aef8874

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

This study adds another layer of complexity to the already intricate history preserved in the human genome. Far from presenting a problem for evolutionary theory, the findings are precisely the sort of evidence that an evolutionary framework can accommodate: populations separate and diverge, migrate into new regions, encounter one another again and exchange genes. Human evolution was not a simple procession of one species replacing another, but a shifting network of related populations connected by repeated episodes of interbreeding.

The researchers had no difficulty explaining their results through known evolutionary processes. They did not need to insert an act of special creation whenever a new lineage appeared, nor invoke supernatural intervention to explain how DNA passed between populations. Genetic divergence, migration, recombination, natural selection and ordinary reproduction were sufficient. Indeed, TRACE works because those processes leave detectable and mathematically predictable signatures in living genomes.

Creationism, by contrast, predicts none of this. It offers no reason why every living person should carry DNA from an unidentified African hominin lineage, why some people should possess Denisovan DNA containing an even older super-archaic contribution, or why those genetic fragments should occur in identifiable regions with genealogies extending hundreds of thousands of years into the past. Such findings can only be accommodated by creationism after the event, through vague appeals to unspecified “created kinds” and conveniently unobservable miracles.

Our genomes therefore contain something Genesis conspicuously lacks: an evidential record of our real ancestry. Humanity did not begin with a recently manufactured couple, pass through a second bottleneck aboard a wooden boat and then diversify magically within a few generations. We emerged from ancient, geographically dispersed and repeatedly interconnected populations whose history reaches back far beyond the few thousand years allowed by biblical mythology. Evolution explains that history; creationism merely denies that it happened.

So, it looks like creationists must continue to cling to the forlorn expectation that biologists are about to abandon 'Darwinism' and adopt evidence-free superstitious creationism instead - amongst the more childish and demonstrably false beliefs that have sustained creationism for more than half a century as the evidence against it continues to pile up.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Refuting Creationism - No 'Waters Of The Deep'!

2026-08-01T20:06:06.840+01:00

Schematic cross-section showing a cold subducted slab descending through the mantle transition zone into the deep mantle. The cold, very cold slab and hot geotherms are represented by dashed lines.

Camarda, C., Gervasoni, F., Jalowitzki, T. et al (2026).

Analysis of a super-deep diamond reveals how water travels to the Earth’s interior

Creationists have long been fond of two superficially impressive but scientifically worthless arguments. The first is that tiny amounts of carbon-14 detected when diamonds are placed in an accelerator mass spectrometer somehow show that diamonds—and therefore Earth—are only a few thousand years old. The second is that the discovery of “water” deep inside Earth confirms the biblical “fountains of the great deep” and, when convenient, explains where all the water from Noah’s supposed global flood subsequently disappeared.

A paper recently published in Scientific Reports brings these two favourite misconceptions together in a combination that may prove irresistible to professional misrepresenters of science. It therefore seems prudent to explain what the researchers actually found before the inevitable claims begin circulating.

Carolina Camarda and colleagues examined an irregular diamond, just 3 millimetres long, recovered from the Juína region of Brazil. Super-deep diamonds form at depths greater than about 300 kilometres, rather than at the approximately 150-kilometre depths typical of most diamonds, and can preserve microscopic inclusions of minerals that record conditions far below the surface.

Using synchrotron X-ray tomography, diffraction and spectroscopy, the team mapped more than 100 inclusions inside the diamond. One completely sealed inclusion, only about 35 micrometres across, contained a complex mixture of goethite—an iron oxyhydroxide with the formula FeOOH—together with hematite and magnetite. Another inclusion contained ferropericlase, a mineral characteristic of the deep mantle, supporting the conclusion that the diamond originated far below the crust.

The researchers propose that the goethite originally formed within hydrated oceanic crust or lithosphere. As that crust was carried downwards at a subduction zone, the goethite changed into a high-pressure form capable of surviving within a relatively cold descending slab. At still greater pressures and temperatures it began to decompose into iron oxides, releasing H₂O and oxygen into the surrounding mantle. The diamond then encapsulated part of this mineral assemblage, preserving evidence of the process.

In other words, the discovery concerns the slow transport of surface-derived water downwards through plate subduction. It is not evidence of a primordial subterranean ocean bursting upwards to flood Earth. Nor does it show where the water from an imaginary global flood went afterwards. The “water” carried by goethite is chemically incorporated into its crystal structure, principally as hydroxyl groups; it is not a liquid ocean occupying enormous caverns beneath the crust. It can be liberated as molecular water only when the mineral undergoes chemical reactions under extreme mantle conditions.

The study examined one microscopic inclusion and made no estimate of a hidden ocean, no calculation of the volume of floodwater that could be accommodated, and no suggestion that surface water could disappear hundreds of kilometres into the mantle within a few months. What it describes is part of Earth’s deep-water cycle, driven by plate tectonics and operating over geological time. Indeed, the direction of transport in the authors’ model is exactly the reverse of the “fountains of the great deep”: hydrated rocks are carried from the ocean floor into the mantle, where some of their bound water is eventually released.

Nor did the researchers carbon-date the diamond. The paper contains no radiocarbon measurement at all. Carbon-14 has a half-life of about 5,730 years, making radiocarbon dating useful for formerly living material up to roughly 50,000–55,000 years old under ordinary conditions. It cannot determine whether a diamond formed hundreds of millions or billions of years ago, and mantle carbon does not necessarily begin with the atmospheric carbon-14 ratio required for conventional radiocarbon dating.

At the extreme limit of accelerator mass spectrometry, instruments do not return a perfect zero even when a sample contains no surviving carbon-14. Trace modern carbon, ion-source memory, sample preparation and other instrumental effects produce a small background signal. Indeed, ancient natural diamonds have deliberately been used to measure that background. In one peer-reviewed study, geologically ancient diamonds returned nominal “ages” ranging from about 64,900 to 80,000 years. These were not accepted as the ages of the diamonds: they were measurements of the practical background and detection limit of the equipment.

The much-publicised creationist measurements produced an apparent age of about 55,700 radiocarbon years—not a few thousand—and even creationist writers concede that applying the normal radiocarbon-age calculation to a diamond is meaningless. They nevertheless treat the same meaningless calculation as evidence for a 6,000-year-old Earth. A detailed analysis published in the journal Radiocarbon explains why such minute signals in supposedly carbon-14-free materials represent analytical background, contamination and related effects rather than the ages of the samples.

Consequently, this discovery supplies creationism with neither young diamonds nor Noah’s missing floodwater. It records mineral transformations under immense pressures and temperatures, the recycling of oceanic crust through subduction, and a deep-water cycle operating across geological depths and timescales. Turning that into evidence for Genesis requires converting structurally bound hydroxyl into a subterranean ocean, an instrumental background into a reliable birthday, and slow plate tectonics into a year-long magical catastrophe. None of those transformations occurs anywhere in the research; they take place only in creationist storytelling.

What the study really offers is something much more interesting: a microscopic mineral time capsule showing how hydrated surface rocks may carry water deep into a dynamic planet. Far from rescuing the biblical Flood, it reveals yet another chapter in Earth’s immensely long geological history—one that the authors of Genesis could not possibly have known.

Glossary of technical terms. Earth’s structure and plate tectonics

Crust: Earth’s thin, outermost rocky layer. Oceanic crust is generally 5–10 kilometres thick, while continental crust is usually much thicker.

Lithosphere: The rigid outer part of Earth, comprising the crust and the uppermost mantle. It is divided into the moving tectonic plates.

Mantle: The thick layer of hot rock between Earth’s crust and core. Although mostly solid, mantle rock can deform and flow very slowly over geological time.

Upper mantle: The part of the mantle extending from beneath the crust to a depth of about 660 kilometres.

Mantle transition zone: The region between approximately 410 and 660 kilometres below the surface, where increasing pressure changes the crystal structures of mantle minerals.

Lower mantle: The region extending from about 660 kilometres below the surface to the boundary with Earth’s core, approximately 2,900 kilometres deep.

Plate tectonics: The scientific theory describing the movement and interaction of Earth’s rigid lithospheric plates.

Subduction: The process by which one tectonic plate sinks beneath another and descends into the mantle.

Subducting slab: The portion of a tectonic plate that is descending into the mantle. A relatively cold slab can carry some minerals much deeper than they would survive under normal mantle temperatures.

Deep-water cycle: The long-term circulation of water between Earth’s surface and interior. Water is carried down in subducting rocks and can later be released into the mantle, magma, volcanoes and atmosphere.

Diamonds and minerals

Super-deep diamond: A diamond formed at depths greater than about 300 kilometres, beneath the region in which most diamonds originate. Mineral inclusions inside such diamonds provide rare samples of the deep mantle.

Mineral inclusion: A microscopic fragment of another mineral trapped inside a crystal while that crystal was forming. A completely sealed inclusion can preserve evidence of the conditions under which it originated.

Crystal structure: The ordered three-dimensional arrangement of atoms within a mineral.

Hydrous mineral: A mineral containing hydrogen and oxygen within its crystal structure. It does not necessarily contain pockets of liquid water.

Hydroxyl group (OH⁻): A chemically bound combination of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom. Much of the “water” stored in mantle minerals occurs as hydroxyl groups rather than as liquid H₂O.

Iron oxyhydroxide: A mineral containing iron, oxygen and hydroxyl groups. Goethite, with the chemical formula FeOOH, is an example.

Goethite (α-FeOOH): A common brown iron oxyhydroxide found in soils, sediments and altered oceanic rocks. It incorporates hydroxyl into its crystal structure and can therefore carry water-equivalent material.

ε-FeOOH: A high-pressure form of iron oxyhydroxide into which ordinary goethite may transform as it descends into the mantle.

Hematite (Fe₂O₃): A common iron oxide, often reddish-brown, that can form when goethite loses water.

Magnetite (Fe₃O₄): A magnetic iron oxide containing iron in two different oxidation states.

Ferropericlase: A magnesium-and-iron oxide, (Mg,Fe)O, that is abundant in the lower mantle. Its presence in a diamond can help indicate a super-deep origin.

Polymorph: One of two or more minerals with the same chemical composition but different crystal structures. Changes in pressure and temperature can transform one polymorph into another.

Dehydration reaction: A chemical reaction in which a mineral loses hydrogen and oxygen from its structure, potentially releasing them as H₂O.

Retrograde phase: A mineral formed when a high-pressure mineral changes during cooling and decompression. Such products can preserve indirect evidence of the original deep-mantle mineral.

Epigenetic inclusion: Material that entered or formed inside a diamond after the diamond itself formed, commonly through a crack. The researchers concluded that the studied inclusion was not epigenetic because it was completely sealed from the diamond’s surface.

Volatiles: Chemical substances, including water and carbon dioxide, that can readily enter fluids or gases under suitable conditions.

Oxidation state: A measure of how electrons are distributed around an atom. Changes in the oxidation states of iron can transform one iron-bearing mineral into another.

Redox reaction: A chemical reaction involving the transfer of electrons and corresponding changes in oxidation state. “Redox” is an abbreviation of reduction–oxidation.

Gigapascal (GPa): A unit of pressure equal to one billion pascals. Pressures of tens of gigapascals occur hundreds or thousands of kilometres inside Earth.

Analytical methods

Synchrotron: A particle accelerator that produces extremely intense beams of electromagnetic radiation, including X-rays. These beams allow scientists to examine microscopic structures and determine their composition without destroying them.

X-ray microtomography (micro-CT): A technique resembling a highly detailed medical CT scan. It uses X-rays to construct a three-dimensional image of microscopic structures inside an object.

X-ray diffraction (XRD): A method used to identify minerals from the characteristic pattern produced when X-rays interact with their crystal structures.

X-ray spectroscopy: A group of techniques used to identify the chemical elements in a sample and investigate how their atoms are bonded.

XANES: Short for X-ray Absorption Near-Edge Structure. This technique provides information about an element’s oxidation state and its chemical environment within a mineral.

Radiocarbon terminology

Isotope: One of several forms of an element whose atoms contain the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons.

Carbon-14 (¹⁴C): A radioactive isotope of carbon produced mainly by interactions between cosmic rays and nitrogen in the atmosphere. Living organisms continually acquire it while exchanging carbon with their environment.

Radiocarbon dating: A method for estimating when formerly living material ceased exchanging carbon with the environment. It is generally useful only for the past 50,000–55,000 years and is not an appropriate method for determining the geological age of a diamond.

Half-life: The time required for half the atoms of a radioactive isotope to decay. Carbon-14 has a half-life of approximately 5,730 years.

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS): A highly sensitive technique that counts rare isotopes such as carbon-14 relative to more abundant isotopes. It can detect extremely small quantities but cannot eliminate instrumental background completely.

Percent modern carbon (pMC): A way of expressing the amount of carbon-14 in a sample relative to a modern reference material. Extremely small pMC values approach the practical limits of radiocarbon measurement.

Analytical background: A small signal produced by the instrument, sample holder, preparation process, residual material from previous samples or trace contamination. Even a genuinely carbon-14-free sample will not necessarily produce a reading of exactly zero.

Process blank: Material known to contain no measurable carbon-14 that is taken through the same preparation and measurement procedures as an unknown sample. Its reading reveals how much background has been introduced by those procedures.

Detection limit: The smallest signal that can be distinguished reliably from analytical background. Measurements close to this limit cannot simply be treated as accurate dates.

Apparent radiocarbon age: The age obtained when a measured carbon-14 signal is inserted into the standard decay equation. If the signal comes predominantly from analytical background, or if the sample never possessed the assumed initial carbon-14 concentration, the calculated figure is not the sample’s real age.

The paper in Scientific Reports was accompanied by a somewhat creationist-baiting Agência FAPESP headline about a super-deep diamond and water travelling into Earth’s interior:

Analysis of a super-deep diamond reveals how water travels to the Earth’s interior
Stone studied at the Sirius particle accelerator reinforces the hypothesis that the mineral goethite can transport water from the planet’s surface to rocks in the lower mantle.
By Igor Zolnerkevic | Agência FAPESP – A team of Brazilian researchers discovered the first direct evidence that goethite – the mineral responsible for the brown color of soils – can withstand extreme pressures and temperatures all the way to the planet’s interior inside a diamond just 3 millimeters long, within a microscopic impurity. Goethite forms in soil and on the ocean floor from iron-rich minerals in the presence of water. It incorporates some of these water molecules into its mineral structure. The study suggests that goethite may transport and release water into a region known as the lower mantle.

Previous studies have confirmed that water from the Earth’s crust, the outermost layer of rock 20 to 80 kilometers thick on continents and 5 to 10 kilometers thick in oceans, can reach the denser rock region just below it, the upper mantle, to depths of up to 660 kilometers. The lower mantle begins there and consists of rocks with a similar chemical composition to the upper mantle but with different crystalline structures due to increased temperature and pressure at greater depths, extending to 2,900 km below the surface.

The study was published in May in the journal Scientific Reports. It was conducted at Sirius, the particle accelerator at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS), which is part of the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM) in Campinas in the state of São Paulo. The study is based on geologist Carolina Camarda’s master’s thesis and was supervised by geologist Tiago Jalowitzki of the University of Brasília (UnB) and physicist Hélio Tolentino of the LNLS. It was funded by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), which is affiliated with the Brazilian Ministry of Education. Camarda conducted the research in collaboration with Fernanda Gervasoni, a geologist at the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel) in Rio Grande do Sul state. Gervasoni is currently completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the LNLS with funding from FAPESP under the supervision of Tolentino.

In July 2018, Gervasoni and Jalowitzki visited a gold miners’ cooperative in the Chapadão region of the municipality of Juína in the state of Mato Grosso and received a donation of ultra-deep diamonds. These diamonds are found in only a few places in the world and form at depths greater than 300 km. Most diamonds originate about 150 km below the surface. In both cases, they are brought to the surface by magma that fuels volcanic eruptions.

Many super-deep diamonds have little value as jewelry because of their irregular appearance and the presence of small dark fragments of other materials trapped within the stone during its formation, known as mineral inclusions. For geologists, these inclusions are more valuable than the diamond itself, because they act as time capsules, preserving evidence of the conditions inside the Earth where these stones formed hundreds of millions of years ago.

Made in Brazil

The super-deep diamonds from Juína were discovered in the late 1980s, and since then, they have been the source of numerous scientific discoveries. Until now, these studies had been carried out only by groups led by foreign researchers. “Ours is the first study conducted entirely by a Brazilian team using Brazilian instruments,” Gervasoni points out.

The study is also the first in the world to analyze a super-deep diamond using synchrotron light techniques from start to finish. One of the Juína stones was chosen at random and was among the first materials analyzed at the Mogno and Carnaúba beamlines at Sirius, even during the commissioning phase of the new LNLS equipment, prior to their official inauguration in 2023 and 2021, respectively.

Synchrotron light is extremely bright electromagnetic radiation emitted by electrons traveling around a particle accelerator at speeds close to the speed of light. The beamlines direct specific bands of this radiation to research stations for material analysis.

This research is the first in the world to analyze a super-deep diamond using synchrotron light techniques from start to finish. One of the Juína diamonds, chosen at random, was among the first materials analyzed at two beamlines of the Sirius particle accelerator.
Photo: press release/LNLS-CNPEM)

At the Mogno beamline, high-resolution X-ray microtomography mapped approximately one hundred mineral inclusions within the diamond. Next, the Carnaúba beamline used X-ray spectroscopy to determine the chemical composition of the inclusions.

One of them caught the team’s attention because it appeared to contain iron hydroxide, which is a very rare occurrence in the deep mantle because there are few hydrated minerals and most rocks do not support oxidation reactions. “When researchers find iron hydroxides, they usually dismiss the inclusion, assuming that some microscopic fracture in the diamond caused oxidation through contact with air,” explains Camarda, a Ph.D. candidate at the European XFEL laboratory in Germany. “Since tomography proved the inclusion had no connection to the outside, we decided to investigate.”

The team then used the Ema beamline at the Sirius facility to characterize all the minerals in the inclusion. Surprisingly, the X-ray diffraction technique identified the iron oxyhydroxide goethite (FeOOH) and the iron oxides hematite (Fe₂O₃) and magnetite (Fe₃O₄). While these minerals are common in soil and on the ocean floor, their coexistence within a microscopic inclusion is considered impossible under the temperature and pressure conditions on the planet’s surface.

Journey to the Earth’s interior

Until a few years ago, researchers generally agreed that goethite could not withstand the subduction process, in which an oceanic plate sinks beneath another tectonic plate of the Earth’s crust toward the mantle. This process occurs today off the west coast of South America, where the Pacific Ocean crust subducts beneath the continent. The result is the volcanic and tectonic activity that formed (and continues to form) the Andes mountain range. Early in the process, temperatures above 200 °C would rapidly transform goethite into hematite and water.

However, Camarda and his colleagues noted that the diffraction results from Sirius were very similar to those obtained in a shock wave compression experiment conducted at Sichuan University in China in 2021. This experiment showed that goethite can withstand pressures between 35 and 57 gigapascals (GPa) – equivalent to about 500 times the pressure at the deepest point in the ocean – and temperatures between 877 and 1,827 °C. These conditions occur in the lower mantle, at depths between 900 and 1,250 kilometers.

Many researchers are skeptical of these results, as shock experiments do not exactly replicate the physical conditions of the lower and upper mantle. In 2021, however, a team led by researchers at the University of Bayreuth in Germany demonstrated that goethite withstood similar pressure and temperature conditions in a compression experiment using diamond anvil cells. These cells are capable of more accurately simulating the mantle environment. Other diamond anvil experiments have tested the resistance of this mineral but suggested its dehydration at shallower depths.

Therefore, Camarda’s team proposes that goethite can survive subduction when sheltered within deep fissures in relatively cool oceanic plates reaching depths greater than 400 km. There, it would begin to transform into hematite and water, or into magnetite, oxygen, and water. This process could extend all the way to the lower mantle.

The diamond that encapsulated these minerals may have formed from the crystallization of carbon found in mantle minerals or the oceanic plate itself. The Earth’s mantle is relatively low in carbon and consists mainly of magnesium-, iron-, and silicon-rich minerals. In another inclusion within the same diamond, the team identified one of these minerals: ferropericlase ((Mg, Fe)O), which is abundant in the lower mantle. This is further evidence of the depth at which this diamond formed.

The release of water lowers the melting point of these rocks, potentially generating small amounts of magma that tend to rise slowly to the surface. Some theories suggest that volcanic rocks that bring super-deep diamonds to the surface form near the transition zone between the upper and lower mantle, around 400 km deep.

Fernanda Gervasoni, corresponding author.
Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory
Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (LNLS/CNPEM)
Campinas, Brazil.

In 2014, an international team published a study in the journal Nature reporting the discovery of ringwoodite (Mg₂SiO₄), a mineral abundant in the transition zone that can absorb water, in a Juína diamond. The upper mantle appears to harbor large quantities of water originating from the surface. In contrast, most minerals in the lower mantle have little capacity to store water.

In addition to Camarda, Gervasoni, Jalowitzki, and Tolentino, 11 other researchers affiliated with the CNPEM, UnB, and UFRGS participated in the study. Funding for the research was provided by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), which is affiliated with the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation; the National Institute of Science and Technology for Tectonic Studies; the Serrapilheira Institute; and the Women in Research program at the University of Münster in Germany.

Publication:
Camarda, C., Gervasoni, F., Jalowitzki, T. et al.
Iron oxyhydroxide as water carrier to the Earth’s mantle.
Sci Rep 16, 23034 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-46683-8

Abstract
The discovery of new mineral phases capable of transporting water into the Earth’s mantle via subduction zones is essential for understanding the deep Earth water cycle and its influence on mantle dynamics. Recent experimental and computational studies have proposed that certain hydrated oxyhydroxides may remain stable under deep mantle conditions, particularly within cold subducting slabs. Here, we report an advanced synchrotron multi-technique study on a natural complex iron oxyhydroxide mineral preserved within a Juína diamond, which may offer new evidence on water transport via cold subducted slabs and highlights the potential role of iron oxyhydroxides as carriers of volatiles into Earth’s interior.

Fig. 1

General views of the diamond J1 and its inclusions. (A) Photography of the natural diamond J1 mounted on its holder (photo credit: L.R. Chaves/Pesquisa-FAPESP); (B) micro-X-ray Computed Tomography (µ-CT) with a large field of view; (C) Zoom of the region of interest; showing the selected inclusion; and (D) Scanning Transmission X-ray Microscopy (STXM) with nanometer resolution of the selected inclusion. Note: The false colors applied to (B) and (C) were used to highlight a few inclusions within the diamond matrix. The inclusion indicated in C and shown in D is the Fe oxyhydroxide that is focus of our multi-technique study.

Fig. 5

Schematic cross-section showing a cold subducted slab descending through the mantle transition zone into the deep mantle. The cold, very cold slab and hot geotherms are represented by dashed lines^54,55. The mantle geotherm is represented by the black line⁵⁷. The α-FeOOH found in the oceanic crust or lithosphere transforms into its high-pressure polymorph, ε-FeOOH at ~ 230 km depth (~ 7 GPa)^26,39. As the slab descends to deeper regions, the ε-FeOOH begins to break down into Fe₂O₃ and Fe₃O₄, releasing volatiles into the surrounding rocks (inset figure). This transformation may form localized redox heterogeneities in the mantle. The phase transformation is incomplete, forming a heterogeneous Fe oxyhydroxide assemblage in the crystal (inset), which is then trapped in a diamond, potentially crystallized from fluids and melts released by the slab (inset figure)^26,39.

Camarda, C., Gervasoni, F., Jalowitzki, T. et al.
Iron oxyhydroxide as water carrier to the Earth’s mantle.
Sci Rep 16, 23034 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-46683-8

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)

This tiny inclusion in a diamond is therefore evidence of a dynamic, ancient Earth. It records minerals being carried hundreds of kilometres downwards in a subducting tectonic plate, transformed by enormous pressures and temperatures, and preserved inside a diamond before eventually being returned to the surface by volcanic activity. Every stage belongs to the well-supported geological history of a planet operating over immense spans of time, not to a supernatural catastrophe during a single year.

The “water” in this process is not a subterranean ocean waiting to burst through the crust. It is hydrogen and oxygen chemically bound within minerals and dispersed through vast volumes of rock. The researchers’ model has this material travelling from the oceanic crust into the mantle through subduction—the reverse of water erupting from the biblical “great deep”. Nor does the study provide a mechanism by which enough water to cover every mountain could have drained hundreds of kilometres into solid rock within a few months. It does not even attempt to do so, because Noah’s Flood has no place in the science.

The diamond itself offers no comfort to young-Earth creationism either. It was not carbon-dated in this research, and radiocarbon dating is incapable of establishing the geological age of a diamond. The minute carbon-14 readings promoted by creationists occur at the limits of accelerator mass spectrometry, where analytical background can produce a nominal finite “age” even from material known to be vastly older. Calling such a number a measurement does not make it the diamond’s birthday.

The creationist argument consequently depends upon equivocation at every stage: chemically bound hydroxyl becomes floodwater; Earth’s mantle becomes the biblical “great deep”; a background instrument signal becomes a reliable date; and the gradual subduction of oceanic crust becomes the rapid disposal of a global flood. The argument sounds impressive only while those distinctions are concealed.

Once the terminology is understood, the supposed support for Genesis disappears. The diamond is not young, its microscopic inclusion is not Noah’s missing floodwater, and the mantle is not a storage tank for a recently drained ocean. What the diamond really preserves is evidence of deep pressure, deep tectonic recycling and, most inconveniently for creationism, deep time.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Creationism Refuted - Humans Were Carving Birds Out Of Mammoth Ivory 30,000 years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-07-31T22:10:06.445+01:00

Figure of a bird from the Ice Age site of Hohle Fels, approximately 40,000 years old.

Credit: Ralf Ehmann

Two bird figurines found in World Heritage Site of Hohle Fels are declared „Find of the Year” | University of Tübingen

Young Earth creationists insist that Earth—and everything upon it—was created only about 6,000–10,000 years ago, with the entire human population subsequently reduced to eight survivors of a global flood. Unfortunately for that mythology, archaeologists continue to uncover abundant evidence that humans were living, thinking and creating art tens of thousands of years before the supposed “Creation Week”, within cultures whose archaeological remains show no trace of having been interrupted by a planet-drowning flood.

The latest examples are two tiny bird figurines discovered in Hohle Fels Cave in the Swabian Jura of south-western Germany. Carved from mammoth ivory approximately 40,000 years ago, during the Aurignacian period, they were recovered in 2025 from the cave’s well-documented archaeological sequence by a University of Tübingen team led by Professor Nicholas Conard.

Each figurine is scarcely larger than a thumbnail, yet both display remarkable anatomical and behavioural detail. One appears to represent a resting or possibly brooding bird, with its head drawn close to its body and its legs tucked beneath it. The other has its wings spread and its neck extended, perhaps depicting a bird in flight, landing, threatening a rival or displaying during courtship. At just two centimetres long and weighing about 0.7 grams, the latter is the smallest known piece of Ice Age figurative art from the Swabian Jura World Heritage region.

A fictional Neanderthal artist.

Readers of my novel The Way of the Wolf: A Stone Age Epic may be reminded of Tanu, a Neanderthal living among modern Homo sapiens, whose skill includes carving animal figures.

Although this discovery is early in the history of Homo sapiens in Europe and close to the disappearance of Neanderthals, there is no evidence that a Neanderthal carved the Hohle Fels birds: their Aurignacian context associates them strongly with early modern humans.

Nevertheless, Neanderthals were themselves intelligent, technically accomplished and capable of symbolic behaviour. A Neanderthal sharing the life and culture of a modern-human community—and learning or exchanging artistic skills within it—is therefore legitimate historical fiction rather than fantasy.

The precise species cannot be identified with certainty, although ptarmigan or another grouse-like bird is a plausible possibility. Bones of such birds occur in the archaeological deposits, showing that the artists were familiar with them. These were not crude shapes produced by people struggling to represent an unfamiliar animal: the eyes, beak, posture and incised indications of feathers reveal careful observation, skilled ivory working and an ability to capture characteristic behaviour in miniature.

The discovery is especially intriguing because Hohle Fels has now yielded three Aurignacian bird figurines, including a waterbird excavated in 2001, whereas no bird carvings have been recovered from the other major Ice Age art sites in the surrounding region. The researchers suggest that individual ivory-working communities may have developed their own preferred subjects and artistic traditions—something resembling a local cultural signature.

The figurines are described by Nicholas J. Conard, Alexander Janas and Mohsen Zeidi in Archäologische Ausgrabungen in Baden-Württemberg 2025. They join the famous Venus of Hohle Fels, animal sculptures, jewellery and some of the world’s earliest musical instruments as evidence that the people occupying this cave possessed sophisticated technology, artistic traditions and symbolic cultures about 34,000 years before the date traditionally assigned to creation by biblical literalists.

For Young Earth creationism, therefore, the problem is not merely that two little ivory birds are “too old”. They belong within an extensive, ordered archaeological record of successive occupations, changing technologies and developing cultural traditions stretching across tens of thousands of years. To accommodate them within Genesis, creationists must compress that entire record into a few centuries, dismiss its dating, scramble its stratigraphy and somehow insert a worldwide flood that left the cave and its delicate contents undisturbed. Once again, the evidence does not merely fail to support the mythology; it records a human history with which that mythology is entirely incompatible. The discovery was announced in a recent press release from the University of Tübingen:

Two bird figurines found in World Heritage Site of Hohle Fels are declared "Find of the Year"
Archaeologists from the University of Tübingen identify a unique signature in miniature works of Ice Age art

Two bird figurines carved from ivory found at the site of Hohle Fels Cave, approximately 40,000 years old.

Photo: © Ralf Ehmann.

Excavations at Hohle Fels Cave in the UNESCO World Heritage area of the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany have again yielded two, spectacular 40,000-year-old depictions of birds carved from mammoth ivory. The two figurines are the smallest discovered so far and are the size of a thumbnail, while still including many details. These remarkable finds come from the rich Aurignacian layers at Hohle Fels, which have produced some of the oldest figurative art known, and date to the time of the initial arrival of modern humans in the Upper Danube region. One find is complete and perhaps depicts a brooding bird, while the other incomplete bird has outstretched wings and may be in flight or landing.

