To this day, Jaws remains the best example of Steven Spielberg‘s genius as a filmmaker. He somehow took a middling pulp novel about a killer shark and turned it into a thrilling adventure about masculinity and economic desperation. And to the surprise of no one, the massive success of Jaws spawned a lot of knockoffs, a glut of movies about animals terrorizing communities. None of these reach the majesty of Jaws, of course. But here’s the thing—none of them had to be Jaws. Sure, it’s nice that Spielberg’s film has impeccably designed set pieces and compelling characters, but that’s not the main reason people go to animal attack movies. We really just want to watch people get attacked. And eaten. With such standards duly lowered, let’s take a look at the best animal attack movies that came out in the past half-century since Jaws first scared us out of the water. Of course this list doesn’t cover every movie inspired by Jaws ( for example Godzilla Minus One, which devotes its middle act to a wonderful Jaws riff), and some can argue that these movies were less inspired by Jaws than other nature revolts features, such as Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds. But every one of these flicks owes a debt to Jaws, either in inspiration or simply getting people interested in movies about animals eating people. Those warning aside, lets make like drunken revelers on Amity Island and dive right in! 20. Sharknado (2013) Sharknado almost doesn’t belong on this list because it’s less a movie and more of a meme, a precursor to Vines and TikTok trends. Yes, many fantastic movies have been made off of an incredibly high concept and a painfully low budget. Heck, that approach made Roger Corman’s career. But Sharknado‘s high concept—a tornado sweeps over the ocean and launches ravenous sharks into the mainland—comes with a self-satisfied smirk. Somehow, Sharknado managed to capture the imagination of the public, making it popular enough to launch five sequels. At the time, viewers defended it as a so bad it’s good-style movie like The Room. But today Sharknado‘s obvious attempts to be wacky are just bad, making the franchise one more embarrassing trend, ready to be forgotten. 19. Orca (1977) For a long time, Orca had a reputation for being the most obvious Jaws ripoff, and with good reason—Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis, who would go on to support Flash Gordon, Manhunter, and truly launch David Lynch‘s career with Blue Velvet, wanted his own version of the Spielberg hit. On paper he had all the right ingredients, including a great cast with Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling, and another oceanic threat, this time a killer whale. Orca boasts some impressive underwater cinematography, something that even Jaws largely lacks. But that’s the one thing Orca does better than Jaws. Everything else—character-building, suspense and scare scenes, basic plotting and storytelling—is done in such a haphazard manner that Orca plays more like an early mockbuster from the Asylum production company (makers of Sharknado) than it does a product from a future Hollywood player. 18. Tentacles (1977) Another Italian cheapie riding off the success of Jaws, Tentacles at least manages to be fun in its ineptitude. A giant octopus feature, Tentacles is directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis, a man whose greatest claim to fame is that he annoyed first-time director James Cameron so much on Piranha II: The Spawning that he activated the future legend’s infamous refusal to compromise with studios and producers. Tentacles somehow has a pretty impressive cast, including John Huston, Shelly Winters, and Henry Fonda all picking up paychecks. None of them really do any hard work in Tentacles, but there’s something fun about watching these greats shake the the octopus limbs that are supposed to be attacking them, as if they’re in an Ed Wood picture. 17. Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) Spielberg famously couldn’t get his mechanical shark to work, a happy accident that he overcame with incredibly tense scenes that merely suggested the monster’s presence. For his arachnids on the forgotten movie Kingdom of the Spiders, director John “Bud” Cardos has an even more formative tool to make up for the lack of effects magic: William Shatner. Shatner plays Rack Hansen, a veterinarian who discovers that the overuse of pesticides has killed off smaller insects and forced the tarantula population to seek larger prey, including humans. These types of ecological messages are common among creature features of the late ’70s, and they usually clang with hollow self-righteousness. But in Kingdom of the Spiders, Shatner delivers his lines with such blown out conviction that we enjoy his bluster, even if we don’t quite buy it. 16. The Meg (2018) The idea of Jason Statham fighting a giant prehistoric shark is an idea so awesome, it’s shocking that his character from Spy didn’t already pitch it. And The Meg certainly does deliver when Statham’s character does commit to battle with the creature in the movie’s climax. The problem is that moment of absurd heroism comes only after a lot of long sappy nonsense. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! It’s hard to figure out who is to blame for The Meg‘s failure. Director Jon Turteltaub hails from well-remembered Disney classics Cool Runnings and National Treasure. But too often he forgets how to pace an adventure film and gives into his most saccharine instincts here. One of the many Chinese/Hollywood co-produced blockbusters of the 2010s, The Meg also suffers from trying to innocuously please too wide an audience. Whatever the source, The Meg only fleetingly delivers on the promise of big time peril, wasting too much time on thin character beats. 