Caviomorph rodents represent a remarkable adaptive radiation of hystricognath rodents in South America, having colonised the continent from African ancestors in the Eocene. Once isolated on the newly ...

The humble rodent “thumb” may not seem like an obvious window into evolution, but its keratinized tip – the unguis (hoof, claw, or nail) – turns out to reveal striking insights into rodent history and ...

Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest sci-tech news updates. For hundreds of years, scientists have noticed that some rodents, including squirrels, have thumbnails instead of claws. But no one ...

Rodents may have a rule of thumbnails. Many rodents have curved claws that help the animals climb or dig. But most also have flat nails on their thumbs, researchers report in the Sept. 4 Science. This ...

In the ’90s cartoon “Pinky and the Brain,” the titular Brain — a scheming lab mouse with an outsize noggin — fantasized about taking over the world. A study published Thursday in Science posits that ...

Many rodents have nails on their thumbs and claws on the rest of their fingers. A new study suggests this trait might have been key to their world domination. Missagia et al. Rodents are the largest ...

Subterranean rodents, notably mole-rats and other fossorial species, exhibit some of the most dramatic examples of chromosomal evolution and speciation in mammals. Adaptations to an underground ...

Researchers (left to right) Gordon Shepherd, Anderson Feijó, Lauren Johnson, and Rafaela Missagia, working in the Field Museum’s mammal collections. Picture a squirrel eating an acorn. It’s holding ...