University of Cape Town (UCT) researchers recently named a series of approximately 400 000-year-old fossilised underground nests of an extinct termite species after Calitzdorp, the Little Karoo town near which they were found. In October 2026, the research team returned to the town to donate a poster documenting their discovery to the Calitzdorp Museum, helping to connect local communities with the region’s remarkable fossil heritage.

Bazaruto Archipelago, Mozambique: Researchers from the Bazaruto Center for Scientific Studies (BCSS) Ocean Observatory have documented ancient forests that grew on the Mozambican coast thousands of years ago and have been found beneath the sea, where they now serve as hotspots teeming with marine life similar in biodiversity to coral reefs. The discovery raises the question of how many more of these hidden peat reefs exist around the world’s coastlines and how to evaluate them as a carbon store and develop policies to protect them and their biodiversity.

Mongolian palaeontologist Dr Bolortsetseg Minjin, known for her work to protect and repatriate fossils and expand dinosaur-themed science, received a state honour medal from her country in September.

A new global review of observed climate change impacts on plant communities reveals major gaps in where and how we monitor some of the world's most climate-vulnerable ecosystems.

Mediterranean-type ecosystems occur in just five regions of the world: the Mediterranean Basin, California, central Chile, southwestern Australia and South Africa, and are recognised as among the terrestrial ecosystems particularly vulnerable to climate change. Yet a new systematic review finds that our understanding of how their plant communities are actually responding to ongoing climate change is surprisingly uneven. 

Researchers from the University of Cape Town and the South African Environmental Observation Network reviewed the scientific literature documenting observed climate change impacts on plant communities across all five of the world's Mediterranean-type ecosystems. The study, published in Ecological Solutions and Evidence, was led by Hana Petersen, with Ryan Blanchard and Jasper Slingsby.

The study, published in Science Advances, finds that Australopithecus, the group of hominins that includes Little Foot, combined regular tree-climbing with walking on two legs on the ground. However, by about 1.8 million years ago, early members of the genus Homo appear to have shifted much more strongly towards a life on the ground.