15. Lake Placid (1999) I know already some people reading this are taking exception to Lake Placid‘s low ranking, complaining that this list isn’t showing enough respect to what they consider a zippy, irreverent take on a creature feature, one written by Ally McBeal creator David E. Kelley and co-starring Betty White. To those people, I can only say, “Please rewatch Lake Placid and then consider its ranking.” Lake Placid certainly has its fun moments, helped along by White as a kindly grandmother who keeps feeding a giant croc, Bill Pullman as a dumbfounded simple sheriff, and Oliver Platt as a rich adventurer. Their various one-liners are a pleasure to remember. But within the context of a movie stuffed with late ’90s irony, the constant snark gets tiresome, sapping out all the fun of a killer crocodile film. 14. Open Water (2003) Like Sharknado, Open Water had its fans for a few years but has fallen in most moviegoers’ esteem. Unlike Sharknado, Open Water is a real movie, just one that can’t sustain its premise for its entire runtime. Writer and director Chris Kentis draws inspiration from a real-life story about a husband and wife who were accidentally abandoned in the middle of the ocean by their scuba excursion group. The same thing happens to the movie’s Susan Watkins (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel Travis (Daniel Kintner), who respond to their predicament by airing out their relationship grievances, even as sharks start to surround them. Kentis commits to the reality of the couple’s bleak situation, which sets Open Water apart from the thrill-a-minute movies that mostly make up this list. But even with some shocking set pieces, Open Water feels too much like being stuck in car with a couple who hates each other and not enough like a shark attack thriller. 13. Eaten Alive (1976) Spielberg’s artful execution of Jaws led many of the filmmakers who followed to attempt some semblance of character development and prestige, even if done without enthusiasm (see: Orca). Not so with Tobe Hooper, who followed up the genre-defining The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with Eaten Alive. Then again, Hooper draws just as much from Psycho as he does Jaws. Neville Brand plays Judd, the proprietor of a sleazy hotel on the bayou where slimy yokels do horrible things to one another. Amity Island, this is not. But when one of the visitors annoy Judd, he feeds them to the pet croc kept in the back. Eaten Alive is a nasty bit of work, but like most of Hooper’s oeuvre, it’s a lot of fun. 12. Prophecy (1979) Directed by John Frankenheimer of The Manchurian Candidate and Grand Prix fame, Prophecy is easily the best of the more high-minded animal attack movies that followed Jaws. This landlocked film, written by David Seltzer, stars Robert Foxworth as Dr. Robert Verne, a veterinarian hired by the EPA to investigate bear attacks against loggers on a mountain in Maine. Along with his wife Maggie (Talia Shire), Verne finds himself thrown into a conflict between the mining company and the local Indigenous population who resist them. Prophecy drips with an American hippy mentality that reads as pretty conservative today (“your body, your choice” one of Maggie’s friends tells her… to urge her against getting an abortion), making its depictions of Native people, including the leader played by Italian American actor Armand Assante, pretty embarrassing. But there is a mutant bear on the loose and Frankenheimer knows how to stage an exciting sequence, which makes Prophecy a worthwhile watch. 11. Piranha 3D (2010) Piranha 3D begins with a denim-wearing fisherman named Matt, played by Richard Dreyfuss no less, falling into the water and immediately getting devoured by the titular flesh-eaters. This weird nod to Matt Hooper and Jaws instead of Joe Dante’s Piranha, the movie Piranha 3D is supposed to be remaking, is just one of the many oddities at play yhere. Screenwriters Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg have some of the wacky energy and social satire of the original film, but director Alexandre Aja, a veteran of the French Extreme movement, includes so much nastiness in Piranha 3D that we’re not sure if we want to laugh or throw up. Still, there’s no denying the power of Piranha 3D‘s set pieces, including a shocking sequence in which the titular beasties attack an MTV/Girls Gone Wild Spring Break party and chaos ensues. Furthermore, Piranha 3D benefits from a strong cast, which includes Elizabeth Shue, Adam Scott, and Ving Rhames. 10. Anaconda (1997) With its many scenes involving an animal attacking a ragtag group on a boat, Anaconda clearly owes a debt to Jaws. However, with its corny characters and shoddy late ’90s CGI, Anaconda feels today less like a Jaws knockoff and more like a forerunner to Sharknado and the boom of lazy Syfy and Redbox horror movies that followed. Whatever its influences and legacy, there’s no denying that Anaconda is, itself, a pretty fun movie. Giant snakes make for good movie monsters, and the special effects have become dated in a way that feels charming. Moreover, Anaconda boasts a enjoyably unlikely cast, including Eric Stoltz as a scientist, Owen Wilson and Ice Cube as members of a documentary crew, and Jon Voight as what might be the most unhinged character of his career, second only to his crossbow enthusiast from Megalopolis. 9. The Shallows (2016) The Shallows isn’t the highest-ranking shark attack movie on this list but it’s definitely the most frightening shark attack thriller since Jaws. That’s high praise, indeed, but The Shallows benefits from a lean and mean premise and clear direction by Jaume Collet-Serra, who has made some solid modern thrillers. The Shallows focuses almost entirely on med student Nancy Adams (Blake Lively), who gets caught far from shore after the tide comes in and is hunted by a shark. A lot of the pleasure of The Shallows comes from seeing how Collet-Serra and screenwriter Anthony Jaswinski avoid the problems that plague many of the movies on this list. Adams is an incredibly competent character, and we pull for her even after the mistake that leaves her stranded. Moreover, The Shallows perfectly balances thrill sequences with character moments, making for one of the more well-rounded creature features of the past decade. 8. Razorback (1984) Jaws, of course, has a fantastic opening scene, a thrilling sequence in which the shark kills a drunken skinny dipper. Of the movies on this list, only Razorback comes close to matching the original’s power, and it does so because director Russell Mulcahy, who would make Highlander next, goes for glossy absurdity. In the Razorback‘s first three minutes, a hulking wild boar smashes through the rural home of an elderly man in the Australian outback, carrying away his young grandson. Over the sounds of a synth score, the old man stumbles away from his now-burning house, screaming up into the sky. Sadly, the rest of Razorback cannot top that moment. Mulcahy directs the picture with lots of glossy style, while retaining the grit of the Australian New Wave movement. But budget restrictions keep the titular beast from really looking as cool as one would hope, and the movie’s loud, crazy tone can’t rely on Jaws-like power of suggestion. 