Two hundred and fifty-two million years ago, a series of Siberian volcanoes erupted and sent the Earth into the greatest mass extinction of all time. Billions of tons of carbon were propelled into the ...

Therapsids, the ancient relatives of mammals, once roamed Earth in great numbers during the middle to late Permian period. These land-dwelling creatures would later evolve into mammals, but their ...

Julien Benoit receives funding from the Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST) and its scatterlings projects; the NRF; and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (CoE in Palaeosciences).

Scientists have developed a number of theories on the therapsids' success, including their fondness for underground living, their willingness to travel, and sheer dumb luck. The latest report proposes ...

(CNN) — Before dinosaurs walked the Earth and tens of millions of years before the first mammals appeared, distant mammal relatives with long, serrated canine teeth were the dominant carnivores on ...

Palaeontologists now demonstrate that ancient mammal relatives, known as therapsids, adapted to drastic climate change by having shorter life expectancies. Two hundred and fifty-two million years ago, ...