In 2025, archaeologists from the University of Tübingen, Germany, recovered the birds in the same layer lying about 1.5 meters away from each other. They are of similar age and may perhaps have been carved by the same person.

The figurines demonstrate that the earliest artists were skilled ivory-carvers, who could depict delicate motifs in miniature form. Additionally, it seems that specific depictions are associated with specific sites.

Professor Nicholas Conard.
Director of excavations
University of Tübingen

Depiction of a lying bird from the Ice Age site of Hohle Fels, approximately 40,000 years old.

Credit: Ralf Ehmann

The newly discovered birds are extremely small with dimensions of approximately 2 x 1 x 0.5 cm. Most of the other figurines from this period have dimensions in the range of 3 to 9 cm. The resting bird is depicted in great detail with prominent eyes, while the bird with outstretched wings has a distinctive beak and clear markings representing feathers.

The carvings are not highly stylized but instead include many specific and unique features. Here the artist has recorded detailed observations that allow us to consider which kind of bird is represented and what the bird could be doing.

Professor Nicholas Conard.

Although many of the early ivory carvings from the caves of the Swabian Jura depict animals in a static manner with considerable tension, the two birds are shown in specific postures. One of the birds appears to be lying on the ground and could well be brooding over its eggs. The bird with spread wings may be flying, landing, or perhaps posturing in courtship. Ice Age art often leaves multiple avenues of interpretation open, and the same applies for the specific kind of bird depicted. The brooding bird appears to be a ptarmigan, a species that is well-represented in the rich faunal material recovered from Hohle Fels. The bird with spread wings could be a ptarmigan but could also be a bird in the grouse family or a bird of prey.

Depiction of a bird with outstretched wings from the site Hohle Fels Cave, approximately 40,000 years old.

Credit: Ralf Ehmann.

Feather light

The figurines in their present state weigh only 1.3 and 0.7 grams and are the smallest and finest depictions from this period 40,00-years-ago, but despite their size, they raise many new questions.

Professor Nicholas Conard.

Among the open questions are what meaning they could have had for the residents of Hohle Fels Cave. They could have served as personal talismans or as symbols for the identity of the person who carved or carried the diminutive sculptures. Hohle Fels has now yielded a total of three carefully made carvings, while no other site in the region has produced a single bird figurine. At the same time, depictions of other animals are numerous, with mammoths and lions being the most frequently presented, followed by smaller numbers of bears, horses, fish, and bison.

Each of the four World Heritage sites that have yielded figurative art is unique and documents a link between the site, its specific geographic and social context.

Professor Nicholas Conard.

Our region and landscape have always been the home of a vast range of birds, and nearby Lake Schmiechen is today a bird sanctuary. Even 40,000-years-ago birds were here. Their song filled the air, and some species came to the region in the course of annual migrations. Their calls signaled warnings, and the residents of the region often used their hollow bones and even mammoth ivory to make flutes that produced magical sounds.

Stefanie Kölbl
Managing director of urmu.

The figurines will be on display at the Museum of Prehistory and Ice Age Art in Blaubeuren (urmu) in a special exhibit that runs until April 4, 2027 entitled: Feather light, research heavy: Discover the miniature birds in Ice Age Art.

The urmu is located among the region’s caves that were inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2017 under the title: “Caves and Ice Age Art of the Swabian Jura.” Founded more than 60 years ago, this research museum of the University of Tübingen has long displayed the renowned Paleolithic artifacts of southwestern Germany together with the oldest figurative art and musical instruments dating back to 40,000 years ago. The urmu houses exceptional finds such as the Venus of Hohle Fels.

Publication:
Nicholas J. Conard, Alexander Janas, Mohsen Zeidi:
Hochwertige Funde aus dem Mittelpaläolithikum und zwei aurignacienzeitliche Vogeldarstellungen aus dem Hohle Fels bei Schelklingen.
In: Archäologische Ausgrabungen in Baden-Württemberg 2025, July 2026, p. 46-52.

These two tiny birds are therefore much more than attractive examples of Ice Age craftsmanship. They are the surviving products of observant, imaginative and technically accomplished people who lived in Central Europe about 40,000 years ago—roughly 34,000 years before the date traditionally assigned to creation by biblical literalists. Their makers recognised characteristic features of living birds and possessed both the tools and the skill needed to reproduce them in pieces of mammoth ivory scarcely larger than a thumbnail.

Nor are the figurines isolated objects to which archaeologists have arbitrarily attached an inconveniently ancient date. They come from a documented Aurignacian deposit within an ordered succession of archaeological layers. Beneath the Aurignacian occupation are older Middle Palaeolithic remains associated with Neanderthals; above it lies evidence of later human activity. The cave consequently preserves a sequence of changing populations, technologies and cultures extending across tens of thousands of years—not the confused wreckage of a recent global catastrophe.

To fit this evidence into Young Earth creationism, the figurines, their archaeological context, the radiocarbon chronology and the entire stratigraphic sequence must all be dismissed, distorted or compressed into the few centuries permitted by biblical mythology. A global flood must somehow have inundated the planet while leaving delicate ivory carvings embedded within recognisable cultural layers, without mixing the deposits or erasing the succession of Neanderthal and modern-human occupations. That is not an alternative scientific explanation; it is the rejection of evidence to protect a predetermined conclusion.

At only a few centimetres long and weighing little more than a gram, these may be among the smallest artworks recovered from Ice Age Europe. Yet for creationism they present an enormous problem. They bear silent witness to a deep human past of migration, observation, craftsmanship and cultural development—precisely the history that archaeology and evolutionary science predict, and precisely the history that the authors of Genesis knew nothing about.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Creationism Refuted - Most Complete Fossil Early Canid - From 30 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-07-31T13:59:29.752+01:00

Mesocyon coryphaeus hunting.

Image credit: Roger Witter

Most complete skeleton of 30 million-year-old dog discovered | University of Michigan News

My last blog post concerned a 210-million-year-old, gap-filling dinosaur from Zimbabwe that is helping palaeontologists to reconstruct the early evolution and dispersal of dinosaurs.

This post concerns another gap-filling fossil, although one from much closer to the present—just 30 million years ago. It is a remarkably complete skeleton of the early canid Mesocyon coryphaeus, one of the most complete pre-Ice Age canid skeletons yet found in North America.

This specimen fills a different sort of gap. Mesocyon coryphaeus, first named in 1879, is relatively common in the John Day Formation of Oregon, but it was previously known principally from skulls and teeth. Its postcranial skeleton—the bones behind the skull—had remained almost entirely unknown. The new specimen therefore fills an important anatomical gap in our understanding of how early canids moved, hunted and responded to the changing environments of Oligocene North America.

The fossil itself has had a curious history. It was collected during the late 1980s from land administered by the Bureau of Land Management near what is now the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Encased in a protective plaster jacket, it entered the monument’s collection after initially being mistaken for an oreodont—an extinct North American even-toed ungulate sometimes loosely described as resembling a mixture of sheep, camel and pig.

During the 1990s, the skull was separated from the surrounding rock for display, whereupon its teeth and cranial anatomy revealed that it was actually a canid. Park palaeontologists began exposing the remainder of the skeleton in 2012, but preparation continued intermittently for years. By the time the fossil was fully uncovered in 2022, more than 500 hours of painstaking preparation had been devoted to it.

University of Michigan palaeontologist Anne E. Kort, together with Jennifer Cavin of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument and Xiaoming Wang of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, formally described the specimen in a paper published online in the Journal of Paleontology on 29 May 2026.

Known as JODA 3366, the specimen includes a complete cranium, an almost complete vertebral column in front of the sacrum, all the major limb bones and parts of both the forefeet and hindfeet. Only the tail and portions of the hands and feet are missing. It even preserves part of the baculum, or penis bone, establishing beyond reasonable doubt that the animal was male.

Identification rests principally on the anatomy of the skull and teeth, but an additional clue was provided by a mushroom-shaped bone growth near the wrist on the left radius. This condition, known as hereditary osteochondroma, has also been found in about 60% of examined Oligocene specimens of the earlier canid Hesperocyon, as well as in several other early carnivorans. Its presence provides an unusual glimpse of an inherited disorder persisting in these ancient populations.

The earliest well-known canid, Hesperocyon gregarius, appeared in North America during the late Eocene, about 40 million years ago, and was probably close to the ancestry of all later canids. It was a small, scansorial animal—adapted for moving both on the ground and in trees—living when much of its habitat consisted of warm, closed-canopy forest.

By the time this Mesocyon lived, between 31.4 and 29.0 million years ago, global cooling had transformed much of that dense forest into a changing mosaic of subhumid woodland and semiarid shrubland. Later canids would become increasingly cursorial, evolving long limbs, elongated feet and stabilised joints suited to pursuing prey across increasingly open country. Mesocyon, however, shows that this transition was neither immediate nor a simple, linear progression.

Although roughly the size of a modern coyote, Mesocyon had a long body, short legs and unusually robust limb bones. The researchers estimate that it weighed about 14–15 kilograms, stood approximately 40 centimetres at the shoulder and measured around 80 centimetres from its snout to the base of its tail. Its relatively mobile spine may have allowed it to accelerate rapidly over short distances, but it lacked the specialised anatomy needed for the sustained running typical of most modern dogs.

Its elbow joints allowed greater rotation of the forearms than those of living canids, probably helping it to grapple with prey. This mobility may also have allowed it occasionally to climb, rather like a modern wolverine, although its limbs lacked the clear adaptations of a genuinely arboreal mammal. The authors therefore interpret it as primarily a ground-dwelling animal and, at most, an occasional and rather clumsy climber.

Its feet also retained an intermediate arrangement. The first metatarsal—the bone corresponding to the innermost toe—was much less reduced than in later canids, while several features of its ankles and limbs suggest that it normally adopted a semidigitigrade posture. In other words, it held its heel higher than a fully plantigrade animal such as a human or bear, but not as consistently high as a modern dog walking permanently on its toes. It may even have been able to switch temporarily to a more completely digitigrade stance.

Taken together, the evidence suggests that Mesocyon coryphaeus was a terrestrial ambush predator rather than a long-distance pursuit hunter. Its lifestyle was probably more like that of a large mustelid than a modern dog: approaching under cover, accelerating in a short burst and using its powerful forelimbs to seize small prey such as rodents, lagomorphs and hypertragulids—small, mouse-deer-like ruminants that lived on the forest floor.

Nor was Mesocyon a direct ancestor of modern wolves, foxes or domestic dogs. It belonged to Hesperocyoninae, an early radiation of canids whose entire lineage eventually became extinct, while living canids belong to a different branch, Caninae. Mesocyon was therefore not a rung on a ladder leading inexorably towards the modern dog, but a member of a collateral branch of the canid family tree that evolved its own successful way of life before disappearing without descendants.

That distinction matters because evolution is not a procession of progressively “improved” organisms marching towards a predetermined goal. It is a branching process in which populations inherit ancestral characteristics, acquire new modifications and adapt opportunistically to the conditions in which they live. Some branches diversify; others persist for millions of years and then become extinct. Mesocyon, with its mixture of retained climbing ability, semidigitigrade feet, robust limbs and specialised carnivorous teeth, is precisely the sort of mosaic that evolutionary theory predicts.

This is also why the familiar creationist demand for an unbroken procession of “missing links” is so fundamentally misconceived. The fossil record preserves fragments of a branching history, not a single-file parade towards modern “kinds”. Each new specimen such as JODA 3366 supplies another part of that history, allowing scientists to test increasingly detailed predictions about anatomy, ecology and evolutionary relationships. And, once again, when another gap in scientific knowledge is filled, there is no trace of supernatural creation hiding inside it—only more evidence of descent with modification.

The Canid Family Tree^ 40 Million Years of Evolution. The dog family, Canidae, originated in North America during the late Eocene, about 40 million years ago. For most of its early history it remained confined to that continent, where it underwent three major, overlapping evolutionary radiations. Two of these branches became completely extinct; every living canid belongs to the third.

Hesperocyoninae: the first radiation

Late Eocene to middle Miocene, approximately 40–15 million years ago

The earliest radiation consisted of the hesperocyonines, generally small, long-bodied animals retaining relatively flexible limbs and some ability to climb. Hesperocyon, one of the earliest well-known members, was probably close to the ancestry of all later canids.

As North American habitats changed, hesperocyonines diversified into numerous forms ranging from small omnivores to larger, specialised carnivores. Mesocyon belonged to one of these branches, together with later genera such as Enhydrocyon. It was therefore a collateral relative of the ancestors of modern dogs, not itself their direct ancestor.

Hesperocyonines declined as they encountered increasing competition from other canids and from cats arriving from Eurasia. The entire subfamily eventually became extinct.

Borophaginae: the “bone-crushing dogs”

Early Oligocene to late Pliocene, approximately 34–2.5 million years ago

The borophagines began as small, fox-sized canids but radiated into a wide variety of omnivores and predators. Some later members, including Epicyon and Borophagus, developed massive skulls, powerful jaws and enlarged premolars capable of crushing bone. Superficially, these animals resembled modern hyenas, although hyenas belong to the cat-like branch of Carnivora and are not canids.

Some borophagines became among the largest canids ever to evolve. Nevertheless, this once-successful radiation also disappeared, probably through a combination of ecological specialisation, environmental change and competition from cats and the increasingly cursorial Caninae.

Caninae: the surviving radiation

Early Oligocene to the present, beginning about 34 million years ago

The earliest canines included Leptocyon, a small, lightly built, fox-like animal. Caninae remained comparatively inconspicuous for much of the Oligocene and early Miocene but later benefited as open grasslands spread. Longer limbs, elongated metapodials, reduced first toes and more stabilised joints produced efficient digitigrade runners capable of travelling and pursuing prey over long distances.

Caninae is the only canid subfamily to survive. Its living members are commonly divided into three principal lineages:

Vulpini—the fox-like canids: true foxes such as the red, Arctic and fennec foxes, together with related forms. The precise placement of grey foxes and raccoon dogs varies somewhat among phylogenetic studies.

The true-wolf lineage: wolves, coyotes and jackals of the genus Canis, together with the dhole, Cuon alpinus, and African wild dog, Lycaon pictus. The domestic dog is a domesticated member of the grey-wolf lineage, not a separately created species.

Cerdocyonina—the South American canids: including the maned wolf, bush dog, crab-eating fox and the several species of Lycalopex, commonly called South American foxes despite being more closely related to wolf-like canids than to true foxes.

From North America to the world

Canids remained restricted to North America for most of their early evolution. Members of Caninae crossed into Eurasia through Beringia during the late Miocene, roughly 10–8 million years ago, and subsequently spread into Africa. Other canines entered South America when connections between the continents became available, with a major expansion following the formation of the Panamanian land bridge about 3 million years ago. They then underwent a remarkable radiation into the varied South American forms living today.

Australia’s dingoes arrived much later with humans and are descended from domesticated dogs. No native canid lineage ever reached Antarctica.

Repeated evolution, not a ladder

Canid history was not a steady ascent from Hesperocyon through Mesocyon to the modern wolf. Each of the three subfamilies independently produced larger predators, dietary specialists and increasingly carnivorous forms. Adaptations for long-distance running also appeared at different times and to different degrees as habitats became more open.

Mesocyon is important precisely because it preserves one of evolution’s discarded alternatives: a coyote-sized, heavily carnivorous canid that retained a short-legged, mustelid-like style of locomotion rather than becoming an endurance runner. Its lineage flourished for millions of years and then vanished.

The fossil and genetic evidence therefore reveal not separately created “dog kinds”, but a branching and repeatedly diversifying family tree—complete with inherited features, intermediate anatomies, ecological radiations and numerous extinct branches.

The paper in the Journal of Paleontology was accompanied by a news item in Michigan News:

Most complete skeleton of 30 million-year-old dog discovered
For decades, a 30 million-year-old-fossil sat entombed in rock in an Oregon museum collection. When it was first found, paleontologists thought it might be an early relative of sheep, camels and pigs whose fossilized skeletons are, in the researchers’ view, abundant.
Later, they realized it was an early dog fossil, and now, University of Michigan paleontologist Anne Kort has confirmed that it’s one of the most complete fossils of a pre-Ice Age dog found in North America, a canid called Mesocyon coryphaeus. In fact, the species, first named in 1879, had only been previously identified by single skulls.

Kort was tasked with describing the fossil as part of a special issue of the Journal of Paleontology, celebrating the 50th anniversary of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, or JODA. She says the fossil was initially discovered in the late 1980s, near the monument in Oregon, on Bureau of Land Management lands.

At the time, paleontologists carefully extracted the fossil and its surrounding rock and wrapped it for protection in a plaster jacket. In the 1990s, researchers separated the head for display, then determining it was a kind of dog. Park paleontologists including Jennifer Cavin, co-author of the study, uncovered the rest of the skeleton in 2012, realizing how complete the skeleton was.

They thought at first it was an oreodont, which we like to call sheep-camel-pigs. This was the most magical, fun project to just be handed on a silver platter.

Anne E. Kurt, lead author
Museum of Paleontology University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Michigan, USA.

The hip bone is connected to the … baculum

University of Michigan paleontologist Anne Kort identified a fossil as one of the most complete Mesocyon coryphaeus specimens found yet. Kort said the dog, which was about the size of a coyote, likely at least occasionally walked from heel to toe and was not adapted for running, whereas modern dogs walk on their tip toes and are adapted for running.

Image credit: Anne Kort
University of Michigan.

To establish that the fossil was indeed a dog, Kort says researchers typically would compare features to other dog fossils, such as the shape of the fossil’s teeth, the shape of the skull and other features. This particular fossil also had a hereditary bone growth on the end of its wrists called an osteochondroma, which is found in about 60% of the earliest dog fossils.

It’s just this really cool direct hereditary link that we wouldn’t normally find. This is another line of evidence, and that gives you an idea of how great this fossil is.

Anne E. Kurt.

The fossil itself is nearly complete, missing only the tail and parts of the hands and feet of the animal. The integrity of the fossil also meant that the researchers did not have to guess whether the specimen was male or female.

The other fun thing is, it even had the baculum, so, the penis bone. That means we definitely know this was a male.

Anne E. Kurt.

What the bones tell us

A fossil of Mesocyon coryphaeus was found on Bureau of Land Management land in the 1980s, near the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.

Image credit: National Park Service. Mural created by Roger Witter.

Dogs first originated in North America about 40 million years ago, according to Kort. Their common ancestor is a canid called Hesperocyon. At the time, the North American continent’s terrain was composed of dense, rainforest-like forests, which meant that Hesperocyon was likely a “pretty good climber,” unlike dogs today, Kort says.

Mesocyon, Kort’s fossil, originated about 10 million years later, during a period of global cooling. The dense forests gave way to more open woodland and sometimes shrubland. Kort wanted to see if the Mesocyon fossil would have the same running adaptations as modern dogs.

The answer is pretty definitely no. Mesocyon also just has more robust bones in general. It’s shorter and stockier.

Anne E. Kurt.

The fossil’s elbow joining suggests that it could rotate its forearms, indicating the ability to grapple and climb, she says. The fossil shows that Mesocyon also still had its big toe, or what’s called the dew claw in contemporary dogs. This suggests Mesocyan was at least occasionally walking heel-down, instead of on its tip toes, like dogs do today.

Kort says the fossil holds one more lesson for us: When an animal goes extinct, its lineage is lost forever.

Kaori Chambers, University of Michigan graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology, created an artistic representation of Mesocyon coryphaeus. U-M paleontologist Anne Kort identified a fossil as one of the most complete Mesocyon coryphaeus specimens found yet. The specimen was a fossil dog the size of a coyote.

Image credit: Kaori Chambers
University of Michigan.

This fossil is not our current dogs’ great-great-great uncle, because this whole line went fully extinct. And with that extinction, we did lose a whole kind of dog ecology that we just don’t see anymore. I think sometimes there’s an assumption that life finds a way if something goes extinct. It will be replaced, or something will magically bounce back. But evolution never finds a perfect fit, it finds good fits. So when we lose things, they’re gone forever. They’re never going to be perfectly replaced, and I think that’s an important lesson to take away when we’re thinking about extinctions today.

Anne E. Kurt.

JODA paleontologist Ted Fremd was the researcher who initially found the specimen, prioritized its collection and completed the initial round of preparation to remove the skull. JODA paleontologist Joshua Samuels directed Cavin to work on removing the fossil from its protective jacket in 2011. Nicholas Famoso, current chief paleontologist for JODA, suggested Kort work on the project. Xiaoming Wang, a researcher at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, is a co-author of the study.

Publication:
Kort AE, Cavin J, Wang X.
Postcrania and locomotor function of Mesocyon coryphaeus (Canidae, Carnivora) from the Arikareean of North America.
Journal of Paleontology. Published online 2026:1-18. doi:10.1017/jpa.2026.10232

Abstract
Canids increased in cursoriality through the Cenozoic, as environments transitioned from closed-canopy forest to open grassland and steppe. Canids have evolved through a series of radiations since their origin in the Eocene, but it is unclear if cursorial adaptations appeared in the earliest of these radiations. In the middle Oligocene, the basal hesperocyonines ecologically diversified, and the coyote-sized Mesocyon coryphaeus exemplified the transition from smaller, omnivorous canids to larger, hypercarnivorous forms. M. coryphaeus is exclusively known from the John Day Formation of North America. Although M. coryphaeus is a relatively common fossil in this formation, first recognized in the late 19th century, no postcranial material from this species has ever been formally described. Here, we present a near-complete skeleton of M. coryphaeus, JODA 3366, which includes a complete cranium, near-complete presacral spine, all long bones, elements of both the manus and pes, and a baculum. The short, robust limbs, mobile elbow joint, and tarsal morphology of M. coryphaeus indicate that this species retained a plantigrade to semidigitigrade posture, similar to the earliest canid Hesperocyon, and lacked the cursorial adaptations found in more derived canids. Based on this morphology, we interpret M. coryphaeus as a terrestrial ambush predator, more similar to large mustelids than extant canids, likely hunting small prey like hypertragulids. Although the habitat of M. coryphaeus would have been cooler and more open than the dense closed-canopy forests of the Eocene, enough vegetation cover was still present in the Oligocene for ambush hunting to remain a successful strategy.

Non-technical Summary
Living members of the dog family, including wolves, foxes, and our own household pets, are well-adapted for running fast and far, with long legs and stabilized joints. These skeletal adaptations appear in many fossil relatives of dogs, especially in the last 15 million years when grasslands became more dominant on the landscape. But what did the earliest members of the dog family look like? Mesocyon coryphaeus is an early relative of modern dogs that lived in the Pacific Northwest of North America approximately 30 million years ago. Although this species has been known from skulls and teeth for over a century, the skeleton of Mesocyon has been essentially unknown through this time. A spectacular fossil of Mesocyon was discovered by John Day Fossil Beds National Monument staff in the late 1980s. After over 500 hours of preparation work on and off throughout the following decades, the near-complete skeleton of this animal was fully uncovered in 2022. This skeleton is close to a coyote in size but has short, robust limbs and relatively flexible joints, lacking the running adaptations seen in modern dogs. The shape of the skeleton suggests that Mesocyon was an ambush predator, hunting more like modern cats than modern dogs. The habitat in which Mesocyon lived would have had enough vegetation to hide and get close to potential prey. Although larger than earlier dog-relatives, Mesocyon was small enough to survive off of small mammals, like the rodents and mouse deer that lived alongside it.

Figure 1.
(1) Left lateral skeletal outline of Mesocyon coryphaeus reconstructed from JODA 3366. The black outline is a rough approximation of the soft tissue extent drawn directly from the skeletal and has not been generated from precise musculature reconstruction. (2) Left lateral view of cranial material from JODA 3366. The cranium and mandible remain in articulation. The auditory bullae are ossified, visible just posterior to the mandibular joint. Note the atlas and anterior half of the axis in the block of matrix posterior to the skull. Abbreviations: NS, neural spine; TP, transverse process.

Figure 2.
Cervical and pre-diaphragmatic thoracic vertebrae from JODA 3366 (Mesocyon coryphaeus). (1) Dorsal and (2) left lateral views of the posterior half of the axis (top), C3, and C4 (bottom); note the anterior portion of C5 remains articulated with C4 but is only visible in lateral view. (3) Dorsal and (4) left lateral views of the posterior half of C5 (top), C6, C7, and T1 (bottom). (5–7) Left lateral views of isolated pre-diaphragmatic thoracic vertebra of indeterminate position. (8) Dorsal and (9) left lateral view of T10, the last pre-diaphragmatic vertebra. Abbreviations: C, cervical vertebra; CN, centrum; NS, neural spine; POZ, postzygapophysis; PRZ, prezygapophysis; T, thoracic vertebra; TP, transverse process.

Figure 3.
Post-diaphragmatic vertebrae of JODA 3366 (Mesocyon coryphaeus). (1) Left lateral view of articulated section of the vertebral column from the diaphragmatic vertebra (bottom left) to the anterior half of L4 (top right). (2) Left lateral view of posterior half of L4 through L7. (3) Left lateral and (4) dorsal view of sacrum, rendered from CT scan. (5) Dorsal view of proximal-most caudal vertebrae, with more anterior oriented toward the top of the page. (6) Left lateral and (7) dorsal view of the distal-most caudal vertebra preserved with the specimen with zygapophyses intact. Abbreviations: AN, anapophysis; CA, caudal vertebra; CN, centrum; L, lumbar vertebra; NS, neural spine; POZ, postzygapophysis; PRZ, prezygapophyses; RF, rib facet; S, sacral vertebra; SF, sacral foramina; SW, sacral wing; T, thoracic vertebra; TP, transverse process.

Figure 4.
Axial elements from JODA 3366 (Mesocyon coryphaeus). (1) Manubrium in ventral view with anterior end pointed to the top of the page. (2) Dorsal, (3) lateral, and (4) ventral views of baculum. (5–7) Representative ribs with heads intact. Abbreviations: RF, rib facet; UG, urethral groove.

Figure 5.
Forelimb elements of JODA 3366 (Mesocyon coryphaeus). (1) Posterior and (2) lateral views of the left scapula, highlighting overall shape of the scapula and height of the spine. (3) Distal and (4) lateral views of the right scapula, highlighting the shape and size of the glenoid fossa and acromion. Right humerus from a (5) proximal, (6) posterior, (7) medial, and (8) anterior view. (9) Medial and (10) anterior views of left ulna and radius. Abbreviations: AC, acromion; CM, capitulum; CP, coracoid process; DP, deltopectoral crest; EF, epicondylar foramen; GF, glenoid fossa; GT, greater tubercle; HH, humeral head; HO, hereditary osteochondroma, ISF, infraspinous fossa; LSC, lateral supracondylar crest; LT, lesser tubercle; MC, metacromion; OF, olecranon fossa; OP, olecranon process; RN, radial notch; SL, semilunar notch; SS, scapular spine; SSF, supraspinous fossa; STY, styloid process; TR, trochlea.

Figure 6.
Manus elements from JODA 3366 (Mesocyon coryphaeus). Proximal views of carpal elements: (1) left cuneiform, (2) left unciform, (3) left scapholunar, and (4) right pisiform. Dorsal views of carpal elements: (5) left cuneiform, (6) left unciform, (7) left scapholunar, and (8) right pisiform. Dorsal views of metacarpals with proximal to the left of the page: (9) left V, (10) left IV, and (11) right III. (12) Lateral view of ungual with break at distal end, dashed lines indicate missing portion of ungual. (13) Dorsal view of a proximal phalanx.

Figure 7.
Hindlimb elements from JODA 3366 (Mesocyon coryphaeus). (1) Lateral view of left pelvis rendered from CT scan. (2) Patella from anterior view. Right femur from (3) distal, (4) anterior, (5) lateral, and (6) medial views. (7) Lateral view of proximal right fibula. (8) Lateral view of distal right fibula. Right tibia from (9) anterior and (10) lateral views. Abbreviations: AT, acetabulum; CDS, caudal dorsal iliac spine; FH, femoral head; GL, gluteal fossa; GTR, greater trochanter; ISS, ischiatic spine; IST, ischiatic tuberosity; LCD, lateral condyle; LTR, lesser trochanter; MCD, medial condyle; MM, medial malleolus; OB, obturator foramen; PG, patellar groove; TC, tibial crest; TF, trochanteric fossa; TTR, third trochanter.

Figure 8.
Pes elements from JODA 3366 (Mesocyon coryphaeus). (1) Ventral view of right astragalus; note the broken sustentacular facet of the calcaneum remains articulated with the sustentacular facet of the astragalus. (2) Dorsal view of left tarsals and metatarsals; the labeled diagram of the tarsals is not to scale. (3) Lateral view of left tarsals in block with plantar towards the right of the page; the labeled diagram is not to scale. (4) Right calcaneum in dorsal view with distal towards the bottom of the page. Abbreviations: AEF, astragalar ectal facet; AS, astragalus; ASH, astragalar head; CEF, calcaneal ectal facet; CL, calcaneum; CT, calcaneal tuber; CU, cuboid; CUF, calcaneal cuboid facet; IC, intermediate cuneiform; LCN, lateral cuneiform; MCN, medial cuneiform; NV, navicular; PT, peroneal tubercle.

Kort AE, Cavin J, Wang X.
Postcrania and locomotor function of Mesocyon coryphaeus (Canidae, Carnivora) from the Arikareean of North America.
Journal of Paleontology. Published online 2026:1-18. doi:10.1017/jpa.2026.10232

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Paleontological Society. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The significance of this fossil does not depend on Mesocyon coryphaeus having been a direct ancestor of modern dogs. Evolution is a branching process, not a ladder, and most species that have ever lived belonged to branches that eventually ended. Mesocyon represents one such evolutionary experiment: a successful, coyote-sized predator that retained the short limbs, flexible joints and partly heel-down posture of earlier canids while becoming larger and more specialised for a meat-based diet.

Its combination of characteristics is exactly what descent with modification predicts. It remained recognisably a canid because it inherited its basic anatomy from canid ancestors, yet it differed from both earlier and later members of the family as its lineage adapted to its particular environment and way of life. It was neither an arboreal forest-dweller like the earliest canids nor a long-legged pursuit hunter like most living ones, but a terrestrial ambush predator occupying an intermediate ecological and anatomical position.