7. Crawl (2019) Alexandre Aja’s second movie on this list earns its high rank precisely because it does away with the tonal inconsistencies that plagued Piranha 3D and leans into what the French filmmaker does so well: slicked down and mean horror. Set in the middle of a Florida hurricane, Crawl stars Kaya Scodelario as competitive swimmer Haley and always-welcome character actor Barry Pepper as her father Dave, who get trapped in a flooding basement that’s menaced by alligators. Yet as grimy as Crawl can get, Aja also executes the strong character work in the script by Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen. Dave and Haley are real people, not just gator-bait, making their peril feel all the more real, and their triumphs all the sweeter. 6. Piranha (1978) Piranha is the only entry on this list to get a seal of approval from Stephen Spielberg himself, who not only praised the movie, even as Universal Pictures planned to sue the production, but also got director Joe Dante to later helm Gremlins. It’s not hard to see why Piranha charmed Spielberg, a man who loves wacky comedy. Dante’s Looney Tunes approach is on full display in some of the movie’s best set pieces. But Piranha is special because it also comes from legendary screenwriter John Sayles, who infuses the story with social satire and cynicism that somehow blends with Dante’s approach. The result is a film about piranha developed by the U.S. military to kill the Vietnamese getting unleashed into an American river and making their way to a children’s summer camp, a horrifying idea that Dante turns into good clean fun. 5. Slugs (1988) If we’re talking about well-made movies, then Slugs belongs way below any of the movies on this list, somewhere around the killer earthworm picture Squirm. But if we’re thinking about pure enjoyable spectacle, it’s hard to top Slugs, a movie about, yes, flesh-eating slugs. Yes, it’s very funny to think about people getting terrorized by creatures that are famous for moving very, very slowly. But Spanish director Juan Piquer Simón, perhaps best known for his equally bugnuts giallo Pieces (1982), pays as little attention to realism as he does to good taste. Slugs is filled with insane and ghastly sequences of killer slugs ending up in unlikely places, swarming the floor of someone’s bedroom or inside a fancy restaurant, and then devouring people, one methodical bite at a time. 4. Deep Blue Sea (1999) When it comes to goofy ’90s CGI action, it’s hard to top Deep Blue Sea, directed by Renny Harlin and featuring sharks with genetically enhanced brains. Deep Blue Sea doesn’t have a strong sense of pacing, it lacks any sort of believable character development, and the effects looked terrible even in 1999. But it’s also the only movie on this list that features LL Cool J as a cool chef who recites a violent version of the 23rd Psalm and almost gets cooked alive in an oven by a genius-level shark. It’s scenes like the oven sequence that makes Deep Blue Sea such a delight, despite its many, many flaws. The movie tries to do the most at every turn, whether that’s clearly reediting the movie in postproduction so that LL Cool J’s chef becomes a central character, stealing the spotlight form intended star Saffron Burrows, or a ridiculous Samuel L. Jackson monologue with a delightfully unexpected climax. 3. Alligator (1980) In many ways, Alligator feels like screenwriter John Sayles’ rejoinder to Piranha. If Joe Dante sanded down Piranha‘s sharp edges with his goofy humor, then Alligator is so filled with mean-spiritedness that no director could dilute it. Not that Lewis Teague, a solid action helmer who we’ll talk about again shortly, would do that. Alligator transports the old adage about gators in the sewers from New York to Chicago where the titular beast, the subject of experiments to increase its size, begins preying on the innocent. And on the not so innocent. Alligator shows no respect for the good or the bad, and the film is filled with scenes of people getting devoured, whether it’s a young boy who becomes a snack during a birthday party prank or an elderly mafioso who tries to abandon his family during the gator’s rampage. 2. Grizzly (1976) Grizzly stands as the greatest of the movies obviously ripping off Jaws precisely because it understands its limitations. It takes what it can from Spielberg’s masterpiece, including the general premise of an animal hunting in a tourist location, and ignores what it can’t pull off, namely three-dimensional characters. This clear-eyed understanding of everyone’s abilities makes Grizzly a lean, mean, and satisfying thriller. Directed by blaxploitation vet William Girdler and written by Harvey Flaxman and David Sheldon, Grizzly stars ’70s low-budget king Christopher George as a park ranger investigating unusually vicious bear attacks on campers. That’s not the richest concept in the world, but Girdler and co. execute their ideas with such precision, and George plays his character with just the right amount of machismo, that Grizzly manages to deliver on everything you want from an animal attack. 1. Cujo (1983) To some modern readers, it might seem absurd to put Cujo on a list of Jaws knockoffs. After all, Stephen King is a franchise unto himself and he certainly doesn’t need another movie’s success to get a greenlight for any of his projects. But you have to remember that Cujo came out in 1983 and was just the third of his works to get adapted theatrically, which makes its Jaws connection more valid. After all, the main section of the film—in which mom (Dee Wallace) and her son Tad (Danny Pintauro) are trapped in their car and menaced by the titular St. Bernard—replicates the isolation on Quint’s fishing vessel, the Orca, better than any other film on this list. However, it’s not just director Lewis Teague’s ability to create tension that puts Cujo at the top. Writers Don Carlos Dunaway and Lauren Currier key into the complicated familial dynamics of King’s story, giving the characters surprising depth. It’s no wonder that Spielberg would cast Wallace as another overwhelmed mom for E.T. The Extraterrestrial the very next year, proving that he still has a soft spot for animal attack movies—even if none of them came close to matching the power of Jaws.

