Scientists in Paris have unveiled a 20-million-year-old skull they hope will help with the study of human ancestry.
The Ugandapithecus was found in Uganda in the layers of sediment under the volcanoes of the Karamoja region.
The discovery of the skull represents the culmination of more than 25 years of work and it is the most complete skull of this type to ever be found.
Martin Pickford, one of the paleontologists who discovered the skull, said: "It's the first time we've got a real good sample of Ugandapithecus Major.
"Before that, it was known by jaw fragments, isolated teeth, a few postcranial bones. But here, we really have a good idea for the first time of what the whole skull might have looked like."
The British paleontologist said the discovery would allow scientists to fill a gap in the lineage of primates but said the Ugandapithecus could very well have become extinct without leading to the birth of man.
http://news.uk.msn.com/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=159215627
Showing posts with label paleontology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paleontology. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Birch Mouse Ancestor Discovered in Inner Mongolia Is New Species of Rare 'Living Fossil'
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| Paleontologist Yuri Kimura, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, identified a new species of birch mice, Sicista primus, from 17 tiny teeth. A single molar is about the size of half a grain of rice. The teeth, however, are distinctive among the various genera of rodents known as Dipodidae. Cusps, valleys, ridges and other distinguishing characteristics on the surface of the teeth are identifiable through a microscope. (Credit: Yuri Kimura/Southern Methodist University) |
Fossils of the new species were discovered in sediments that are 17 million years old, said Kimura, who identified the new species and named it Sicista primus to include the Latin word for "first."
Previously the oldest prehistoric ancestor of the modern-day birch mouse was one that inhabited Inner Mongolia 8 million years ago.
Adding 9 million years to the ancestry of the rodent family that includes birch mice and jumping mice distinguishes this genus, Sicista, as a "living fossil," Kimura said. That places the genus among some of the most unique rodents on earth -- those whose ancestry spans 2 to 3 times the average, she said.
Kimura identified Sicista primus from 17 tiny teeth, whose size makes them difficult to find. A single molar is about the size of half a grain of rice. The teeth, however, are distinctive among the various genera of rodents known as Dipodidae. Cusps, valleys, ridges and other distinguishing characteristics on the surface of the teeth are identifiable through a microscope.
"We are very lucky to have these," Kimura said. "Paleontologists usually look for bones, but a mouse is very tiny and its bones are very thin and fragile. The teeth, however, are preserved by enamel. Interestingly, small mammal teeth are very diverse in terms of their structure, so from that we can identify a species."
Kimura reported the new species in the scientific journal Naturwissenschaften. Images of the research and expedition are posted on the SMU Research flickr site (http://www.flickr.com/photos/52146845@N06/sets/72157626764403486/). SMUVideo's "Inner Mongolia yields 'living fossil'" featuring Kimura discussing the research is available on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khkx11WlKaw).
An SMU doctoral student in the Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Kimura was part of the international team that discovered the fossils during expeditions to Inner Mongolia in 2004, 2005 and 2007.
Microscopic evidence of a living fossil
The new fossils of Sicista primus from the Early Miocene age are also now the earliest known record of Sicista, the birch mouse genus that comprises 13 modern and 7 fossil species, said Kimura. As a result, Sicista now boasts the most ancient ancestry of the 326 genera in the largest rodent suborder to which it belongs, Myomorpha. The suborder includes laboratory mice and rats.
"The birch mouse is a rare case of a small mammal genus persisting from the Early Miocene without significant morphological changes," Kimura said in reporting the findings.
Rodents, both modern and prehistoric, rank as the most prolific mammals on earth. After the reign of dinosaurs, 65 million years ago, rodents evolved and dispersed worldwide during the Cenozoic, the "Age of Mammals." They comprise about 42 percent of all living mammals. Scientists know now that only 1.5 percent of modern rodent genera, however, go as far back as the Early Miocene or older.
"Diversity within a rodent genus is not unusual, but the long record of the genus Sicista, first recognized at 17 million years ago, is unusual," said Kimura. "The discovery of Early Miocene S. primus reveals that Sicista is fundamental to understanding how a long-lived genus persisted among substantially fast-evolving rodent groups."
Birch mice migrated from Asia to North America
Previously the record for the oldest species of Sicista belonged to an 8 million-year-old species identified in Eurasia, Kimura said.
In identifying the new species, Kimura also reverses the long-held hypothesis that ancestors of birch mice migrated from North America to Asia. That hypothesis has been based on a 14.8 million-year-old specimen from South Dakota, which was identified in 1977 as the separate rodent genus Macrognathomys. Kimura's analysis, however, concludes that Macrognathomys is actually Sicista. For that reason, she concluded, Sicista first inhabited the forests and grasslands of prehistoric Asia and then dispersed to North America via the Bering Land Bridge, Kimura said.
In a comparison of the molars and premolars from Macrognathomys and Sicista primus, Kimura reported finding 12 shared dental characteristics. In addition, phylogenetic analysis to identify evolutionary relationships indicated that both belong to the same genus, Sicista, she said.
Reconnaissance of earlier Central Asiatic Expedition localities yields small mammals
The teeth of Sicista primus were discovered in fine sediments gathered from Gashunyinadege, a fossil locality in the central region of Inner Mongolia.
Gashunyinadege is one of several fossil localities near Tunggur, a fossil site discovered in the 1920s by the Central Asiatic Expedition, which was led by Roy Chapman Andrews from the American Museum of Natural History.
Kimura is a member of an international scientific team sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The team's expeditions have been led by paleontologists Qiu Zhuding, IVPP; Wang Xiaoming, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County; and Li Qiang, IVPP. Their expeditions retrace important classic localities, as well as prospect new fossil localities.
Kimura and other members of the team discovered the birch mouse fossils by first prospecting Gashunyinadege for small mammal fossils visible to the naked eye. Those fossils indicated the possibility of even smaller mammal fossils, so the team gathered 6,000 kilograms, more than 13,000 pounds, of Early Miocene sediment. Using standing water from recent rains, they washed the sediments repeatedly through continually smaller screens to separate out small fossils. Bags of concentrate containing particles the size of mouse teeth were returned to IVPP laboratories to hunt for fossils with a microscope.
The research was funded by the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man at SMU, Dallas Paleontological Society, Geological Society of America, Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110524153420.htm
Fossil of Giant Ancient Sea Predator Discovered
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| Anomalocaridids had long, spiny head limbs presumably used to snag prey, and a series of blade-like filaments in segments across the animal's back, which scientists think might have functioned as gills. (Credit: Esben Horn) |
The creatures, known as anomalocaridids, were already thought to be the largest animals of the Cambrian period, known for the "Cambrian Explosion" that saw the sudden appearance of all the major animal groups and the establishment of complex ecosystems about 540 to 500 million years ago. Fossils from this period suggested these marine predators grew to be about two feet long. Until now, scientists also thought these strange invertebrates -- which had long spiny head limbs presumably used to snag worms and other prey, and a circlet of plates around the mouth -- died out at the end of the Cambrian.
Now a team led by former Yale researcher Peter Van Roy (now at Ghent University in Belgium) and Derek Briggs, director of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, has discovered a giant fossilized anomalocaridid that measures one meter (more than three feet) in length. The anomalocaridid fossils reveal a series of blade like filaments in each segment across the animal's back, which scientists think might have functioned as gills.
In addition, the creature dates back to the Ordovician period, a time of intense biodiversification that followed the Cambrian, meaning these animals existed for 30 million years longer than previously realized.
"The anomalocaridids are one of the most iconic groups of Cambrian animals," Briggs said. "These giant invertebrate predators and scavengers have come to symbolize the unfamiliar morphologies displayed by organisms that branched off early from lineages leading to modern marine animals, and then went extinct. Now we know that they died out much more recently than we thought."
The specimens are just part of a new trove of fossils from Morocco that includes thousands of examples of soft-bodied marine fauna dating back to the early Ordovician period, 488 to 472 million years ago. Because hard shells fossilize and are preserved more readily than soft tissue, scientists had an incomplete and biased view of the marine life that existed during the Ordovician period before the recent discoveries in Morocco. The animals found in Morocco inhabited a muddy sea floor in fairly deep water, and were trapped by sediment clouds that buried them and preserved their soft bodies.
