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“The Last of the Ammonites” by Ray Troll
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reconstructed fauna found in the Burgess Shale, these creatures lived 505 million years ago during the Cambrian era
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Lystrosaurus murrayi—one of the many fossils that supports the Theory of Continental Drift/Plate Tectonics.
Alfred Wegner first proposed this idea by noting that the rock sequences in South America, Africa, India, and Australia are almost identical, and thereby must contain similar fossils.
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This semester I’m taking a course called Evolution. It does what it says on the tin. We’ve been assigned Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True to read, and I’m getting caught up on chapters over the weekend (since my book came late in the mail). I’m SUPER EXCITED to do this, cause I’ve been wanting to read this book since it was published, but I never really made the effort.
Chapter 2 is a p great overview on transitional fossils from the more famous and well-documented lineages (whales, amphibians, and birds), and has a good bit of discussion on Tiktaalik (pictured). This reminded me how much I love Tiktaalik. LOOK AT THAT HAPPY FACE. LOOK AT IT.
TIKTAALIK: THE FOSSIL THAT LOVES YOU BACK.
(picture from The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution | The Loom | Discover Magazine)
(via lenieclarke)
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The more we discover about dinosaurs, the more these “terrible lizards” resemble otherworldly birds. None more so than the microraptor, which paleontologists have meticulously reconstructed in a paper in Science. Not only was the microraptor about the size of a modern-day crow, it looked very crow-like according to paleontologists, even down to the discovery that it sported dark iridescent feathers, the first yet recorded in nature. “This study gives us an unprecedented glimpse at what this animal looked like when it was alive,” said co-author Mark Norell, chair of the American Museum of Natural History’s Division of Paleontology, in a statement. “While we’ve nailed down what color this animal was, even more importantly, we’ve determined that Microraptor, like many modern birds, most likely used its ornate feathering to give visual social signals.” (via Meet the dinosaur that looks like a crow)
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Early Arthropod Ancestor :Walking Cactus
Diania cactiformis is a 520 million year old organism with 20 legs, and possibly the closest relative to arthropods. Its body is soft, while its legs are hard and covered in spines. Though it doesn’t appear to have eyes, a mouth, or a head, it does have jointed legs.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/02/23/meet-diania-the-walking-cactus-an-early-cousin-of-lifes-great-winners/
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New evidence suggests Archaeopteryx dressed in black.
Scientists have found a way to uncover feathered dinosaurs’ true colors, and one of the first creatures to come under inspection is none other than Archaeopteryx — an iconic but mysterious theropod believed by many to be the “missing link” between dinosaurs and birds.
Now, by examining a single, exceptionally well-preserved feather, one group of paleontologists believes it has the evidence it needs to weigh in on the color of Archaeopteryx’s prehistoric plumage. This bird, say the researchers, wore black.
By comparing the patterns of melanosomes contained within the Archaeopteryx feather (seen above) with the those found in the plumage of 87 similar, modern bird species, the researchers were able to determine that the feather was almost certainly black. What’s more, the researchers say Archaeopteryx’s melanosomes would have provided its wings a structural advantage, as well.
“If Archaeopteryx was flapping or gliding, the presence of melanosomes would have given the feathers additional structural support,” said Ryan Carney, an evolutionary biologist at Brown and the paper’s lead author. “This would have been advantageous during this early evolutionary stage of dinosaur flight.”
Read the full article at io9.
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Onychonycteris
When: Eocene (all known fossils from a deposit 52.5 million years old)
Where: Wyoming, USA
What: Onychonycteris is the most basal bat currently known. It differs from living bats in having claws on all five fingers, whereas living bats have lost them. This form also has relatively shorter arms and fingers, as well as longer legs and tail than any other bat, fossil or extant. Onychonycteris was an extremely important find, as allowed us to answer a long standing question about bat evolution: Which came first, flight or echolocation? This taxon was capable of flight, and detailed examination of the cranium revealed that it could not echolocate. Thus, bats took to the skies before they developed a system for seeing with their ears.
This amazing fossil is from the Green River fossil lagerstatten in southwestern Wyoming, and is one of two known complete specimens. This example is not the holotype (the specimen which bears the name) as while it looks absolutely gorgeous, the second specimen was arranged on the rock slab in such a way more of the skull could be studied. Additionally, this specimen was actually in the hands of a private collector, and thus not fully available to science. That is until the specimen was mailed, unannounced, to Dr. Nancy Simmons at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. She was working on publishing this taxon at the time, and the private collector had been informed of this, so the family sent the specimen to allow her the best examination possible. That was one awesome package to open, believe me!
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Arsinotheirum
Mounted specimen on display at the British Natural History Museum, London.
When: Late Eocene - Early Oligocene (36-30 million years ago)
Where: Northern Africa
What: Arsinotheirum is the animal with the largest known horns relative to body size. These gigantic horns were composed entirely of greatly expanded nasal bones. It also had a pair of smaller horns behind these enormous protuberances. This stocky beast was about 6 feet (2 meters) tall at the shoulder, and 10 feet (3 meters) long. It lived in Northern Africa, when this region was covered with tropical rainforests and mangrove swamps, eating most manners of vegetation with its large crushing molars. Arsinotheirum was fairly unspecialized in general, with the exception of its gigantic horns - the function of which is not well understood.
Though Arsinotheirum superficially resembles rhinos, it is not closely related to them at all (and its large horns have a bone core, unlike the horn of the rhino which has no bony component). It is a member of the extinct order Embrithopoda, which is in turn within the Paenungulata (almost ungulates). Living paenugulates are elephants, manatees, and hyraxes. It is not well known how Arsinotheirum fits into this group, as there is extremely little fossil record of basal embrithopods. Arsinotheirum was based on the site of the discovery of the first fossils: they were near the palace of Arsinoë, a Ptolemaic Egyptian queen.
