The presence of three delicate bones in the middle ear that are completely separated from the lower jaw can be used to distinguish existing mammals from other vertebrates. This arrangement evolved ...

An artist illustration of two "small mice", also known as Microtherulum oneirodes, based on the mammalian fossil discovered in Northeast China's Liaoning province. [Photo/chinanews.com] A new study ...

As Stephen Jay Gould once put it, we have an earful of jaw. The small, sound-conducting bones of our inner ears – the incus, malleus, and stapes – got their start as jaw bones in our distant ancestors ...

Fossils of an ancient egg-laying mammal indicate that the configuration of the bones in all living mammals’ ears arose at least twice along independent evolutionary pathways, paleontologists say. The ...