"The new discoveries in Morocco indicate that animals characteristic of the Cambrian, such as the anomalocaridids, continued to have a considerable impact on the biodiversity and ecology of marine communities many millions of years later," Van Roy said.
The paper appears in the May 26 issue of the journal Nature.
This research was supported by a National Geographic Society Research and Exploration grant and by Yale University.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110525131709.htm
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Dinosaur named 'thunder-thighs'
23 February 2011
By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, BBC News
Fossil remains recovered from a quarry in Utah, US, are fragmentary but enough to tell researchers the creature must have possessed extremely powerful legs.
The new species, described in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, is a sauropod - the family of dinosaurs famous for their long necks and tails.
It could have given other animals a hefty kick, say its discoverers.
The team has named its dinosaur Brontomerus mcintoshi - from Greek "bronto", meaning "thunder"; and "merós", meaning "thigh".
The fossilised bones of two specimens - an adult and a juvenile - have been dated to be about 110 million years old.
They were rescued from the Hotel Mesa Quarry in Grand County, Utah.
The site has been looted by commercial fossil-hunters and so scientists have probably been denied the full range of material from which to make their classification.
Nonetheless, those bones they do have sport tell-tale features that mark out an extraordinary species.
Chief among them is a hip-bone, called the ilium, which is unusually large in comparison to that of similar dinosaurs.
The wide, blade-shaped bone projects forward ahead of the hip socket, providing a proportionally massive area for the attachment of muscles.
"As you put the skeleton together, you can run muscles down from the hip-bone to join at the knee and that gives you a whopping thigh," Dr Taylor told BBC News.
"What's interesting is that if it were a sauropod that could move particularly fast, you would expect to see very strong muscles on the back of the leg to pull it along. But we don't; this is the opposite. It seems most likely to us that what this is about is being able to deliver a strong kick," he told BBC News.
The paleo-scientists speculate that the larger specimen in their possession is the mother of the juvenile.
The adult would have weighed about six tonnes - something like the size of a large modern elephant - and probably measured 14m in length.
At a third of the size, the juvenile would have weighed in at about 200kg - the size of a pony - and been 4.5m long.
Brontomerus was living in what geologists term the Early Cretaceous Period.
Some other marks on the fossils give additional clues to what sort of lifestyle the creature had and the environment it faced.
"The shoulder blade of Brontomerus has unusual bumps that probably mark the boundaries of muscle attachments, suggesting that Brontomerus had powerful forelimb muscles as well," explained team-member Dr Matt Wedel, from the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California.
"It's possible that Brontomerus mcintoshi was more athletic than most other sauropods. It is well established that far from being swamp-bound hippo-like animals, sauropods preferred drier, upland areas; so perhaps Brontomerus lived in rough, hilly terrain and the powerful leg muscles were a sort of 'dinosaur four-wheel drive'."
The team also believes the find is significant for its position in Earth history, in that it challenges the notion that sauropods began to disappear in the Early Cretaceous.
"Because sauropods were the most abundant dinosaurs found during the Jurassic Period and the rarest during the Early Cretaceous, there's long been the perception that sauropods were successful in the Jurassic and were replaced by duckbills and horned dinosaurs in the Cretaceous," said Dr Wedel.
"In the past 20 years, however, we are finding more sauropods from the Early Cretaceous period, and the picture is changing. It now seems that sauropods may have been every bit as diverse as they were during the Jurassic, but much less abundant and so much less likely to be found."
Dr Taylor is disappointed that more of Brontomerus could not be recovered, and wonders whether larger fossil pieces are being held in some unknown private collection.
"The fossil-hunters basically pillaged this site," he told BBC News.
"They left behind broken remnants and smashed bits of bone; and in some cases they were using broken bones to hold down tarpaulins - that's really the most disgraceful aspect of it."
See video and more at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12542664
(Submitted by Paul Vella)
By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, BBC News
Scientists have named a new dinosaur species "thunder-thighs" because of the huge thigh muscles it would have had.
Fossil remains recovered from a quarry in Utah, US, are fragmentary but enough to tell researchers the creature must have possessed extremely powerful legs.
The new species, described in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, is a sauropod - the family of dinosaurs famous for their long necks and tails.
It could have given other animals a hefty kick, say its discoverers.
"If predators came after it, it would have been able to boot them out of the way," said Dr Mike Taylor, from University College London, UK.
The team has named its dinosaur Brontomerus mcintoshi - from Greek "bronto", meaning "thunder"; and "merós", meaning "thigh".
The fossilised bones of two specimens - an adult and a juvenile - have been dated to be about 110 million years old.
They were rescued from the Hotel Mesa Quarry in Grand County, Utah.
The site has been looted by commercial fossil-hunters and so scientists have probably been denied the full range of material from which to make their classification.
Nonetheless, those bones they do have sport tell-tale features that mark out an extraordinary species.
Chief among them is a hip-bone, called the ilium, which is unusually large in comparison to that of similar dinosaurs.
The wide, blade-shaped bone projects forward ahead of the hip socket, providing a proportionally massive area for the attachment of muscles.
"As you put the skeleton together, you can run muscles down from the hip-bone to join at the knee and that gives you a whopping thigh," Dr Taylor told BBC News.
"What's interesting is that if it were a sauropod that could move particularly fast, you would expect to see very strong muscles on the back of the leg to pull it along. But we don't; this is the opposite. It seems most likely to us that what this is about is being able to deliver a strong kick," he told BBC News.
The paleo-scientists speculate that the larger specimen in their possession is the mother of the juvenile.
The adult would have weighed about six tonnes - something like the size of a large modern elephant - and probably measured 14m in length.
At a third of the size, the juvenile would have weighed in at about 200kg - the size of a pony - and been 4.5m long.
Brontomerus was living in what geologists term the Early Cretaceous Period.
Some other marks on the fossils give additional clues to what sort of lifestyle the creature had and the environment it faced.
"The shoulder blade of Brontomerus has unusual bumps that probably mark the boundaries of muscle attachments, suggesting that Brontomerus had powerful forelimb muscles as well," explained team-member Dr Matt Wedel, from the Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California.
"It's possible that Brontomerus mcintoshi was more athletic than most other sauropods. It is well established that far from being swamp-bound hippo-like animals, sauropods preferred drier, upland areas; so perhaps Brontomerus lived in rough, hilly terrain and the powerful leg muscles were a sort of 'dinosaur four-wheel drive'."
The team also believes the find is significant for its position in Earth history, in that it challenges the notion that sauropods began to disappear in the Early Cretaceous.
"Because sauropods were the most abundant dinosaurs found during the Jurassic Period and the rarest during the Early Cretaceous, there's long been the perception that sauropods were successful in the Jurassic and were replaced by duckbills and horned dinosaurs in the Cretaceous," said Dr Wedel.
"In the past 20 years, however, we are finding more sauropods from the Early Cretaceous period, and the picture is changing. It now seems that sauropods may have been every bit as diverse as they were during the Jurassic, but much less abundant and so much less likely to be found."
Dr Taylor is disappointed that more of Brontomerus could not be recovered, and wonders whether larger fossil pieces are being held in some unknown private collection.
"The fossil-hunters basically pillaged this site," he told BBC News.
"They left behind broken remnants and smashed bits of bone; and in some cases they were using broken bones to hold down tarpaulins - that's really the most disgraceful aspect of it."
See video and more at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12542664
(Submitted by Paul Vella)
Monday, January 17, 2011
New Species Of Flying Reptile Identified On BC Coast
Edmonton, Canada (SPX) Jan 17, 2011
Persistence paid off for a University of Alberta paleontology researcher, who after months of pondering the origins of a fossilized jaw bone, finally identified it as a new species of pterosaur, a flying reptile that lived 70 million years ago.
Victoria Arbour says she was stumped when the small piece of jaw bone was first pulled out of of a fossil storage cabinet in the U of A's paleontology department.
"It could have been from a dinosaur, a fish or a marine reptile," said Arbour."
Arbour, a PhD student in paleontology, says the first clue to the fossil's identify came after she compared it to known species of pterosaurs, "I found a previously published paper describing the teeth of a previously discovered pterosaur and ours was very close," said Arbour.
"The teeth of our fossil were small and set close together," said Arbour. "They reminded me of piranha teeth, designed for pecking away at meat."
That led Arbour to believe her new species, named Gwawinapterus beardi was a scavenger of the late Cretaceous.