Nightlords are arguably the hardest enemies in Elden Ring Nightreign — powerful, nerve-racking bosses who show up at the very end of your runs. All the preparation you go through during the first two days of a match in Elden Ring Nightreign — from farming runes to looking for ways to upgrade your weapons — is in service of one goal: getting strong enough to beat the Nightlord of your run. Each boss has their own dedicated mechanics and weaknesses, and you can tackle (most) of them in the order you see fit. In this Elden Ring Nightreign guide, we’ll go over our recommendation of the the best Nightlords order so you know which boss fights to prioritize.  Best Nightlords boss fight order in Elden Ring Nightreign  The best Nightlords order in Elden Ring Nightreign is a subjective matter, largely up to your individual class, equipment, and personal adeptness with each character. That said, we’ve assembled guide to present what would be, in our opinion, the fights you should focus on first to build up confidence and accumulate knowledge about the game. In general, the better-prepared you are for each fight, the better you’ll fare. But some Nightlords are less forgiving than others if you reach the final day under-leveled or under-equipped. Along the same lines, we consider bosses who can inflict detrimental effects more difficult to prepare for than those who you can defeat simply by mastering their mechanics. And then, of course, there’s the huge matter that all of this — as with all things Nightreign — is contingent on whether or not your teammates actually collaborate with you. With all this in mind, below, here’s our recommendation for the best Nightlords order in Elden Ring Nightreign, with their respective expedition names in parentheses. Gladius, Beast of Night (Tricephalos) Gnoster, Wisdom of Night (Sentient Pest) Maris, Fathom of Night (Augur) Adel, Baron of Night (Gaping Jaw) Caligo, Miasma of Night (Fissure in the Fog) Libra, Creature of Night (Equilibrious Beast) Fulghor, Champion of Nightglow (Darkdrift Knight) Heolstor the Nightlord (Night Aspect) Gladius, Beast of Night (Tricephalos) There isn’t much to say here because you can’t actually choose not to face Gladius, Beast of Night first. Tricephalos is the first expedition you have access to and the other expeditions won’t become available until you have defeated them. Use your first runs against this Nightlord to learn your way through Limveld. Gnoster, Wisdom of Night (Sentient Pest) It might sound contradictory to face a duo boss after beating Gladius, Beast of Night. Tracking two enemies is challenging and requires you to know the limits of your class. Even so, you should still pick Sentient Pest as your second expedition and fight Gnoster, Wisdom of Night. There are two main reasons for that. First, almost none of their attacks are capable of instantly killing you unless you’re under level 10. They don’t require you to have specific resistances or weapons either. If you’re playing a melee class, you just need to have patience until Gnoster gets closer and wait for a good window to attack.  The second reason is Gnoster’s weaknesses. Fire damage is extremely strong against it and it is easy to find a weapon that causes fire damage; throwing pots or Fire Grease, a consumable that makes your weapon cause elemental damage for a period of time. Maris, Fathom of Night (Augur) The only reason why we suggest tackling Maris, Fathom of Night (from the Augur expedition) after Gnoster is that this boss constantly applies sleep, dealing a lot of damage and leaving you exposed to follow-up attacks. Nevertheless, after enough matches, you’ll have obtained enough Relics, some of which can come with sleep resistance, removing a challenging factor of this fight.  When it comes to mechanics, there are just a couple of attacks to watch out for. Kill or dodge the small jellyfish the boss sends your way and run from the shining one, since it nukes a large area. Their main attacks are clearly telegraphed so there isn’t much to worry about on that front. Learn their patterns and defeat your third boss. Adel, Baron of Night (Gaping Jaw) Although the Gaping Jaw is the expedition Nightreign suggests tackling after Gladius, we’d suggest waiting to fight Adel, Baron of Night until you become more familiar with the game. Adel deals a lot of damage with their bite attack, which causes blood loss, a major threat if you don’t have a lot of health. In general, Adel’s attacks can really pin you down, but when the boss enters its second phase, it becomes a real nightmare. To make your life easier, you can use poison against the boss, but this is a type of elemental damage difficult to find weapons with or greases to apply. In other words, you will probably have to face the boss without relying on exploiting any weakness.  Caligo, Miasma of Night (Fissure in the Fog) Fighting a giant prehistoric dragon is never a good idea, but Caligo, Miasma of Night, the Nightlord you must fight in the Fissure in the Fog expedition, could be worse. To prepare for this fight, farm runes to reach level 12 or higher.  Once you know how to handle Caligo’s attacks, this gigantic dragon becomes less of a threat, but knowing the fight is not enough to survive. During the match, watch out for elemental resistances that might drop from minor bosses. Caligo’s attacks can inflict Frostbite and they cover large areas of the arena, so you’ll probably get hit by them. You also want to come with strong weapons capable of causing fire damage.  Libra, Creature of Night (Equilibrious Beast) The Equilibrious Beast expedition, where you must fight Libra, Creature of Night, is presents a notable step-up in difficulty compared to the previous fights. The most challenging aspect of this fight is in the preparation: Most of Libra’s attacks inflict madness and there aren’t many methods to prevent it. They are also weak to madness, but you’ll need to find the right incantation to cause that type of damage. Most importantly, there isn’t a safe spot to hide in this fight. Libra is fast, can teleport next to their target, and unleashes lengthy, quick sequences of attacks with their staff. Finding the right window to heal is difficult, because they can cast long-range area-of-effect attacks that hit many places in the arena. Beating Libra is a matter of farming, learning the fight, and luck. Fulghor, Champion of Nightglow (Darkdrift Knight) Among the bosses in Elden Ring Nightreign, very few are as punitive as Fulgor, Champion of Nightflow. This one-arm centaur is waiting for you in the Darkdrift Knight expedition and facing them will test all you’ve learned so far. Exploiting Fulghor’s weakness to lightning damage is a must, but the challenge here involves actually hitting them while avoiding their massive area attacks or quick thrusts.  