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Article Reference Skull ecomorphological variation of narwhals (Monodon monoceros, Linnaeus 1758) and belugas (Delphinapterus leucas, Pallas 1776) reveals phenotype of their hybrids
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference Ecological signal in the size and shape of marine amniote teeth
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference SARS-CoV-2 surveillance in Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) from Antwerp sewer system, Belgium
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022 OA
Article Reference Predicting the evolution of the Lassa virus endemic area and population at risk over the next decades
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022 OA
Article Reference Evolution and Diversity of Bat and Rodent Paramyxoviruses from North America
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022 OA
Article Reference The first species of Hapalodectes (Mesonychia, Mammalia) from the Middle Paleocene of China (Qianshan Basin, Anhui Province) sheds light on the initial radiation of hapalodectids
A lower jaw of the mesonychian Hapalodectes is reported from Nongshanian sediments (Upper Doumu Formation; middle Paleocene) of the Qianshan Basin (Anhui Province, China). The fragmentary mandible is only the third specimen of Hapalodectidae discovered in Paleocene deposits, and the first in south east China; it is moreover the oldest, the two other specimens having been found in Gashatan (late Paleocene) localities. The premolars and molars of the new fossil are morphologically similar to Hapalodectes dux (late Paleocene of Mongolia), which has been considered to be the most primitive hapalodectid, but their relative proportions recall H. paleocenus and the Eocene Hapalodectes species. As a result, the fossil described herein appears to be different from the other previously described species of Hapalodectes in being morphologically intermediate between H. dux and the other Hapalodectes species, notably the Bumbanian Hapalodectes hetangensis and H. huanghaiensis from China; it is thus identified as a new species, Hapalodectes lopatini (possibly a male individual). Its discovery is important because it sheds light on the initial radiation of hapalodectids. The presence of one primitive hapalodectid in Mongolia previously suggested the Mongolian Plateau as the centre of origination of this carnivorous family, but the discovery of H. lopatini in older sediments from south-east China challenges this hypothesis. In the earliest Eocene, Hapalodectes dispersed from Asia to North America; this event being part of the ‘East of Eden’ dispersals. This event resulted in the geographical separation of two distinct Hapalodectes groups, in North America and south-eastern China respectively.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2017
Article Reference Environmental and climatic reconstruction of MIS 3 in northwestern Europe using the small-mammal assemblage from Caverne Marie-Jeanne (Hastière-Lavaux, Belgium)
Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3, ca. 60–30 ka) is characterized by dynamic alternations of forest expansion with semi-arid area expansion in accordance with the warming and cooling, respectively, of the sea-surface temperatures in Northern Europe. It was in this context of rapid fluctuations that the terrestrial sequence of Caverne Marie-Jeanne (Hastière-Lavaux, Belgium) in northwestern Europe was formed. The habitat weighting method and the bioclimaticmodel, as well as the Simpson diversity index, are applied to the small-mammal assemblage of CaverneMarie-Jeanne in order to reconstruct the environmental and climatic fluctuations that are reflected in the MIS 3 sequence of the cave. Revision of the small-mammal fossil material deposited in the collections of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS, Brussels, Belgium) shows that the lower layers (6 to 4) of the cave, pertaining to MIS 3 (ca. 50–40 ka), underwent cold, dry environmental and climatic conditions for these layers. This is indicated by temperatures lower than at present and precipitation slightly higher than at present, together with an environment dominated by openwoodland formations and open dry meadows. Our results are consistent with the available chronological, large-mammal, herpetofaunal and mollusc datasets for this lower part of the sequence. They are also consistentwith regional loess studies in Belgium andwith previouswork performed on small mammals from MIS 3 in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2017
Article Reference Chicxulub impact winter sustained by fine silicate dust
The Chicxulub impact is thought to have triggered a global winter at the Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K-Pg) boundary 66 million years ago. Yet the climatic consequences of the various debris injected into the atmosphere following the Chicxulub impact remain unclear, and the exact killing mechanisms of the K-Pg mass extinction remain poorly constrained. Here we present palaeoclimate simulations based on sedimentological constraints from an expanded terrestrial K-Pg boundary deposit in North Dakota, United States, to evaluate the relative and combined effects of impact-generated silicate dust and sulfur, as well as soot from wildfires, on the post-impact climate. The measured volumetric size distribution of silicate dust suggests a larger contribution of fine dust (~0.8–8.0 μm) than previously appreciated. Our simulations of the atmospheric injection of such a plume of micrometre-sized silicate dust suggest a long atmospheric lifetime of 15yr, contributing to a global-average surface temperature falling by as much as 15°C. Simulated changes in photosynthetic active solar radiation support a dust-induced photosynthetic shut-down for almost 2 yr post-impact. We suggest that, together with additional cooling contributions from soot and sulfur, this is consistent with the catastrophic collapse of primary productivity in the aftermath of the Chicxulub impact.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023 OA
Article Reference Magical practices? A non-normative Roman imperial cremation at Sagalassos.
Many thousands of burials have been excavated from across the Roman world, documenting a variety of funerary practices and rites. Individual burials, however, sometimes stand out for their atypical characteristics. The authors report the discovery of a cremation burial from ancient Sagalassos that differs from contemporaneous funerary deposits. In this specific context, the cremated human remains were not retrieved but buried in situ, surrounded by a scattering of intentionally bent nails, and carefully sealed beneath a raft of tiles and a layer of lime. For each of these practices, textual and archaeological parallels can be found elsewhere in the ancient Mediterranean world, collectively suggesting that magical beliefs were at work.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Article Reference The human-initiated model of wolf domestication – an expansion based on human-dingo relations in Aboriginal Australia
The historically known relationship of interspecies companionship between Aboriginal foraging communities in Australia and free-ranging dingoes provides a model for understanding the human-canid relations that gave rise to the first domesticated dogs. Here, we propose that a broadly similar relationship might have developed early in time between wild-living wolves and mobile groups of foragers in Late Pleistocene Eurasia, with hunter-gatherers routinely raiding wild wolf dens for pre-weaned pups, which were socialized to humans and kept in camp as tamed companions (“pets”). We outline a model in which captive wolf pups that reverted to the wild to breed when they were sexually mature established their territories in the vicinity of foraging communities — in a “liminal” ecological zone between humans and truly wild-living wolves. Many (or most) of the wolf pups humans took from the wilderness to rear in camp may have derived from these liminal dens where the breeding pairs had been under indirect human selection for tameness over many generations. This highlights the importance of the large seasonal hunting/aggregation camps associated with mammoth kill-sites in Gravettian/Epigravettian central Europe. Large numbers of foragers gathered regularly at these locations during the wild wolf birthing season. We infer that if a pattern of this kind occurred over long periods of time then there might have been a pronounced effect on genetic variation in free-ranging wolves that denned and whelped in the liminal zones in the vicinity of these human seasonal aggregation sites. The argument is not that wolves were domesticated in central Europe. Rather, it is this pattern of hunter-gatherers who caught and reared wild wolf pups gathering seasonally in large numbers that might have been the catalyst for the early changes leading to the first domesticated dogs — whether in western Eurasia or further afield.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023