"It had a wing span of about 3 metres and patrolled the sky and set down to feed on the leftover kills made by predator dinosaurs of the time such as Albertosaurus."
The fossil is not only a new species it's the first pterosaur of any kind to be found in British Columbia. It was found on Hornby Island, off the coast of Vancouver Island
However, Arbour says the place where the fossil was located has little to do with the actual area where the living pterosaur, was actually flying around 70 million years ago.
"In the late Cretaceous period, the B.C. coastal islands were about 2,500 kilometres to the south and part of what is now mainland, California," said Arbour.
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/New_Species_Of_Flying_Reptile_Identified_On_BC_Coast_999.html
New Species Of Flying Reptile Identified On BC Coast
Edmonton, Canada (SPX) Jan 17, 2011
Persistence paid off for a University of Alberta paleontology researcher, who after months of pondering the origins of a fossilized jaw bone, finally identified it as a new species of pterosaur, a flying reptile that lived 70 million years ago.
Victoria Arbour says she was stumped when the small piece of jaw bone was first pulled out of of a fossil storage cabinet in the U of A's paleontology department.
"It could have been from a dinosaur, a fish or a marine reptile," said Arbour."
Arbour, a PhD student in paleontology, says the first clue to the fossil's identify came after she compared it to known species of pterosaurs, "I found a previously published paper describing the teeth of a previously discovered pterosaur and ours was very close," said Arbour.
"The teeth of our fossil were small and set close together," said Arbour. "They reminded me of piranha teeth, designed for pecking away at meat."
That led Arbour to believe her new species, named Gwawinapterus beardi was a scavenger of the late Cretaceous.
"It had a wing span of about 3 metres and patrolled the sky and set down to feed on the leftover kills made by predator dinosaurs of the time such as Albertosaurus."
The fossil is not only a new species it's the first pterosaur of any kind to be found in British Columbia. It was found on Hornby Island, off the coast of Vancouver Island
However, Arbour says the place where the fossil was located has little to do with the actual area where the living pterosaur, was actually flying around 70 million years ago.
"In the late Cretaceous period, the B.C. coastal islands were about 2,500 kilometres to the south and part of what is now mainland, California," said Arbour.
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/New_Species_Of_Flying_Reptile_Identified_On_BC_Coast_999.html
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Dead Species Can Indeed Tell Tales
January 15th, 2011, 08:57 GMT | By Tudor Vieru
Research scientists have over the years developed methods of using the fossil record for studies of the future. The analysis of extinct species is allowing them to gain more insight into how modern-day animals response to changes in their environments and ecosystems, and scientists are on it 24/7.
Paleobiologists and paleontologists basically use the same approach to teasing out the future response of ecosystems from available data as climate scientists do when determining the future of the climate from old records inscribed in ancient ices.
In a new, extensive review of the scientific literature covering the fossil record, scientists have determined that the remains of ancient creatures can be used to boost modern science in a variety of ways.
One possible application could be to assess the potential environmental impacts that events similar to ones that happened in the past could have on a modern ecosystem, habitat or on species.
Using data from Earth's distant past could also help scientists predict which species will be most vulnerable to changes in the environment. In turn, this may provide thorough guidelines for restoration efforts currently being conducted by conservationists.
The review effort was funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), and led by Gregory Dietl and Karl Flessa. A paper detailing the findings was published in the January issue of the scientific journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
Gregory Dietl is a conservation paleobiologist at the Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, and also at the Paleontological Research Institution, whereas Karl Flessa occupies an identical position at the University of Arizona.
“Conservation paleobiologists apply the data and tools of paleontology to today's problems in biodiversity conservation,” says Dietl.
“A conservation paleobiology perspective has the unique advantage of being able to identify phenomena beyond time scales of direct observation,” he explains.
“Historically, paleontologists have focused their efforts on understanding the deep-time geological record of ancient life on Earth, but these authors turn that focus 180 degrees,” H. Richard Lane says.
“In putting the dead to work, they identify the significant impact knowledge of fossil life can have on interpreting modern biodiversity and ecological trends,” explains the expert, who is the program director of the NSF Division of Earth Sciences.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Dead-Species-Can-Indeed-Tell-Tales-178432.shtml
Research scientists have over the years developed methods of using the fossil record for studies of the future. The analysis of extinct species is allowing them to gain more insight into how modern-day animals response to changes in their environments and ecosystems, and scientists are on it 24/7.
Paleobiologists and paleontologists basically use the same approach to teasing out the future response of ecosystems from available data as climate scientists do when determining the future of the climate from old records inscribed in ancient ices.
In a new, extensive review of the scientific literature covering the fossil record, scientists have determined that the remains of ancient creatures can be used to boost modern science in a variety of ways.
One possible application could be to assess the potential environmental impacts that events similar to ones that happened in the past could have on a modern ecosystem, habitat or on species.
Using data from Earth's distant past could also help scientists predict which species will be most vulnerable to changes in the environment. In turn, this may provide thorough guidelines for restoration efforts currently being conducted by conservationists.
The review effort was funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), and led by Gregory Dietl and Karl Flessa. A paper detailing the findings was published in the January issue of the scientific journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
Gregory Dietl is a conservation paleobiologist at the Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, and also at the Paleontological Research Institution, whereas Karl Flessa occupies an identical position at the University of Arizona.
“Conservation paleobiologists apply the data and tools of paleontology to today's problems in biodiversity conservation,” says Dietl.
“A conservation paleobiology perspective has the unique advantage of being able to identify phenomena beyond time scales of direct observation,” he explains.
“Historically, paleontologists have focused their efforts on understanding the deep-time geological record of ancient life on Earth, but these authors turn that focus 180 degrees,” H. Richard Lane says.
“In putting the dead to work, they identify the significant impact knowledge of fossil life can have on interpreting modern biodiversity and ecological trends,” explains the expert, who is the program director of the NSF Division of Earth Sciences.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Dead-Species-Can-Indeed-Tell-Tales-178432.shtml
Dead Species Can Indeed Tell Tales
January 15th, 2011, 08:57 GMT | By Tudor Vieru
Research scientists have over the years developed methods of using the fossil record for studies of the future. The analysis of extinct species is allowing them to gain more insight into how modern-day animals response to changes in their environments and ecosystems, and scientists are on it 24/7.
Paleobiologists and paleontologists basically use the same approach to teasing out the future response of ecosystems from available data as climate scientists do when determining the future of the climate from old records inscribed in ancient ices.
In a new, extensive review of the scientific literature covering the fossil record, scientists have determined that the remains of ancient creatures can be used to boost modern science in a variety of ways.
One possible application could be to assess the potential environmental impacts that events similar to ones that happened in the past could have on a modern ecosystem, habitat or on species.
Using data from Earth's distant past could also help scientists predict which species will be most vulnerable to changes in the environment. In turn, this may provide thorough guidelines for restoration efforts currently being conducted by conservationists.
The review effort was funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), and led by Gregory Dietl and Karl Flessa. A paper detailing the findings was published in the January issue of the scientific journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
Gregory Dietl is a conservation paleobiologist at the Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, and also at the Paleontological Research Institution, whereas Karl Flessa occupies an identical position at the University of Arizona.
“Conservation paleobiologists apply the data and tools of paleontology to today's problems in biodiversity conservation,” says Dietl.
“A conservation paleobiology perspective has the unique advantage of being able to identify phenomena beyond time scales of direct observation,” he explains.
“Historically, paleontologists have focused their efforts on understanding the deep-time geological record of ancient life on Earth, but these authors turn that focus 180 degrees,” H. Richard Lane says.
“In putting the dead to work, they identify the significant impact knowledge of fossil life can have on interpreting modern biodiversity and ecological trends,” explains the expert, who is the program director of the NSF Division of Earth Sciences.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Dead-Species-Can-Indeed-Tell-Tales-178432.shtml
Research scientists have over the years developed methods of using the fossil record for studies of the future. The analysis of extinct species is allowing them to gain more insight into how modern-day animals response to changes in their environments and ecosystems, and scientists are on it 24/7.
Paleobiologists and paleontologists basically use the same approach to teasing out the future response of ecosystems from available data as climate scientists do when determining the future of the climate from old records inscribed in ancient ices.
In a new, extensive review of the scientific literature covering the fossil record, scientists have determined that the remains of ancient creatures can be used to boost modern science in a variety of ways.