You need to know how to farm well for this fight and memorize Fulghor’s attack pattern if you plan on completing this expedition. Fulghor causes a lot of damage, making you run out of flasks pretty fast if you don’t dodge at the right time. In addition, during the second phase, Fulghor becomes more brutal with a complex combination of short and long-distance attacks. Heolstor the Nightlord (Night Aspect) Just like Gladius had to go first, you can’t avoid saving the Night Aspect expedition for last since it is the last one you unlock and where you must fight Heolstor the Nightlord. Be sure to have sourced the best gear and achieved the highest level you can before facing this one. For more Elden Ring Nightreign guides, here’s how to change skins, what “memory fragment found” means, and a list of the best rune farming locations.

Photo Credit: Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology Ancient DNA from Yunnan Uncovers Ghost Lineage Linked to Tibetan Ancestry Highlights 7,100-year-old Xingyi_EN carries DNA from a mysterious ghost lineage Study links ancient Yunnan DNA to modern Tibetan ancestry Central Yunnan ancestry tied to early Austroasiatic populations Advertisement A new study on a 7,100-year-old skeleton from China has revealed a "ghost" lineage that only existed in theories until now. Skeleton of the early Neolithic woman, known as Xingyi_EN, unearthed at the Xingyi archaeological site in southwestern China's Yunnan province. Her DNA links her to a deeply divergent human population that may have contributed to the ancestry of modern Tibetans. This study also reveals a distinct Central Yunnan ancestry connected to early Austroasiatic-speaking groups. This discovery makes Yunnan as a key region to understand the ancient genetic history of East and Southeast Asia. The detailed analysis of 127 human genomes from southwestern China is published in a study in the journal Science.Xingyi_EN: A Genetic Link to a Mysterious PastAccording to the study, radiocarbon dating indicates Xingyi_EN lived around 7,100 years ago and isotope analysis suggests she lived as a hunter-gatherer. Genetic sequencing revealed her ancestry from a deeply diverged human lineage—now named the Basal Asian Xingyi lineage. This lineage diverged from other modern human groups over 40,000 years ago and remained isolated for thousands of years without mixing with other populations.This "ghost" lineage does not match DNA from Neanderthals or Denisovans but appears to have later contributed to the ancestry of some modern Tibetans. Xingyi_EN represents the first physical evidence of this previously unknown population.Yunnan's significance as a reservoir of deep human diversityMost of the skeletons that the researchers sampled were dated between 1,400 and 7,150 years ago and came from Yunnan province, which today has the highest ethnic and linguistic diversity in all of China."Ancient humans that lived in this region may be key to addressing several remaining questions on the prehistoric populations of East and Southeast Asia," the researchers wrote in the study. Those unanswered questions include the origins of people who live on the Tibetan Plateau, as previous studies have shown that Tibetans have northern East Asian ancestry. For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube. Further reading: Ancient DNA, Yunnan, Ghost Lineage, Tibetan Ancestry, Human Evolution, Xingyi_EN, Paleogenetics, Archaeogenomics, Prehistoric Asia, Science Study Gadgets 360 Staff The resident bot. If you email me, a human will respond. More Related Stories

Scientists Investigate 2.2-Million-Year-Old Tooth Enamel to Unravel the Mysteries of Ancient Human Relatives By studying proteins preserved in teeth, researchers determined the sex of four Paranthropus robustus individuals that lived in southern Africa This skull of a 1.8-million-year-old Paranthropus robustus individual was unearthed in South Africa, but it was not one of the fossils included in the study. José Braga and Didier Descouens via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0 Paranthropus robustus was a prehistoric, two-legged human relative that lived in southern Africa roughly two million years ago. Scientists have unearthed various P. robustus fossils, but because of the specimens’ age, they haven’t been able to glean much from them. Now, using a novel method, researchers say they’ve determined the sex of four P. robustus individuals by studying their teeth. The new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Science, also reveals insights into the genetic diversity of the broader Paranthropus genus. For the study, the team analyzed teeth discovered in a cave at the Swartkrans paleoanthropological site in South Africa, reports Live Science’s Kristina Killgrove. Because the fossils were so old—dating to between 1.8 million and 2.2 million years ago—researchers could not recover ancient DNA from them. So, instead, they turned to the relatively new field of paleoproteomics, or the study of preserved proteins. Ancient DNA degrades over time, particularly in hot places like southern Africa. So far, scientists studying hominin remains on the continent have only been able to successfully sequence DNA from material that’s less than 20,000 years old. But proteins can survive much longer than DNA, particularly in hard tooth enamel. When they analyzed the fossilized enamel of the P. robustus teeth, the researchers were able to identify specific protein sequences found only in males. This allowed them to determine that two of the P. robustus individuals were male and two were female. They were surprised to learn that one individual, named SK 835, was male. Based on the comparatively small size of that individual’s teeth, researchers had previously thought SK 835 was female, since male hominins tend to be larger than females, on average. This marks an important finding, as it supports the idea that dental measurements are not the most reliable way to determine the sex of ancient hominins. “Paleoanthropologists have long known that our use of tooth size to estimate sex was fraught with uncertainty, but it was the best we had,” says Paul Constantino, a paleoanthropologist at Saint Michael’s College who was not involved with the research, to ScienceNews’ Bruce Bower. “Being able to accurately identify the sex of