Paleobiology.

Fertile ground Sediment samples from New Zealand and Siberia yielded bits of DNA from dozens of animals and plants. Some 400,000-year-old snippets were traced to a specific plant species (163: 244 *).

Three species no moa? Analyses of genetic material from fossils of large, flightless birds called moas suggested that three types of the extinct creatures may not have been separate species after all (164: 84).

Daytime travelers The wide brims that some ancient trilobites grew over their eyes strongly suggested that at least some species of the aquatic creatures were active during the daytime nearly 400 million years ago (164: 221).

Family meal Analyses of the gnaw marks on bones of Majungatholus atopus, a carnivorous dinosaur, indicated that the creatures routinely fed on members of their own species (163: 211 *).

Special dung Researchers extracted DNA from cells preserved in the desiccated dung of an extinct ground sloth. Analysis of the genetic material may identify the creature as a new species (164: 19).

Gummy web A look inside a piece of 130-million-year-old amber revealed a thin filament of spider silk with sticky droplets that look just like those produced by modern spiders (164: 141).

Winging south A tiny fossil collected about 500 kilometers from the South Pole indicates that Antarctica was once home to a type of fly that scientists previously thought had never inhabited the now-icy, almost insectfree continent (163: 292 *).

Imagine guinea pigs the size of a bison. Scientists did just that when they analyzed the fossilized remains of the world's largest known rodents, which browsed on the riverbanks of Venezuela about 8 million years ago. The front and rear limbs of a nearly complete skeleton suggest that the 740-kilogram creature rested on its haunches and manipulated food with its front paws (164: 179 *).

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