One possible application could be to assess the potential environmental impacts that events similar to ones that happened in the past could have on a modern ecosystem, habitat or on species.
Using data from Earth's distant past could also help scientists predict which species will be most vulnerable to changes in the environment. In turn, this may provide thorough guidelines for restoration efforts currently being conducted by conservationists.
The review effort was funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), and led by Gregory Dietl and Karl Flessa. A paper detailing the findings was published in the January issue of the scientific journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
Gregory Dietl is a conservation paleobiologist at the Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, and also at the Paleontological Research Institution, whereas Karl Flessa occupies an identical position at the University of Arizona.
“Conservation paleobiologists apply the data and tools of paleontology to today's problems in biodiversity conservation,” says Dietl.
“A conservation paleobiology perspective has the unique advantage of being able to identify phenomena beyond time scales of direct observation,” he explains.
“Historically, paleontologists have focused their efforts on understanding the deep-time geological record of ancient life on Earth, but these authors turn that focus 180 degrees,” H. Richard Lane says.
“In putting the dead to work, they identify the significant impact knowledge of fossil life can have on interpreting modern biodiversity and ecological trends,” explains the expert, who is the program director of the NSF Division of Earth Sciences.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Dead-Species-Can-Indeed-Tell-Tales-178432.shtml
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Why did mammals evolve to enormous sizes - then get smaller again?
After the dinosaurs were wiped out by a massive meteor strike 65 million years ago, tiny mammals ruled the Earth. But they quickly evolved to be as big as dinosaurs, then evolved to be smaller again. What happened?
This is what paleontologists have long wondered. Scientists knew that extremely large mammals evolved within a few million years after the end of the dinosaurs. As evolutionary biologist Patrick Stephens puts it:
There is a much better fossil record for mammals than for many other groups. That's partly because mammals' teeth preserve really well. And as it happens, tooth size correlates well with overall body size.
But how many of these mammals there were, and why they evolved, have been a mystery until a group of international scientists pooled all the information they had about these giant mammals into one database.
What they discovered was extraordinary: Giant mammals, long believed to be somewhat rare, were common across the entire planet. It seems they grew to fill an ecological niche left by the dinosaurs, aided by a cooling climate and greater amounts of land mass that supported large body sizes. Even more interesting is that mammals didn't reach some "upper biomechanical limit" to their body sizes - they could have grown much larger. The only thing that prevented truly mega-mammals from evolving were climate and available food resources.
According to a summary of the research, published today in Science:
The researchers found that the pattern was indeed consistent, not only globally but across time and across trophic groups and lineages-that is, animals with differing diets and descended from different ancestors-as well. The maximum size of mammals began to increase sharply about 65 million years ago, peaking in the Oligocene Epoch (about 34 million years ago) in Eurasia, and again in the Miocene Epoch (about 10 million years ago) in Eurasia and Africa.
"Having so many different lineages independently evolve to such similar maximum sizes suggests that there were similar ecological roles to be filled by giant mammals across the globe," said [researcher John] Gittleman. "The consistency of the pattern strongly implies that biota in all regions were responding to the same ecological constraints."
Global temperature and the amount of land available as an animal's range are two ecological factors that appear to correlate with the evolution of maximum body size, but Gittleman warned against assigning cause and effect. "A big part of science is seeing patterns, and then producing new hypotheses and testing them," he said. "We have now identified this pattern very rigorously."
The point is, climate change could - over millions of years - lead to giant monsters. So there's something for future geoengineers to aspire to.
You can read more about the scientists collaborating on giant mammal work via their website, or read their paper via Science
This is what paleontologists have long wondered. Scientists knew that extremely large mammals evolved within a few million years after the end of the dinosaurs. As evolutionary biologist Patrick Stephens puts it:
There is a much better fossil record for mammals than for many other groups. That's partly because mammals' teeth preserve really well. And as it happens, tooth size correlates well with overall body size.
But how many of these mammals there were, and why they evolved, have been a mystery until a group of international scientists pooled all the information they had about these giant mammals into one database.
What they discovered was extraordinary: Giant mammals, long believed to be somewhat rare, were common across the entire planet. It seems they grew to fill an ecological niche left by the dinosaurs, aided by a cooling climate and greater amounts of land mass that supported large body sizes. Even more interesting is that mammals didn't reach some "upper biomechanical limit" to their body sizes - they could have grown much larger. The only thing that prevented truly mega-mammals from evolving were climate and available food resources.
According to a summary of the research, published today in Science:
The researchers found that the pattern was indeed consistent, not only globally but across time and across trophic groups and lineages-that is, animals with differing diets and descended from different ancestors-as well. The maximum size of mammals began to increase sharply about 65 million years ago, peaking in the Oligocene Epoch (about 34 million years ago) in Eurasia, and again in the Miocene Epoch (about 10 million years ago) in Eurasia and Africa.
"Having so many different lineages independently evolve to such similar maximum sizes suggests that there were similar ecological roles to be filled by giant mammals across the globe," said [researcher John] Gittleman. "The consistency of the pattern strongly implies that biota in all regions were responding to the same ecological constraints."
Global temperature and the amount of land available as an animal's range are two ecological factors that appear to correlate with the evolution of maximum body size, but Gittleman warned against assigning cause and effect. "A big part of science is seeing patterns, and then producing new hypotheses and testing them," he said. "We have now identified this pattern very rigorously."
The point is, climate change could - over millions of years - lead to giant monsters. So there's something for future geoengineers to aspire to.
You can read more about the scientists collaborating on giant mammal work via their website, or read their paper via Science
Why did mammals evolve to enormous sizes - then get smaller again?
After the dinosaurs were wiped out by a massive meteor strike 65 million years ago, tiny mammals ruled the Earth. But they quickly evolved to be as big as dinosaurs, then evolved to be smaller again. What happened?
This is what paleontologists have long wondered. Scientists knew that extremely large mammals evolved within a few million years after the end of the dinosaurs. As evolutionary biologist Patrick Stephens puts it:
There is a much better fossil record for mammals than for many other groups. That's partly because mammals' teeth preserve really well. And as it happens, tooth size correlates well with overall body size.
But how many of these mammals there were, and why they evolved, have been a mystery until a group of international scientists pooled all the information they had about these giant mammals into one database.
What they discovered was extraordinary: Giant mammals, long believed to be somewhat rare, were common across the entire planet. It seems they grew to fill an ecological niche left by the dinosaurs, aided by a cooling climate and greater amounts of land mass that supported large body sizes. Even more interesting is that mammals didn't reach some "upper biomechanical limit" to their body sizes - they could have grown much larger. The only thing that prevented truly mega-mammals from evolving were climate and available food resources.
According to a summary of the research, published today in Science:
The researchers found that the pattern was indeed consistent, not only globally but across time and across trophic groups and lineages-that is, animals with differing diets and descended from different ancestors-as well. The maximum size of mammals began to increase sharply about 65 million years ago, peaking in the Oligocene Epoch (about 34 million years ago) in Eurasia, and again in the Miocene Epoch (about 10 million years ago) in Eurasia and Africa.
"Having so many different lineages independently evolve to such similar maximum sizes suggests that there were similar ecological roles to be filled by giant mammals across the globe," said [researcher John] Gittleman. "The consistency of the pattern strongly implies that biota in all regions were responding to the same ecological constraints."
Global temperature and the amount of land available as an animal's range are two ecological factors that appear to correlate with the evolution of maximum body size, but Gittleman warned against assigning cause and effect. "A big part of science is seeing patterns, and then producing new hypotheses and testing them," he said. "We have now identified this pattern very rigorously."
The point is, climate change could - over millions of years - lead to giant monsters. So there's something for future geoengineers to aspire to.
You can read more about the scientists collaborating on giant mammal work via their website, or read their paper via Science
This is what paleontologists have long wondered. Scientists knew that extremely large mammals evolved within a few million years after the end of the dinosaurs. As evolutionary biologist Patrick Stephens puts it:
There is a much better fossil record for mammals than for many other groups. That's partly because mammals' teeth preserve really well. And as it happens, tooth size correlates well with overall body size.
But how many of these mammals there were, and why they evolved, have been a mystery until a group of international scientists pooled all the information they had about these giant mammals into one database.