fossils using proteins will be hugely impactful.” Further analyses of the fossils’ amino acid sequences revealed that SK 835 was less closely related to the other three individuals than they were to each other. That means it’s possible SK 835 represents a different species altogether—maybe the newly proposed Paranthropus capensis. After all, the team writes in the paper, the recent description of that species shows Paranthropus diversity “is currently underestimated and needs to be investigated further.” Or, perhaps the small size of SK 835’s teeth can be explained by microevolution—variations between P. robustus groups living at different sites. Scientists say they will need to get their hands on more Paranthropus fossils from multiple places to know for certain, per Science News. Moving forward, researchers hope they can one day use paleoproteomic methods to map the entire human family tree. Right now, however, their “ability to distinguish between different species is limited by the small number of different proteins present in enamel,” three of the study authors tell Live Science in an email. Scientists are also exploring other protein-sequencing techniques that are less destructive to fossil samples than the current methods. In the meantime, they’re excited about the potential of paleoproteomics to help them learn even more about humans’ ancient ancestors. “It opens entirely new avenues for understanding our evolutionary history [in Africa],” study co-author Marc Dickinson, a chemist at the University of York in England, says in a statement. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

The Fearsome Megalodon Ate Basically Whatever It Wanted to Reach Its Daily 100,000-Calorie Need, Study Suggests Scientists previously assumed the giant, prehistoric sharks mostly feasted on whales, but it turns out they probably weren’t so picky An artistic reconstruction of the extinct megalodon. Scientists' ideas about how the megalodon looked are based on its fossilized teeth. Hugo Saláis via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 4.0 Between 3 million and 20 million years ago, the largest predatory fish ever known hunted in Earth’s oceans. Called theOtodus megalodon), this giant shark grew up to 79 feet long, had teeth the size of human hands and could bite with the strength of an industrial hydraulic press. But what scientists know about the extinct creature has been almost entirely determined from fossil teeth—since paleontologists have yet to discover a complete megalodon, and the animals’ cartilaginous skeletons don’t preserve well. Now, new research on the mineral content of their teeth suggests megalodons ate pretty much whatever they wanted. Until recently, scientists assumed that megalodons satisfied their estimated 100,000-calorie daily needs by mostly eating whales. A study published Monday in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, however, suggests the prehistoric shark had a much more diverse diet than previously thought—akin to the great white shark’s “if it moves, it’s food” hunting strategy of today, writes Vice’s Ashley Fike. Jeremy McCormack with a fossilized megalodon tooth. Uwe Dettmar for Goethe University An international team of researchers reached this conclusion after analyzing the ratio of different variants, called isotopes, of the mineral zinc in 18-million-year-old megalodon teeth. Animals absorb zinc only through food, so this could offer a hint to their diets. Muscles and organs absorb more of the isotope zinc-64 than zinc-66, meaning that the higher up the food chain an animal is—or the more meat and fish it eats—the less zinc-66 it absorbs, and its ratio of zinc-66 to zinc-64 is lower, in turn. “Since we don’t know how the ratio of the two zinc isotopes at the bottom of the food pyramid was at that time, we compared the teeth of various prehistoric and extant shark species with each other and with other animal species. This enabled us to gain an impression of predator-prey relationships 18 million years ago,” Jeremy McCormack, a scientist from Goethe University Frankfurt and lead author of the study, says in a statement. Unsurprisingly, the isotope ratios in the teeth put the megalodon at the top of the food chain, alongside close shark relatives such as Otodus chubutensis. At the same time, however, the scientists noticed there wasn’t a huge difference between the megalodon and the lower-tiered animals, suggesting the sharks feasted on creatures from all rungs of the ladder. “They were not concentrating on certain prey types, but they must have fed throughout the food web, on many different species,” McCormack tells CNN’s Jacopo Prisco. “While certainly this was a fierce apex predator, and no one else would probably prey on an adult megalodon, it’s clear that they themselves could potentially feed on almost everything else that swam around.” The results also indicate that megalodon populations living in different habitats had slightly contrasting diets, potentially because of differing prey availability. More broadly, the study invites comparisons between the megalodon and its iconic extant relative, the great white shark. These comparisons, however, may have previously led to some overreaching assumptions. “Previous studies simply assumed that megalodon must have looked like a gigantic version of the modern great white shark without any evidence,” Kenshu Shimada, a vertebrate paleontologist at DePaul University and co-author of the new study, told National Geographic’s Jason Bittel back in March. He and colleagues had just published a different paper that reassessed the prehistoric shark’s size, suggesting that it had a more slender body than its smaller, modern cousin. The new study thus joins a host of research challenging widely held ideas about megalodons and their relatives, says Alberto Collareta, a paleontologist at the University of Pisa in Italy who was not involved in the research, to CNN. “These have led us to abandon traditional reconstruction of the megatooth sharks as ‘inflated’ versions of the modern white shark. We now know that the megalodon was something else—in terms of size, shape and ancestry, and of biology, too,” he adds. In fact, with both species eating generalist diets, great white sharks might have outcompeted megalodons for food and ultimately played a role in their demise. “Even ‘supercarnivores’ are not immune to extinction,” Shimada says in the statement. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Large projectile point made of Gray Whale bone from the Duruthy rockshelter, Landes, France, dated between 18,000 and 17,500 years ago.   