Creationists may respond that it was “still a dog”, as though that somehow counts against evolution. In fact, that is precisely the point. Evolution does not predict that a canid should suddenly produce something that is no longer a canid; it predicts inherited similarities accompanied by accumulated differences. The fossil record shows those differences appearing in a chronological sequence as forests gave way to woodland, shrubland and eventually open grassland, with canid limbs, feet and joints changing accordingly.

Nor can this history be compressed plausibly into a few centuries following a mythical global flood. The three great canid radiations overlap across tens of millions of years in repeatedly dated geological formations. Entire subfamilies diversified into numerous ecological forms, declined and became extinct before the modern canine radiation spread across the world. That is a history of population divergence, environmental adaptation, competition and extinction—not the hurried sorting of supposedly immutable “kinds” after disembarking from a wooden boat.

JODA 3366 also reminds us that extinction is permanent. When the hesperocyonine branch disappeared, its distinctive forms and ways of life disappeared with it; evolution did not recreate them because evolution has no foresight, plan or preferred destination. Creationism can do little more than label Mesocyon a dog and declare the matter closed. Evolution explains what kind of dog it was, how it moved, how it hunted, where it belongs in the family tree—and why nothing quite like it exists today.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Creationism Refuted - Another Gap Is Closed by Science - With A Dinosaur From 210 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-07-30T15:59:48.721+01:00

When Musango matusadonaensis was alive, it would have lived alongside ancient rivers and streams.

New Zimbabwean dinosaur species named by Museum scientist reveals Africa’s hidden history | Natural History Museum

It is gap-filling time again — not because palaeontologists have discovered some predetermined evolutionary “missing link”, but because another conspicuous blank on the palaeontological map is being filled. This time, the new evidence comes from Africa and concerns a dinosaur that lived about 210 million years ago, during the Late Triassic.

The discovery sheds new light on the early diversification and geographical distribution of dinosaurs, when they were still only a relatively minor component of terrestrial ecosystems. Over the following millions of years, they diversified into an extraordinary range of forms and became the dominant large land animals of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Gaps in the fossil record are, of course, eagerly seized upon by creationists desperate to find somewhere to insert their god. Their enthusiasm tends to diminish markedly whenever palaeontologists recover new evidence from one of those gaps. Each such discovery removes another supposed refuge for the ever-shrinking god of the gaps, so the evidence must be dismissed as misidentified, incorrectly dated or merely another example of “evolutionary storytelling”.

No matter how many gaps science fills, creationists continue to assure themselves that the next one will be different: that it will finally be the gap that science cannot investigate and into which their preferred creator can safely be inserted. Unfortunately for that strategy, palaeontologists continue to discover fossils, dating methods continue to improve, and previously neglected regions continue to be explored.

This latest discovery consists of a partial skeleton excavated from exposures of the Late Triassic Pebbly Arkose Formation on the shore of Lake Kariba in northern Zimbabwe. An international team of Zimbabwean, South African and British scientists has named the animal Musango matusadonaensis. The study was led by Professor Paul M. Barrett of the Natural History Museum, London, while the expeditions during which the fossils were collected were led by Professor Jonah Choiniere of the University of the Witwatersrand’s Evolutionary Studies Institute.

Musango was an early sauropodomorph — a member of the lineage that later produced the enormous, long-necked sauropods such as Diplodocus. Unlike those gigantic four-legged descendants, however, Musango was a relatively lightly built, predominantly bipedal animal. It measured an estimated 4.5 metres in length but weighed only about 222 kilograms. Its skull has not been recovered, so its diet cannot be established with certainty, although comparisons with related dinosaurs suggest that it was probably herbivorous or omnivorous.

The fossil record of early dinosaurs is extremely uneven. Europe, North America and parts of South America have been studied far more intensively than much of Africa, leaving large gaps caused not necessarily by the absence of dinosaurs but by the scarcity of sustained palaeontological exploration. Musango is only the fifth dinosaur formally named from Zimbabwe, following the description in 2024 of another sauropodomorph from the same formation, Musankwa sanyatiensis.

Phylogenetic analysis places Musango and Musankwa as close relatives within Unaysauridae, a group whose fossils are known from Africa, India and South America — landmasses that were then joined within Gondwana. Together, these discoveries support an emerging picture in which Late Triassic southern Africa contained several distinct ecosystems with their own dinosaur communities, rather than a single uniform fauna extending across the region. Africa was therefore not a peripheral spectator in early dinosaur evolution; its still-underexplored rocks may preserve crucial evidence about how dinosaurs diversified and spread before their later ecological dominance.

The Pebbly Arkose Formation. The Pebbly Arkose Formation is a sequence of predominantly terrestrial sedimentary rocks within the Upper Karoo Group of southern Africa. It is exposed in several sedimentary basins in Zimbabwe and neighbouring countries, including the Mid-Zambezi and Cabora Bassa basins. Around Lake Kariba, erosion along the modern shoreline has exposed fossil-bearing rocks that were previously difficult to reach.

The formation takes its name from its characteristic pebbly arkosic sandstone. Arkose is a sandstone containing an unusually high proportion of feldspar, generally derived from the comparatively rapid erosion of nearby granitic rocks before chemical weathering could destroy much of the feldspar.

Age

The Pebbly Arkose Formation dates from the Late Triassic, but its precise age varies between locations. It is therefore described as diachronous: sediments assigned to the formation in different basins were deposited at different times.

Older exposures in Zimbabwe’s Cabora Bassa Basin contain the approximately 230-million-year-old dinosaur Mbiresaurus raathi and are assigned to the late Carnian stage. The Lake Kariba exposures that produced Musango matusadonaensis and Musankwa sanyatiensis are younger and are assigned to the Norian stage, approximately 210 million years ago. A maximum depositional-age estimate of 209.2 ± 4.5 million years has been reported for part of the Mid-Zambezi Basin succession.

What are the rocks made of?

Around Lake Kariba, the formation is approximately 79–137 metres thick and includes:

coarse, pebbly arkosic sandstones;

finer-grained sandstones;

maroon, pink and grey conglomerates;

mudstones and muddy siltstones;

ancient soil horizons, or palaeosols;

carbonate nodules, root traces and desiccation cracks.

The reddish colours of many of the rocks were produced by oxidised iron minerals, indicating that the sediments were repeatedly exposed to air in well-drained terrestrial environments.

The Late Triassic environment

The sediments were laid down by river systems crossing broad floodplains. Coarse sandstones and conglomerates represent river channels, while finer mudstones and siltstones accumulated on floodplains, in abandoned channels and during overbank floods.

The landscape experienced strongly seasonal conditions. At times, rivers overflowed and spread sediment across the floodplain; at others, the ground remained exposed long enough for soils to form, plants to take root, animals to burrow and pools to dry out. Desiccation cracks and carbonate-rich soils indicate dry intervals, while lungfish, large amphibians and aquatic reptiles show that rivers, pools or lakes persisted elsewhere in the landscape.

Silicified tree trunks, fossil roots and other plant remains suggest that river margins supported substantial vegetation. Musango probably inhabited these wooded river corridors, feeding on vegetation or perhaps supplementing its diet with other food.

Fossils from the formation

The Pebbly Arkose Formation preserves a mixture of terrestrial and freshwater organisms, including:

early sauropodomorph dinosaurs, including Mbiresaurus raathi, Musankwa sanyatiensis and Musango matusadonaensis;

phytosaurs — large, superficially crocodile-like reptiles that were not crocodiles;

metoposaurid amphibians;

lungfish, including Ferganoceratodus edwardsi;

other non-dinosaurian archosauromorph reptiles;

silicified tree trunks and plant remains;

root traces, invertebrate burrows and other trace fossils.

These fossils show that Late Triassic Zimbabwe supported complex ecosystems containing rivers, floodplains, wooded areas and permanent or semi-permanent bodies of freshwater.

Why is the formation important?

Much of what is known about early dinosaur evolution comes from comparatively intensively studied formations in Europe, North America and South America. The Pebbly Arkose Formation provides evidence from an under-investigated part of Gondwana and is revealing that southern Africa contained several distinct dinosaur communities rather than a single uniform fauna.

Its rocks also document environmental change over an extended period. Repeated river channels, floodplain deposits, developed soils, root systems, animal burrows and desiccation cracks could not all have formed during a single catastrophic flood. They record numerous cycles of flooding, sediment accumulation, soil formation, biological colonisation and drying, played out across millions of years.

The discovery is described in a paper recently published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. It was accompanied by a news release from the Natural History Museum, London:

New Zimbabwean dinosaur species named by Museum scientist reveals Africa’s hidden history

Musango matusadonaensis was discovered on the shores of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe.
The 4.5-metre-long dinosaur lived in the Late Triassic around 210 million years ago and weighed an estimated 222 kilogrammes.
Musango is a sauropodomorph, an early relative of dinosaurs such as Diplodocus that walked on two legs rather than four.

A newly discovered dinosaur is shining a light on an important moment in the evolution of dinosaurs.

Discovered on the shore of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe, Musango matusadonaensis opens a window into the Late Triassic around 210 million years ago. This was the time dinosaurs were beginning to spread around the planet as they moved towards becoming Earth’s dominant animals.

Understanding how dinosaurs moved from being a relatively small part of life in the Triassic to a major part of the Jurassic and Cretaceous ecosystems that followed is still a major area of research. Fossils from Africa may hold the answer, as they have historically been understudied compared to sites in Europe and North America.

A team of British, South African and Zimbabwean scientists have been working to change this as part of research in Zimbabwe. The team previously named Musankwa sanyatiensis as just the fourth dinosaur ever described from the country in 2024, with Musango now the fifth.

Until recently, it was assumed that the dinosaurs living across southern Africa were largely the same. However, these discoveries are showing that this part of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana was actually made of a series of smaller ecosystems – each with a different cast of characters.

It suggests that what we’ve found so far is only the tip of the iceberg. We’ve already got one other new species that we’ve yet to describe, while our team has been told about other fossils from the region that we’ve yet to look at. I think it’s likely there are even more dinosaurs still to be found there.

Professor PaulM. Barrett, lead author
Natural History Museum
London, UK.

Unlike Musankwa, Musango is fairly complete for its age and bones from the spine, ribs, arms, legs and feet have been discovered. Analysis of its fossils suggest Musango was around eight years old and almost fully grown at the time of its death, and had previously recovered from a serious infection or injury.

It’s estimated that Musango would have been around 4.5 metres long when it died, which is about the size of a car. However, it was quite lightly built at just 222 kilogrammes – similar to a fully grown pig. While the dinosaur’s skull is missing, it’s likely to have been a herbivore or omnivore.

It would have fed on plants growing alongside rivers and streams in ancient Zimbabwe, and lived with lungfish and crocodile-like phytosaurs as well as other dinosaurs such as Musankwa. Further studies of the region are likely to reveal more species previously unknown to science.

Professor Jonah Choiniere, leader of the expedition and a co-author from Johannesburg’s Evolutionary Studies Institute, adds:

New dinosaur species like Musango show the value of doing palaeontological fieldwork in remote, and often scenically beautiful, places. This study is the result of a thriving international collaboration between the UK, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and reinforces the importance of southern Africa in understanding dinosaur diversity.

Professor Jonah N. Choiniere, co-author and expedition leader
Evolutionary Studies Institute
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg, South Africa.

Publication:
Barrett, P. M., Botha, J., Sciscio, L., Stuart, B. P., Lovegrove, J., Munyikwa, D., … Choiniere, J. N. (2026).
A new sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Pebbly Arkose Formation (Upper Triassic: Norian) of Kariba, Zimbabwe.
Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 24(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2026.2678610

Abstract
The Upper Triassic Pebbly Arkose Formation of the Mid-Zambezi Basin, Zimbabwe is yielding important evidence of a diverse terrestrial/freshwater biome. A partial, associated skeleton collected from the ‘Musango Archosaur Site’, on the southern margin of Lake Kariba, represents a new taxon of sauropodomorph, Musango matusadonaensis. The specimen consists of vertebrae, pectoral and pelvic girdle elements, and partial fore- and hind limbs. It possesses numerous autapomorphies and is clearly distinct from the sympatric Musankwa sanyatiensis. Phylogenetic analysis recovers Musango and Musankwa in a sister-taxon relationship within the plateosaurian sauropodomorph clade Unaysauridae, although support for this topology is weak. Osteohistological evidence and body mass estimation indicate that the holotype individual of Musango is a small-bodied sub-adult or adult, which had reached at least eight years of age, and whose growth rate was decelerating at the time of death. Contrary to previous suggestions that there were close faunal and biostratigraphical links between the Late Triassic vertebrate faunas of Zimbabwe and South Africa, currently no dinosaur taxa are shared between the Triassic-aged sedimentary units in Zimbabwe and those of the main Karoo Basin. https://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:B02E8F4F-D5E7-4DA6-8447-1209131ADA8D

The figure features multiple panels revealing the geological context of the Musango Site in Zimbabwe. Panel A displays a map of Lake Kariba with a zoomed-in view of the Musango Site, marked by directional arrows and a scale of 10 km. Panel B shows a red sedimentary outcrop with labeled geological units of sandstones, siltstones and conglomerates Panel C is a stratigraphic log indicating sediment layers from 1 to 5 meters, with rock types and features like desiccation cracks noted. Panels D to G provide close-ups of sedimentary formations, highlighting details of the different sediment layers, with scale references.

Barrett, P. M., Botha, J., Sciscio, L., Stuart, B. P., Lovegrove, J., Munyikwa, D., … Choiniere, J. N. (2026).
A new sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Pebbly Arkose Formation (Upper Triassic: Norian) of Kariba, Zimbabwe.
Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 24(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2026.2678610

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by Informa UK Ltd (Taylor & Francis). Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

These discoveries reveal an increasingly complex picture of dinosaur evolution in Late Triassic Gondwana. Musango was not an isolated curiosity but one member of a diverse and geographically structured fauna. Its relationship to other sauropodomorphs in Africa, India and South America is exactly what would be expected when those regions formed connected parts of Gondwana and populations were diversifying within different environments.

For creationism, therefore, the problem is not simply that Musango lived approximately 210 million years before creationists believe the Universe existed. Its anatomy, evolutionary relationships, geological setting and geographical distribution all fit coherently into the scientific account of dinosaur evolution. None requires supernatural intervention, and none resembles the abrupt appearance of separately created “kinds”. Instead, the evidence documents branching descent, dispersal and regional diversification over immense spans of time.

Nor can the Pebbly Arkose Formation plausibly be reduced to debris deposited during a single global flood. Its succession of river channels, floodplain sediments, developed soils, plant roots, animal burrows and desiccation cracks records repeated episodes of flooding, stability, biological colonisation and drying. Soil cannot develop, vegetation become established and the ground dry and crack while supposedly remaining beneath the same planet-covering flood.

Creationists may continue pointing to whatever parts of Africa’s fossil record have yet to be investigated, but absence of evidence from an underexplored region is not evidence of supernatural creation. It is an invitation to conduct more fieldwork. As expeditions return to neglected formations, the blank spaces become smaller and the evolutionary picture becomes richer. The gap never contained a god; it contained fossils waiting to be found.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Creationism Refuted - People Were Painting and Drawing On Cave Walls in France Thousands of Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-07-29T14:12:02.073+01:00

VIS light photography of the selected panel at the “Carrefour” of the panels no. 13 and 14 composed of a reindeer and a horse as well as bison and possibly a deer, respectively, and the schematic Bison 15.

First absolute dating of Palaeolithic paintings in the Dordogne | CNRS

For the first time, scientists have obtained direct radiocarbon dates for Palaeolithic paintings in the Grotte de Font-de-Gaume in what is now southwestern France. A black-line drawing of a bison was created between 13,461 and 13,162 calibrated years before present (cal BP), while two parts of a mask-like figure produced dates ranging from about 16,000 to 14,200 cal BP. In other words, people were producing accomplished works of art in France more than 3,000 years before even the upper limit of 10,000 years that young-Earth creationists commonly allow for the entire age of Earth.

Not that this evidence is likely to persuade many creationists to reconsider their beliefs, of course. Once a preferred conclusion has been declared infallible, any evidence that contradicts it can simply be dismissed as fraudulent, mistaken or somehow “wrong”. One stock evasion is the evidence-free suggestion that radioactive decay rates must once have been different. In the case of radiocarbon dating, even known variations in atmospheric carbon-14 are measured and incorporated into the calibration curves. But no amount of calibration can correct a chronology that is wrong by design.

For anyone more interested in discovering the truth than in finding excuses to protect a preordained conclusion, however, these paintings are fascinating glimpses into how members of our species perceived the world around them, with its bison, horses, cave lions, mammoths and other Ice Age animals. Having visited the Grotte du Pech Merle in the Lot and the Lascaux II faithful reproduction of the famous Lascaux cave in the Dordogne, I can testify to the breathtaking magnificence of these monumental works.

Their purpose can only be surmised. They may have formed part of rituals intended to influence or appropriate the power of the animals; they may have recorded stories, conveyed knowledge or helped to instruct younger members of the group. None of these interpretations can yet be demonstrated conclusively. A controversial paper published in 1998 compared certain features of Upper Palaeolithic cave art with drawings made by a young autistic child with exceptional artistic ability. It did not, however, establish that any particular Palaeolithic artist was autistic.

During my visit to Pech Merle, our guide suggested that one of the great animal friezes might have been drawn in a matter of hours by a single artist, using bold, confident lines in black pigment. That interpretation may remain speculative, but the powers of observation, memory and control evident in those sweeping lines are unmistakable.

The new dating study was carried out on paintings in the Grotte de Font-de-Gaume, near Les Eyzies in the Dordogne, by an interdisciplinary research team led by CNRS researcher Ina Reiche. Direct radiocarbon dating had previously been considered impossible because the black pigments used at Font-de-Gaume, Lascaux and other decorated caves in the region were assumed to consist solely of iron and manganese oxides, which contain no carbon. However, the absence of carbon had never actually been demonstrated.

Using non-invasive Raman microspectrometry and hyperspectral imaging, the researchers examined black-line drawings of a bison and a figure interpreted as a human or animal face, or “mask”. These techniques revealed that charcoal was distributed uniformly throughout the black lines, rather than occurring only in isolated patches, helping to rule out contamination from graffiti or tourist activity.

Exceptionally authorised microsamples were then removed for accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating. The bison produced a calibrated date of 13,461–13,162 cal BP. The mask proved more complicated: charcoal from its upper lip dated to 15,981–15,121 cal BP and that from its lower lip to 15,297–14,246 cal BP, while its left eye produced a much younger date of 8,993–8,590 cal BP. The two lip dates confirm a Palaeolithic origin, but the researchers cannot yet determine whether the younger eye resulted from deliberate later retouching, accidental contamination or more recent graffiti.

Here, “cal BP” means calibrated years before 1950, the conventional “present” used in radiocarbon dating. The calibration takes account of known changes in atmospheric carbon-14 caused by factors including solar activity and variations in Earth’s magnetic field.

The findings were published online on 9 March 2026 in an open-access paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Besides providing the first direct dates for paintings at Font-de-Gaume, the method could allow other charcoal-containing cave paintings in the Dordogne to be dated much more accurately.

Important Cave-Art Sites in Southwestern France. Southwestern France contains one of the world’s greatest concentrations of Palaeolithic cave art. The dates below are approximate calendar ages before the present. Where possible, they are calibrated radiocarbon dates; where the pigments cannot be dated directly, the estimates are based on associated archaeological remains, superimposition and artistic style.

Cougnac, Lot — approximately 30,000–17,000 years ago.
Direct radiocarbon measurements indicate that the cave was decorated during at least two widely separated phases. Its paintings include mammoths, ibex, giant deer and rare human figures apparently pierced by projectiles.

Font-de-Gaume, Dordogne — approximately 16,000–13,000 cal BP for the securely Palaeolithic samples.
The newly obtained direct dates place the two lips of a mask-like figure between 15,981 and 14,246 cal BP and a charcoal bison between 13,461 and 13,162 cal BP. A much younger date of 8,993–8,590 cal BP from the mask’s eye may represent retouching, contamination or graffiti.

Gargas, Hautes-Pyrénées — broadly 29,000–22,000 years ago.
Best known for more than 200 negative hand stencils, many apparently missing one or more fingers, as well as painted and engraved animals. The art is generally attributed to the Gravettian period, although the hand stencils themselves have not been dated directly.

Lascaux, Dordogne — approximately 21,500–21,000 cal BP.
Its spectacular polychrome paintings include aurochs, horses, deer, bison and the enigmatic human-and-bird scene. The currently preferred age is based mainly on dated objects and occupation evidence from the cave floor, because most of its mineral pigments cannot be dated directly.

Marsoulas, Haute-Garonne — approximately 18,400–17,600 cal BP.
This early Magdalenian cave contains more than 600 paintings and engravings, including bison, horses, human-like figures and geometric signs. The dates come principally from archaeological levels associated with the decorated cave rather than from the pigments themselves.

Niaux, Ariège — approximately 16,000 years ago.
The Salon Noir contains remarkably well-preserved black drawings of bison, horses, ibex and deer. Charcoal from individual bison figures has been dated directly by accelerator mass spectrometry, confirming their Magdalenian age.

Pech Merle, Lot — approximately 29,000 years ago for the famous Spotted Horses.
The celebrated horses, surrounded by dots and negative hand stencils, have been dated directly through charcoal in the pigment. Other parts of the cave, including mammoths, bison, aurochs, human figures and the Black Frieze, appear to have been created during several different periods.

Rouffignac, Dordogne — approximately 17,000 years ago.
Known as the “Cave of a Hundred Mammoths”, it contains more than 250 drawings and engravings, including about 160 mammoths. The art has not been dated directly; its age is inferred chiefly from its Middle Magdalenian style.

Les Trois-Frères, Ariège — broadly Magdalenian, approximately 17,000–12,000 years ago.
This cave is famous for hundreds of engravings and the painted and engraved figure traditionally known as the “Sorcerer”. No direct date has yet been obtained, and the cave’s custodians acknowledge that some figures may be older than the predominantly Magdalenian artwork.

Note: cal BP means calibrated years before 1950, the conventional “present” used in radiocarbon dating. A decorated cave should not be treated as a single event: people sometimes returned to the same cave and added to, altered or painted over earlier images thousands of years later.

The paper was accompanied by a brief press release from the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS):

First absolute dating of Palaeolithic paintings in the Dordogne
A research team led by a CNRS¹ researcher has for the first time accurately determined the age of the cave paintings at Font-de-Gaume (Les Eyzies) in Dordogne (southwestern France), according to work published on 9 March 2026 in PNAS.
It had previously been impossible to precisely date the Palaeolithic cave art in the region, including that in Lascaux, using radiocarbon dating, as the paintings were believed to contain only iron and manganese oxides. However, no study had ever confirmed the absence of carbon.

To carry out this verification, the scientists examined the chemical composition of two black drawings, depicting a bison and a mask, using Raman microspectrometry and hyperspectral imaging². These non-invasive methods revealed traces of charcoal in the black pigments. The uniform presence of charcoal throughout the black lines in the figures ruled out the possibility of contamination from graffiti or tourist activity in the cave. Collecting micro-samples was authorised on an exceptional basis for carbon 14 dating. Although this dating is challenging given the tiny amount of material, analyses confirmed a date in the Upper Palaeolithic, slightly more recent than previously estimated: the bison was painted between 13,461 and 13,162 calBP³, while different parts of the mask were painted between 8,993 and 8,590 calBP, 15,981 and 15,121 calBP, and between 15,297 and 14,246 calBP.

Thanks to this new analytical methodology, the scientists hope to obtain accurate dating for other Palaeolithic figures, paving the way for a better understanding of cave art and the populations who created it.

Hyperspectral image obtained by reflectance imaging spectroscopy (RIS) of the Carrefour sign showing a visual contrast between the representations made with carbon black (in red, Cervidé HB14 and Bison HB15) and those made with black manganese oxides (in green, Bison HB14). [Google Translate from French]

© TU Delft, Matthias Alfeld.

Publication:
I. Reiche, L. Beck, I. Caffy, Y. Coquinot, M. Alfeld, A. Maigret, J. Tapia, M. Martinez, A. Lescale, & P. Paillet
Radiocarbon dating and chemical imaging of carbon black–based Paleolithic cave art in the Dordogne region (France)
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123(12) e2524751123, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2524751123 (2026).

Significance
We provide the experimental confirmation of the Paleolithic age of cave art in the Font-de-Gaume cave (UNESCO World heritage site). Our team noninvasively imaged carbon black–based figures in the Font-de-Gaume cave thanks to Reflectance Imaging spectroscopy. This finding opened different perspectives for direct radiocarbon dating. Microsamplings were analyzed by means of accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating enabling accurate dating of minimal samples confirming the Paleolithic age of the cave art. This result represents a scientific breakthrough and a paradigm change with implications for the Paleolithic cave art in the Dordogne region and the broader field of prehistory.

Abstract
Paleolithic parietal art in the Dordogne, Southwestern France, was known to present representations solely made with mineral coloring matters. We found a significant number of carbon black-based figures in the galleries of the Font-de-Gaume cave in Les Eyzies, Dordogne, Southern France [I. Reiche, Y. Coquinot, A. Trosseau, A. Maigret, Sci. Rep. 13, 22235 (2023)]. Further reflectance imaging spectroscopy allowed a precise noninvasive discrimination between manganese- and carbon-based blacks. Consequently, in the Dordogne region, direct dating of drawn or painted lines was unlocked. Dating parietal representations can prove challenging because of the small amount of matter and the possible contaminations by other carbon sources. The sampling was conducted for radiocarbon dating on two selected figures identified as being made with carbon black: the Bison figure HB15 (named by Breuil, today GPCarG-006), located on the left at the level of the Carrefour in the public area of the cave, as well as on the Mask (human or animal face, GL3D-009) on the right of the remote sector 3 of the lateral gallery. Slightly more recent than expected, the obtained dates are of 13461–13162 calBP for the Bison, and of 8993–8590 calBP (left eye), 15981–15121 calBP (upper lip), and 15297–14246 calBP (lower lip) for the Mask. Except for one date, these results represent the experimental confirmation of the Paleolithic age of cave art in the Font-de-Gaume cave. This study opens numerous perspectives for a more systematic dating of the parietal representations of the cavern and motivates further research of carbon black–based Paleolithic parietal art in the Dordogne region.

I. Reiche, L. Beck, I. Caffy, Y. Coquinot, M. Alfeld, A. Maigret, J. Tapia, M. Martinez, A. Lescale, & P. Paillet
Radiocarbon dating and chemical imaging of carbon black–based Paleolithic cave art in the Dordogne region (France)
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123(12) e2524751123, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2524751123 (2026).

© 2026 PNAS.
Reprinted under the terms of s60 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

These new dates do more than attach calendar ages to a few ancient drawings. They confirm that the decorated caves of southwestern France preserve evidence of repeated human activity extending across many thousands of years. Different generations entered these caves, added new figures, altered earlier ones and left behind charcoal, pigments, tools, footprints and other traces that can still be placed in their correct archaeological sequence.

The physical survival of this evidence presents yet another insurmountable problem for young-Earth creationism. These paintings were not protected inside watertight vaults. They were applied to the walls of fractured, porous limestone caves through which water can seep and groundwater can circulate. A global flood powerful enough to submerge continents and cover mountains could not have passed through these karst landscapes without saturating the rock, forcing sediment-laden water through fissures and galleries, scouring exposed surfaces, rearranging cave floors and leaving substantial deposits of silt, sand and debris.

Yet there is no universal flood layer interrupting the archaeological record, no worldwide horizon of scoured cave walls and no evidence that the caves were emptied and subsequently repopulated by the descendants of eight related survivors from the Middle East. Instead, individual caves preserve their own local histories of visitation and artistic activity, with some images separated from others by thousands of years. Even delicate charcoal lines, hand stencils, footprints and successive layers of pigment remain in place.

Creationists are therefore obliged to imagine a flood violent enough to drown almost every living thing on Earth and rearrange its geology, yet considerate enough to flow through porous limestone caves without disturbing fragile charcoal drawings or leaving a recognisable deposit. That is not an explanation; it is special pleading demanded by a story that the evidence flatly contradicts.

The paintings survived because the biblical global flood never happened. Its only sedimentary trace is the ink on the pages of Genesis.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Creationism Refuted - How Humans Modified Wild Rice - Because 'The Creator' Didn't Know What We Needed?

2026-07-28T15:37:12.620+01:00

Different varieties of rice grown today

By IRRI Images - originally posted to Flickr as IMG_2039-77,
CC BY 2.0, Link

One grain to rule them all: the history of rice as a global food

A point made several times in these blog posts is that the creationist interpretation of Genesis presents the living world as having been deliberately created for human use. That raises an obvious question: why have humans needed to modify virtually every domesticated animal and cultivated plant to make it more useful?

In many cases, selective breeding has altered organisms so extensively that modern breeds and crop varieties are barely recognisable as descendants of their wild ancestors. Did the supposed creator fail to anticipate how humans would use them, or was it simply incapable of finishing the job and obliged to leave the improvements to us?

Creationists have never produced a satisfactory, evidence-based answer. Instead, they appeal to “mystery”, “unknowable intentions” or some other form of theological evasion — ways of avoiding the question while pretending to have answered it. Alternatively, they simply ignore the problem and continue asserting that Genesis provides an accurate account of history and the origins of living species.

Rice, of course, doesn't get a mention in the Bible, the cultural origins of whose authors were primarily the Tigris-Euphrates rivers of Mesopotamia and later the Nile in Egypt, where wheat and barley were the staple crops, so they knew nothing of the origins or cultivation of rice, nor of India or China for that matter. Wheat by contrast is mentioned in the Bible 51 times and barley, 37.

Science, by contrast, allows us to reconstruct increasingly detailed and testable histories of domesticated animals and cultivated plants. Genetics, archaeology and the study of ancient plant remains show how humans selected heritable variations and gradually changed wild populations through artificial selection, hybridisation and the movement of crops between regions. One particularly fascinating example is the origin and cultivation of Asian rice, Oryza sativa, which now provides sustenance for more than 3.5 billion people.

