At https://phys.org/news/2025-10-rare-jurassic-sword-dragon-prehistoric.html …the sword dragon is a variety of the ichthyosaur – and a complete skeleton has been found in Dorset. It was unearthed on cliffs below Golden Cap, the National Trust preserved coastal cliffs on the so called Jurassic Coast.
The fossil is almost perfectly preserved, we are told – in three dimensions. The skull has an enormous eye socket and a long sword like snout. Sounds like a sword fish – in a reptilian form. The remains also seem to show what looks like its last meal -signalling rapid burial and preservation. The skeleton is now in the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada.
At https://phys.org/news/2025-10-hippos-survived-europe-ice-age.html … hippopotamus lived in Europeright up to between 47,000 and 31,000 years ago. That means they went extinct along with a lot of big mammoths and other big animals on the cusp of the Late Glacial Maximum. I wonder why that was. Elephants and hippopotamus are now confined to sub Sahara Africa. Sub tropical climes. Was it sub tropical in the middle of the last Ice Age. They are supposed to last for roughly 100,000 years – followed by a short interglacial stage. Something seems wrong it there was a warm period prior to the Late Glacial Maximum.
These hippos were found in the Upper Rhine Graben formation – a complex of animal bones. I shall have to look that one up. They are ensconced in sand and gravels – and now what could that imply? Many of the animal bones are well preserved, we are told, with no evidence of weathering. In other words they were buried rapidly. In addition, the researchers did some DNA sequencing and discovered these European hippos were closely related to modern African hippos.
At https://phys.org/news/2025-10-vole-teeth-reveal-simple-complex.html …. vole teeth are a testimony of evolution. No problem with that. A single change can create a complex of features over a period of time [and generations]. Adaptations to their teeth allowed them to survive the Ice Age.