What they discovered was extraordinary: Giant mammals, long believed to be somewhat rare, were common across the entire planet. It seems they grew to fill an ecological niche left by the dinosaurs, aided by a cooling climate and greater amounts of land mass that supported large body sizes. Even more interesting is that mammals didn't reach some "upper biomechanical limit" to their body sizes - they could have grown much larger. The only thing that prevented truly mega-mammals from evolving were climate and available food resources.
According to a summary of the research, published today in Science:
The researchers found that the pattern was indeed consistent, not only globally but across time and across trophic groups and lineages-that is, animals with differing diets and descended from different ancestors-as well. The maximum size of mammals began to increase sharply about 65 million years ago, peaking in the Oligocene Epoch (about 34 million years ago) in Eurasia, and again in the Miocene Epoch (about 10 million years ago) in Eurasia and Africa.
"Having so many different lineages independently evolve to such similar maximum sizes suggests that there were similar ecological roles to be filled by giant mammals across the globe," said [researcher John] Gittleman. "The consistency of the pattern strongly implies that biota in all regions were responding to the same ecological constraints."
Global temperature and the amount of land available as an animal's range are two ecological factors that appear to correlate with the evolution of maximum body size, but Gittleman warned against assigning cause and effect. "A big part of science is seeing patterns, and then producing new hypotheses and testing them," he said. "We have now identified this pattern very rigorously."
The point is, climate change could - over millions of years - lead to giant monsters. So there's something for future geoengineers to aspire to.
You can read more about the scientists collaborating on giant mammal work via their website, or read their paper via Science
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Amazing Horned Dinosaurs Unearthed on 'Lost Continent'; New Discoveries Include Bizarre Beast With 15 Horns
 | |
| Artist's rendering of two new species of dinosaur -- Utahceratops gettyi and Kosmoceratops richardsoni -- discovered in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument of southern Utah. (Credit: Courtesy of Utah Museum of Natural History) |
The newly discovered dinosaurs, close relatives of the famous Triceratops, were announced in PLoS ONE, the online open-access journal produced by the Public Library of Science.
The study, funded in large part by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Science Foundation, was led by Scott Sampson and Mark Loewen of the Utah Museum of Natural History (UMNH) and Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah. Additional authors include Andrew Farke (Raymond Alf Museum), Eric Roberts (James Cook University), Joshua Smith (University of Utah), Catherine Forster (George Washington University), and Alan Titus (Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument).
The bigger of the two new dinosaurs, with a skull 2.3 meters (about 7 feet) long, is Utahceratops gettyi (U-tah-SARA-tops get-EE-i). The first part of the name combines the state of origin with ceratops, Greek for "horned face." The second part of the name honors Mike Getty, paleontology collections manager at the Utah Museum of Natural History and the discoverer of this animal. In addition to a large horn over the nose, Utahceratops has short and blunt eye horns that project strongly to the side rather than upward, much more like the horns of modern bison than those of Triceratops or other ceratopsians.
Mark Loewen, one of the authors on the paper, likened Utahceratops to "a giant rhino with a ridiculously supersized head."
Second of the new species is Kosmoceratops richardsoni (KOZ-mo-SARA-tops RICH-ard-SON-i). Here, the first part of the name refers to kosmos, Latin for "ornate," and ceratops, once again meaning "horned face." The latter part of the name honors Scott Richardson, the volunteer who discovered two skulls of this animal. Kosmoceratops also has sideways oriented eye horns, although much longer and more pointed than in Utahceratops. In all, Kosmoceratops possesses a total of 15 horns -- one over the nose, one atop each eye, one at the tip of each cheek bone, and ten across the rear margin of the bony frill -- making it the most ornate-headed dinosaur known. Scott Sampson, the paper's lead author, claimed that, "Kosmoceratops is one of the most amazing animals known, with a huge skull decorated with an assortment of bony bells and whistles."
Although much speculation has ensued about the function of ceratopsian horns and frills -- from fighting off predators to recognizing other members of the same species or controlling body temperature -- the dominant idea today is that these features functioned first and foremost to enhance reproductive success. Sampson added, "Most of these bizarre features would have made lousy weapons to fend off predators. It's far more likely that they were used to intimidate or do battle with rivals of the same sex, as well as to attract individuals of the opposite sex."
The dinosaurs were discovered in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM), which encompasses 1.9 million acres of high desert terrain in south-central Utah. This vast and rugged region, part of the National Landscape Conservation System administered by the Bureau of Land Management, was the last major area in the lower 48 states to be formally mapped by cartographers. Today GSENM is the largest national monument in the United States. Sampson added that, "Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is now one of the country's last great, largely unexplored dinosaur boneyards."
For most of the Late Cretaceous, exceptionally high sea levels flooded the low-lying portions of several continents around the world. In North America, a warm, shallow sea called the Western Interior Seaway extended from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, subdividing the continent into eastern and western landmasses, known as Appalachia and Laramidia, respectively. Whereas little is known of the plants and animals that lived on Appalachia, the rocks of Laramidia exposed in the Western Interior of North America have generated a plethora of dinosaur remains. Laramidia was less than one-third the size of present day North America, approximating the area of Australia.
Most known Laramidian dinosaurs were concentrated in a narrow belt of plains sandwiched between the seaway to the east and mountains to the west. Today, thanks to an abundant fossil record and more than a century of collecting by paleontologists, Laramidia is the best known major landmass for the entire Age of Dinosaurs, with dig sites spanning from Alaska to Mexico. Utah was located in the southern part of Laramidia, which has yielded far fewer dinosaur remains than the fossil-rich north. The world of dinosaurs was much warmer than the present day; Utahceratops and Kosmoceratops lived in a subtropical swampy environment about 100 km from the seaway.
Beginning in the 1960's, paleontologists began to notice that the same major groups of dinosaurs seemed to be present all over this Late Cretaceous landmass, but different species of these groups occurred in the north (for example, Alberta and Montana) than in the south (New Mexico and Texas). This finding of "dinosaur provincialism" was very puzzling, given the giant body sizes of many of the dinosaurs together with the diminutive dimensions of Laramidia. Currently, there are five giant (rhino-to-elephant-sized) mammals on the entire continent of Africa. Seventy-six million years ago, there may have been more than two dozen giant dinosaurs living on a landmass about one-quarter that size.
Mark Loewen asks, "How could so many different varieties of giant animals have co-existed on such a small chunk of real estate?" One option is that there was a greater abundance of food during the Cretaceous.
Another is that dinosaurs did not need to eat as much, perhaps because of slower metabolic rates more akin to those of modern day lizards and crocodiles than to those of mammals and birds. Whatever the factors permitting the presence of so many dinosaurs, it appears that some kind of barrier near the latitude of northern Utah and Colorado limited the exchange of dinosaur species north and south. Possibilities include physical barriers such as mountains, or climatic barriers that resulted in distinct northern and southern plant communities. Testing of these ideas have been severely hampered by a dearth of dinosaurs from the southern part of Laramidia. The new fossils from GSENM are now filling that major gap.
During the past decade, crews from the University of Utah and several partner institutions (e.g., the Utah Geologic Survey, the Raymond Alf Museum of Paleontology, and the Bureau of Land Management) have unearthed a new assemblage of more than a dozen dinosaurs in GSENM. In addition to Utahceratops and Kosmoceratops, the collection includes a variety of other plant-eating dinosaurs -- among them duck-billed hadrosaurs, armored ankylosaurs, and dome-headed pachycephalosaurs -- together with carnivorous dinosaurs great and small, from "raptor-like" predators to mega-sized tyrannosaurs (not T. rex but rather its smaller-bodied relatives). Also recovered have been fossil plants, insect traces, clams, fishes, amphibians, lizards, turtles, crocodiles, and mammals, offering a direct glimpse into this entire ancient ecosystem.
Most remarkable of all is that virtually every identifiable dinosaur variety found in GSENM turns out to be new to science, offering dramatic confirmation of the dinosaur provincialism hypothesis. Many of these animals are still under study, but two have been previously named: the giant duck-billed hadrosaur Gryposaurus monumentensis and the raptor-like theropod Hagryphus giganteus.
Utahceratops and Kosmoceratops are part of a recent spate of ceratopsian dinosaur discoveries. Andrew Farke, another of the paper's authors, stated, "The past year has been a remarkable one for horned dinosaurs, with several new species named. The new Utah creatures are the icing on the cake, showing anatomy even more bizarre than typically expected for a group of animals known for its weird skulls."