The evidence traces this history across a timescale wholly incompatible with the creationist belief in a 6,000–10,000-year-old Earth. Wild rice ancestral to modern cultivated rice was growing in the lower Yangtze region of China about 100,000 years ago. Humans began gathering and processing it approximately 24,000 years ago, and evidence of pre-domestication cultivation appears about 13,000 years ago. By around 11,000 years ago, plant remains show a rapid increase in characteristics associated with domestication, as generations of human selection transformed wild rice into a recognisably cultivated crop.

There is also evidence of rice cultivation in the Ganges valley of northern India as early as 6500 BCE—about 8,500 years ago. The details remain a subject of legitimate scientific debate, particularly whether Indian rice was domesticated independently and how much the eventual development of indica rice owed to hybridisation between local rice and japonica introduced from China. What is not in dispute is that modern rice emerged through a prolonged history of cultivation, selection, migration and hybridisation — not through an instantaneous act of creation.

The history of rice is the subject of an article in The Conversation by Garritt C. Van Dyk, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. His article is reprinted below under a Creative Commons licence and reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Published: July 27, 2026 9.08pm BST

One grain to rule them all: the history of rice as a global food

Matheus Bertelli/Pexels

Garritt C. Van Dyk, University of Waikato

Rice is the most popular food in the world, providing sustenance to more than 3.5 billion people each day.

Rice is deeply embedded in food, daily rituals, language and spirituality. It is easy to take it for granted.

But where did rice come from? And how did it spread to become the foundation of global food security?

Early origins in China and India

In the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, China, Oryza sativa rice grew 100,000 years ago. It was first gathered by humans 24,000 years ago, and cultivated 13,000 years ago.

Changes to the plant through selective breeding resulted in a domesticated plant distinct from the wild varietal about 11,000 years ago.

There is debate about how early forms of domesticated rice developed outside of China, but there is evidence of parallel rice cultivation in India along the Ganges in Uttar Pradesh as early as 6500 BCE.

One possibility is that the two most common subspecies of rice, short-grained (japonica) and long-grained (indica) developed separately: the former in China and the latter in India.

A related theory is that indica is a hybrid between a local Indian rice and japonica, introduced to India around 2500 BCE.

African rice: the other origin story

Another rice species, Oryza glaberrima, developed in Africa some 2,000 years after rice was domesticated by farmers in Asia.

African rice is lower yielding than Asian rice species, but is drought and pest resistant. It tolerates severe climatic extremes, parasites and viruses, and will flourish in poor soil without irrigation or weeding.

African rice is better suited to the dry, harsh climate of Western Africa.

Kold Shots/Pexels

But both historically and today, African rice is more prone to “shattering”, losing its seeds before being harvested, rather than clinging to the plant.

This trait was successfully bred out of Asian rices over a long period to ensure maximum crop yields.

Migration, wars, trade and slavery

The migration of prehistoric farmers spread rice across Southeast Asia.

Archaeological evidence from 4,000 years ago suggests farming techniques were introduced to Southeast Asia – including modern day areas of Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand – by distant migrants from South China, rather than being learned from neighbours or through experimentation.

There is a possibility the same scenario was replayed in numerous regions across Eurasia as rice spread across the globe.

The movement of armies also brought rice to new parts of the world.

Naturalists who accompanied Alexander the Great’s campaigns in India brought rice home with them to Ancient Greece and Macedonia around 320 BC.

Invading Moors, from North Africa (present-day Morocco and Algeria) in the eighth century brought rice to the Iberian peninsula. Crusaders returning from wars in the Middle East brought back small quantities of rice to Europe in the 11th century.

From the second century, overland trade along the Silk Road and maritime trade from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean brought rice to Central Asia and Europe. Rice was not cheap to ship, so as an import it would have been a luxury – like exotic spices – rather than a staple commodity.

This scroll is dated before 1353, based on illustrations from the 12th century. Titled Rice Culture, it depicts the cultivation and harvesting of rice in China.

The Met

Colonisation and the transatlantic slave trade brought rice to the Americas from the 16th century. Spanish colonists brought Asian rice to Central and South America, while the transatlantic slave trade brought African rice species to North America.

Enslaved Africans from the rice coast countries of West Africa introduced techniques for irrigation and tilling the soil using hoes, so the crop could be grown in the North American climate.

Devastatingly, the African expertise led to an increase in the slave trade, because improved rice production made it easier to feed a growing population of enslaved Africans.

Rice as ritual

The importance of rice in many cultures is embedded in the daily life, cultural practices, rites and rituals.

In Thailand, the centrality of rice is reflected in language: kin khao, meaning “let’s eat”, literally translates to “eat rice”.

Annual royal ceremonies in Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Japan mark the beginning of rice growing season in the first half of May.

Every year the King and Queen of Thailand preside over the Buddhist Royal Cultivation Ceremony, and the Brahmin Royal Ploughing Ceremony, combining prayers and offerings to ensure successful harvests.

Japanese Shinto rice-planting festival, Mibu no Hanadaue

In Japan, symbolic rice planting by the Emperor is followed in June by an elaborate Shinto ritual, Mibu no Hana Taue. This celebrates the rice deity with a pageant of decorated cows, traditional festive dress, songs and music.

Rice is also central to Hindu rituals, from birth to death.

A baby’s first solid food is sweet rice marking the annaprashana rite of passage. Rice is an offering and a blessing at weddings, and serves as an offering for the journey into the afterlife.

The future of rice

Traditional rice growing is water intensive. Methane emissions from growing rice make it the third highest contributor to global food-related agricultural emissions.

New techniques are being developed to mitigate the environmental impact of rice cultivation while maintaining production levels to meet growing demand.

The secret may lie in the past, as researchers investigate ancient rice DNA in an attempt to produce the next hybrid that will once again change how rice feeds the world.

Garritt C. Van Dyk, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Waikato

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)

There is another problem here for anyone who insists that the biblical Flood was a real global event. By the time creationists commonly place it, rice had already been cultivated for thousands of years. Communities across Asia possessed established rice-growing traditions, locally adapted varieties, accumulated agricultural knowledge and settlements organised around the crop. According to Genesis, every one of those communities—and every cultivator who possessed that knowledge—would have been exterminated, apart from eight people aboard a vessel supposedly constructed in the Middle East.

A worldwide flood would not merely have interrupted rice cultivation. It would have submerged the fields, destroyed seed stocks, displaced or obliterated the ecosystems in which wild and cultivated rice grew, and erased the human populations maintaining the crop. The long process of selection would have been abruptly terminated. Rice agriculture would then have had to begin again after the Flood, carried back into China, India and elsewhere by descendants of Noah who somehow possessed the necessary seeds, techniques and knowledge—none of which is mentioned in the biblical story.

That is not what the evidence shows. Instead of a universal layer of flood debris followed by agricultural abandonment, population replacement and the re-establishment of cultivation from a Middle Eastern source, archaeology reveals regional continuity. Rice varieties continued to develop, established cultivation practices persisted, and agricultural traditions spread along identifiable routes through migration, trade and cultural exchange. The record is one of cumulative human activity, not worldwide destruction followed by an inexplicably rapid reconstruction.

The history preserved in rice therefore joins the histories recorded in human genetics, archaeology, geology and countless other domesticated species in exposing the Flood as mythology, not history. A global catastrophe of the kind described in Genesis could not have occurred without leaving an unmistakable break in this record. No such break exists. Rice cultivation continued because there was no global flood to interrupt it—and no eight-person bottleneck from which its cultivators had to begin again.

That they were apparently unaware of rice, its cultivation and its importance to distant cultures testifies to the parochialism and ignorance of the Bible's authors and refutes any notion of its diving authorship by an omniscient creator.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

How Evolution Works - The Founder Effect

2026-07-27T22:21:31.179+01:00

Photo: USGS

Study: Hidden genetic diversity may have helped inbred brown tree snakes take over Guam - University at Buffalo

Biological invasions present evolutionary biologists with an apparent paradox. A newly established population may begin with only a handful of individuals and therefore contain only a small sample of the genetic variation present in its parent population. The resulting population bottleneck should increase inbreeding, reduce its capacity to adapt and expose harmful recessive mutations to natural selection. In extreme cases, the population should succumb to what population geneticists call an “extinction vortex”, in which declining genetic diversity and declining population size reinforce one another.

And yet some introduced species do precisely the opposite. They survive, proliferate and overwhelm the ecosystems into which they have been introduced. Few examples are more spectacular—or more ecologically destructive—than the brown tree snake, Boiga irregularis, on the Pacific island of Guam.

Native to Australia, Papua New Guinea and other parts of the western Pacific, brown tree snakes probably reached Guam as accidental stowaways in military cargo sometime after the Second World War. The invading population is believed to have been founded by only a handful of snakes. Nevertheless, their descendants multiplied until, in some parts of the island, densities reached an extraordinary 30,000 snakes per square mile.

The consequences for Guam’s wildlife have been catastrophic. As nocturnal, generalist predators encountering abundant prey that had evolved without such a snake, they devastated the island’s native birds, causing several species to disappear from the wild on Guam. They have also disrupted food webs, preyed upon reptiles and small mammals and caused hundreds of power cuts by climbing electricity infrastructure.

But how did a population founded by so few individuals avoid collapsing under the burden of inbreeding?

A new paper in Science Advances by Christopher A. Osborne of the University at Buffalo and colleagues from Buffalo and the US Geological Survey suggests that the answer lies partly in a form of genetic variation that earlier sequencing methods tended to miss.

The snakes did not, in fact, avoid the bottleneck. Their genomes retain compelling evidence of it. The researchers found that roughly half of each snake’s genome consisted of long “runs of homozygosity”—regions in which the copies inherited from the mother and father were almost identical. This is a genomic signature of intense inbreeding, comparable with that seen in some endangered species of conservation concern.

However, genetic diversity is not confined to changes in individual DNA letters. Using long-read sequencing, which can detect much larger differences, the researchers found nearly 19,000 structural variants. These included sections of DNA that had been duplicated, deleted, inserted or rearranged. Together, these structural variants affected almost eight times as much of the genome as the single-nucleotide variants upon which conventional estimates of genetic diversity have largely relied.

More importantly, the surviving variation was not distributed randomly. Structural variants were especially abundant around gene promoters and in genes associated with adaptive immunity and olfaction. Variation in immune genes could help the snakes respond to pathogens, while variation affecting their highly developed sense of smell could influence their ability to recognise prey, exploit different foods and distinguish closely related snakes from potential prey. In other words, a population can be genetically impoverished overall while retaining disproportionately important variation in precisely those parts of its genome that influence survival and adaptability.

Additioanlly, if an introduced species has effectivey pre-adapted to the new environment, hence their ability to invade it and establish breeding populations in the first place, the new environment will select for those variants and any new ones, which increase success within it. This has been likened to an invasive species riding a wave of increasing success as it advances into its new range.

This does not mean that structural variation alone caused the invasion’s success. Guam also offered abundant, evolutionarily naïve prey and few effective predators or competitors. Nor have the researchers yet established whether these structural variants were carried to Guam by the founders, arose during the subsequent population expansion, or represent a mixture of both. Answering that question will require long-read genomic comparisons with brown tree snakes from their native range. The study identifies a plausible supply of evolutionary raw material, rather than demonstrating the adaptive effect of every variant.

The Guam invasion nevertheless provides an unusually clear natural experiment in the early stages of allopatric evolution. A tiny founder population became geographically isolated from its source population by hundreds of kilometres of ocean, effectively ending gene flow between them. From that point onwards, founder effects and genetic drift altered allele frequencies, while mutation, recombination and structural genomic change continued to produce variation upon which natural selection could act in a radically different environment.

There is no evidence that the Guam snakes have already become a new species; seven or eight decades is a very short evolutionary interval. What the population shows is how allopatric divergence begins. Isolation does not halt evolution or freeze a population in the form of its founders. It creates an independent evolutionary experiment in which inherited variation, new genomic changes, chance and natural selection can send an isolated population along a trajectory increasingly different from that of its ancestors.

Far from supporting the creationist caricature that a population deprived of genetic diversity must either remain unchanged or deteriorate inexorably, the Guam snakes show that genomes contain more variation—and evolution has more material with which to work—than a simple count of point mutations can reveal. The bottleneck was real, the inbreeding was severe, and yet natural evolutionary processes provided sufficient flexibility for a few accidental stowaways to become one of the most destructive invasive populations on Earth.

Other Species That Beat a Founder Bottleneck. The brown tree snake is not the only species to have prospered after colonisation by a remarkably small number of founders. Several recent genomic studies have examined similarly successful populations, illustrating the different ways in which organisms can retain enough evolutionary potential to survive a severe bottleneck.

Asian honeybee — northern Australia The northern Australian population of the Asian honeybee, Apis cerana, appears to have originated in about 2007 from a single swarm, possibly containing only one multiply-mated queen. Within little more than a decade, its descendants had produced more than 10,000 colonies occupying approximately 10,000 square kilometres.

A 2024 genomic study found that natural selection had acted on genetic variants already carried by the founders rather than waiting for useful new mutations. The founding queen’s stored sperm also represented contributions from several males, while balancing selection helped preserve diversity at the vital sex-determining locus. Nevertheless, a second 2024 study found reduced brood viability at the advancing margins of the population, showing that the bottleneck still imposes a cost even though it has not stopped the invasion.

Italian wall lizard — Pod Mrčaru, Croatia In 1971, researchers transferred only five adult pairs of Italian wall lizards, Podarcis siculus, from Pod Kopište to the nearby islet of Pod Mrčaru. Their descendants multiplied into a dense population and, within about 30 generations, differed markedly from the source population. They ate substantially more plant material and developed larger heads, stronger bites and changes to the digestive tract associated with processing a plant-rich diet.

A 2023 genomic analysis confirmed an extreme founder effect and genetic depletion, yet found clear evidence of population expansion. The results suggest that the rapid changes involved some combination of phenotypic plasticity and selection acting on a small number of variants with relatively large effects.

Common wall lizard — Ohio, USA Cincinnati’s population of the European common wall lizard, Podarcis muralis, reportedly began with fewer than ten animals brought from northern Italy in 1951 or 1952. The population subsequently spread through Cincinnati and founded additional populations elsewhere in Ohio.

A 2026 whole-genome study found evidence of an initial bottleneck and increased inbreeding, but also showed that the population grew so quickly that relatively little genome-wide diversity was lost. The lizards were already well suited to stone walls, gardens and other human-made habitats, so ecological compatibility allowed their numbers to increase before genetic drift could remove much more variation.

Cane toad — Australia Australia’s enormous cane-toad population ultimately derives from only 101 animals brought from Hawai‘i in 1935. These were bred in captivity and thousands of their offspring released, but all carried only the restricted genetic sample present in those original founders. The population has since spread over more than a million square kilometres.

A 2024 mitogenomic study found only a single mitochondrial haplotype in Australia, confirming an exceptionally severe bottleneck; nuclear diversity is also reduced. Despite this, the toads have evolved changes in morphology, physiology, behaviour and dispersal. High fecundity, ecological flexibility, selection on standing variation and the repeated concentration of highly mobile individuals at the invasion front have all contributed to their expansion.

No single solution to the “genetic paradox” These examples show that a bottleneck does not remove every form of useful variation, nor does it necessarily last long enough to prevent population growth. A founder population may succeed because it retains a few important variants, because balancing selection protects essential alleles, because structural variation contains more diversity than single-base comparisons reveal, because phenotypic plasticity allows immediate adjustment, or simply because rapid reproduction shortens the period during which genetic drift is most dangerous.

None of this means that small founder populations usually succeed. Most probably disappear without ever being recorded, while many apparent exceptions are subsequently reinforced by additional introductions. The conspicuous survivors are therefore a highly selected minority. What makes the Guam brown tree snakes especially informative is that long-read sequencing has now revealed another possible route through the bottleneck: extensive variation in large duplicated, deleted and rearranged sections of DNA that conventional sequencing had largely overlooked.

The publication in Science Advances was accompanied by a news release from the University of Buffalo, written by Tom Dinki.

How did inbred brown tree snakes take over Guam? Study suggests hidden genetic diversity
Biologists have long wondered how a small number of the invasive species so successfully colonized the island
If you look up invasive species in a textbook, there’s a good chance you’ll find a picture of a brown tree snake.

Native to Australia and the South Pacific, the brown tree snake arrived on Guam sometime after World War II, possibly by stowing aboard cargo planes. Since then, the snakes have driven many of the island’s native forest birds to local extinction and trigger hundreds of power outages each year by climbing electrical poles. In some areas of the U.S. territory, they reach densities as high as 30,000 per square mile.

The scale of the invasion has befuddled biologists given that only a small number of tree snakes were initially introduced. Inbreeding should have limited their ability to adapt to a new environment and slowed the population’s growth.

But it turns out that brown tree snakes have more genetic diversity than meets the eye, according to a new University at Buffalo-led study published today (July 24) in Science Advances.

Researchers from UB and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) used advanced long-read sequencing technology to reveal thousands of structural variants in the species’ genome. These variants — including duplications, deletions and rearrangements of DNA — are heavily concentrated in genes involved in immunity and smell.

This previously unseen genetic diversity may help explain how a population founded by only a handful of snakes was able to thrive despite a severe genetic bottleneck.

The brown tree snake is maybe not wildly diverse, but it has important sources of genetic diversity that have been underappreciated.

Associate Professor Trevor J. Krabbenhoft, PhD, corresponding author
Department of Biological Sciences
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY, USA.

The findings may be unwelcome news for agencies that have spent decades trying to control the brown tree snake population on Guam, but they could offer an encouraging message for conservation efforts.
It’s possible that endangered species may have more flexibility in their genes than we realize. We're now getting a better understanding of unappreciated sources of genetic diversity that may explain how some inbred species can still respond to their environment.

Christopher A. Osborne, PhD, first author.
Department of Biological Sciences
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY, USA.

Long-read sequencing allows genome to be read cover to cover

Brown tree snake on a branch.

Photo: USGS

Much of our understanding of genetic diversity comes from analyzing changes to single base pairs of DNA — like flipping an A to a G, or T to a C. That’s because that’s all initial DNA sequencing technology could reveal.

But long-read sequencing can characterize much longer pieces of DNA, revealing structural variants that can each affect 50 base pairs or more. In fact, structural variants affect nearly eight times more of the genome overall than single base-pair changes.

It’s like looking at portions of two books letter by letter with a magnifying glass and thinking they’re the same, but not realizing entire paragraphs have been moved around or duplicated. Older sequencing technology didn’t allow us to easily see that DNA in one individual might be in a completely different place on the chromosome than in another. How we define genetic diversity and how we actually measure it is shaped largely by the technology of the day.

Levi N. Gray, PhD, co-author.
Department of Biological Sciences
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY, USA.

Gray previously studied the brown tree snake problem in Guam while working for the USGS. It was through that collaboration that the researchers received DNA from the USGS Brown Tree snake Rapid Response Team (RRT), which aims to prevent the spread of the species in the U.S. and its territories.

Analyzing the DNA in Krabbenhoft’s lab, the team found that the brown tree snake genome has over 19,000 structural variants — or roughly 19,000 locations in the genome where segments of DNA differ due to duplications, deletions, or rearrangements.

These variants were not randomly distributed, but enriched in genes involved in immunity and olfaction, or sense of smell.

Brown tree snakes rely heavily on smell — using their forked tongues to taste chemical cues in the air and locate prey. Their enriched diversity in olfactory genes could help explain why brown tree snakes are known to eat other snakes in their native habitats but there’s little evidence of them doing so in Guam.

The snakes’ heightened sense of smell may allow them to recognize one another as something more like siblings — especially given the high levels of inbreeding — than as prey.

Levi N. Gray, PhD.

It remains unclear whether the snakes’ structural variants arose before or after their introduction to Guam. Large-scale genomic changes typically accumulate over many generations, but some studies suggest that severe population bottlenecks can accelerate the formation of structural variants.
Is it possible some of this diversity emerged after the invasion? It is, but we would have to sequence snakes from the native populations to know for sure.

Levi N. Gray, PhD.

Other co-authors include USGS scientists M. Renee Bellinger, PhD, and Melia Nafus, PhD, as well as UB research scientist Brian Foote, postdoctoral researcher Steven Fleck, PhD, as well as PhD students Sarah Chang and Hannah Waterman.

Publication:
Christopher A. Osborne et al.
Genomic structural variation rescues a classic biological invader from a population bottleneck. Sci. Adv. 12, eaed3656 (2026). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.aed3656

Abstract
Invasion genetics presents a classic paradox: How do species successfully spread despite severe population bottlenecks? The brown treesnake (Boiga irregularis) in Guam represents a notable example of this phenomenon, having been introduced with only a handful of individuals. We show that the population endured an extreme bottleneck, with roughly half of the genome exhibiting runs of homozygosity, comparable to species of conservation concern. Despite this, we uncovered extensive diversity in the form of nearly 19,000 genomic structural variants, which affect almost eight times more of the genome than single-nucleotide variants and provide material for “rescuing” the population from inbreeding-driven declines. Structural variant density was highest in gene promoters, where recombination and DNA repair often occur, providing a mechanism for rapid evolution of gene-linked diversity. This diversity is enriched in genes vital for adaptive immunity and olfaction, suggesting genomic diversity in key chromosomal regions can rescue populations from inbreeding. This work has critical implications for invasion biology and conservation genetics practitioners.

Christopher A. Osborne et al.
Genomic structural variation rescues a classic biological invader from a population bottleneck. Sci. Adv. 12, eaed3656 (2026). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.aed3656

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

The brown tree snakes of Guam therefore provide a particularly instructive example of evolution in an isolated population. A handful of founders became geographically separated from their source population and were exposed to a new combination of prey, competitors, predators and environmental conditions. Genetic drift and inbreeding altered the population, while natural selection acted on the variation that survived the bottleneck. These are precisely the processes expected during the early stages of allopatric divergence.

The population has not necessarily become a new species, and the researchers do not claim that it has. What Guam provides is an opportunity to observe how an isolated founder population can begin following its own evolutionary trajectory. With gene flow from the ancestral population effectively cut off, mutations, structural variants, selection and chance changes in allele frequency can accumulate independently. Given sufficient time and divergence, those are the processes that can eventually produce reproductive isolation and speciation.

The findings also expose the inadequacy of the creationist claim that evolution cannot proceed because a small population lacks sufficient “genetic information”. Genetic variation is not confined to single-letter substitutions in DNA. Duplications, deletions and rearrangements can affect large genomic regions and preserve substantial functional variation even when much of the rest of the genome has become homozygous. Natural selection needs neither unlimited diversity nor foresight; it needs only heritable differences that affect survival or reproduction.

Nor was the snakes’ success evidence of a plan. It resulted from a contingent combination of inherited variation, ecological opportunity, abundant vulnerable prey and the absence of the predators and competitors that constrained the snakes in their native range. Most small founder populations fail; this one happened to possess what was needed to prosper—with catastrophic consequences for Guam’s birds and wider ecosystem.

Far from presenting a problem for evolution, then, Guam’s brown tree snakes demonstrate its opportunistic power. Isolation supplied the evolutionary experiment, structural variation supplied the raw material, and natural selection produced the outcome—without a designer, a plan or a supernatural intervention anywhere in sight.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Refuting Creationism - Ceremonial Rituals In An Australian Cave - 15,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-07-26T17:29:25.852+01:00

GunaiKurnai grass-burning ritual, 25,000 years ago, Cloggs Cave, Victoria, Australia.

AI-generated image (ChatGPT 5.6 Sol)

Microscopic plant remains reveal 25,000 years of GunaiKurnai rituals deep in a Victorian cave

A point I have made before in this blog is that the ignorance of the Bible’s authors is revealed as clearly by what they omitted as by what they included. When examined in the light of modern science, many of their claims turn out to be wrong, showing that they filled gaps in their knowledge with stories that reflected the prevailing superstitions of their culture. Meanwhile, the omissions reveal just how narrow their geographical and intellectual horizons were.

There is no unmistakable fact in the Bible that could not have been known, inferred or imagined by people living in the ancient Near East when its various books were written. There is no knowledge that required revelation from an omniscient being and no awareness of vast regions, peoples or periods of history lying beyond the experience of its human authors.

That is entirely understandable if the Bible is a collection of human writings. It is much more difficult to explain if its ultimate author was an omniscient god. Such an author would not have shared the cosmological limitations of ancient people or presented the world in the familiar ancient Near Eastern form found in Genesis: primordial waters divided by a firmament, dry land beneath it, and the Sun, Moon and stars placed in that firmament as lights. Whatever ingenious reinterpretations modern apologists may retrofit to the text, there is nothing in it that anticipates the real structure, age or scale of the Universe.

Nor is there any hint that people were already living on the other side of the planet. Archaeological evidence from Madjedbebe in northern Australia indicates human occupation by about 65,000 years ago. The Bible’s authors knew nothing of Australia, its First Peoples or the tens of thousands of years of human history that had already elapsed before the supposed events of Genesis.

What is perhaps more surprising is that educated adults today can still imagine that the Genesis creation myth is an accurate and inerrant account of history, despite its demonstrable errors and enormous omissions. The text contains no Australia, no Americas, no Pacific peoples and no conception of the deep human past—only the restricted world known to its authors, projected onto the entire planet.

Augustine of Hippo provides an illuminating example of how treating Scripture as historical fact could obstruct an otherwise rational consideration of the evidence. Contrary to a common misconception, Augustine did not insist that Earth was flat. By his time, its spherical shape had been understood by educated Greeks and Romans for centuries, and Augustine was prepared to concede that it might be demonstrated scientifically.

What he could not accept was that the far side of a spherical Earth might be inhabited, because that appeared irreconcilable with the biblical claim that every human descended from a single original man—and, after the supposed global flood, from Noah and his family. In De Civitate Dei, he wrote:

But as to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground credible. And, indeed, it is not affirmed that this has been learned by historical knowledge, but by scientific conjecture, on the ground that the earth is suspended within the concavity of the sky, and that it has as much room on the one side of it as on the other: hence they say that the part which is beneath must also be inhabited.

But they do not remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled. For Scripture, which proves the truth of its historical statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, gives no false information; and it is too absurd to say, that some men might have taken ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from that one first man. [My emphasis]

Source: De Civitate Dei, Book XVI, Chapter 9—“Whether We are to Believe in the Antipodes”,
translated by the Rev. Marcus Dods, D.D.; Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

The reasoning is revealing. Augustine began with the non-negotiable premise that Scripture “gives no false information”. Because inhabited lands across a great ocean appeared incompatible with universal descent from Adam, the existence of their inhabitants had to be rejected. Evidence was not permitted to determine the conclusion; the conclusion had already been dictated by Scripture.

Augustine was not referring specifically to Australia, nor did he calculate how quickly Noah’s descendants might have built boats after the supposed flood. Nevertheless, he had turned literal biblical history into a testable geographical claim: people could not inhabit remote lands across the ocean because there was no credible way for descendants of Adam—and subsequently Noah—to have reached them. The existence of the peoples of the Americas and Oceania, together with the archaeological evidence of their deep history, showed that conclusion to be spectacularly wrong.

Most creationists will probably not be aware of Augustine of Hippo, nor of what he wrote, yet he is regarded as the father of Catholic theology. And yet few if any Christian apologist ever mention the fact that he unwittingly, but effectively, refuted the Bible's chronology and thus falsified the notion of it inerrancy. In science, falsification of a central principle would be the subject of intense scrutiny and debate in an attempt to resolve it, but in theology, it is something to be quietly swept under the metaphorical carpet and studiously ignored while eulogising and sanctifying its author but never mentioning his blunder ever again.

The evidence from Australia does considerably more than establish that people lived beyond the biblical authors’ geographical horizon. It shows that Aboriginal peoples had occupied and developed cultures in Australia for tens of thousands of years before the supposed creation of the world, let alone before Noah’s mythical flood and the equally mythical dispersal from Babel.

Cloggs Cave, in GunaiKurnai Country near Buchan in East Gippsland, Victoria, contains one particularly remarkable record. Securely dated stone artefacts show that people were visiting the cave between 27,390 and 24,760 years ago, with evidence of subsequent cultural activity extending into the late Holocene. The sequence represents about 25,000 years of engagement with the cave—approximately a thousand human generations. When the earliest securely dated activities were taking place there, Archbishop Ussher’s supposed Creation Week of 4004 BCE still lay roughly 19,000 years in the future.

The latest research did not first establish the antiquity of the cave. Instead, it added a new and extraordinarily detailed line of evidence about what the GunaiKurnai Old Ancestors were doing there. In a paper published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, researchers working with the GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation analysed microscopic silica bodies called phytoliths preserved in the cave sediments.

Phytoliths form within plant tissues and can survive long after the rest of the plant has decayed. The team analysed sediment samples from two excavated sequences, together with ancient Common Brushtail Possum droppings, to distinguish plant material brought into the cave by people from that deposited by animals.

The distinction was important because possums had repeatedly entered the cave and their droppings also contained grass phytoliths. Burnt phytoliths, however, were found throughout much of the archaeological sequence but were entirely absent from the possum droppings. Those blackened microscopic remains provide secure evidence that people carried plants into the cave and burned them there.

The phytolith assemblage was dominated by grasses. Crucially, it contained structures originating from leaves, stems and flower heads, showing that whole grass plants—not merely edible seeds—had deliberately been gathered outside and transported deep into the cave. The scarcity of charcoal and of microscopic ash remains derived from woody plants indicates repeated, relatively cool burning of soft grass material rather than ordinary wood fires.

This supports other evidence that Cloggs Cave was a secluded place used for special cultural and ritual practices rather than routine habitation or food preparation. Earlier investigations revealed two miniature fireplaces, dated to about 11,000 and 12,000 years ago, containing carefully trimmed Casuarina sticks smeared with animal or human fat. Around 2,000 years ago, a small standing stone was erected, and vegetation was repeatedly burned around it, leaving 73 thin ash layers over approximately 400 years. These archaeological features closely resemble GunaiKurnai practices recorded ethnographically during the nineteenth century and preserved in traditional cultural knowledge.

