Rats and mice chewing their way to success
Monday, October 28, 2013 - 13:20
in Biology & Nature
Rodents appeared in Asia 12 million years ago and spread across the Old World in less than 2 million years. Their unique masticatory apparatus has long been suspected a key reason for this evolutionary success. The brilliant X-ray beams at the European Synchrotron allowed a team of scientists to study several hundred specimens, extant and extinct, in great detail and identify two key evolutionary moments in the acquisition of this masticatory apparatus.