Clearly many more dinosaurs remain to be unearthed in southern Utah. "It's an exciting time to be a paleontologist," Sampson added. "With many new dinosaurs still discovered each year, we can be quite certain that plenty of surprises still await us out there."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100922121943.htm
Amazing Horned Dinosaurs Unearthed on 'Lost Continent'; New Discoveries Include Bizarre Beast With 15 Horns
| |
| Artist's rendering of two new species of dinosaur -- Utahceratops gettyi and Kosmoceratops richardsoni -- discovered in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument of southern Utah. (Credit: Courtesy of Utah Museum of Natural History) |
The newly discovered dinosaurs, close relatives of the famous Triceratops, were announced in PLoS ONE, the online open-access journal produced by the Public Library of Science.
The study, funded in large part by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Science Foundation, was led by Scott Sampson and Mark Loewen of the Utah Museum of Natural History (UMNH) and Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah. Additional authors include Andrew Farke (Raymond Alf Museum), Eric Roberts (James Cook University), Joshua Smith (University of Utah), Catherine Forster (George Washington University), and Alan Titus (Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument).
The bigger of the two new dinosaurs, with a skull 2.3 meters (about 7 feet) long, is Utahceratops gettyi (U-tah-SARA-tops get-EE-i). The first part of the name combines the state of origin with ceratops, Greek for "horned face." The second part of the name honors Mike Getty, paleontology collections manager at the Utah Museum of Natural History and the discoverer of this animal. In addition to a large horn over the nose, Utahceratops has short and blunt eye horns that project strongly to the side rather than upward, much more like the horns of modern bison than those of Triceratops or other ceratopsians.
Mark Loewen, one of the authors on the paper, likened Utahceratops to "a giant rhino with a ridiculously supersized head."
Second of the new species is Kosmoceratops richardsoni (KOZ-mo-SARA-tops RICH-ard-SON-i). Here, the first part of the name refers to kosmos, Latin for "ornate," and ceratops, once again meaning "horned face." The latter part of the name honors Scott Richardson, the volunteer who discovered two skulls of this animal. Kosmoceratops also has sideways oriented eye horns, although much longer and more pointed than in Utahceratops. In all, Kosmoceratops possesses a total of 15 horns -- one over the nose, one atop each eye, one at the tip of each cheek bone, and ten across the rear margin of the bony frill -- making it the most ornate-headed dinosaur known. Scott Sampson, the paper's lead author, claimed that, "Kosmoceratops is one of the most amazing animals known, with a huge skull decorated with an assortment of bony bells and whistles."
Although much speculation has ensued about the function of ceratopsian horns and frills -- from fighting off predators to recognizing other members of the same species or controlling body temperature -- the dominant idea today is that these features functioned first and foremost to enhance reproductive success. Sampson added, "Most of these bizarre features would have made lousy weapons to fend off predators. It's far more likely that they were used to intimidate or do battle with rivals of the same sex, as well as to attract individuals of the opposite sex."
The dinosaurs were discovered in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM), which encompasses 1.9 million acres of high desert terrain in south-central Utah. This vast and rugged region, part of the National Landscape Conservation System administered by the Bureau of Land Management, was the last major area in the lower 48 states to be formally mapped by cartographers. Today GSENM is the largest national monument in the United States. Sampson added that, "Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is now one of the country's last great, largely unexplored dinosaur boneyards."
For most of the Late Cretaceous, exceptionally high sea levels flooded the low-lying portions of several continents around the world. In North America, a warm, shallow sea called the Western Interior Seaway extended from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, subdividing the continent into eastern and western landmasses, known as Appalachia and Laramidia, respectively. Whereas little is known of the plants and animals that lived on Appalachia, the rocks of Laramidia exposed in the Western Interior of North America have generated a plethora of dinosaur remains. Laramidia was less than one-third the size of present day North America, approximating the area of Australia.
Most known Laramidian dinosaurs were concentrated in a narrow belt of plains sandwiched between the seaway to the east and mountains to the west. Today, thanks to an abundant fossil record and more than a century of collecting by paleontologists, Laramidia is the best known major landmass for the entire Age of Dinosaurs, with dig sites spanning from Alaska to Mexico. Utah was located in the southern part of Laramidia, which has yielded far fewer dinosaur remains than the fossil-rich north. The world of dinosaurs was much warmer than the present day; Utahceratops and Kosmoceratops lived in a subtropical swampy environment about 100 km from the seaway.
Beginning in the 1960's, paleontologists began to notice that the same major groups of dinosaurs seemed to be present all over this Late Cretaceous landmass, but different species of these groups occurred in the north (for example, Alberta and Montana) than in the south (New Mexico and Texas). This finding of "dinosaur provincialism" was very puzzling, given the giant body sizes of many of the dinosaurs together with the diminutive dimensions of Laramidia. Currently, there are five giant (rhino-to-elephant-sized) mammals on the entire continent of Africa. Seventy-six million years ago, there may have been more than two dozen giant dinosaurs living on a landmass about one-quarter that size.
Mark Loewen asks, "How could so many different varieties of giant animals have co-existed on such a small chunk of real estate?" One option is that there was a greater abundance of food during the Cretaceous.
Another is that dinosaurs did not need to eat as much, perhaps because of slower metabolic rates more akin to those of modern day lizards and crocodiles than to those of mammals and birds. Whatever the factors permitting the presence of so many dinosaurs, it appears that some kind of barrier near the latitude of northern Utah and Colorado limited the exchange of dinosaur species north and south. Possibilities include physical barriers such as mountains, or climatic barriers that resulted in distinct northern and southern plant communities. Testing of these ideas have been severely hampered by a dearth of dinosaurs from the southern part of Laramidia. The new fossils from GSENM are now filling that major gap.
During the past decade, crews from the University of Utah and several partner institutions (e.g., the Utah Geologic Survey, the Raymond Alf Museum of Paleontology, and the Bureau of Land Management) have unearthed a new assemblage of more than a dozen dinosaurs in GSENM. In addition to Utahceratops and Kosmoceratops, the collection includes a variety of other plant-eating dinosaurs -- among them duck-billed hadrosaurs, armored ankylosaurs, and dome-headed pachycephalosaurs -- together with carnivorous dinosaurs great and small, from "raptor-like" predators to mega-sized tyrannosaurs (not T. rex but rather its smaller-bodied relatives). Also recovered have been fossil plants, insect traces, clams, fishes, amphibians, lizards, turtles, crocodiles, and mammals, offering a direct glimpse into this entire ancient ecosystem.
Most remarkable of all is that virtually every identifiable dinosaur variety found in GSENM turns out to be new to science, offering dramatic confirmation of the dinosaur provincialism hypothesis. Many of these animals are still under study, but two have been previously named: the giant duck-billed hadrosaur Gryposaurus monumentensis and the raptor-like theropod Hagryphus giganteus.
Utahceratops and Kosmoceratops are part of a recent spate of ceratopsian dinosaur discoveries. Andrew Farke, another of the paper's authors, stated, "The past year has been a remarkable one for horned dinosaurs, with several new species named. The new Utah creatures are the icing on the cake, showing anatomy even more bizarre than typically expected for a group of animals known for its weird skulls."
Clearly many more dinosaurs remain to be unearthed in southern Utah. "It's an exciting time to be a paleontologist," Sampson added. "With many new dinosaurs still discovered each year, we can be quite certain that plenty of surprises still await us out there."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100922121943.htm
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Workers unearth huge fossil cache in California
21 September 2010
Workers building a substation in California have discovered 1,500 bone fragments from about 1.4 million years ago.
The fossil haul includes remains from an ancestor of the sabre-toothed tiger, large ground sloths, deer, horses, camels and numerous small rodents.
Plant matter found at the site in the arid San Timoteo Canyon, 85 miles (137km) south-east of Los Angeles, showed it was once much greener.
The bones will go on display next year.
The find is a million years older than the famous haul from the tar pits at Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles, said Rick Greenwood, a microbiologist and also director of corporate environment health and safety for Southern California Edison.
"If you step back, this is just a huge find," he said. "Everyone talks about the La Brea Tar Pits, but I think this is going to be much larger in terms of its scientific value to the research community."