The new phytolith evidence therefore adds intimate detail to a cultural history extending across some 25 millennia. It records people deliberately selecting plants, carrying them into a dark cave and using them in repeated cultural practices long before the biblical creation supposedly occurred.

Three of the paper’s authors have also published an article in The Conversation explaining their research and its significance. Their article is reprinted below under a Creative Commons licence and reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Microscopic plant remains reveal 25,000 years of GunaiKurnai rituals deep in a Victorian cave

GunaiKurnai Elder Uncle Russell Mullett at entrance to Cloggs Cave.

GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation.

Russell Mullett, Indigenous Knowledge; Bruno David, Monash University, and Elle Grono, Australian National University

Deeply etched into a cliff face in GunaiKurnai Country, near the township of Buchan in East Gippsland in rural Victoria, is a large limestone cave that hosts an extraordinary story.

Today, the area outside Cloggs Cave is mainly grassland and open woodland, with eucalypt forests further behind the cave. But this was not always so.

The environment changed as the last ice age came and went, and as the Old GunaiKurnai Ancestors managed Country through cultural burning and daily activities on the land. Photographs from the 19th century, as well as regional pollen records, show that during the early colonial times of the mid- and late 1800s, sheoaks were more abundant.

Early colonists cleared nearly all those that then stood near Cloggs Cave. But it is their grassy understorey that is of greatest interest to this story, which we can now tell.

In a new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, we report the discovery of thousands of microscopic plant remains known as phytoliths that are testimony to GunaiKurnai rituals repeatedly performed over the past 25,000 years.

Who carried the plants inside?

Phytoliths are microscopic silica bodies that occur in plant tissues, their shapes and sizes varying in different parts of plants and between plant taxa.

Unlike pollen, which is dispersed by wind or insects, the hard, glassy phytoliths mostly get left behind at the spot where a plant decays. They can survive underground for thousands and even millions of years. They can also survive fires.

As sediments accumulate, the phytoliths become trapped in the soil, so that over time the buried sequence leaves a record of the plants that once grew or had been placed there.

Plants cannot grow inside Cloggs Cave, as there is neither sufficient light nor moisture. So the buried phytoliths must have been carried in by people or by animals, such as possums, on their fur or through their scats.

Microscope images of burnt grass phytoliths from Cloggs Cave. The scale bars are 0.02mm long.

Elle Grono, courtesy of the GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation, CC BY-NC

A 25,000-year-old history

In 2019 and 2020, we were part of a team of scientists and local Aboriginal community members who undertook archaeological excavations deep in the cave, to work out how the Old GunaiKurnai Ancestors used it in the past.

As the excavations progressed, we collected small samples of sediment, one to two centimetres at a time. In the laboratory, we focused on the half-burnt phytoliths from the ashy layers, because these layers were clearly the result of fires lit by people inside the cave.

The burnt phytoliths were so concentrated they could not have been incidental to other activities nearby. They were found in thin layers of ash densely packed one on top of the other, unlike during earlier times when the ash was more sparse.

The phytoliths from the various ash layers had almost all come from different parts of grasses, such as stems, leaves, flowers and roots. This indicated the grasses had been brought into the cave whole, roots and all.

The archaeological excavations showed people had entered the cave for some 25,000 years, beginning just as the coldest phase of the last ice age began. They never used the cave for everyday living though, nor for communal food preparation or consumption.

There are hundreds of thousands of animal bones in the cave. But almost all of those dating to the period of human occupation came from owls dropping their pellets on the cave floor, mainly tiny unbroken bones.

Instead, people used the cave to perform secluded rituals, some involving the breaking of stalactites and the erecting of standing stones from blocks of limestone obtained from inside the cave.

A carefully positioned stone revealed

Some 73 thin, superimposed ash layers underlie and then surround one such, fully buried, standing stone.

The 28-centimetre-tall stone was positioned upright on a bed of ash 2,000 years ago, and fires were then regularly burnt around it over the next 400 years. The microscopic phytoliths in the thin layers of ash now reveal otherwise invisible traces of those activities.

We found 29 different types of phytoliths from a range of plant groups including grasses, herbs, and woody plants at different levels of the excavation. Most of the phytoliths were well preserved, and even delicate silica forms such as hair cells and multicellular structures had survived intact in their original plant positions.

Grasses were the most abundant plant type identified (up to 97%). Two subfamilies of grasses were particularly well represented: Pooideae, which grows in temperate, cool conditions, and Panicoideae, which prefers warm, humid climates.

Woody plants and herbs are low phytolith producers, and phytoliths from these plant types were rarely observed.

Retelling the stories in the land

The phytoliths are more than an indication of the simple burning of grasses in the cave.

Senior members of the GunaiKurnai community told local pioneering ethnographer Alfred Howitt in the 1800s that individuals would be smeared with ash and charcoal powder during the jeraeil initiation ceremony and various other powerful rituals to perform healing, cursing and magic.

Plants were also laid and burnt on the ground to leave ashy floors to make it easier to track the footsteps of dangerous beings who may be lurking nearby, such as nargun who are thought to have lived in caves.

The details of these rituals have been partly forgotten over the years. But our research – together with GunaiKurnai people’s retained cultural knowledge of ancestral practices in local caves – is helping to unearth and make sense of them.

These were peopled landscapes whose rich stories can again be told.

>Russell Mullett, Traditional Custodian — Kurnai, Indigenous Knowledge; Bruno David, Professor, Australian Research Council Industry Laureate, Monash University, and Elle Grono, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Culture, History & Language, Australian National 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)

These microscopic particles of silica are not vague impressions open to theological reinterpretation. They occur in dated, stratified deposits and can be distinguished from material deposited by possums because many were altered by fire. They preserve evidence of particular human actions: whole grasses were selected, carried into the darkness of the cave and burned in repeated cultural practices.

By the time young-Earth creationists imagine the Universe was being created, the earliest securely dated evidence of human activity at Cloggs Cave was already about 19,000 years old. Across Australia, human history stretches back much further still. These people were not descendants of passengers from Noah’s Ark dispersing from Babel; their ancestors had reached Sahul tens of thousands of years before either event supposedly occurred.

Augustine’s mistake was not simply that he reached the wrong conclusion about the inhabitants of distant lands. It was that he began by declaring Scripture incapable of error and then rejected any conclusion incompatible with it. Modern creationists employ precisely the same method: biblical history must be true, so radiocarbon dating, archaeology, genetics, geology and every other conflicting body of evidence must somehow be wrong.

Cloggs Cave exposes the futility of that approach. Its deposits preserve a long and intricate cultural history that simply could not exist within the biblical chronology. This is not merely another failure to find evidence supporting Genesis; it is positive evidence of people, activities and traditions that should never have existed if Genesis were history.

The people were real, the fires were real and their microscopic remains survive. Adam, Noah and the global flood survive only as stories written by people who knew nothing of them, so failed to incorporate them or even the possibility of their existence into their invented historical narratives, which of course made themselves central to the creation story.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Creationism Refuted - Another Gap Closed with a 23-Million-Year-Old Fossil - Just as The Theory Of Evolution Predicted

2026-07-25T20:49:04.321+01:00

AI-generated image (ChatGPT 5.6 Sol)

Reconstruction of Miyumba chrisdickmani in its natural setting.

AI-generated image (ChatGPT 5.6 Sol)

Australia’s most diverse marsupial predators have been hiding their origins for millions of years

To a palaeontologist, a gap in the fossil record is an unanswered question and an invitation to keep looking. To a creationist, it is more often treated as a convenient space in which to insert a supernatural explanation. The difficulty for creationism is that scientists have an inconvenient habit of finding the missing evidence, whereupon the gap becomes smaller, the evolutionary history becomes clearer, and creationists must quietly move their supernatural explanation somewhere else.

A particularly neat example is provided by a paper just published in Australian Zoologist by Timothy J. Churchill, Michael Archer, Suzanne J. Hand and Roy M. Farman. As Churchill explains in an article in The Conversation, a handful of tiny fossil jaws from north-western Queensland has supplied a previously missing opening chapter in the evolutionary history of Australia’s most diverse family of marsupial predators.

The family Dasyuridae contains almost 80 living species, including Tasmanian devils, quolls, dunnarts, planigales and antechinuses. They range from insect-eaters weighing only a few grams to the much larger Tasmanian devil, and occupy environments extending from the tropical rainforests of New Guinea to Australian deserts, grasslands and alpine woodland. Yet, despite this modern diversity, their early fossil history had remained frustratingly obscure.

Molecular studies indicated that dasyurids had diverged from their closest relatives millions of years before the earliest unambiguous fossils then known. Almost all accepted dasyurid fossils were younger than about five million years, leaving what palaeontologists call a “ghost lineage”: a branch whose existence was indicated by evolutionary relationships, but whose earlier fossil representatives had not yet been found. The animal once thought to fill that gap, Barinya wangala, was subsequently shown to belong to an entirely different family of peculiar, probably snail-eating marsupials called malleodectids.

Creationists sometimes present such gaps as evidence against evolution, apparently assuming that unless every organism that ever lived has obligingly become fossilised, been exposed at the surface and been discovered, the evolutionary history can be dismissed. But incompleteness is not inconsistency. Fossilisation is rare, suitable rocks are unevenly distributed, and tiny, fragile animals are especially unlikely to leave recognisable remains. Evolution nevertheless predicted that earlier dasyurids had existed. The question was whether any of them would eventually be found.

The new species, named Miyumba chrisdickmani, is known from six partial lower jaws recovered from Early Miocene deposits in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area on Waanyi Country. It lived about 23 million years ago and probably weighed only about 30 grams, making it comparable in size to a modern antechinus or large dunnart. It is now the oldest confirmed member of Dasyuridae, extending the family’s recognised fossil history by more than five million years.

Its significance, however, lies in much more than its age. The teeth of Miyumba possess a particular arrangement in which the third lower premolar is smaller than the first and second. This appears to be a shared derived characteristic, or synapomorphy, identifying dasyurids as a natural evolutionary group. At the same time, Miyumba retains several ancestral dental features expected in an animal close to the base of that group’s family tree.

That combination is precisely what evolutionary theory predicts: an early member of a lineage should possess the defining innovations inherited by its descendants while retaining features inherited from more distant ancestors. It should not look exactly like a modern Tasmanian devil, quoll or dunnart because those specialised forms had not yet evolved. Nor should it be unrelated to them. It should display a mosaic of ancestral and newly evolved characteristics — and that is exactly what Miyumba does.

The researchers tested this interpretation using two separate phylogenetic methods. One compared hundreds of anatomical characteristics in living and fossil marsupials; the other combined anatomical evidence with DNA sequences from living species and the geological ages of fossils. Both placed Miyumba chrisdickmani as the sister lineage to all other known dasyurids — the earliest branch yet identified in their evolutionary radiation. The analysis also placed another Riversleigh fossil, Mayigriphus orbus, close to the ancestry of the lineage containing modern dunnarts, planigales and their relatives.

This is another problem for the creationist notion of separately manufactured “kinds”. Calling all these animals members of a “dasyurid kind” explains nothing. It does not predict which anatomical features they should share, the order in which those features should appear, where the earliest members should occur, or why independent analyses of fossils, anatomy, DNA and geological age should recover the same branching family history. “Created kind” is merely a label placed over the evidence after it has been discovered; it has no explanatory or predictive content.

The fossils also reveal that early dasyurids inhabited the lush rainforests covering much of northern Australia during the Early Miocene. Miyumba resembles some living rainforest dasyurids now restricted to New Guinea, suggesting that these may be surviving remnants of a formerly more widespread rainforest radiation. As Australia became progressively drier during the past 15 million years, other dasyurid lineages adapted to the expanding grasslands, dry forests and deserts, eventually producing much of the diversity seen today.

Their appearance may also have coincided with the disappearance of an older group of marsupial predators called keeunamorphians. Early dasyurids may have expanded into ecological niches vacated by those animals and subsequently diversified. It is a familiar evolutionary pattern: environmental change, extinction, ecological opportunity, adaptation and branching descent, all unfolding over millions of years.

None of this resembles a collection of immutable animals created independently during a single magical week. Riversleigh preserves a succession of changing Australian ecosystems extending over more than 25 million years, not a chaotic mixture deposited during a single global flood. Its fossils record lineages appearing, diversifying, adapting and disappearing as environments changed around them.

More broadly, Miyumba illustrates how the evolutionary history of life is reconstructed. Fossils provide anatomy and minimum ages; geological context places organisms in time and environment; comparative anatomy reveals shared innovations; and molecular data identify relationships among living descendants. Each source of evidence is incomplete on its own, but together they produce a coherent, testable history that can be revised as new evidence is found.

Creationism offers no comparable method and made no prediction that a 23-million-year-old, rainforest-dwelling, anatomically basal dasyurid should be waiting in the Early Miocene rocks of Queensland. Evolutionary science did predict that such missing ancestors had existed. Six tiny jaws have now shown that it was right.

Timothy Churchill's article in The Conversation is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Australia’s most diverse marsupial predators have been hiding their origins for millions of years

Artist reconstruction of Miyumba chrisdickmani.

Nellie Pease

Timothy Churchill, UNSW

When you think of carnivorous marsupials, you probably picture the Tasmanian devil or perhaps a spotted-tailed quoll. But these famous predators are only the largest members of a remarkable family of marsupials called dasyurids.

Today the dasyurid family contains almost 80 living species. Some live in trees, others in deserts. Some eat insects and weigh only a few grams, while others can weigh up to 14 kilograms and feast on wombats and wallabies. Together they occupy habitats stretching from New Guinea’s tropical rainforests to Australia’s deserts and alpine woodlands.

Despite this extraordinary diversity, one of the biggest questions about their evolution has remained unanswered. Where did they come from?

Our new research, published today in Australian Zoologist, describes what is now the earliest known member of the dasyurid family – a mouse-sized predator we have named Miyumba chrisdickmani. It pushes the fossil record of dasyurids back by more than five million years and provides the first clear picture of what the earliest members of this iconic Australian group looked like.

A long-running puzzle

For decades, scientists have puzzled over the origins of dasyurids.

Early researchers assumed they must be an ancient group because their molar teeth exhibit a remarkably primitive design, little changed from the earliest Australian marsupial ancestors.

But DNA studies later suggested something very different. Modern dasyurids are actually a comparatively young branch of the marsupial family tree, diverging from their closest relatives around 18 million years ago.

The problem was that the fossil record didn’t seem to agree.

Almost every fossil dasyurid known was younger than five million years old. One supposed dasyurid, Barinya wangala, from the Miocene Epoch, appeared to have filled this evolutionary gap. But recent work showed it actually belongs to an entirely different family of bizarre snail-eating marsupials called the malleodectids.

Suddenly, the fossil record contained no confirmed dasyurids at all before the start of the Pliocene roughly 5.3 million years ago. This left an apparent evolutionary ghost lineage stretching back millions of years.

Our new fossil helps solve that mystery.

The Riversleigh World Heritage Area on Waanyi country in northwestern Queensland is one of the world’s richest fossil deposits.

Harry Rosenthal

Tiny teeth hold important clue

Miyumba chrisdickmani was about the size of a modern antechinus or large dunnart, weighing only around 30 grams.

It is known from six fossil lower jaws recovered from the Riversleigh World Heritage Area on Waanyi country in northwestern Queensland. This is one of the world’s richest fossil deposits. It preserves Australian ecosystems that span more than 25 million years.

Although tiny, the animal’s teeth preserve an important evolutionary clue.

For decades, palaeontologists struggled to identify fossil dasyurids because there was no unique dental feature that clearly separated them from their extinct relatives. Miyumba reveals one at last.

In most primitive marsupial predators, the third lower premolar is the largest of the three premolars. In modern dasyurids, however, that tooth is actually smaller than both the first and second premolars.

Miyumba possesses exactly this arrangement. This makes it the earliest known fossil to display what appears to be a defining feature of the dasyurid family.

That seemingly subtle difference finally gives palaeontologists a reliable way to recognise early members of this important group.

The earliest known dasyurid

To test where Miyumba belonged, we compared its anatomy with living and extinct marsupials using two different evolutionary analyses.

One examined hundreds of anatomical features preserved in fossils. The other combined anatomical evidence with DNA sequence data from living species while also incorporating the ages of fossil species to estimate when major groups evolved.

Both approaches reached the same conclusion. Miyumba chrisdickmani represents the earliest and most primitive known dasyurid.

The analyses also identified another small Riversleigh fossil, Mayigriphus orbus, as one of the earliest members of the lineage that eventually gave rise to today’s dunnarts, planigales and other small arid-adapted dasyurids.

Together these discoveries push the origin of the dasyurid family back to around 23 million years ago, roughly five million years earlier than previous estimates.

We checked 2000 museum specimens and discovered a tiny new ‘ferocious’ Australian mammal

An early life in rainforests

Perhaps the biggest surprise is what these fossils reveal about where modern dasyurids came from.

Today, many of Australia’s smallest dasyurids thrive in dry grasslands and deserts. Yet Miyumba lived in the lush rainforest ecosystems that covered much of northern Australia during the Early Miocene. Its anatomy also suggests it was most closely related to modern rainforest species found only in New Guinea.

This hints that the earliest dasyurids evolved in rainforests before some lineages adapted to the increasingly dry environments that spread across Australia over the past 15 million years.

While many ancient rainforest species disappeared from mainland Australia, some of their descendants may have survived in New Guinea’s tropical forests, where similar environments persist today.

A second mystery might be solved

The timing may also explain another long-standing mystery.

Early dasyurids appear just as another group of Australian marsupial predators, the keeunamorphians, disappeared from the fossil record.

It’s possible that as these older predators declined, early dasyurids expanded into the ecological niches they left behind before eventually diversifying into the remarkable array of carnivorous marsupials we know today.

A handful of tiny fossil jaws may not seem like much. But they reveal the missing opening chapter in the evolutionary history of Australia’s most successful marsupial predators and show that sometimes the smallest fossils answer the biggest questions.

Timothy Churchill, Adjunct Associate Lecturer, School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, UNSW

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

This study describes Miyumba chrisdickmani gen. et sp. nov., a new genus and species of dasyurid (Marsupialia, Dasyuridae) from Early Miocene deposits of the Riversleigh World Heritage Area in north-western Queensland. This taxon, similar in size to extant species of Antechinus and Sminthopsis (23–33.5 g), is the oldest and most plesiomorphic member of the family Dasyuridae. Character analysis identifies one new lower dental synapomorphy for Dasyuridae that previously lacked any dental synapomorphies uniting the family. Parsimony and Bayesian phylogenetic analysis supports the placement of M. chrisdickmani as the sister taxon to all other dasyurids. These analyses also recover the diminutive Mayigriphus orbus from early Late Miocene deposits of Riversleigh either as a sminthopsine dasyurid or as the second most plesiomorphic member of the family after M. chrisdickmani. Joculusium muizoni from Riversleigh’s Middle Miocene deposits was recovered outside Dasyuridae as a sister taxon by both phylogenetic analyses. Urrayira whitei was recovered by both analyses as a member of the dasyurid genus Planigale, whereas Antechinus yuna and Antechinus yammal were supported as species of Antechinus. Morphological similarity of M. chrisdickmani to extant dasyurids from New Guinea suggests a possible close phylogenetic relationship between these lineages and may represent yet another remnant New Guinean group of rainforest-adapted marsupials that had its origins in the Miocene rainforests of Riversleigh.

Fig. 1. Miyumba chrisdickmani sp. nov. holotype left dentary QM F62121 shown as MgO coated photographs (a, e–f) and micro-CT images (b–d, g–h): (a–b), occlusal stereo pairs; (c) anterior view; (d) posterior view; (e) and (g), buccal views; (f and h), lingual views.

Fig. 2. Miyumba chrisdickmani sp. nov. lower dental specimens in buccal (top), lingual (bottom) and occlusal views as stereo pairs (right): (a) holotype left dentary QM F62121; (b) right dentary QM F62122; (c) left dentary QM F62123; (d) left dentary QM F62124; (e) left dentary QM F62125; (f) right dentary QM F24416; and (g) right dentary QM F62126.

Churchill TJ, Archer M, Hand SJ, Farman RM. (2026)
A new genus of dasyurid Miyumba chrisdickmani (Marsupialia, Dasyuridae) from the Early Miocene deposits of the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, north-western Queensland.
Australian Zoologist 45, AZ26024. https://doi.org/10.1071/AZ26024

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

Taken together, these six fragments of jaw preserve a history that is irreconcilable with the creationist account. Miyumba chrisdickmani lived in an Australian rainforest about 23 million years ago, possessed the defining dental characteristic of the dasyurid family, yet retained ancestral features expected in an early member of that lineage. Its descendants and relatives subsequently diversified as Australia’s climate and vegetation changed, while related rainforest forms may have survived in New Guinea.

The real difficulty for creationism is therefore not merely the fossil’s inconvenient age. Its geological position, anatomy, inferred environment and placement in phylogenetic analyses all tell the same story. Molecular evidence had indicated that an early dasyurid lineage must once have existed; the fossil record had not yet revealed it. Now a fossil with the predicted combination of characteristics has been found in rocks of the appropriate age. A supposed gap in evolutionary history has become another piece of evidence for that history.

A creationist can, of course, dismiss the geological evidence and insist that the animal belonged to some undefined “created kind”. But that explains neither its age nor its position near the base of a branching family tree. If all dasyurids are placed within a single “kind”, creationists must concede that one ancestral population can diversify into almost 80 species with markedly different sizes, habitats and ways of life. The imagined boundary around the “kind” is simply moved whenever evidence crosses it.

This discovery also illustrates an important difference between science and creationism. When Barinya wangala was shown not to be a dasyurid, scientists corrected its classification and acknowledged that the gap in the fossil record had reopened. When Miyumba was discovered, they tested its relationships using independent analytical methods and revised the family’s history again. Science changes its conclusions to accommodate the evidence; creationism begins with an unalterable conclusion and must continually find ways to make the evidence disappear.

These tiny jaws were not deposited to refute Genesis, but they do so nevertheless. They belong to an animal that lived, hunted and reproduced in an Australian rainforest millions of years before humans existed, occupying a predictable position in a lineage that would later radiate across Australia and New Guinea. Miyumba is not simply too old for creationism: it is part of a coherent evolutionary history for which creationism has no explanation at all.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

How Snakes Lost Their Legs - 80 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-07-25T13:02:22.911+01:00

fossil of Tametara mirim

Agustin Martinelli

80-million-year-old snake fossil sheds light on why lizards lost their limbs and started slithering

Of all the primitive ‘just-so’ stories in Genesis, the tale of how the serpent was condemned to crawl on its belly must rank among the most transparently mythological. Having supposedly tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, God curses the serpent to go on its belly and ‘eat dust’ for the rest of its life. Although the story never explicitly says that the serpent previously had legs, the curse plainly implies a change and has traditionally been understood as an explanation for why snakes slither instead of walking.

Like so much of Genesis, it begins with an observation familiar to its authors—snakes have no legs—and invents a magical tale to explain it. It is an ancient example of an etiological myth: folklore devised to explain why something in the natural world appears as it does, long before anyone had the evidence or intellectual framework needed to understand its real history.

Even as mythology, however, the story is strangely incoherent. Genesis itself does not identify the serpent as Satan but introduces it as the most cunning of the wild animals God had made. Nevertheless, this supposedly ordinary animal can speak, reason and somehow knows about a prohibition that God had given to Adam before Eve had even been created. The text makes no attempt to explain how it acquired either this knowledge or the power of speech.

More awkward still for anyone insisting that the story is literally true, the serpent’s predictions prove substantially more accurate than God’s warning. God tells Adam that he will die on the day he eats the fruit. The serpent tells Eve that they will not die, that their eyes will be opened and that they will become like God, knowing good and evil. They eat the fruit, their eyes are opened and they do not die that day. God then confirms that the humans have indeed become ‘like one of us’ in knowing good and evil. According to Genesis itself, Adam goes on to live for another 930 years.

On the most straightforward reading of the story, therefore, the serpent tells Eve the truth while God’s threat to Adam proves false. Later theologians have attempted to rescue the tale by inventing a ‘spiritual death’, or by claiming that Adam merely began to die that day, but neither qualification appears in the text. These are apologetic repairs added by people who can see the problem but cannot admit that the story’s authors created it.

Science, meanwhile, has uncovered a very different account of how snakes acquired their extraordinary bodies—one involving neither talking reptiles nor fruit, curses or human disobedience, but descent with modification over immense periods of geological time. Snakes are highly modified members of the squamate reptile radiation. Their ancestors progressively elongated their bodies, increased the number of vertebrae and reduced their limbs as different lineages adapted to particular ways of life. Their evolutionary history extends back at least to the Middle Jurassic, about 160 million years ago.

Now, a paper published in Nature by an international team led by Tiago R. Simões describes an exceptionally well-preserved early snake from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil. Named Tametara mirim, the animal lived approximately 85–75 million years ago, when non-avian dinosaurs still dominated terrestrial ecosystems. It is the first articulated snake fossil known from Brazil and preserves a three-dimensional skull together with more than 100 connected vertebrae.

The preserved portion of its skeleton appears to have lacked forelimbs. Because the region around the pelvis is missing, the researchers cannot determine whether it retained vestigial hindlimbs, as some other early snakes did. Its skull also combines recognisably snake-like specialisations with ancestral features resembling those of other squamate reptiles—precisely the sort of mosaic of old and new characteristics expected in an evolving lineage, but not from the instantaneous transformation of an animal by a divine curse.

High-resolution micro-CT scanning allowed the researchers to reconstruct details of the skull, brain cavity, cranial nerves and inner ear. The unusually thick and dense skull roof, reduced visual centres and simplified balance organs all point towards a specialised, head-first burrowing lifestyle. Similar combinations of traits have evolved independently in other burrowing squamates because they are useful underground: a reinforced skull withstands the stresses of digging, while vision becomes less important in darkness.

The discovery does not support a simplistic evolutionary story in which one burrowing lizard lost its legs and immediately became a modern snake. Comparison with another early snake, Dinilysia, indicates that it lived above ground and possessed a markedly different brain. Early snakes had already diversified into animals with different habitats and sensory systems. Their history was branching and experimental, with lineages moving between ecological niches rather than marching along a predetermined path towards a fixed goal.

For creationism, the problems are therefore far more extensive than the fossil’s inconvenient age. Here was an already highly modified snake, without detectable forelimbs and adapted to burrowing, living about 80 million years before creationists claim humans and snakes were created together. A punishment supposedly imposed because of something a human did in a garden cannot explain an anatomy that existed tens of millions of years before humans appeared.

Nor can creationists dismiss the animal as merely a modern snake inexplicably buried in ‘Flood’ deposits. Its mixture of ancestral and derived features places it on an early branch of the snake evolutionary tree, while its bones, braincase and sensory anatomy record adaptations to a particular Cretaceous environment. Its position is supported by detailed anatomical comparisons and phylogenetic analysis, not by somebody selecting a vaguely snake-shaped fossil and attaching an arbitrary age to it.

As palaeontologist Roy Ebel explains in The Conversation, Tametara mirim does not provide the final answer to every question about the origin of snakes. Instead, it reveals that their early evolution was more ecologically and neurologically diverse than previously recognised. That is how science advances: new evidence refines an incomplete account. Creationism, by contrast, begins with an incoherent myth and demands that all contrary evidence be ignored so that the myth need never change.

Roy Ebel's article in The Conversation is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Published: July 22, 2026 9.07pm BST

80‑million‑year‑old snake fossil sheds light on why lizards lost their limbs and started slithering

The new fossil of Tametara mirim reframes how we understand snake evolution.

Agustin Martinelli

Roy Ebel, Museums Victoria Research Institute

Snakes are everywhere in our legends and mythology. Yet for most of us, our blood runs cold whenever we encounter these strangely undulating, scaly tubes of muscle slithering through the leaf litter.

The loss of an arm or leg poses a challenge. Yet snakes do perfectly well without all four of them. This makes them suspect. It also leaves us unable to fathom how this radical transition produced one of the most successful vertebrate body plans.

More than 4,000 species of snakes are alive today, on every continent except Antarctica, from thread-thin burrowers to massive pythons, on land and in the sea. We have studied them since antiquity, and still the oldest question about them has no answer: what turned snakes into snakes?

We have long suspected their peculiar, limbless body plan is explained by how the earliest snakes lived. In a new study, published today in Nature, my colleagues and I describe a small, exquisitely preserved fossil that brings us closer to an answer than ever before.

Sea or soil?

Snakes are essentially highly modified lizards. Sometime in the age of dinosaurs, one lizard lineage lost its limbs and stretched out its body. The key question is why.

For more than a century, several ideas have competed with each other.

One says the first snakes colonised the water, with a long, limbless body suited for swimming, much like an eel.

A second says they lived on the surface of the land, among leaf litter and vegetation, where reduced limbs could have eased their movement through dense ground cover.

A third says they went underground, losing their limbs and elongating their bodies to pursue a head-first burrowing lifestyle, much like modern blind snakes.

The trouble is that the evidence has rested on a tiny handful of fossils. Fewer than ten early snake skeletons are known from that era.

Life reconstruction of the burrowing stem snake Tametara mirim which lived alongside now-extinct stem-birds and sauropod dinosaurs.

Gabriel Ugueto

The skull of a burrower

Our fossil is a rare new witness. It comes from roughly 80-million-year-old rock in São Paulo state, Brazil. We named it Tametara mirim, meaning “adorned” and “small” in the local Indigenous language.

The fossil is one of the best-preserved early snakes found anywhere on Earth. It is also the first articulated snake skeleton from Brazil, with its bones still connected in their original arrangement. We found its lifestyle encoded in its bones – in particular, its skull.

Head-first burrowers build denser, thicker bone in this region. This trait has independently evolved across numerous burrowing lizard lineages. We presume this consolidates the skull against the strain exerted during its use as a digging tool.

The bones of Tametara show it had the skull of a burrower. CT scan volume-rendered with VGSTUDIO MAX.