CREDIT: Alexandre Lefebvre. Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Prehistoric stone tools are among some of the oldest and important pieces of evidence we have of a time when our species began to evolve a higher level of intelligence. Many of these tools were also made from animal bones–including the bones of some of the biggest animals on the planet. New research finds that humans living up to 20,000 years ago may have been making tools out of whale bones. The discovery not only adds more to the story of early human tool use, but gives a glimpse into ancient whale ecology. The findings are detailed in a study published May 27 in the journal Nature Communications. “That humans frequented the seashore, and took advantage of its resources, is probably as old as humankind,” Jean-Marc Pétillon, an archaeologist at the Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès in France and study co-author, tells Popular Science. “There is evidence of whale scavenging at the site of Dungo 5 in Angola dating to 1 million years.” Fragment of projectile point from the cave site of Isturitz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France), made of bone from right whale or bowhead whale, dated to 17,300-16,700 years before present, curated at the Musée d’Archéologie Nationale (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France). CREDIT:  Jean-Marc Pétillon. By land and sea For our Paleolithic ancestors living in coastal areas, the sturdy bones of large whales were potentially an excellent resource for various tools. However, many prehistoric coastal archaeological sites are fragile and are at risk of rising sea levels, making reconstructing the past interactions between marine mammals and humans a challenge for scientists..   “The tools were dated between 20,000 and 16,000 years before [the] present, a period way before the invention of agriculture, and during which all human groups in the world lived a life of nomadic hunter-gatherers,” says Pétillon. “Climatically, this is the last part of the last glaciation, with a climate much colder than today.” That colder climate brought a sea level that was roughly almost 400 feet lower than it is today. With this change in sea level, we have no direct evidence of the human occupations on the shore, since the rise in sea level either wiped them out or the settlements lay buried under 300 or so feet of water.  Excavations in 2022 in the Basque cave of Isturitz, France, where several dozen whale bone objects were discovered. CREDIT: Jean-Marc Pétillon, Christian Normand. With this lack of evidence Paleolithic people have historically been viewed as inland hunters. Those living in present day western Europe would have hunted red deer, reindeer, bison, horse, and ibex. While they did hunt inland, there is a growing body of evidence from the last 20 years showing that they also took advantage of the Paleolithic seashore. “There are studies showing that people also gathered seashells, hunted seabirds, fished marine fish, etc., as a complement to terrestrial diet, and these studies were made possible because Paleolithic people carried remains of marine origin away from the seashore, into inland sites,” explains Pétillon. “Our study adds whales to the lot. It is one more contribution showing that Late Paleolithic humans also regularly frequented the seashore and used its resources.” Ancient giants In the new study, the team analyzed 83 bone tools that were excavated from sites around Spain’s Bay of Biscay and 90 additional bones uncovered from Santa Catalina Cave in Spain. They used mass spectrometry and radiocarbon dating to identify which species the bones belonged to and estimate the age of  the samples.  The bones come from at least five species of large whales–sperm, fin, blue, gray, and either right whales or bowheads. The latter two species are indistinguishable using this technique. The oldest whale specimens are dated to roughly 19,000 to 20,000 years ago, representing some of the earliest known evidence of humans using the remains of whales to make tools. Some of the whale bone points themselves were over 15 inches long.  Fragment of projectile point from the rockshelter site of Duruthy (Landes, France), made of gray whale bone, dated to 17,300-16,800 years before present, curated at the Arthous Abbey Museum (Landes, France). CREDIT: A. Lefebvre. “Most of the objects made of whale bone are projectile points, part of the hunting equipment. They can be very long and thick, and were probably hafted on spear-style projectiles rather than arrows (and the use of the spearthrower is documented in this period),” says Pétillon. “The main raw material used to manufacture projectile points at that period is antler, because it is less brittle and more pliable than bone, but whale bone was preferred in certain cases probably because of its large dimensions.” The ocean’s bounty Most of these whale species identified in this study are still found in the Bay of Biscay and northeastern North Atlantic to this day. However, gray whales are now primarily limited to the North Pacific Ocean and Arctic. Additional chemical data from the tools also suggests that the feeding habits of the ancient whales were slightly different than those living today. According to the authors, this is likely due to behavioral or environmental changes. That the whales in the area have stayed relatively the same was particularly intriguing for Pétillon. “What was more surprising to me—as an archeologist more accustomed to terrestrial faunas—was that these whale species remained the same despite the great environmental difference between the Late Pleistocene and today,” he says. “In the same period, continental faunas are very different: the ungulates hunted include reindeer, saiga antelopes, bison, etc., all disappeared from Western Europe today.” Importantly, the findings here do not imply that active whaling was occurring. The techniques at the time would not allow humans to hunt sperm, blue, or fin whales and the team believes that these populations took advantage of whale strandings to harvest the bones for tools.  “The earliest evidence of active whaling is much younger, around 6,000 [years] before present in Korea (site of Bangudae) and maybe around 5,000 before present in Europe (Neolithic sites in the Netherlands),” says Pétillon. Future studies could look at the systematic way that these ancient Atlantic Europeans systematically used the seashore and how they developed their ocean hunting techniques. 