The number of skeletons found at the site may be explained by a marsh or lake bed that trapped animals looking for water, leaving them victim to predators, palaeontologists think.
Tom Demere, a San Diego Museum of Natural History palaeontologist, said the find was not directly comparable to La Brea, as it comprised different species from another era.
But he said it would be valuable.
"We have a fuzzy view of what this time period was like in terms of mammal evolution," Mr Demere said. "A discovery like this - when they're all found together and in a whole range of sizes - could really be an important contribution."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11383757
Workers building a substation in California have discovered 1,500 bone fragments from about 1.4 million years ago.
The fossil haul includes remains from an ancestor of the sabre-toothed tiger, large ground sloths, deer, horses, camels and numerous small rodents.
Plant matter found at the site in the arid San Timoteo Canyon, 85 miles (137km) south-east of Los Angeles, showed it was once much greener.
The bones will go on display next year.
The find is a million years older than the famous haul from the tar pits at Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles, said Rick Greenwood, a microbiologist and also director of corporate environment health and safety for Southern California Edison.
"If you step back, this is just a huge find," he said. "Everyone talks about the La Brea Tar Pits, but I think this is going to be much larger in terms of its scientific value to the research community."
The number of skeletons found at the site may be explained by a marsh or lake bed that trapped animals looking for water, leaving them victim to predators, palaeontologists think.
Tom Demere, a San Diego Museum of Natural History palaeontologist, said the find was not directly comparable to La Brea, as it comprised different species from another era.
But he said it would be valuable.
"We have a fuzzy view of what this time period was like in terms of mammal evolution," Mr Demere said. "A discovery like this - when they're all found together and in a whole range of sizes - could really be an important contribution."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11383757
Workers unearth huge fossil cache in California
21 September 2010
Workers building a substation in California have discovered 1,500 bone fragments from about 1.4 million years ago.
The fossil haul includes remains from an ancestor of the sabre-toothed tiger, large ground sloths, deer, horses, camels and numerous small rodents.
Plant matter found at the site in the arid San Timoteo Canyon, 85 miles (137km) south-east of Los Angeles, showed it was once much greener.
The bones will go on display next year.
The find is a million years older than the famous haul from the tar pits at Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles, said Rick Greenwood, a microbiologist and also director of corporate environment health and safety for Southern California Edison.
"If you step back, this is just a huge find," he said. "Everyone talks about the La Brea Tar Pits, but I think this is going to be much larger in terms of its scientific value to the research community."
The number of skeletons found at the site may be explained by a marsh or lake bed that trapped animals looking for water, leaving them victim to predators, palaeontologists think.
Tom Demere, a San Diego Museum of Natural History palaeontologist, said the find was not directly comparable to La Brea, as it comprised different species from another era.
But he said it would be valuable.
"We have a fuzzy view of what this time period was like in terms of mammal evolution," Mr Demere said. "A discovery like this - when they're all found together and in a whole range of sizes - could really be an important contribution."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11383757
Workers building a substation in California have discovered 1,500 bone fragments from about 1.4 million years ago.
The fossil haul includes remains from an ancestor of the sabre-toothed tiger, large ground sloths, deer, horses, camels and numerous small rodents.
Plant matter found at the site in the arid San Timoteo Canyon, 85 miles (137km) south-east of Los Angeles, showed it was once much greener.
The bones will go on display next year.
The find is a million years older than the famous haul from the tar pits at Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles, said Rick Greenwood, a microbiologist and also director of corporate environment health and safety for Southern California Edison.
"If you step back, this is just a huge find," he said. "Everyone talks about the La Brea Tar Pits, but I think this is going to be much larger in terms of its scientific value to the research community."
The number of skeletons found at the site may be explained by a marsh or lake bed that trapped animals looking for water, leaving them victim to predators, palaeontologists think.
Tom Demere, a San Diego Museum of Natural History palaeontologist, said the find was not directly comparable to La Brea, as it comprised different species from another era.
But he said it would be valuable.
"We have a fuzzy view of what this time period was like in terms of mammal evolution," Mr Demere said. "A discovery like this - when they're all found together and in a whole range of sizes - could really be an important contribution."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11383757
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
New dinosaur species found in China
Beijing, Aug 29: Scientists in China have identified a new species of dinosaur in a mountainous region in Shandong province, experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said.
Though fossils of the dinosaur were unearthed in January 2008 in Zhucheng city, where several Cretaceous dinosaurs have been found since the 1960s, they were "identified only quite recently", Xu Xing, a dinosaur researcher, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
Xu, a researcher with CAS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, has named it "Sinoceratops zhuchengensis", a type that has never been found before.
"Its skull is at least 180 cm long and 105 cm wide," said Xu. "It has a 30-cm long horn on its face and at least 10 crooked, smaller horns on the top of its head."
Ceratops (meaning "horn face") were large, plant-eating dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period that dates back to more than 65 million years. The most renowned ceratops is the triceratops, a huge herbivore weighing over 10 tonnes.
The discovery of the new species might rewrite current theories on the morphological transition among dinosaurs, Xu said.
"It blurs the distinctions between two types of ceratops," he said. "It bears features of centrosaurus, a group of ceratops, that are smaller in size, but its size resembles chasmosaurus, the giants of ceratops."
Before the discovery in China, ceratops had been unearthed only in the western regions of North America.
http://www.newkerala.com/news2/fullnews-30479.html
Though fossils of the dinosaur were unearthed in January 2008 in Zhucheng city, where several Cretaceous dinosaurs have been found since the 1960s, they were "identified only quite recently", Xu Xing, a dinosaur researcher, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
Xu, a researcher with CAS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, has named it "Sinoceratops zhuchengensis", a type that has never been found before.
"Its skull is at least 180 cm long and 105 cm wide," said Xu. "It has a 30-cm long horn on its face and at least 10 crooked, smaller horns on the top of its head."
Ceratops (meaning "horn face") were large, plant-eating dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period that dates back to more than 65 million years. The most renowned ceratops is the triceratops, a huge herbivore weighing over 10 tonnes.
The discovery of the new species might rewrite current theories on the morphological transition among dinosaurs, Xu said.
"It blurs the distinctions between two types of ceratops," he said. "It bears features of centrosaurus, a group of ceratops, that are smaller in size, but its size resembles chasmosaurus, the giants of ceratops."
Before the discovery in China, ceratops had been unearthed only in the western regions of North America.
http://www.newkerala.com/news2/fullnews-30479.html
New dinosaur species found in China
Beijing, Aug 29: Scientists in China have identified a new species of dinosaur in a mountainous region in Shandong province, experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said.
Though fossils of the dinosaur were unearthed in January 2008 in Zhucheng city, where several Cretaceous dinosaurs have been found since the 1960s, they were "identified only quite recently", Xu Xing, a dinosaur researcher, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
Xu, a researcher with CAS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, has named it "Sinoceratops zhuchengensis", a type that has never been found before.
"Its skull is at least 180 cm long and 105 cm wide," said Xu. "It has a 30-cm long horn on its face and at least 10 crooked, smaller horns on the top of its head."
Ceratops (meaning "horn face") were large, plant-eating dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period that dates back to more than 65 million years. The most renowned ceratops is the triceratops, a huge herbivore weighing over 10 tonnes.
The discovery of the new species might rewrite current theories on the morphological transition among dinosaurs, Xu said.
"It blurs the distinctions between two types of ceratops," he said. "It bears features of centrosaurus, a group of ceratops, that are smaller in size, but its size resembles chasmosaurus, the giants of ceratops."
Before the discovery in China, ceratops had been unearthed only in the western regions of North America.
http://www.newkerala.com/news2/fullnews-30479.html
Though fossils of the dinosaur were unearthed in January 2008 in Zhucheng city, where several Cretaceous dinosaurs have been found since the 1960s, they were "identified only quite recently", Xu Xing, a dinosaur researcher, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
Xu, a researcher with CAS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, has named it "Sinoceratops zhuchengensis", a type that has never been found before.
"Its skull is at least 180 cm long and 105 cm wide," said Xu. "It has a 30-cm long horn on its face and at least 10 crooked, smaller horns on the top of its head."
Ceratops (meaning "horn face") were large, plant-eating dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period that dates back to more than 65 million years. The most renowned ceratops is the triceratops, a huge herbivore weighing over 10 tonnes.
The discovery of the new species might rewrite current theories on the morphological transition among dinosaurs, Xu said.