Roy Ebel

Tametara shows exactly this trait combination. In fact, our lifestyle reconstruction positions the fossil among the most specialised head-first burrowers living today, and well away from any lizards and snakes that pursue a more generalist lifestyle.

But the skull roof was not our only line of evidence.

We also digitally rebuilt its brain cavity, the most detailed such reconstruction yet for any early snake. This cavity would have closely matched the shape of the brain in the living animal. The reduced visual centres and simplified forebrain point the same way the bones do: underground.

Tuning their senses

But here is where the story turns.

We ran the same analyses on Dinilysia, a famous early snake from Argentina, and we found something astonishing. The two oldest snakes we can study in this detail had brains more different from each other than most snake lineages alive today. Dinilysia was no burrower. It lived on the surface.

One theory about how snakes evolved suggests lizards went underground, lost their limbs and elongated their bodies.

Roy Ebel

Their brains hint at how differently these two animals sensed their world.

Tametara had the reduced eyesight of a creature that spent its life in the dark. Dinilysia, on the other hand, had senses that were shaped for the open. At the very dawn of their history, snakes were already tuning their senses to very different habitats.

How, then, does this fit with the skull bones, which place the ancestral snake lineage in subterranean space? The truth may lie somewhere in between.

As my colleague Tiago Simões from Princeton University, who led the study, says: “Our findings reframe a long-running debate about how the earliest snakes lived.”

Redrawing the debate

We set out to settle the century-old question of what turned snakes into snakes with the firmest reconstruction yet of how the earliest of these reptiles lived.

Instead, we may need to reframe the question: it was never simply sea or soil.

Indeed, our best-preserved early snake was a committed burrower. But the pathway towards modern snakes branched and meandered. No single fossil, however exquisite, can capture the whole of that journey. Each is only a spotlight thrown across a bigger, more convoluted scene.

Shaped underground or not, the snake sliding through the grass today is the survivor of a long, restless experiment, recorded in the bones and brains of animals that have been dead for 80 million years.

This discovery alone has brought us closer than ever to understanding how evolution gave us these iconic yet feared creatures.
Roy Ebel, Research Officer Herpetology, Museums Victoria Research Institute

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)

Abstract
Understanding the ecological origin of snakes has remained a century-old challenge1,2, hindered by an extremely sparse early fossil record and conflicting interpretations of fossil ecologies. Here we describe an exceptionally preserved Cretaceous fossil snake, Tametara mirim gen. et sp. nov., from Brazil, representing one of the earliest-diverging stem snakes. High-resolution micro-CT scans reveal unprecedented details of cranial nerves, inner ear and brain anatomy, enabling the most integrated reconstruction of stem snake neuroanatomy to date. Quantitative and qualitative endocast analyses demonstrate that Tametara had a brain morphology distinct from both other stem and extant snakes, revealing substantial early neuroanatomical disparity—and probably sensory functions—in snake evolution. Independent evidence from telencephalon shape and bone microstructure converges on a fossorial lifestyle for Tametara and non-fossorial for another stem snake: Dinilysia. These results indicate that major ecological transitions occurred early in snake evolution, and that known stem species do not represent the ancestral condition of crown snakes. Early snake evolution thus involved complex shifts in habitat use and sensory ecology, revealing greater ecological and neuroanatomical diversity than previously thought.

Simões, T.R., Sobral, G., Macrì, S. et al.
Exceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes.
Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10809-9

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 significance of Tametara mirim is not that it supplies one simple answer to the question of why snakes lost their limbs. On the contrary, it shows that snake evolution was already complex by the Late Cretaceous. Different early lineages occupied different habitats, developed different sensory systems and combined ancestral squamate characteristics with increasingly specialised snake anatomy. Evolution produced not a predetermined march towards the modern snake but a branching history of experimentation, adaptation and extinction.

That history can be reconstructed because it left physical evidence. The density of the skull bones, the shape of the brain cavity, the reduction of the visual centres and the structure of the inner ear independently point towards a burrowing animal. These conclusions are not articles of faith: they are hypotheses derived from measurable anatomy and tested by comparison with living and extinct animals. Another fossil could modify them, but no fossil could make a divine curse into a scientific explanation.

For creationists, the animal’s age is devastating enough. A snake with an elongated body and no detectable forelimbs was already burrowing beneath the feet of dinosaurs some 80 million years before Adam and Eve supposedly committed their horticultural offence. No punishment imposed after the appearance of humans can explain anatomy preserved in rocks tens of millions of years older than humanity. Moving the mythical ‘Fall’ backwards merely destroys the biblical chronology, while denying the age requires rejecting the converging evidence of geology, palaeontology and evolutionary biology.

Even without the fossil record, the Genesis story has little explanatory value. It never explains how an ordinary wild animal could speak, how it knew what God had told Adam, or why every subsequent snake should inherit punishment for the behaviour of one unusually talkative ancestor. Most embarrassingly, the serpent’s predictions come true: the humans do not die that day, their eyes are opened and they acquire the knowledge God had tried to withhold. The supposedly deceitful serpent is vindicated by the story itself.

Creationists are therefore left defending a primitive fable against an articulated skeleton, high-resolution CT scans, comparative anatomy and a coherent evolutionary history extending over more than 100 million years. Tametara mirim did not acquire its snake-like body because a woman ate some forbidden fruit. Its anatomy was inherited from earlier generations and modified by natural selection as its lineage adapted to life underground.

The fossil does not merely predate the Genesis story; it exposes that story for what it is—fossilised folklore masquerading as an explanation.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Refuting Creationism - How Storms Created A Dinosaur Fossil Site - 80 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-07-24T14:33:46.760+01:00

Graphical abstract

Fanti, Federico; Consorti, Lorenzo; Muscioni, Marco; et al (2026) (CC BY 4.0)

Tethyshadros insularis and crocodilians struggle against a violent monsoon storm.

AI-generated image (ChatGPT 5.6 Sol)

Storms that built a graveyard: ancient monsoons created a spectacular dinosaur fossil site

Young-Earth creationists are fond of pointing out that a single flood or storm can deposit a layer of sediment very quickly, as though this somehow proves that the entire geological record could have been produced during the mythical year-long flood described in Genesis. But the speed with which an individual layer forms tells us nothing about the intervals between successive layers. When those layers contain regular, measurable cycles produced by processes operating daily, fortnightly and seasonally, they become a record of elapsed time—and that time cannot simply be waved away.

An article in The Conversation by palaeontologist Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza of University College London describes just such a record. It concerns the Villaggio del Pescatore fossil site near Trieste, north-eastern Italy, where dinosaurs, crocodilians, fish, shrimps, plants and other organisms were preserved with exceptional detail about 80 million years ago.

Chiarenza and his colleagues, led jointly with Federico Fanti of the University of Bologna, have published their findings in the journal Global and Planetary Change. Their evidence shows that the site was not, as previously proposed, a quiet lake or sinkhole. It was a tropical tidal flat on the edge of an ancient sea, repeatedly affected by powerful monsoon floods and tropical cyclones.

The fossil-bearing limestone consists of metre-thick packages containing thousands of discrete, paper-thin light and dark layers. These had previously been interpreted as annual deposits, or varves. However, high-resolution synchrotron X-ray scanning, microscopic and geochemical analyses, and statistical analysis of the repeating patterns revealed something still more remarkable: the layers are tidal microcouplets, laid down under a semidiurnal tidal regime—two tidal cycles each day.

Moreover, variations in the thickness of the layers follow the familiar fortnightly alternation between spring and neap tides. The rocks therefore contain not merely a succession of vaguely similar bands, but an ordered astronomical rhythm produced by the interaction of Earth’s rotation with the orbit of the Moon. By counting and analysing those layers, the researchers calculated that the fossil-bearing succession accumulated over approximately 40 years. In other words, the rock preserves an almost day-by-day record extending across four decades.

That presents creationists with a problem that cannot be dismissed by claiming that “floods can deposit sediment rapidly”. Of course they can; that is precisely what some of the layers record. But a single flood cannot manufacture 40 years’ worth of successive twice-daily tidal deposits, arranged in the correct fortnightly spring–neap pattern. Still less can the supposed year-long biblical flood accommodate a geological sequence that records some 40 years of tides within one small part of a vastly larger, 80-million-year-old succession.

The fossils themselves also record repeated events rather than a single catastrophe. Monsoon floods and cyclone-driven storm surges periodically swept sediment, vegetation and animal carcasses onto the tidal flat. Some animals were buried so quickly that outlines of soft tissues survived; another dinosaur carcass had lain exposed on land long enough for its bones to become dried and cracked before a later flood carried it to the site. Microbial mats then stabilised the sediment and promoted its early cementation, sealing the remains before scavengers and decay could destroy them.

So the age of the site is only the beginning of creationism’s difficulties. These rocks preserve the operation of ordinary natural processes—daily tides, fortnightly lunar cycles, recurring storms, carcass exposure and transport, microbial growth and gradual sediment accumulation—over a measurable period many times longer than the entire duration assigned to Noah’s flood. The creationist story does not offer an alternative explanation for this evidence; it simply cannot accommodate the chronological record written into the rock.

Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza's article in The Conversation id reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, refromatted for stylistic consistency:

Published: July 22, 2026 1.11pm BST

Storms that built a graveyard: ancient monsoons created a spectacular dinosaur fossil site

AI-generated image (ChatGPT 5.6 Sol)

Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, UCL

Around 80 million years ago, a stretch of tropical coastline in what is now north-eastern Italy was lashed by monsoon rains and tropical cyclones. Those storms swept dinosaur carcasses, crocodiles, plants and river mud onto a tidal flat, where the tides and a film of microbes sealed everything away with extraordinary preservation.

My colleagues and I have published a new study that reconstructs the violent tropical climate behind the Villaggio del Pescatore Lagerstätte near Trieste and reveals it preserves just four decades of life, recorded almost day by day.

The Villaggio del Pescatore site near Trieste is one of the most important Late Cretaceous fossil localities in the Mediterranean. It is the only known site in the region to preserve large land animals, including dinosaurs such as Tethyshadros insularis, from the final 15 million years or so of the age of dinosaurs.

Tethyshadros insularis was a plant-eating, duck-billed dinosaur that lived in what is now north-eastern Italy around 80 million years ago. It was initially interpreted as a dwarf island species, shaped by the “island rule” – that large animals evolve smaller bodies in environments with limited space and resources.

However, the discovery of larger specimens challenged this idea. Up to 11 individuals are potentially preserved in this succession of rocks, with at least three other fairly complete skeletons still waiting to be extracted from the hard (and expensive to cut) limestone rock. Geological evidence has also revealed that the site was about 10 million years older than previously thought and was not part of a tiny, isolated island. Instead, it lay near a larger landmass connected through the ancient Mediterranean region.

Reconstruction of a Tethyshadros insularis skeleton, nicknamed Antonio, near his finding site.

Tiziana Brazzatti, CC BY-ND

The fossils of tiny crocodilians named Acynodon (with shorter muzzles than modern crocodilians) have also been found at this site.

After years of research, Professor Federico Fanti of the University of Bologna and I led a multidisciplinary team of palaeontologists, physicists and geologists to determine exactly how this fossil treasure trove formed. Our findings overturn decades of competing interpretations.

In a study published in Global and Planetary Change, we show that the site was not a quiet, isolated lake or sinkhole, as previously suggested. Our results suggest it was a storm-battered tidal flatland at the edge of a tropical sea.

Villaggio del Pescatore is not simply a place where fossils happen to be beautifully preserved. It is also a record of the weather that shaped the site. We can identify individual storms and floods in the rocks, almost day by day. Very few fossil sites on Earth allow us to do that.

Reading the rock like a calendar

The fossils at Villaggio del Pescatore are concentrated in a finely layered carbonate rock, marked by thousands of paper-thin light and dark bands. For years these were interpreted as annual layers (like tree rings) laid down season by season.

Our new analysis tells a different story. Using high-resolution X-ray scans at the Elettra Synchrotron in Trieste, alongside detailed geochemical and microscopic analyses, we showed that the bands were not annual but daily. A synchrotron accelerates electrons (particles with a negative charge) to almost the speed of light. This produces powerful X-rays that can penetrate dense materials such as rock. This allowed us to examine structures inside the rocks and bones at a resolution of fractions of a millimetre.

The scans revealed that the layers were deposited by ocean tides, two pairs each day. These tides varied according to the familiar fortnightly cycle of stronger and weaker tides that still happen today. We could count these tidal layers, thanks to this unparalleled resolution.

Microstratigraphic characteristics of VdP laminated rhythmites from Core S3.

Fanti, Federico; Consorti, Lorenzo; Muscioni, Marco; et al (2026) Fig. 3 (CC BY 4.0)

The entire fossil-bearing rock pile, our results calculate, accumulated in only about 40 years, a single human lifetime, frozen in stone. Most fossil deposits containing several individuals average together thousands or millions of years. Here, we’re looking at a few decades.

Monsoons, cyclones and microbes

To explain why storms were so central to the preservation of the fossils, the team ran climate simulations. The models consistently placed the site at around 29° north, inside a powerful, summer-dominated monsoon belt. This was a tropical regime of intensely wet summers and recurring tropical cyclones, sustained by the greenhouse climate of the age.

Monsoon-driven floods and cyclone surges created pulses of sediment, nutrients, plant debris and animal carcasses onto the tidal flat. The tides trapped this material, and mats of microbes rapidly stabilised it. This encouraged the sediment to harden right after the carcass was deposited, before it started rotting or predators could scavenge its dead tissues. These storms were the main agents behind this preservation.

Depositional model and facies details of the VdP deposits. (A) Reconstructed sequence of events: (Top) High-energy cyclonic events transport terrigenous debris, plant matter, and tetrapod carcasses across undisturbed tidal flats. (Middle) Coarse sediment settles to form a storm layer, rapidly stabilised by microbial mat draping; sinking vertebrate carcasses create impact deformation structures in the soft substrate. (Bottom) Resumption of tidal rhythms immediately buries isolated bones and debris, while articulated carcasses retain soft tissue, progressively buried by onlapping laminae over multiple tidal cycles. (B) Photomicrograph showing the typical fine, undisturbed rhythmic couplets. (C) A photographic detail illustrating an event bed, overlain by distinctive microbial draping structures. (D) A reddish, oxidised plant leaf transported from the hinterland, representing material delivered by flood pulses. Scale bars: 1 mm.

Fanti, Federico; Consorti, Lorenzo; Muscioni, Marco; et al (2026) Fig. 11 (CC BY 4.0)

The site’s three most important Tethyshadros insularis dinosaurs show a range of fates: one buried so quickly that soft-tissue outlines survive, another bearing the cracked, sun-dried bones of a carcass that lay exposed inland before being washed in by a flood. Crocodilians such as Acynodon adriaticus, fish and shrimps were also local residents, entombed close to where they lived and died.

We propose that this combination of “ingredients”, monsoon floods, tidal trapping and microbial sealing, represents a recipe for creating exceptionally preserved fossil sites in hot, tropical greenhouse climates – precisely the kind of setting in which rapid decay would normally destroy organic remains.

The study also offers an ancient perspective on how intensifying monsoons and cyclones can reshape coastlines, ecosystems and what becomes preserved along tropical shores.

Villaggio del Pescatore has been studied for more than four decades, yet it still has new stories to tell. Understanding how extreme storms transformed this ancient coastline may also help us think about how modern coasts could respond to a warmer and more turbulent climate fuelled by high levels of CO₂.
Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, Royal Society Newton International Fellow in Palaeontology, UCL

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)

Abstract
Konservat-Lagerstätten provide exceptional records of past ecosystems, yet the environmental and climatic processes governing their formation in extreme climatic regimes remain a significant, unresolved conundrum. Here we present a novel, process-based mechanism for the Villaggio del Pescatore Konservat-Lagerstätte (northeastern Italy; Late Cretaceous, 80 Ma), which preserves a diverse terrestrial and aquatic biota. Integrating high resolution synchrotron micro-analyses, bulk geochemistry, detailed taphonomy and palaeoclimate simulations we identify a dynamic, monsoon-paced tidal flat ecosystem within a carbonate coastal margin. Field and core records comprise metrescale packages of laterally persistent light–dark laminae; microstratigraphic, spectral and statistical analyses indicate a semidiurnal tidal regime with neap–spring modulation. MicroXRF/XRD mapping reveals that individual microlaminae within couplets share the same elemental inventory refuting a seasonal varve origin. Laminae chronometry, tied to the tidal interpretation, constrains net accumulation of the fossil bearing rhythmites to decadal (∼40 year) timescales. Geochemical proxies record alternating terrigenous rich, high TOC intervals and drier, better oxygenated intervals. Palaeoclimate model ensembles diagnose a vigorous, summer dominated monsoon domain at ∼29° N under greenhouse boundary conditions. We document that episodic monsoon enhanced flood and tropical cyclone pulses delivered sediment, nutrients, carcasses and plant debris to a microbially active, carbonate tidal flat; microbial mats rapidly stabilised and promoted early cementation, enabling exceptional soft tissue preservation. We propose a genetic model in which monsoon–cyclone forcing, tidal trapping and microbial sealing combine to produce decadal, daily resolved vertebrate Lagerstätten in greenhouse settings, offering predictive targets for similar deposits and deep time analogues for modern coastal change.
Graphical abstract

Image: “Stormbringer” — palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of Villaggio del Pescatore. The artwork shows a Tethyshadros insularis carcass and an Acynodon crocodilian on a storm-swept tropical tidal flat, beneath the monsoon clouds and a distant cyclone that the study identifies as the engine of the site’s formation.

Davide Bonadonna.

Fanti, Federico; Consorti, Lorenzo; Muscioni, Marco; Baldassari, Lorenzo; Dinelli, Enrico; Polentarutti, Maurizio; Bais, Giorgio; Farnsworth, Alexander; Kustatscher, Evelyn; Spina, Amalia; Chiarenza, Alfio Alessandro
Climate-extreme-driven genesis of a Cretaceous dinosaur Lagerstätte
Global and Planetary Change (2026); 265 105589 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105589

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 the researchers have reconstructed at Villaggio del Pescatore is not the aftermath of a single, indiscriminate catastrophe but a succession of ordinary natural events operating in a recognisable coastal ecosystem. Monsoon floods and cyclone surges carried mud, plants and occasional carcasses onto the tidal flat; tides trapped and rearranged the material; and microbial mats stabilised the sediment and promoted its early cementation. Different fossils consequently preserve different histories—some animals were buried rapidly, while others had lain exposed and begun to dry before being transported by a later flood.

The familiar creationist response that fossils can be buried and sediments deposited rapidly therefore misses the point entirely. Geologists have never denied rapid deposition; it is an essential part of the explanation. The issue is not how quickly each individual layer formed, but how much time elapsed while thousands of those layers accumulated. At Villaggio del Pescatore, the rocks themselves provide the answer.

Their alternating microlaminae record twice-daily tides, while variations in their thickness preserve the fortnightly spring–neap cycle produced by the changing alignment of the Earth, Moon and Sun. Counted together, they amount to approximately 40 years of tidal activity. A mythical flood lasting about a year cannot contain four decades of successive daily and fortnightly cycles, however rapidly any one of its layers might have been deposited.

The site’s age of about 80 million years is already irreconcilable with a universe supposedly created only a few thousand years ago. But even if creationists simply denied that age, as they routinely deny any inconvenient measurement, the internal chronology of the deposit would remain. Embedded within this small part of the Cretaceous geological record is a natural calendar that alone exceeds the available Flood chronology many times over.

This is why “Flood geology” is not a competing scientific interpretation. It does not explain the observed evidence; it requires that the evidence should not exist. The rocks have kept the calendar—and Genesis has run out of time.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

How Evolution Works - Shell Shock For Creationists

2026-07-23T21:33:39.205+01:00

Steinkern (internal mould) of Maclurites neritoides containing cryptic fauna cornulitids, bryozoans, and graptolites (arrows).

Credit: Vinn, O., Wilson, M.A., Tinn, O. et al. (2026)

Empty seashells became new habitats 470 million years ago | University of Tartu

A paper just published in Scientific Reports by an international team led by Olev Vinn of the University of Tartu, Estonia, provides a lovely illustration of the opportunistic nature of evolution.

Some 470 million years ago — almost 470 million years before creationists’ mythical ‘Creation Week’ — a seemingly modest ecological innovation occurred in the oceans: animals began using the sheltered interiors of empty mollusc shells as habitats. This happened during the Middle Ordovician, following the Cambrian radiation, and helped to establish a new ecological niche that remains important in marine ecosystems today.

Creationists like to misrepresent the Cambrian radiation as the sudden appearance of complex, multicellular animals without ancestors. In reality, it was neither instantaneous nor without an evolutionary prehistory. It unfolded over tens of millions of years and grew out of changes already under way among the preceding Ediacaran biota, including increasing mobility, burrowing and ecological interaction.

As animals became more mobile, predation intensified and defensive structures became increasingly advantageous. Mineralised skeletons and shells evolved independently in several lineages, probably under several interacting pressures, including protection, structural support and changing ocean chemistry. Molluscs were among the groups that acquired shells, and their subsequent diversification produced such familiar forms as gastropods, bivalves and shelled cephalopods.

One consequence was the growing accumulation of empty shells on the seabed. Each dead mollusc left behind a hard surface and a sheltered cavity that other organisms could potentially exploit. Yet the researchers found that, throughout the Cambrian, the interiors of mollusc shells and other skeletal remains remained free of encrusting animals, even though organisms capable of living on surfaces inside other cavities already existed.

That changed during the Middle Ordovician, when attached animals began colonising the relatively large, spacious shells of nautiloid cephalopods. They later spread into the empty shells of gastropods and bivalves. No foresight or planning was required: once organisms capable of settling inside these shells gained access to a protected surface supplied with food-bearing water, any heritable tendency that improved their ability to exploit it could be favoured by natural selection.

By the Late Ordovician, about 450 million years ago, the interiors of many empty shells were densely encrusted with bryozoans, brachiopods, sponges, graptolites, cornulitids and other attached animals. Many were suspension-feeders whose survival depended upon a continuing flow of water carrying oxygen and suspended food particles while removing metabolic waste.

The researchers found that shell architecture strongly influenced the abundance and size of these inhabitants, although it had less effect on the broad taxonomic composition of the communities. Water circulated comparatively freely through the spacious chambers of nautiloid shells, allowing them to support abundant and diverse communities. By contrast, tightly coiled gastropod shells with narrow openings had poorer water circulation and generally contained fewer and smaller organisms; some groups that required stronger currents were absent altogether.

The expansion of this new habitat coincided with the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, during which marine diversity increased dramatically. The researchers suggest that several factors encouraged its spread: increasing predation made sheltered cavities valuable refuges; sessile, encrusting organisms were becoming more diverse; and mollusc shells were becoming larger, providing more internal space for colonisation.

The oldest known examples come from Baltica, the ancient continent that included what is now Estonia, suggesting that this ecological innovation may have arisen there. However, the researchers caution that this apparent geographical origin could reflect sampling bias, because the Ordovician fossils of Baltica have been studied particularly thoroughly.

How an Empty Shell Became an Evolutionary Opportunity. When a mollusc died, its soft tissues decomposed or were eaten, but its mineralised shell could remain on the seabed. This left a durable hard surface surrounding a sheltered cavity — effectively a small, unoccupied habitat.

For sessile animals whose free-swimming larvae needed somewhere to settle, an empty shell could offer several advantages:

A firm attachment surface: Unlike loose sediment, the shell provided a stable foundation upon which an organism could grow.

Protection from predators: Animals attached inside a shell were less exposed than those living on its outer surface.

Shelter from disturbance: The cavity offered some protection from strong currents, moving sediment and other physical disruption.

Less competition: When shell interiors were first colonised, they represented comparatively unused space.

Access to food and oxygen: Where water circulated freely, it delivered oxygen and suspended food particles while carrying away waste.

However, not every shell provided equally favourable conditions. The large chambers and wide openings of nautiloid shells allowed relatively good water circulation and could support numerous, sometimes comparatively large, inhabitants. Tightly coiled gastropod shells with narrow openings had poorer water exchange and tended to contain fewer and smaller organisms. For a suspension-feeder, a sheltered cavity was useful only if enough water continued to flow through it.

An evolutionary cascade

The occupation of empty shells illustrates how one evolutionary development can create opportunities for further evolution:

Molluscs evolved mineralised shells.

As molluscs diversified and became more abundant, empty shells accumulated on the seabed.

Those shells created a new supply of sheltered, hard surfaces.

Some encrusting animals began settling inside them.

Individuals better able to attach, feed and survive within shells could leave more descendants.

Shell interiors consequently developed their own distinctive ecological communities.

The addition of this new habitat increased the complexity and biodiversity of marine ecosystems.

The empty shells had not evolved to provide homes for other animals, and the molluscs gained nothing from their occupation after death. It was an unintended ecological consequence of an earlier evolutionary innovation.

Nor did evolution need to anticipate how the shells might eventually be used. Once the opportunity existed, natural selection could favour any heritable variation that helped an organism exploit it. One lineage’s discarded structure had become another lineage’s habitat.

This is how evolution so often proceeds: not according to a plan directed towards a predetermined goal, but through the opportunistic exploitation of whatever environments, structures and resources happen to become available.

By the end of the Ordovician, comparable communities were present in Laurentia — including present-day North America — as well as southern China and Gondwana, showing that the occupation of empty shells had become a global ecological phenomenon. It is a fine example of evolution as a continuing process: one evolutionary development alters the environment, creates new opportunities and thereby opens the way for further diversification.

The paper in Scientific Reports was accompanied by a news release from the University of Tartu:

Empty seashells became new habitats 470 million years ago
An international study led by researchers from the University of Tartu shows that approximately 470 million years ago, a significant ecological change took place in the world’s oceans: for the first time, the interiors of empty mollusc shells began to be used as habitats. This marked the emergence of a new ecological niche and was a crucial step in the development of a marine ecosystem similar to today’s.
In modern seas, empty mollusc shells rarely remain unoccupied for long. They are often covered with various attached invertebrates, such as bryozoans and annelids. However, the study shows that during the Cambrian Period, more than 500 million years ago, the interiors of such shells remained completely uninhabited, even though organisms living in sheltered cavities already existed.

A team of researchers, including Olev Vinn, Oive Tinn, Liisa Lang, and Mare Isakar from the University of Tartu, analyzed fossils from different parts of the world and found that the first animals to colonize these sheltered habitats appeared in mollusc shells during the Middle Ordovician, or about 460 million years ago. Initially, the relatively large and spacious shells of cephalopods—or nautiloids—were colonized, and later, these small inhabitants also spread into the interiors of snails and clams.

By the Late Ordovician—about 450 million years ago—the interiors of many shells were already densely covered with attached fauna. These were inhabited by animals that filtered food particles floating in the water, such as bryozoans, brachiopods, sponges, graptolites, and cornulids, which built tube-shaped shells.

However, not all empty shells provided the same living conditions. The study revealed that although the communities living in the shells of snails, clams, and cephalopods were quite similar in terms of species composition, the shape of the shells influenced how numerous the organisms were and how large they grew. Water circulated more freely in the spacious chambers of the nautiloids, supplying the animals with oxygen and food and carrying away metabolic waste. Consequently, it is precisely in these shells that the most diverse fossil communities are found.

In the coiled shells of snails with narrow openings, water exchange was poorer, and the organisms that grew there were mostly smaller; moreover, some animal groups requiring a stronger water current were entirely absent.

Why did this new way of life emerge during the Ordovician?

The adoption of this new habitat coincided with a major increase in Ordovician biodiversity. At that time, marine communities diversified rapidly, and there was a significant increase in the number of sessile organisms encrusting skeletal substrates compared to earlier periods.

Several factors contributed to the spread of this new habitat: increased predation pressure, the rapid diversification of sessile organisms, and the enlargement of mollusc shells throughout the Ordovician. The sheltered interiors of the shells provided protection for the animals and open space for sessile fauna to attach to the hard surface. The interior of an empty shell also offered protection to delicate filter-feeders against both predation and physical disturbances.

The oldest known inhabitants of empty shells have been found in the Baltica region, which may indicate that this new way of life first emerged in these seas. However, the researchers emphasize that this result may also be partly due to the fact that fossils from Estonia and other parts of Baltica have been thoroughly studied.

By the end of the Ordovician, similar communities were already present in Laurentia—present-day North America—as well as in southern China and the Gondwana region. For this reason, the authors view the colonization of empty shells as a global ecological event.

The study helps us better understand how ecological innovations have shaped the evolution of life on Earth. Even a seemingly modest change—the adoption of empty shells as habitats—may have had a significant impact on the development of seafloor ecosystems and the growth of biodiversity hundreds of millions of years ago.

Publication:
Vinn, O., Wilson, M.A., Tinn, O. et al.
Colonization of empty shells by cryptic fauna: a global event and important ecological innovation in Ordovician benthic ecosystems.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-62638-5

Abstract
In all modern seas, empty mollusc shell interiors are often heavily encrusted by cryptic invertebrates, whereas globally in the Cambrian, all shell interiors of molluscs and other invertebrates remained free of encrustation, though cryptic organisms themselves occurred in other types of cavities. The colonization of cryptic surfaces within empty shells constitutes a global event and an important ecological innovation in Ordovician benthic marine ecosystems, marking the beginning of a new ecological niche. The earliest colonization in mollusc shells by cryptic invertebrates occurred in the Middle Ordovician, while heavily encrusted shell interiors are known since the Late Ordovician. The taxonomic composition of Ordovician cryptic communities in gastropod, bivalve, and nautiloid shells is generally similar, though substrate architecture influenced encruster abundance and body size rather than overall community structure. The major expansion of cryptic ecological niches occurred during the Ordovician biodiversification, driven by the increase in predation pressure, the diversification of encrusting organisms, and a general increase in the size of mollusc shells.

Vinn, O., Wilson, M.A., Tinn, O. et al.
Colonization of empty shells by cryptic fauna: a global event and important ecological innovation in Ordovician benthic ecosystems.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-62638-5

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

The age of these fossils is, of course, the most obvious problem for creationists. Animals were colonising empty mollusc shells about 470 million years before their supposed ‘Creation Week’. But even if that inconvenient date could somehow be wished away, the sequence of events preserved in the rocks would remain just as damaging to the creationist account.