Comparison of a megalodon tooth and a great white shark tooth, not associated with the study. (Image Credit: Mark_Kostich/Shutterstock) NewsletterSign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsMegalodon teeth have always been key to understanding the ancient marine predator. Fossilized teeth are all that remain to prove the existence of these massive sharks, and the name megalodon is from the Greek for “big tooth.”A new study, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, highlights the importance of the megalodon’s human-hand-sized teeth once again. Thanks to extracting and analyzing the traces of zinc left in the fossilized teeth, researchers now know that the megalodon’s diet was much broader than scientists once believed.“Megalodon was by all means flexible enough to feed on marine mammals and large fish, from the top of the food pyramid as well as lower levels – depending on availability,” said Jeremy McCormack from the Department of Geosciences at Goethe University, in a press release.What Did the Megalodon Eat?Clocking in at 78 feet in length and weighing about twice as much as a semi truck, the megalodon was a big fish with a big appetite. It is suggested that a member of the Otodus shark family would require about 100,000 kilocalories per day to survive. Due to this extreme number, scientists have often assumed that the megalodon’s main source of calories came from whales.This new study suggests that whales were not the only item on the megalodon’s daily menu and that these sharks were actually quite adaptable when it came to their food. The research team analyzed 18-million-year-old giant teeth that came from two fossil deposits in Sigmaringen and Passau. What they were looking for was the presence of zinc-66 and zinc-64, two isotopes commonly ingested with food. Typically, the higher up in a food pyramid an animal is, the lower the presence of zinc. As they are oftentimes at the top of the food chain, species such as Otodus megalodon and Otodus chubutensis have a low ratio of zinc-66 to zinc-64 compared to species lower on the food chain.“Sea bream, which fed on mussels, snails, and crustaceans, formed the lowest level of the food chain we studied,” said McCormack in the press release. “Smaller shark species such as requiem sharks and ancestors of today’s cetaceans, dolphins, and whales, were next. Larger sharks, such as sand tiger sharks, were further up the food pyramid, and at the top were giant sharks like Araloselachus cuspidatus and the Otodus sharks, which include megalodon.”Surprisingly, the zinc levels in the megalodon teeth weren’t always that different from the zinc levels in species lower down the food chain. This result means that the commonly held scientific belief that megalodons focused their attention on eating large marine mammals may be incorrect. Instead, McCormack refers to the megalodon as an “ecologically versatile generalist” that adapted to environmental and regional constraints that changed the availability and variety of their prey.A New Method in Teeth TestingUsing the zinc content of fossilized teeth is a relatively new method of analysis, and the research team working on the megalodon couldn’t be happier with their results. The methods used in this study have not only been used for prehistoric shark and whale species but also modern-day shark species, and have even been used on herbivorous prehistoric rhinoceroses.Overall, these new methods have begun to rewrite the history of megalodon’s eating habits and may help to explain more about why these giants of the food chain went extinct. “[Determining zinc isotope ratios] gives us important insights into how the marine communities have changed over geologic time, but more importantly the fact that even ‘supercarnivores’ are not immune to extinction,” said Kenshu Shimada, a paleobiologist at DePaul University and a coauthor of this study, in the press release.Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Earth and Planetary Science Letters. Miocene marine vertebrate trophic ecology reveals megatooth sharks as opportunistic supercarnivoresAs the marketing coordinator at Discover Magazine, Stephanie Edwards interacts with readers across Discover's social media channels and writes digital content. Offline, she is a contract lecturer in English & Cultural Studies at Lakehead University, teaching courses on everything from professional communication to Taylor Swift, and received her graduate degrees in the same department from McMaster University. You can find more of her science writing in Lab Manager and her short fiction in anthologies and literary magazine across the horror genre.1 free article leftWant More? Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/monthSubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In1 free articleSubscribeWant more?Keep reading for as low as $1.99!SubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In