"It blurs the distinctions between two types of ceratops," he said. "It bears features of centrosaurus, a group of ceratops, that are smaller in size, but its size resembles chasmosaurus, the giants of ceratops."
Before the discovery in China, ceratops had been unearthed only in the western regions of North America.
http://www.newkerala.com/news2/fullnews-30479.html
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
85-Million-Year-Old Sea Monster Re-Explored
RIGHT: The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County's mosasaur fossil contains four slabs, which make up a virtually complete, 20-foot specimen. Pictured here is the skull portion of the specimen. Credit: Courtesy of the Dinosaur Institute, NHM.by Staff Writers
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 17, 2010
One of the ocean's most formidable marine predators, the marine mosasaur Platecarpus, lived in the Cretaceous Period some 85 million years ago and was thought to have swum like an eel. That theory is debunked in a new paper published in the journal PLoS ONE.
An international team of scientists have reconceived the animal's morphology, or body plan, based on a spectacular specimen housed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
The paper was co-authored by a team of four scientists: Johan Lindgren (Lund University, Lund, Sweden), Michael W. Caldwell, Takuya Konishi (University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), and Luis M. Chiappe, Director of the Natural History Museum's Dinosaur Institute.
The mosasaur specimen was discovered in Kansas in 1969, and acquired by the NHM shortly thereafter. It contains four slabs, which make up a virtually complete, 20-foot specimen. Dr. Chiappe spurred a modern preparation of the specimen, and assembled the paper's research team.
"It is one of several exceptional fossils that will be featured in Dinosaur Mysteries," said Chiappe, curator of the 15,000-square foot landmark exhibition that opens at the museum in 2011.
In the meantime, the fossil will be temporarily on display at the museum's Dino Lab, a working lab located on the second floor of the museum, where paleontologists prepare fossils in full view of the public.
The specimen is "the finest preserved mosasaur in existence," according to Dr. Johan Lindgren, lead author of the published study. It retains traces of a partial body outline, putative skin color markings, external scales, a downturned tail, branching bronchial tubes, and stomach contents (fish).
Using it, the scientists demonstrate that a streamlined body plan and crescent-shaped tail fin were already well established in Platecarpus, and that these key features evolved very early in the evolution of mosasaurs. Noting the highly specialized tail fin, the new study assert that mosasaurs were better swimmers than previously thought - and that they swam more like sharks than eels.
The findings underscore how these adaptations for fully aquatic existence evolved rapidly and convergently in several groups of Mesozoic marine reptiles, as well as in extant whales. "This fossil shows evolution in action, how a successful design was developed time after time by different groups of organisms adapting to life in similar environments," said Chiappe.
"It highlights once again the potential for new discoveries to challenge well-established interpretations about dinosaurs and other animals that lived with them."
"From this beautifully preserved specimen it seems that advanced, shark like swimming began in mosasaurs millions of years earlier than we previously thought," said Dr. Kevin Padian, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley, not involved in the paper.
"This study is the best possible proof that active research by curators and staff is the most essential component of a museum dedicated to educating the public."
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/85_Million_Year_Old_Sea_Monster_Re_Explored_999.html
Friday, August 13, 2010
Are _Torosaurus_ and _Triceratops_ one and the same?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=are-torosaurus-and-triceratops-one-2009-09-28
A rare horned dinosaur known as Torosaurus may not be a distinct species, after all, according to a presentation given Friday at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Bristol, England.
Researchers have long recognized similarities between Torosaurus and Triceratops the main d
istinctions being that Torosaurus is larger and has an expanded frill at the rear of the skull. But John Scannella, a doctoral student at Montana University, and his advisor, John R. Horner, have found that specimens attributed to the two species actually form a developmental continuum rather than falling into discrete groups. A Triceratops skeleton on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, for example, exhibits a number of skull traits reminiscent of Torosaurus, including thin parietal bones and elongated squamosal bones. In addition, microscope examinations of thin slices of bone from Triceratops and Torosaurus specimens reveal that individuals attributed to Torosaurus are more mature than any of the ones assigned to Triceratops. Scannella and Horner therefore believe that the fossils that have been categorized as Torosaurus are just Triceratops individuals that reached mature adulthood before they died.
Scientists have wondered how two such similar groups could have shared the landscape—both ranged from Colorado to Saskatchewan at the end of the Cretaceous period. If Scanella and Horner are right, the answer is simply that the animals are one and the same species.
But the finding raises the question of why fossil hunters have recovered so few of the mature “Torosaurus” specimens—fewer than a dozen, compared to the many dozens of younger Triceratops. “If Torosaurus is Triceratops, then we’re finding a lot of animals that had a lot of growing up to do,” Scannella comments. Insights may come once researchers determine a more precise age at death for the individuals.
The finding provides more evidence that dinosaur diversity was declining before the animals became extinct, which, Scannella says, supports the idea that something other than an asteroid impact extinguished them
Friday, May 21, 2010
Nursery of giant extinct sharks
In what is believed to be a nursery of megalodons, an extinct giant shark species that lived between 17 and two million years ago, has been discovered in the Isthmus of Panama.
According to the scientists, megalodons -- the largest shark that ever lived -- had nurseries to raise young sharks typically in shallow areas where they can find ample food and protection from predators, mainly larger sharks, LiveScience reported.
"It is amazing how we were able to reconstruct a behavioural strategy used by ancient sharks based on fossils," said lead researcher Catalina Pimiento, a biologist at the University of Florida and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
"The findings reveal that sharks, even in their largest forms, have used nursery areas for millions of years as an adaptive strategy for their survival," Pimiento added.
These findings were based on the fossil teeth found in the Isthmus of Panama -- a marine strait that once connected the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea -- that was covered with shallow, salty waters some 82 feet deep.
According to the report, scientists investigating two 10-million-year-old fossil sites in the area found troves of megalodon teeth, roughly 400 in total.
Surprisingly, large megalodon teeth were uncommon in the troves. Instead, most ranged between 0.6 and 2.8 inches in length.
Based on the shapes of the little teeth, the researchers suggested they are from juveniles, as opposed to being small teeth from regular adults or coming from some dwarf species of megalodon.
For instance, some teeth possessed tiny sideway-jutting projections previously seen in young megalodons, while others were small, thick and heart-shaped, possibly coming from embryonic sharks.
All in all, the scientists found teeth from 21 juvenile megalodons some 6 to 34 feet long, as well as from seven adults, some of which were possibly mother sharks.
The researchers believe that the teeth could reach up to 6.6 inches long, while the megalodon could stretch more than 52 feet long. The foetuses alone could reach 13 feet in length, they said.
http://www.discoveryon.info/2010/05/nursery-of-extinct-giant-sharks.html
According to the scientists, megalodons -- the largest shark that ever lived -- had nurseries to raise young sharks typically in shallow areas where they can find ample food and protection from predators, mainly larger sharks, LiveScience reported.
"It is amazing how we were able to reconstruct a behavioural strategy used by ancient sharks based on fossils," said lead researcher Catalina Pimiento, a biologist at the University of Florida and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
"The findings reveal that sharks, even in their largest forms, have used nursery areas for millions of years as an adaptive strategy for their survival," Pimiento added.
These findings were based on the fossil teeth found in the Isthmus of Panama -- a marine strait that once connected the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean Sea -- that was covered with shallow, salty waters some 82 feet deep.
According to the report, scientists investigating two 10-million-year-old fossil sites in the area found troves of megalodon teeth, roughly 400 in total.
Surprisingly, large megalodon teeth were uncommon in the troves. Instead, most ranged between 0.6 and 2.8 inches in length.
Based on the shapes of the little teeth, the researchers suggested they are from juveniles, as opposed to being small teeth from regular adults or coming from some dwarf species of megalodon.
For instance, some teeth possessed tiny sideway-jutting projections previously seen in young megalodons, while others were small, thick and heart-shaped, possibly coming from embryonic sharks.
All in all, the scientists found teeth from 21 juvenile megalodons some 6 to 34 feet long, as well as from seven adults, some of which were possibly mother sharks.
The researchers believe that the teeth could reach up to 6.6 inches long, while the megalodon could stretch more than 52 feet long. The foetuses alone could reach 13 feet in length, they said.
http://www.discoveryon.info/2010/05/nursery-of-extinct-giant-sharks.html
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