The fossil record does not show a completed marine ecosystem appearing all at once, least of all only a few thousand years ago. During the Cambrian, suitable shell interiors existed and cryptic animals lived in other sheltered cavities, yet empty shells remained uncolonised. During the Middle Ordovician, animals began occupying the spacious interiors of nautiloid shells; later they spread into gastropod and bivalve shells; and by the Late Ordovician, complex shell-dwelling communities had become globally widespread. That is a chronological succession of ecological changes, not the instantaneous creation of fixed and fully formed communities.

The distribution of these organisms was also governed by ordinary physical conditions. Spacious shells with good water circulation supplied more oxygen and food and supported larger, more abundant communities. Narrow, tightly coiled shells restricted water exchange and supported fewer and smaller inhabitants. The organisms occurred where their inherited characteristics enabled them to survive, not where some supernatural designer had assigned them to live.

Most revealingly, the new habitat itself was an accidental by-product of earlier evolution. Molluscs did not evolve shells to provide homes for other animals after their deaths. Empty shells simply became available, and organisms capable of exploiting that opportunity gained shelter, attachment surfaces and access to food-bearing water. Evolution then proceeded through the differential survival and reproduction of those variants best suited to the new conditions. There was no plan, no anticipation and no need for either.

Creationism explains none of this: neither the immense age, the ordered appearance of successive communities, their dependence upon earlier evolutionary innovations nor their later spread across the world. It can accommodate the evidence only by inventing additional miracles after the evidence has been discovered — excuses that predict nothing and explain nothing.

The rocks contain no trace of a completed creation; they preserve a history of evolution continually making new opportunities from the remains of what evolved before.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Refuting Creationism - The Unbroken History of China

2026-07-23T15:19:13.263+01:00

Carving stone at Shimao city.

Image by IVPP.

The landscape of Shimao city.

Image by IVPP.

New DNA Study Unlocks Origins, Social Structure of Neolithic Shimao Civilization----Chinese Academy of Sciences

In my last blog post, I pointed out that ancient Egypt’s archaeological and written record extends continuously from long before the date young-Earth creationists assign to Noah’s Flood, through that supposed catastrophe and into biblical times. Nowhere is there any sign that Egypt was destroyed by a global flood and subsequently repopulated by migrants from Mesopotamia. I also showed that the biblical writers who set stories in Egypt possessed only a tenuous understanding of its real history and culture.

Ancient China presents creationists with much the same problem. Its archaeological record contains long regional sequences extending across the supposed date of the Flood, with local populations, cultures and economies continuing to develop. If every human outside Noah’s immediate family had been exterminated, the existing peoples of East Asia should disappear from the record and be replaced by a rapidly expanding population of recent Mesopotamian origin. That is not what archaeology shows—and ancient DNA now provides an especially clear test of the claim.

The evidence comes from a paper published in Nature in November 2025 by an international team led by Professor Qiaomei Fu of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, working with researchers from several other Chinese institutions.

The team analysed genome-wide data from 169 ancient individuals recovered from Shimao and surrounding settlements in northern China. Population analyses were conducted using 144 unrelated individuals, while the remaining close relatives enabled the researchers to reconstruct pedigrees extending across as many as four generations.

Shimao, in northern Shaanxi Province, was one of the largest fortified settlements in Late Neolithic China. Occupied from approximately 2300 to 1800 BCE, it covered about four square kilometres and contained massive stone walls, separate inner and outer enclosures, specialised craft production, elite cemeteries and unmistakable evidence of a highly stratified society. Its occupation therefore began at about the very time when, according to the conventional young-Earth creationist chronology, the world should have been struggling to recover from a global extermination and repopulation by Noah’s immediate descendants.

Instead, the genomes showed that the people associated with Shimao were predominantly descended from populations already living in northern Shaanxi at least 1,000 years earlier. Those earlier inhabitants were associated with the Yangshao cultural tradition of the Yellow River’s Loess Plateau. The researchers found regional genetic continuity from the Middle to the Late Neolithic—continuity extending from before the supposed Flood into the centuries following it.

This was not a completely isolated or genetically static population. The researchers detected continuing contact with Yumin-related people from Inner Mongolia, close connections with the contemporary Taosi population farther south, and some ancestry from southern East Asian populations, possibly associated with the northward spread of rice cultivation. These were the ordinary movements, exchanges and intermarriages expected among neighbouring prehistoric farming and pastoral communities. They did not interrupt the dominant local ancestry, and there was no sign of wholesale population replacement by descendants of a family recently arrived from Mesopotamia.

The genetic evidence also revealed much about the organisation of Shimao society. Pedigrees reconstructed from elite burials indicated a predominantly patrilineal system in which status and wealth commonly passed from high-ranking men to their sons. Male members of these lineages showed relatively little diversity in their Y-chromosome ancestry, whereas the women displayed much greater mitochondrial diversity. This is consistent with women frequently marrying into communities dominated by established male lineages, although the evidence for strictly patrilocal residence remains suggestive rather than conclusive.

The study also uncovered a possible sex-related pattern in Shimao’s practice of human sacrifice. Nine of the ten sampled victims buried beneath the East Gate were male, contradicting earlier identifications based on skeletal anatomy. In contrast, most sampled sacrificial victims accompanying elite burials were female: six of seven at Hanjiagedan and fourteen of nineteen at Huangchengtai. This suggests that male and female victims may have been selected for different rituals conducted in different places, although the researchers caution that the number of genetically sexed victims remains too small to establish the pattern conclusively.

The archaeological evidence that Noah’s Flood never happened.

According to the chronology traditionally associated with young-Earth creationism, Noah’s Flood occurred in about 2348 BCE. If a year-long global flood had then exterminated every human except eight members of one Mesopotamian family, archaeology should reveal a correspondingly global and simultaneous discontinuity.

We should find settlements throughout the world abandoned or destroyed at approximately the same time; mass graves and widespread human and animal mortality; catastrophic erosion or water-laid deposits; the disappearance of established populations and cultures; and their replacement by small founding populations carrying traditions derived from Mesopotamia.

Nothing resembling that appears in the archaeological record. Instead, different populations continued living in different parts of the world, developing their own cultures through the supposed catastrophe:

Mesopotamia: The region in which the biblical story originated contains abundant evidence of ordinary river flooding—but not of a global flood. Excavators found substantial water-laid deposits at Ur, Kish and Shuruppak, but they do not all date to the same event. The deposit at Ur dates to at least 3500 BCE, while deposits at Kish and Shuruppak are generally associated with flooding around 3000 BCE. Meanwhile, other Mesopotamian cities continued to be occupied, build temples, conduct trade and produce administrative texts throughout the third millennium BCE. These local disasters may have helped inspire Mesopotamian flood legends, but they cannot establish a simultaneous worldwide event.

The Indus civilisation: The Mature Harappan civilisation flourished from approximately 2600 to 1900 BCE, spanning the supposed date of the Flood. Its cities retained their characteristic street plans, drainage systems, standardised bricks, weights, pottery, seals, crafts and trading networks. Dholavira was occupied for about 1,500 years, from approximately 3000 to 1500 BCE, and its excavated sequence records the settlement’s growth, urban development and eventual decline—not destruction and repopulation by migrants from Mesopotamia.

The Iranian Plateau: Sites such as Tepe Hissar preserve occupation and ceramic traditions extending from the Chalcolithic into the Bronze Age, across the supposed Flood date. Ancient DNA likewise shows that ancestry derived from earlier Iranian populations remained a major component of later inhabitants. There was migration and admixture, as there normally is, but no universal population extinction followed by descent from Noah’s family.

The Central Andes: Caral-Supe in present-day Peru developed between approximately 3000 and 1800 BCE. Its platform mounds, sunken courts and urban organisation were constructed and remodelled over centuries, including the period in which the rest of humanity was supposedly being exterminated. There is neither a destruction horizon at about 2350 BCE nor any sign that the region was subsequently colonised by people arriving from the Middle East.

Japan: The long Jōmon archaeological sequence extends across many millennia, including the supposed Flood. Its regional pottery traditions, settlements and subsistence practices continued to develop without a sudden break in the third millennium BCE. Archaeological and genetic evidence identifies the Jōmon as a deeply rooted East Asian population, not the recently arrived descendants of a Mesopotamian family.

Where is the worldwide layer of flood sediment?

A global flood would not necessarily deposit an identical layer of fine silt at every location. Fast-moving water erodes sediment in some places and deposits clay, sand, gravel, boulders and biological remains in others. Nevertheless, a catastrophe covering every continent should leave an unmistakable, approximately simultaneous horizon of erosion, deposition, destruction and ecological disruption at archaeological sites throughout the world.

No such horizon exists. Archaeologists certainly find flood deposits, especially in river valleys, but they are local, vary greatly in composition and date, and are interspersed with uninterrupted occupation elsewhere. A flood layer beside the Euphrates is evidence that the Euphrates flooded, just as a flood deposit beside the Yellow River shows that the Yellow River flooded. Neither is evidence that the entire planet was submerged.

Archaeology does record abandoned cities, migrations, wars, droughts, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and devastating regional floods. The important point is that these events occurred in different places at different times. At no point around 2350 BCE did the world’s settlements, populations and cultures disappear together. The archaeological record contains exactly what we should expect from ordinary human history—and nothing we should expect from Noah’s Flood.

The research and its implications are summarised in a news item from the Chinese Academy of Sciences:

New DNA Study Unlocks Origins, Social Structure of Neolithic Shimao Civilization
A new study published in Nature on November 26 has shed light on the origins, population structures, and kinship systems of the people of Shimao—one of China's most significant late Neolithic settlements. Analyses of ancient DNA from individuals who inhabited the site reveal genetic links to southern settlements, while also providing evidence of male mass burials associated with human sacrifice.
Led by Prof. FU Qiaomei from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the research was conducted in collaboration with the Shaanxi Provincial Academy of Archaeology and other institutions. The team spent 13 years carrying out large-scale, high-resolution nuclear genome analysis on 169 ancient human samples (144 unrelated individuals) collected from Shimao and surrounding sites, as well as the southern Shanxi region.

The landscape of Shimao city.
Image by IVPP.

Dating to approximately 4200–3700 years before the present, the Shimao site is a massive, clearly socially stratified late Neolithic settlement located in northern Shaanxi Province, China. Encompassing roughly four square kilometers, the stone-walled settlement features distinct functional zones, alongside archaeological evidence of social organization and human sacrifice.

By comparing newly generated genomic data with previously published ancient DNA data from other Chinese populations, the researchers found that the Shimao people were predominantly descended from local groups that inhabited the region roughly 1,000 years earlier. Further analysis revealed cultural and genetic connections to Yangshao Culture—an iconic Neolithic civilization centered on the Yellow River's Loess Plateau—offering key insights into the possible origins of the Shimao population.

Additionally, around 80 human skulls were found at the East Gate location. In contrast, no other archaeological site in China produced such a large number of human skulls before the late Shang. The study's genetic analysis reconstructed family pedigrees spanning up to four generations within Shimao society, uncovering a social hierarchy organized around patrilineal descent and patrilocal residence.

Carving stone at Shimao city.
Image by IVPP.

The research also challenges long-held assumptions about the gender of sacrificial victims at Shimao's East Gate. Contradicting prior hypotheses that female individuals dominated these sacrifices, genetic evidence shows that nine out of ten burials at the site were male. The study identified a clear sex-specific pattern: Male sacrifices were concentrated at the East Gate, while female sacrificial remains were associated with elite cemeteries such as Huangchengtai and Hanjiagedan. This suggests Shimao's sacrificial practices were highly structured, with gender-specific roles tied to distinct ritual purposes and locations.

High-level burial (tomb 2020M4) at Zhaishan site (a tomb owner and a sacrificed victim).
Image by IVPP.

This study provides genetic evidence that the Shimao cultural populations primarily originated from local Yangshao cultural ancestry in northern Shaanxi, establishing both regional cultural and genetic continuity for at least a millennium. It also reveals close genetic and cultural connections between the Shimao people and populations associated with Taosi Culture (southern Shanxi), steppe Yumin-related groups, and southern rice-farming communities—highlighting extensive interactions and exchanges among prehistoric farming and pastoral communities.

Furthermore, the study offers the first direct genetic evidence for exploring power inheritance models and the composition of ruling families and social strata in the origins of early East Asian states.

Geographic locations and Temporal distribution of newly sampled archaeological sites.

Image by Prof. FU Qiaomei's team.

Map of sites within Shimao city.
Image by Prof. FU Qiaomei's team.

Publication:
Chen, Z., Gardner, J.D., Sun, Z. et al.
Ancient DNA from Shimao city records kinship practices in Neolithic China.
Nature 648, 659–667 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09799-x

Abstract
The discovery of Shimao city (around 2300–1800 bce¹), a premier state-level Neolithic fortified settlement in Shaanxi, China², played an important role in helping us understand the emergence of socially stratified urban societies. However, key questions remain regarding how ancestry and kinship shaped the hierarchy of this class-based society characterized by human sacrifice. The origin of the founding populations of Shimao and other Loess Plateau settlements, and their interactions within the broader ancestral landscape, have yet to be determined. Here we present, by sequencing 144 ancient genomes from Shimao city and its satellites, pedigrees among tomb owners spanning up to four generations. These findings reveal a predominantly patrilineal descent structure across Shimao communities, and possibly sex-specific sacrificial rituals. We also characterize the population history, revealing that Shimao culture-related populations originated mostly from a Yangshao culture-related population present at least 1,000 years earlier, and the lasting inflow of Yumin-related populations from Inner Mongolia did not interrupt regional genetic continuity. Broader genetic influence from southern mainland ancestry over Shimao culture-related populations supports evidence of rice farming expanding further north than previously expected. Together, these results uncover fine details of the regional peopling and social structure of early state establishment.

Chen, Z., Gardner, J.D., Sun, Z. et al.
Ancient DNA from Shimao city records kinship practices in Neolithic China.
Nature 648, 659–667 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09799-x

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 significance of these findings extends well beyond the social organisation of one prehistoric Chinese city. The people of Shimao were not the descendants of a recently arrived Mesopotamian family repopulating an empty world. They were predominantly descended from people who had lived in the same region for at least a thousand years, inheriting and developing local traditions while exchanging genes, crops and ideas with neighbouring populations.

That is precisely what should not be found if the biblical Flood had occurred. If every human outside Noah’s family had been exterminated in about 2350 BCE, the populations of China should have disappeared abruptly and been replaced by people bearing unmistakable genetic and cultural connections to Mesopotamia. Instead, ancient DNA reveals regional continuity, ordinary migration and gradual admixture—the normal processes of real human history.

China and Egypt are not isolated exceptions. From the Indus Valley and the Iranian Plateau to Japan and the Americas, archaeology documents populations and cultures continuing through the supposed date of the Flood. Local floods certainly occurred and sometimes devastated individual settlements, but there is no worldwide, synchronous horizon of destruction, sediment deposition, mass mortality and subsequent recolonisation. The evidence is not merely missing where a global flood should have left it; abundant evidence exists for events that could not have occurred had the story been true.

The rational conclusion is therefore not that every relevant branch of science has somehow failed simultaneously, but that the Flood is a myth inherited from earlier Mesopotamian traditions and enlarged into a tale of global divine genocide. Creationists can preserve it only by discarding archaeology, genetics, geology and history together—and the Flood survives only where evidence is not allowed to enter.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Creationism Refuted - The Unbroken History Of Egypt

2026-07-22T12:14:02.116+01:00

Egyptian Middle Kingdom princesses at archery practice

AI-generated image (ChatGPT 5.6 Sol)

Warrior princesses of ancient Egypt? Skeletons show women used the weapons buried with them

The writers and editors who composed the Pentateuch clearly possessed some knowledge of Egypt. It was, after all, a powerful neighbouring civilisation with which the peoples of the Levant had interacted for centuries. But a sprinkling of Egyptian names, loanwords and geographical details does not turn a theological story into an accurate historical account. When the biblical narratives are compared with Egyptian records, chronology and archaeology, Egypt often appears less as a real country than as an exotic stage on which the authors could set their morality tales.

The biblical use of the word ‘Pharaoh’ illustrates the problem, although not for the reason sometimes claimed. ‘Pharaoh’ is not a Hebrew expression meaning ‘owner of an estate’. The Hebrew par‘ō was borrowed from the ancient Egyptian pr-ꜥꜣ, meaning ‘Great House’. It originally referred to the royal palace and only during the New Kingdom came to be used for the king himself. Its use as the personal designation of a ruler in Genesis, whose supposed events are conventionally placed centuries earlier, is therefore probably anachronistic.

More revealingly, the biblical authors never identify the rulers in the Joseph or Exodus stories by any of their regnal names. Egyptian kings possessed elaborate formal titles and names, yet the Bible gives us only an anonymous ‘Pharaoh’. This makes it impossible to place either story securely within Egyptian chronology and contrasts sharply with the detailed records left by the Egyptians themselves.

There is likewise no independent evidence for an Exodus on anything resembling the scale described in the Bible. No Egyptian record mentions ten devastating plagues, the death of the firstborn, the destruction of a substantial chariot force or the sudden flight of an enormous enslaved population. Egyptian royal inscriptions were selective and rarely advertised defeats, so their silence alone would not be conclusive. However, there is also no corresponding demographic, economic or archaeological disruption in Egypt, and no material trace in Sinai of the immense population demanded by a strictly literal reading of the story.

The narrative also contains striking internal difficulties. Exodus 9 describes a pestilence affecting the Egyptian livestock in the fields—including horses—and then declares that ‘all the livestock of the Egyptians died’. Yet the same chapter subsequently refers to more Egyptian livestock, while Exodus 14 has Pharaoh assembling 600 chosen chariots, together with his other chariots, all of which would have required teams of surviving horses. Apologists can invent unmentioned groups of sheltered or unaffected animals, but that is an attempt to repair the story, not a literal reading of what it says.

Nor is the geography as straightforward as the familiar Sunday-school version suggests. The Hebrew Yam Suph, traditionally translated as the Red Sea, more probably means the ‘Sea of Reeds’, and its intended location remains uncertain. Moreover, at the dates commonly proposed for an Exodus, Egypt maintained forts, roads and mining operations in Sinai and exercised imperial control over much of Canaan. Even after leaving Egypt proper, the Israelites would not necessarily have escaped Egyptian power.

Exodus 12:37 gives a figure of about 600,000 adult men, besides women and children. Read literally, that implies a total population of perhaps two or three million people, together with their animals. It is absurd to imagine such a population living and travelling in Sinai for 40 years without leaving campsites, hearths, tools, pottery, animal bones, human burials or any other archaeological footprint remotely commensurate with its supposed size.

An even greater problem for biblical literalists is the continuous archaeological record of Egypt itself. Young-Earth creationist chronologies commonly place their global Flood somewhere around the middle of the third millennium BCE, by which time Egypt had already been a unified state for centuries and the great pyramids of the Old Kingdom had been built. Egyptian society certainly underwent political and economic changes, but there is no point at which its entire population disappears and is replaced by descendants of eight survivors from Mesopotamia.

Nor is there a synchronous horizon of catastrophic erosion, inundation, mass death and repopulation throughout Egypt—or anywhere else—that could represent a global Flood. Instead, archaeologists find settlements, tombs, temples, administrative records and evolving cultural traditions extending through and beyond the period in which the Flood supposedly occurred. It is a vast body of mutually consistent evidence that simply could not exist in its present form if the biblical story were literal history.

The latest study does not, by itself, constitute a direct test of the Flood story because the burials it examines date from approximately 1850–1700 BCE, after the date assigned to the Flood by most creationists. Its importance lies instead in the extraordinary detail it adds to Egypt’s continuous and independently reconstructed history—a real history populated by named individuals whose health, relationships and activities can be investigated scientifically, rather than by anonymous characters in an unverifiable tale.

The study is a modern bioarchaeological reassessment of the skeletal remains of King Hor and five royal women—four identified princesses and a fifth woman tentatively identified as Princess Sathathormeryt. The remains were recovered during Jacques de Morgan’s excavations at Dahshur in 1894–1895, but had received little systematic examination using the techniques now available. The researchers combined osteological examination, radiological imaging and chemical analysis of the surviving embalming materials.

From a historical perspective, one of the most intriguing findings concerns the lives of these royal women. Their burials collectively contained bows, arrows, maces, staves and an exquisite dagger, as well as jewellery and other objects associated with their elite status. Such weapons had often been interpreted as purely ceremonial grave goods, symbols of rank or objects intended for use in the afterlife.

The skeletal evidence, however, suggests that at least some of the women had used weapons repeatedly during life. The researchers found unusually robust entheses—the places where muscles and ligaments attach to bone—together with asymmetrical development in the arms and shoulders and modifications to bones of the hands. These patterns are consistent with repetitive, physically demanding activities such as drawing a bow and gripping a dagger or mace.

Princesses Khenmet and Itaweret showed skeletal changes consistent with repeated bow-drawing, while Princess Noub-Hotep’s forearm and hand bones displayed adaptations matching the arrows found in her burial. Princess Ita, who was buried with an elaborately decorated dagger, had strongly developed attachment sites associated with forceful and repeated gripping. The findings therefore suggest that these objects were not merely decorative possessions but implements with which the women had trained.

This does not prove that Egypt maintained a separate class of female combat troops, or that the princesses necessarily fought in battles. Their activities could have included hunting, athletic training or ritualised displays of archery and royal power. Nevertheless, the evidence strongly challenges the traditional assumption that elite Egyptian women were invariably sedentary figures whose weapons served only a symbolic purpose. These princesses appear to have participated in skilled and physically demanding martial or ritual activities.

The reassessment was conducted by Zeinab Hashesh of the University of Beni-Suef, Beni-Suef, Egypt; Ahmed Gabr of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Cairo, Egypt; and Roxie Walker of the Institute for Bioarcheology, London, United Kingdom. They have published their findings in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.

The archaeology and its significance are also discussed in an article in The Conversation by Anna M. Kotarba-Morley, Associate Professor in Archaeology and Heritage at Adelaide University, and Michael Westaway, Professor of Archaeology and Biological Anthropology in the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland. Their article is reprinted below under a Creative Commons licence and reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Published: July 17, 2026 5.01am BST

Warrior princesses of ancient Egypt? Skeletons show women used the weapons buried with them

Sameh Abdel Mohsen / Egyptian Museum

Anna M. Kotarba-Morley, Adelaide University and Michael Westaway, The University of Queensland

In the opening scene of the 2001 blockbuster film The Mummy Returns, two women of Egypt’s royal court engage in spectacular hand-to-hand combat.

The scene is dramatic rather than historical, but it raises an interesting question: were Egyptian women really trained with weapons, similarly to Viking shieldmaidens?

A new study of royal skeletons, published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, suggests there may be an element of truth to this idea.

The sisters and daughters of pharaoh Amenemhat II, who died around 1900 BC, were buried with bows, maces and in at least one case a dagger. The new research, led by Zaineb Hashesh at Egypt’s University of Beni-Suef, suggests these weren’t just for decoration.

The women behind the treasures

Few Egyptian artefacts are as striking as the dagger buried with Princess Ita almost 4,000 years ago. Its handle, made of lapis lazuli, turquoise and gold, is a masterpiece of Middle Kingdom craftsmanship. Yet the real mystery is the princess who was buried with it.

Princess Ita was one of five royal women interred in richly furnished underground tombs at Dahshur, the royal necropolis south of modern Cairo, as part of the family group associated with Amenemhat II. The pharaoh was buried nearby in the White Pyramid complex, named for its dazzling Tura limestone casing.

These women were members of Egypt’s Twelfth Dynasty, one of the most powerful periods of the Middle Kingdom.

The Bent Pyramid at Dahshur, near where the princesses were found.

Jens Aber / Unsplash

Excavated by Jacques de Morgan in the 1890s, the matching burial chambers contained extraordinary jewellery and cosmetic objects. They also held weapons – bows, arrows, maces and Princess Ita’s exquisite dagger.

This has intrigued Egyptologists for more than a century, as weaponry has traditionally been associated with elite men rather than female burials.

Reading lives written in bones The study of a person’s life through their skeleton is called osteobiography. The combination of burial context, artefacts, historical records and skeletal evidence means osteobiography can be a compelling way to reconstruct ancient lives.

Archaeologists often favour large studies comparing hundreds of skeletons to understand health, diet and lifestyle across a population. Yet individuals from the deep past who have an identity – a name, family relationships, a burial context – are rarer, but scientifically powerful in their own way.

One of the most famous examples is the Viking cemetery at Birka, Sweden. Here, a 10th-century grave containing weapons and a board game was long assumed to belong to a male warrior – until DNA confirmed the skeleton was that of a woman.

Were the Dahshur princesses really archers? The Twelfth Dynasty burials reveal an equally surprising story. Despite careful mummification, most soft tissue has turned to dust over the millennia, and the skulls were lost in the early 1900s.

However, many long bones and muscle attachments survived well enough for modern osteological analysis of the princesses’ physical activity.

The six skeletal remains – King Hor and five princesses, Ita, Khenmet, Itaweret, Nubhetepti-Khered and one unnamed woman – show muscle attachment areas associated with repetitive motions of precision gripping and pulling, consistent with archery.

Bones are remodelled continually in response to biomechanical strain. The repetitive high-intensity gripping needed to stabilise and draw a bow has been shown to leave lasting marks on bone structure. These markers can’t prove a single activity, but they are good indicators of long-term movement patterns.

Muscle attachment robustness in Princess Noub Hotep: lower arm bones showing pronounced areas of muscle attachment (left), and bowing of the second metacarpal (hand bone marked with red arrow) and pronounced muscle attachments of the palm and finger bones (right). These are consistent with repetitively stabilising and drawing a bow.

Hashesh et al. / Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology
, CC BY

Princess Noub-Hotep offers the clearest example, with bowing of her second metacarpal (a hand bone) and arrows among her burial goods.

Subtle changes in the bones of Princess Ita reflect repetitive biomechanical strain, and include a pronounced muscle attachment in the left fifth finger (left), robust muscle attachments in the bones of the lower arms (top right), and a robust ligament in the right collarbone (bottom right). These are consistent with habitual gripping of weapons such as daggers or maces.

Hashesh et al. / Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, CC BY

Combined with the weapons found in the tombs, the study’s authors argue these skeletal signatures point to regular, habitual use of weapons. In other words, they say, these were not merely ceremonial burial goods.

A royal life may not have been an easy one Fracture patterns in the bones add another dimension. Princess Itaweret shows healed trauma in a rib and foot-bone consistent with a fall or a forceful blow. King Hor has a hand fracture and skull trauma, both healed. This suggests a more physically demanding life than the sedentary existence often imagined for ancient elites.

Elite status didn’t buffer them from other hardships either: the eye sockets of King Hor show potential signs of nutritional stress and infectious disease. The shinbones of Princess Nubhetepti-Khered have features often linked to repetitive activity such as food preparation – but perhaps in this instance tied to ritual or court function.

Where next for the Dahshur royals? The princesses may have been buried decades after their father, as part of a ritual system securing the king’s eternal rebirth. This study is unlikely to be the final word on their lives.

If DNA can ever be recovered from the skeletons, it could clarify family relationships, including for the unnamed woman in her 20s.

Further microscopic analysis (histology) of the bones could reveal how activity changed over a lifetime – whether the strain of drawing a bow declined with age, particularly in the older princesses, Khenmet and Noub-Hotep.

Comparing these elite burials with working-class remains from the same period could also show whether ordinary Egyptians bore similar patterns of biomechanical stress and disease.

Together, these approaches have the potential to transform these remarkable burials from archaeological discoveries into rich, detailed biographies of the people themselves.

Royal women whose stories have often been eclipsed by the reigns of male kings can take their place as actors in Egypt’s history, rather than passive figures in the archaeological record.
Anna M. Kotarba-Morley, Associate Professor in Archaeology and Heritage, Adelaide University and Michael Westaway, Professor of Archaeology and Biological Anthropology, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland

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)

Abstract

Introduction: This study addresses the underutilization of bioarchaeological approaches in Egyptian research by reevaluating six royal skeletal remains (King Hor and five princesses) from de Morgan's 1894–1895 Dahshur excavation. Historically, these remains—now dispersed across two museums—received limited and contentious early analysis.

Methods: The present research employs an integrated methodology, combining systematic osteological reexamination (biological profiles, activity patterns, non-metric traits, and paleopathology), radiological imaging (X-ray), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) for embalming materials.

Results: This multi-analytical approach generates comprehensive data on elite health, activity patterns, and familial relationships. It also provides new perspectives on the royal women interred with historically male-associated weapons and regalia, exploring whether these items reflect active use or symbolic burial.

Discussion: By critically correlating skeletal and historical evidence, this study refines individual identities, contextualizes funerary practices, and demonstrates the vital role of human remains analysis in reconstructing ancient Egyptian life and death.

(A) Map of Dahshur necropolis. (B) The Amenemhat II pyramid complex with the west galleries, showing the burials of Khnumit and Ita (B1) and Itaweret and Sathathormeryt (B2). (C) The Amenemhat III pyramid complex with the north shafts, including king Hor shaft (C3) and Noub Hotep (C4). Adapted from De Morgan (1903: Pl. II) and Grajetzki (2014: 48–49).

Hashesh Z, Gabr A and Walker R (2026)
Bioarchaeological reassessment of Dahshur royal skeletal remains from the Late Middle Kingdom (c. 1850–1700 BCE).
Front. Environ. Archaeol. 5: 1844402. doi: 10.3389/fearc.2026.1844402

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)

The significance of this research extends beyond the intriguing possibility that some royal Egyptian women were trained archers. It demonstrates how modern archaeology can recover aspects of individual lives from evidence that has survived for almost 4,000 years. Burial objects, skeletal adaptations, healed injuries and chemical traces of embalming materials can be examined together to reconstruct a picture that is detailed, testable and open to revision as new evidence becomes available.

The interpretation should remain appropriately cautious: the evidence does not prove that these princesses fought in battles or belonged to an organised female warrior class. It does, however, strongly suggest that their bows, arrows and other weapons were more than ceremonial decorations. Their bones bear the marks of repeated, strenuous and highly skilled activity, challenging the traditional assumption that royal Egyptian women lived entirely sedentary and ornamental lives.

