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A new infectious disease spreading rapidly across the northeastern United States has killed millions of bats and is predicted to cause regional extinction of a once-common bat species, according to the findings of a University of California researcher. The disease, white-nose syndrome, first discovered near Albany, New York, in 2006, affects hibernating bats and has caused millions to perish. The researchers predict a "99 per cent chance of regional extinction of little brown myotis within the next 16 years" if mortality and spread continue unabated, writes Guy Lasnier.

When paleontologist Iyad Zalmout went looking for fossil whales and dinosaurs in Saudi Arabia, he never expected to come face-to-face with a significant, early primate fossil. But the skull he stumbled upon provides new insights into what the last common ancestor of apes and monkeys may have looked like and when the two lineages went their separate ways. Zalmout was exploring an area where geological maps indicated the rocks might contain fossils from the Cretaceous period (145 to 65 million years ago), a time when dinosaurs dominated the land. His first clue that the maps were wrong came when he saw a jawbone sticking out of the sediments and realised it was from a hippo-like animal that lived more recently—around 35 to 33 million years ago. A Wildlifewatch report.