Scientists from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have uncovered the earliest fossil evidence of annelids (ringed worms) in Cambrian microfossils dating back approximately 535 million years ago. This discovery offers fresh insights into the origin and early evolution of the annelids, a group of animals that includes bristle worms, earthworms, leeches, and peanut worms.

An international team from the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, the National University of Mongolia, and Okayama University of Science has rediscovered a long-lost dinosaur tracksite in northern Mongolia dating to approximately 120 million years ago (Early Cretaceous). The site preserves 31 footprints from both large herbivorous sauropods and large carnivorous theropods on a single surface, providing the first clear evidence that large dinosaurs inhabited this far-northern region.

The overlapping sauropod trackways suggest sequential movement behavior, while theropod tracks indicate multiple large predators. This discovery fills a major gap in Mongolia’s Early Cretaceous fossil record and provides new insights into dinosaur distribution and ecosystem connections between East Asia and North America. The findings were published in Ichnos.

A recent study published in National Science Review finds abundant ocean eddies in the Antarctic marginal seas, using unprecedented high-resolution satellite altimetry (SWOT). The observed spatial distribution of these eddies, combined with numerical simulations, suggests that ice shelf basal melting and dense shelf water formation are key processes driving the widespread eddy activity. This discovery unveils Antarctic mesoscale ocean processes for the first time, which improves our ability to predict future climate and sea-level change.