For biblical literalists, meanwhile, every such discovery deepens an already insoluble problem. These women belonged to an established royal dynasty embedded in inherited funerary traditions, specialised craftsmanship, organised trade, sophisticated medicine and a complex social hierarchy. Their lives formed part of an Egyptian history that stretches continuously across the supposed date of the global Flood, without any extermination of the population, destruction of the civilisation or repopulation by descendants of Noah.

Archaeology does not reveal the anonymous cardboard Egypt of Genesis and Exodus, populated by nameless pharaohs and interrupted by supernatural catastrophes. It reveals real people with names, families, illnesses, injuries, occupations and physical traces of what they did during their lives. The contrast could hardly be clearer: science patiently reconstructs Egypt’s history from evidence, while creationism demands that the evidence be ignored so that an ancient story can continue to masquerade as history.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Creationism Refuted - How The Building Blocks Of Life Can be Made Without Magic

2026-07-21T16:52:10.309+01:00

AI-generated image (ChatGPT 5.6 Sol)

Cosmic dust analogue seen through a microscope created by experiment by Linda Losurdo.

This student made cosmic dust in her lab. What she found could help us understand how life started on Earth - The University of Sydney

Creationist objections to abiogenesis often smuggle in the long-discredited idea of vitalism: the belief that living matter contains some special ingredient or “vital force” absent from non-living matter. This appears to lie behind the familiar creationist refrain that “life cannot come from non-life”, as though “life” were a substance that must be added to matter by a supernatural agent.

The word “life”, however, is rarely defined in this argument. Scientists can devise operational definitions for particular purposes, but life is not a single substance possessed by some molecules and absent from others. It is a collection of properties displayed by sufficiently organised chemical systems. By leaving the term undefined, creationists turn their assertion into a slogan that can neither be tested nor falsified.

The distinction between organic and inorganic chemistry is useful, but partly conventional and historical. Organic chemistry deals broadly with carbon compounds, although some carbon-containing substances—including carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and carbonates—are traditionally classified as inorganic. There is no fundamental physical boundary between the two categories: both obey precisely the same laws of physics, chemistry and quantum mechanics.

Carbon’s extraordinary chemical versatility follows from its atomic structure. A carbon atom has six protons and six electrons, four of which are valence electrons in its outer shell. Its small size and ability to form strong covalent bonds with itself and with elements such as hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen allow it to form stable chains, rings, branches and extensive molecular networks. Depending on how it is bonded, carbon can adopt tetrahedral, trigonal-planar or linear arrangements and can form single, double or triple bonds. All this follows from quantum chemistry; no vital spark, magical ingredient or special rule is required.

None of that proves that the origin of life was inevitable, and science does not yet possess a complete account of every stage of abiogenesis. What it does show is that there is no known chemical or physical barrier preventing non-living chemistry from becoming progressively more complex. Under suitable conditions, chemical systems can acquire such properties as compartmentalisation, catalysis and molecular replication. Once populations of replicating systems existed with heritable variation, natural selection could favour those that survived longer, reproduced more reliably and used available resources more efficiently.

One important question is where the organic raw materials involved in this prebiotic chemistry came from. Some could have formed on the early Earth, but organic compounds are also widespread throughout the Solar System and interstellar space. They have been detected in comets and asteroids and regularly occur in meteorites. Earth may therefore have received substantial quantities of organic material from several extraterrestrial sources. This raises another scientific question: what natural chemical and physical processes produced and modified that material in space?

Linda Losurdo, a PhD candidate in materials and plasma physics in the School of Physics at the University of Sydney, Australia, has investigated part of that question with her supervisor, Professor David McKenzie. They recreated some of the energetic, near-vacuum conditions associated with stars and other astrophysical environments inside glass tubes. After evacuating the tubes, they introduced nitrogen, carbon dioxide and acetylene and subjected the mixture to an electrical potential of about 10,000 volts for approximately an hour, producing a plasma known as a glow discharge.

The energy broke apart molecules and allowed their constituent atoms and molecular fragments to recombine, producing a thin deposit of carbonaceous dust on silicon chips inside the tubes. The resulting material consisted of amorphous organic networks containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen—the four elements commonly abbreviated to CHON. Its infrared spectral features resembled those associated with carbonaceous cosmic dust found in interstellar space, comets, asteroids and meteorites.

The experiment did not produce life, nor did it begin exclusively with inorganic chemicals, since acetylene is already an organic molecule. That was not its purpose. Its significance lies in showing how naturally occurring energy sources can transform simple gaseous precursors into much more complex carbonaceous material under plausible space-like conditions.

The researchers also compared dust produced under different degrees of ion bombardment and subsequently heated to different temperatures. By analysing its infrared spectra, they found that the chemical signatures of ion bombardment could be distinguished from those produced by later thermal annealing. These spectral “fingerprints” could eventually help astronomers reconstruct the environments and processes that shaped carbonaceous dust and material recovered from asteroids such as Bennu and Ryugu. Losurdo and McKenzie published their findings on 30 January 2026 in the American Astronomical Society’s journal, The Astrophysical Journal.

Whenever laboratory experiments demonstrate that one of the chemical steps relevant to abiogenesis can occur naturally, creationists commonly fall back on another prepared response. Having challenged scientists to make “life in a test tube”, they claim that any successful experiment would prove that intelligence was necessary because intelligent scientists conducted it. This is a transparent bait-and-switch: the experiments do not claim to reproduce the entire origin of life, and the intelligence used to construct the apparatus is not used to assemble the resulting molecules atom by atom.

Scientists establish controlled conditions that reproduce particular features of a natural environment and then observe what ordinary chemistry does within them. In this experiment, the electrical discharge represented energetic processes that occur naturally in astrophysical plasmas. Losurdo and McKenzie did not decide which atoms should bond together or direct them into predetermined structures. The molecules broke apart and recombined according to their physical and chemical properties. Recreating lightning in a laboratory does not prove that thunderstorms require an intelligent electrician; neither does recreating cosmic chemistry prove that stars require a supernatural chemist.

From Cosmic Dust to Prebiotic Chemistry. What the experiment demonstrated

Linda Losurdo and Professor David McKenzie recreated selected features of carbon-rich astrophysical environments inside evacuated glass tubes. A mixture of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and acetylene was exposed to an electrical potential of about 10,000 volts, producing an energetic plasma.

The energy broke apart the gaseous molecules, allowing their atoms and molecular fragments to recombine into more complex structures. These accumulated on silicon chips as an amorphous carbonaceous dust containing carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen—the elements collectively abbreviated to CHON.

By comparing the infrared spectra of samples produced under different conditions, the researchers were also able to distinguish changes caused by ion bombardment from those caused by subsequent heating, or annealing. Such spectral fingerprints could help scientists reconstruct the histories of carbonaceous dust found in space, meteorites, comets and asteroids.

What the experiment did not demonstrate

It did not create life.

It did not reproduce the complete process of abiogenesis.

It did not show that life must inevitably arise whenever organic material is present.

It did not begin entirely with inorganic substances: acetylene is itself an organic molecule.

It did not prove that extraterrestrial material was the sole source of organic compounds on the early Earth.

Its importance is more specific: it demonstrated how naturally occurring physical processes can transform relatively simple gaseous precursors into complex, carbon-rich material under plausible space-like conditions. No external agent had to arrange the resulting atoms or specify the structures they formed.

One possible route from stars to life

Formation around stars: Carbon-rich molecules and dust form in environments such as the outer envelopes of ageing stars and material ejected by supernovae.

Processing in space: Ultraviolet radiation, energetic ions, electrons and changes in temperature break bonds and create new ones, gradually altering the chemical composition and structure of the dust.

Incorporation into planetary systems: Some of this material becomes part of the molecular clouds and protoplanetary discs from which new stars, planets, asteroids and comets form.

Delivery to the early Earth: Meteorites, micrometeorites, comets and interplanetary dust particles bring extraterrestrial organic material to the planet’s surface.

Further chemistry on Earth: Water, minerals, volcanic heat, sunlight, electrical discharges and chemical energy gradients modify and concentrate both terrestrial and extraterrestrial organic compounds.

Increasing chemical organisation: Some chemical systems may develop catalytic activity, compartments, energy-processing reactions and imperfect molecular replication.

Natural selection begins: Once systems can reproduce with heritable variation, those that persist and reproduce more successfully become more numerous. Chemical evolution can then develop into Darwinian evolution.

Abiogenesis almost certainly involved a network of interacting processes rather than one miraculous leap from simple chemicals to a modern cell. Cosmic dust could have supplied some of the ingredients, while conditions on the early Earth provided further opportunities for those ingredients to react, accumulate and become increasingly organised.

How Losurdo and McKenzie conducted the experiment, and what their results may reveal about the history of carbonaceous cosmic dust, is explained in a University of Sydney news item:

This student made cosmic dust in her lab. What she found could help us understand how life started on Earth
Study reverse-engineers stellar chemical cocktail of fundamental molecules using infrared 'fingerprints'.
A Sydney PhD student has recreated a tiny piece of the Universe inside a bottle in her laboratory, producing cosmic dust from scratch. The results shed new light on how the chemical building blocks of life may have formed long before Earth existed.

Linda Losurdo, a PhD candidate in materials and plasma physics in the School of Physics, has used a simple mix of gases – nitrogen, carbon dioxide and acetylene – to mimic the harsh and dynamic environments around stars and supernova remnants.

By subjecting these gases to intense electrical energy, she generated carbon-rich “cosmic dust” similar to the material found drifting between stars and embedded in comets, asteroids and meteorites.

Her results are published in The Astrophysical Journal of the American Astronomical Society.

The dust she created contains a complex cocktail of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen – known collectively as CHON molecules – which are central to many organic substances essential for life.

We no longer have to wait for an asteroid or comet to come to Earth to understand their histories. You can build analogue environments in the laboratory and reverse engineer their structure using the infrared fingerprints. This can give us huge insight into how ‘carbonaceous cosmic dust’ can form in the plasma puffed out by giant, old stars or in cosmic nurseries where stars are being born and distribute these fascinating molecules that could be vital for life. It’s like we have recreated a little bit of the Universe in a bottle in our lab.

Ms. Linda R. Losurdo, lead author
School of Physics,
UNiversity of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Cosmic dust is known to form in extreme astrophysical environments, where molecules are constantly bombarded by ions and electrons. Scientists can identify this dust in space because it emits a distinctive infrared signal – a molecular fingerprint that reveals its chemical structure.

The dust produced in Ms Losurdo’s experiments showed the same tell-tale infrared signatures, confirming the laboratory process closely mirrors what happens in space.

Cosmic dust analogue on a chip. The cocktail of chemicals was collected on a microchip.
Photo: Fiona Wolf.

Building blocks of life

One of the enduring questions in science is how life began on Earth. Researchers are still debating whether the earliest organic molecules formed locally on our young planet, arrived later aboard comets and meteorites, or were delivered during the earliest stages of solar system formation – or some combination of all three.

Between about 3.5 and 4.56 billion years ago, Earth was bombarded by meteorites, micrometeorites and interplanetary dust particles originating from asteroids and comets. These objects are thought to have delivered vast amounts of organic material to the planet’s surface. Yet the origins of that material remain mysterious.

Covalently bonded carbon and hydrogen in comet and asteroid material are believed to have formed in the outer envelopes of stars, in high-energy events like supernovae, and in interstellar environments. What we’re trying to understand are the specific chemical pathways and conditions that incorporate all of the CHON elements into the complex organic structures we see in cosmic dust and meteorites.

Ms. Linda R. Losurdo.

How they did it

Cosmic dust gas mixture: Linda Losurdo mixed basic gases in a tube and subject them to electric bombardment to create cosmic dust analogues at the University of Sydney plasma physics laboratory.

In the experiment, the team, consisting of Ms Losurdo and her supervisor Professor David McKenzie, used a vacuum pump to evacuate air from glass tubes, recreating the near-empty conditions of space. Nitrogen, carbon dioxide and acetylene were then introduced. The gas mixture was exposed to around 10,000 volts of electrical potential for about an hour, creating a type of plasma known as a glow discharge.

Under this intense energy, molecules broke apart and recombined into new, more complex structures. These compounds eventually settled as a thin layer of dust on silicon chips placed inside the tubes.

The collected dust at times looks like glittering collections of cosmic material.

Cosmic dust analogue seen through a microscope created by experiment by Linda Losurdo.

Professor David McKenzie, co-author on the paper, said the work will allow scientists to probe conditions that are otherwise impossible to study directly.

By making cosmic dust in the lab, we can explore the intensity of ion impacts and temperatures involved when dust forms in space. That’s important if you want to understand the environments inside cosmic dust clouds, where life-relevant chemistry is thought to be happening. This also helps us interpret what a meteorite or asteroid fragment has been through over its lifetime. Its chemical signature holds a record of its journey, and experiments like this help us learn how to read that record.

Professor David McKenzie, co-author
School of Physics,
UNiversity of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Beyond insights into the origins of life, the researchers aim to build a comprehensive database of infrared fingerprints from lab-made cosmic dust. Astronomers could then use this library to identify promising regions of space – in stellar nurseries or the remnants of dead stars – and work backwards to understand the processes shaping them.

By recreating cosmic chemistry on Earth, the research opens a new window onto deep stellar processes – and the ancient steps that may have helped make life on Earth possible.

Ms Losurdo won the best presentation for this research at the international Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society late last year.

PhD candidate Linda Losurdo (left) and her supervisor Professor David McKenzie.

Photo: Fiona Wolf/The University of Sydney

Publication:
Losurdo, L. and McKenzie D.
Carbonaceous cosmic dust analogues distinguish between ion bombardment and temperature
The Astrophysical Journal (2026) 997(2). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae2bfe

Abstract
Carbonaceous cosmic dust is formed in the circumstellar envelopes of asymptotic giant branch stars and supernovae ejecta. Reprocessed carbonaceous cosmic dust, abundant in the light elements C, H, O, and N is found in asteroids and comets. These elements form dust that is well described as an amorphous, covalently bonded network solid with a structure that is expected to reflect the key formative influences of ion bombardment, temperature modification, and UV irradiation. Ion bombardment of a dust grain by an energetic particle in a stellar wind creates a nonequilibrium thermal spike event, which contrasts with the close-to-equilibrium process of annealing under the local ambient conditions. There is a gap in our knowledge of how to distinguish ion bombardment as a synthesis process from postsynthesis thermal modification through infrared spectroscopy. Here we synthesize dust from molecular precursors under a range of controlled space-like conditions to form a database of IR spectra. We apply principal component analysis to show that the first principal component correlates with ion bombardment intensity during synthesis and the second principal component correlates with annealing temperature. The spectral loading curves of these two principal components are proposed as potential diagnostic tools to uncover past formative influences on cosmic dust as well as on the carbonaceous content of asteroids such as Bennu and Ryugu. Amorphous organic networks composed of the CHON elements unify previous ideas on cosmic dust by encompassing features of PAHs, tholins, and mixed aliphatic–aromatic nanoparticles.

Figure 1. Carbonaceous cosmic dust is formed when radicals nucleate the synthesis of molecules that grow into larger molecular weight networks, then aggregate into dust particles. The diagram illustrates the dust aggregation process using distance from the parent star into the ISM as the mediating parameter of ambient conditions of ion bombardment and temperature; following the work of E. Reizer et al. (2022), M. C. McCarthy et al. (2019), P. Merino et al. (2014), and C. S. Contreras & F. Salama (2013).

Figure 3. Scanning electron microscope images of laboratory synthesized dust show evidence for aggregation, surface smoothing by ion bombardment, and compaction caused by annealing. (a) High ion bombardment is characterized by a smoothed aggregate structure. (b) Medium bombardment has aggregates with more surface texture. (c) Low ion bombardment has a “cauliflower-like” structure that covers the larger aggregate particles as well as the background thin film. Annealing causes fewer dust grains to be visible, and those that remain appear more compacted into the background film. Images representative of annealing at 450°C for the (a) high, (b) medium, and (c) low ion bombardment zones. Surface charging and burn-in effects, evident as shadows and streaks are due to the low conductivity of the samples.

Losurdo, L. and McKenzie D.
Carbonaceous cosmic dust analogues distinguish between ion bombardment and temperature
The Astrophysical Journal (2026) 997(2). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae2bfe

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

Losurdo and McKenzie have not created life, nor do they claim to have solved abiogenesis. What they have done is demonstrate another entirely natural route by which relatively simple chemical precursors can be transformed into complex, carbon-rich material under conditions resembling those found in space. Their work also provides a practical way to read the infrared signatures left by ion bombardment and heating, helping scientists to reconstruct the history of material found in meteorites, comets and asteroids.

This is how science approaches unanswered questions. It divides them into manageable parts, devises experiments to test possible mechanisms and then modifies its explanations in the light of the results. Every successful experiment adds another piece to the emerging picture, while every failure helps to eliminate an inadequate hypothesis. No claim of supernatural intervention can offer anything comparable because “a god did it” provides neither a mechanism to investigate nor a prediction to test.

The creationist response that an intelligently designed experiment proves the need for an intelligent designer merely confuses the investigation of a process with the cause of that process. Scientists also reproduce volcanic eruptions, ocean currents and lightning in laboratories, but no one imagines that volcanoes, tides and thunderstorms must therefore be operated by laboratory technicians. The researchers supplied conditions already known to occur naturally; physics and chemistry produced the resulting material without guidance.

Nor does the absence of a complete account of abiogenesis create evidence for a supernatural alternative. An unanswered scientific question is evidence only that more research is needed. Filling the remaining gaps with magic explains nothing, particularly when every gap examined so far has yielded to natural processes rather than supernatural ones.

Long before Earth existed, stars and interstellar plasmas were already manufacturing and processing complex carbonaceous material. Some of it eventually became incorporated into asteroids, comets and planets, supplying young worlds with ingredients from which still more complex chemistry could develop. The Universe did not need to wait for a magician to invent organic chemistry: carbon had been getting on perfectly well without one for billions of years.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Refuting Creationism - Common Origin of Crocodiles And Dinosaurs - 240 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

2026-07-20T23:38:47.708+01:00

Reconstruction of Silescelida acristata in it's natural setting

AI-generated image (ChatGPT 5.6 Sol)

Silescelida acristata gen. et sp. nov. life reconstruction.

Artwork by Matheus Fernandes Gadelha.
From Garcia, M.S., Cerqueira, G.M., Battista, F. et al. (2026)

Reptile fossil found in Brazil helps shed light on the common origins of dinosaurs and crocodiles

A fundamental problem for biblical literalism—the belief that the ancient, pre-scientific authors and compilers of Genesis possessed, through divine revelation, a more accurate understanding of the universe than modern science—is that its claims can be tested against reality. Whenever that is done, reality wins.

Creationists must therefore find ways to dispose of the contrary evidence. It can be declared fraudulent, mistaken, misinterpreted or irrelevant—or, safest of all, simply not examined too closely. Within creationist culture, refusing to change one's mind when the evidence shows that a belief is wrong has somehow been transformed from an intellectual failure into a supposed demonstration of strength of faith.

Another piece of inconvenient reality has now been added to the list. A paper recently published in the journal Scientific Reports by Maurício S. Garcia of the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and colleagues describes Silescelida acristata, a new species of archosauriform reptile known from a fragmentary skeleton discovered near Dona Francisca in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state.

Silescelida acristata lived about 240 million years ago, during the Middle Triassic, when terrestrial ecosystems were still recovering from the devastating Permian–Triassic mass extinction some 12 million years earlier. It was a relatively small, slender, four-legged predator, probably about the size of a small alligator, with its limbs held in a more semi-erect posture than those of earlier, sprawling reptiles.

Besides being some 240 million years older than the biblical chronology can accommodate, the fossil helps to narrow one of the gaps in the fossil record that creationists are so fond of presenting as evidence against evolution. Phylogenetic analyses consistently place Silescelida among the early-diverging eucrocopodan archosauriforms—stem forms outside Archosauria that help to reveal how the ancestral archosaur body plan evolved. Some analyses suggest that it may have been related to the poorly understood Euparkeriidae, although that placement remains uncertain.

The discovery therefore illuminates an important stage preceding the emergence of the true archosaurs—the great reptilian lineage that includes the crocodilian branch and the dinosaur branch, including birds. It also shows that these early archosauriforms were more geographically widespread, and their diversification more complex, than the previously known fossil record suggested. As so often happens, another supposed “gap” has become smaller as scientists have discovered and examined more evidence.

The paper’s lead author, Maurício Garcia, has also written an account of the discovery in The Conversation. His article is reprinted below under a Creative Commons licence, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Published: July 16, 2026 7.02pm BST

Reptile fossil found in Brazil helps shed light on the common origins of dinosaurs and crocodiles

About the size of a small alligator, the Silescelida acristata lived 240 million years ago and holds clues to the origin of animal groups that would transform terrestrial ecosystems forever.

Illustration by Matheus Fernandes

Mauricio Garcia, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM)
Long before dinosaurs ruled the continents and modern crocodiles first appeared, their ancestors were already going through a decisive phase in their evolutionary history. It was in this ancient world, shortly after the greatest mass extinction in Earth’s history that a new species of fossil reptile discovered in the interior of Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state.

Named Silescelida acristata, the species lived about 240 million years ago, during the Middle Triassic Period. The fossil was found in Dona Francisca, in central Rio Grande do Sul, in rocks that are part of the UNESCO Quarta Colônia Geopark.

The discovery helps fill an important gap in our understanding of the evolution of archosauriformes, a group of reptiles that gave rise to the archosaurs. Archosaurs, in turn, are the lineage that encompasses two of the best-known groups of terrestrial vertebrates: crocodiles and dinosaurs, including birds.

The study was conducted by researchers from the Quarta Colônia Center for Paleontological Research at the Federal University of Santa Maria, CAPPA/UFSM, in collaboration with researchers from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), and was published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports.

A small animal in a world under reconstruction

When Silescelida acristata lived, terrestrial ecosystems were still recovering from the Permian–Triassic extinction event, which occurred about 252 million years ago. This event wiped out much of the life on the planet and paved the way for the diversification of new groups of animals.

It was against this backdrop of ecological recovery that different lineages of reptiles began to take on new roles in terrestrial environments. Among them were the archosauriforms, which underwent extensive diversification during the Triassic. Silescelida acristata was a relatively small, slender animal that moved on all four limbs. Its size can be compared to that of a small alligator.

Although it was neither a dinosaur nor a crocodile, it belonged to a lineage closely related to the forms that preceded the origin of these groups. Its diet likely included smaller animals, suggesting that it played the role of a small predator in the Triassic ecosystems of southern Brazil.

Why is this fossil important?

The fossil primarily preserves parts of the limbs, and at first glance, this type of material may seem limited, but it carries important information about the animal’s locomotion and evolutionary relationships.

One of the most significant characteristics of Silescelida acristata lies in its femur, the thigh bone. Like some of its close relatives, it had legs in a more semi-erect position, lower on the body than to the side.

This change allowed for more efficient locomotion, reducing drag as the body moved across the ground. In evolutionary terms, this type of transformation is related to the set of anatomical changes that would later prove fundamental to the success of archosaurs.

In other words, the new fossil helps us understand a phase preceding the rise of dinosaurs and crocodiles, when their close relatives were still experimenting with different body shapes, postures, and modes of locomotion.

Rare phylogenetic relationship

Phylogenetic analyses indicate that Silescelida acristata may be related to the Euparkeriidae, a rare group of archosauriforms that is still poorly understood by science.

Until now, fossils associated with this group were known primarily from the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The presence of a form related to the Euparkeriidae in South America significantly expands the known geographic distribution of these animals.

This suggests that these reptiles were more widely distributed across the world during the Triassic than the fossil record indicated. It also reinforces the importance of South America for the study of the origin and diversification of major groups of terrestrial vertebrates.

The ‘rediscovery’ of a forgotten fossil

The discovery of Silescelida acristata also has an unusual history. Part of the fossil – precisely the portion that preserved essential information about its provenance – was accidentally lost for more than two decades.

It was not until 2022, during a technical visit to the scientific collection at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), that researchers located the missing fragment. This rediscovery made it possible to confirm the specimen’s origin and formally describe it as a new species.

The animal’s very name refers to this story. Silescelida combines words associated with “silence” and “leg.” “Silence” refers to the long period during which part of the fossil lay forgotten, while “leg” refers to the type of preserved material, consisting mainly of limb bones.

The name acristata, meanwhile, means “without a crest.” It was chosen because this animal’s femur lacks a crest or raised bony protrusion – known as a trochanter – where part of the tail musculature would attach. This absence distinguishes Silescelida acristata from nearly all of its close relatives.

What does the discovery change?

The presence of Silescelida acristata in the Middle Triassic of Brazil shows that the evolutionary history of archosauriforms was broader and more complex than previously thought. The fossil indicates that lineages closely related to the Euparkeriidae were also present in South America, highlighting the continent’s role in the early diversification of the relatives of dinosaurs and crocodiles.

Furthermore, the discovery reinforces Rio Grande do Sul’s status as one of the world’s most important regions for the study of Triassic fauna. The region’s rocks preserve fossils from different stages in the evolution of terrestrial vertebrates, including some of the oldest known dinosaurs and large predators that lived before the Age of Dinosaurs.

Every new fossil found in this context helps reconstruct how terrestrial ecosystems reorganized after the Permian–Triassic extinction and how the groups that would later dominate the continents emerged.

Small bones, big stories

Incomplete fossils are often viewed as less informative than nearly complete skeletons. However, it is important to remember that the vast majority of fossils found during excavations are fragmentary. Discoveries such as Silescelida acristata show that even isolated parts of the skeleton can reveal fundamental information about evolution.

In this case, limb bones made it possible to identify a new species, infer aspects of its locomotion, investigate its phylogenetic relationships, and expand the known distribution of a rare group of Triassic reptiles.

More than just describing a new animal, the study shows how Brazilian paleontology continues to contribute to our understanding of central chapters in the history of life on Earth. In rocks from the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, 240-million-year-old fossils still hold clues about the origin of the animal groups that would transform terrestrial ecosystems forever.
Mauricio Garcia, Doutorando no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biodiversidade Animal , Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM)

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)

Abstract
Archosauriformes comprise a diverse range of reptiles, including the crown-group Archosauria, which flourished during the Triassic Period. Early-diverging archosauriforms, such as proterosuchids and erythrosuchids, are becoming progressively well-known due to recent studies and consistently resolve at the base of the clade. More crownward, Eucrocopoda includes archosauriform taxa that increasingly approximate the ancestral archosaur body plan. Early-diverging eucrocopodan archosauriforms have a widespread paleogeographic record but remain poorly understood in terms of ingroup relationships. Within this radiation, Euparkeriidae is particularly challenging, because its ingroup composition and monophyly is debated, with some authors supporting a non-monospecific Euparkeriidae, whereas others fail to recover this hypothesis. The eponymous Euparkeria capensis is known from the Early to Middle Triassic of South Africa, whereas other putative euparkeriids are primarily known from the Early to Middle Triassic of China, Germany, Poland, and Russia. Here, we describe a new early-diverging eucrocopodan (Silescelida acristata gen. et sp. nov.) from the Middle Triassic of southern Brazil. Phylogenetic analyses incorporating this taxon suggest a possible placement within Euparkeriidae, though its position shows instability depending on the operational taxonomic units considered, especially among other putative euparkeriids. This discovery not only informs on the temporal and paleogeographic distribution of euparkeriids but also sheds light on the origin and early evolution of eucrocopodans, representing the first record of this archosauriform grade in the Triassic of Brazil. More broadly, the new taxon underscores the significance of South American Triassic deposits within the evolutionary history of archosauriforms.

Fig. 7

Biogeography of early-diverging eucrocopodans and paleoart depicting Silescelida acristata gen. et sp. nov. in life. (A) Triassic world map depicting the paleogeographic distribution of early-diverging eucrocopods. Classification is based on the phylogenetic analyses in this contribution. Silhouettes (not to scale) based on the skeletal reconstruction of Euparkeria capensis by Demuth et al.⁸³. Dorosuchus neoetus is based on the type-series and Osmolskina czatkowicensis is based on the holotype. (B) Silescelida acristata gen. et sp. nov. life reconstruction. Artwork by Matheus Fernandes Gadelha. Map was generated with GIMP 3.0 (gimp.org) based on The Paleobiology Database (paleobiodb.org).

Garcia, M.S., Cerqueira, G.M., Battista, F. et al.
A new eucrocopodan archosauriform from the Middle Triassic of southern Brazil and the phylogeny of Euparkeriidae. Sci Rep 16, 16585 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-53740-9

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 remains of Silescelida acristata are fragmentary — little more than a shoulder blade, part of the pelvis and a thigh bone — yet those bones preserve enough anatomical information to identify a distinct species and illuminate its evolutionary relationships, posture and geographical distribution. This is how palaeontology advances: not by waiting for a conveniently complete “missing link”, but by combining each new piece of evidence with everything already known.

The researchers are appropriately cautious about precisely where Silescelida belongs. Their analyses consistently identify it as an early-diverging eucrocopodan archosauriform, while its possible membership of Euparkeriidae remains uncertain. That uncertainty is not a weakness in the science; it is an honest acknowledgement of what the available evidence can and cannot yet establish. Future discoveries may refine or revise its position — something no evidence could ever be permitted to do to a literal reading of Genesis.

What is not uncertain is that this animal inhabited southern Pangaea about 240 million years ago, during the evolutionary recovery following the Permian–Triassic mass extinction and before dinosaurs came to dominate terrestrial ecosystems. It adds another branch to a complex, geographically widespread radiation of reptiles acquiring anatomical characteristics associated with the later success of archosaurs. Nothing about this history resembles the instantaneous magical creation of fixed “kinds”.

Creationists can dismiss the fossil, dispute its age or refuse to consider its significance, but none of those responses explains it. They merely demonstrate that creationism has no room for evidence that contradicts its conclusion. Closing one’s eyes may preserve a belief, but it cannot erase a single bone from 240-million-year-old rock.

Advertisement

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement