Here you can find our current research: brand-new information from botany, entomology, paleontology and zoology. The latest research results are briefly presented here and provide an insight into our work as a research museum. Information about our main research topics can be found on the pages of the respective research departments.
Science News
Our current research
Science News
New
More nautilids survived the mass extinction at the end of the Triassic period
Germanonautilus warthi, picture: SMNS, G. Schweigert
The end of the Triassic period, 201 million years ago, is considered one of the greatest mass extinction events in the history of the Earth. Among sea creatures, ammonites and nautilids were particularly affected. Until now, it was assumed that only a single genus of each of the two groups survived this period of crisis and that all subsequent diversity of species evolved from these two surviving lineages. This idea has now been revised due to the examination and re-evaluation of an extraordinary 185-million-year-old nautilid from the middle Early Jurassic of Behla near Donaueschingen, Germany, by Dr. Günter Schweigert.
