Scientific Illustration

astronomy-to-zoology:

Genus Waimanu

waimanu is a genus of early penguin like birds which in Antarctica during the middle Paleocene (60 mya). Waimanu is one of the earliest penguins currently known to science and showed several characteristics common to penguins today as it was flightless and seemingly well adapted for wing based diving and may have resembled a loon in shape. In fact DNA analyses and anatomy show a close relationship between penguins and loons.

Phylogeny

Animalia-Chordata-Aves-Sphenisciformes-Wainamu

Image source

paleoillustration:

“It may be hard to believe, but Antarctica was once covered in towering forests.

One hundred million years ago, the Earth was in the grip of an extreme Greenhouse Effect.

The polar ice caps had all but melted; in the south, rainforests inhabited by dinosaurs existed in their place.

These Antarctic ecosystems were adapted to the long months of winter darkness that occur at the poles, and were truly bizarre.

But if global warming continues unabated, could these ancient forests be a taste of things to come?” Full article (BBC News). Art by Peter Trusler.

(via dendroica)

paleoillustration:

Antarctic Australasia, by John Sibbick

rhamphotheca:

Oldest Antarctic Whale Found; Shows Fast Evolution (Nov. 2011)

Ancient jawbone suggests whales evolved more rapidly than thought

by John Roach

The oldest known whale to ply the Antarctic has been found, scientists say. A 24-inch-long (60-cm-long) jawbone was recently discovered amid a rich deposit of fossils on the Antarctic Peninsula (map).

The creature, which may have reached lengths of up to 20 ft (6 m), had a mouthful of teeth and likely feasted on giant penguins, sharks, and big bony fish, whose remains were also discovered with the jawbone.

The early whale swam polar waters during the Eocene period, some 49 million years ago. Its age suggests fully aquatic whales evolved from their mammalian ancestors more rapidly than previously thought, said researcher Thomas Mörs, paleozoologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

Based on 53-million-year-old fossils of whale-like, semi-aquatic mammals, scientists had thought mammals gave rise to whales in a process that took 15 million years. The new find suggests it took just 4 million years.  What’s more, “as soon as they became fully marine animals, they dispersed all over the world, showing the great success of the whale construction,” Mörs said in an email…

(read more: National Geo)          (image: Marcelo Reguero via AFP/Getty Images)

cannedbooks:

size comparison of different penguin species

cannedbooks:

left picture: this map shows the travel route of Scott’s ship, the Terra Nova, from the barrier over the Beardmore-glacier and Edward VII-plateau to the south pole

right picture: sketches of icebergs, drawn during the 1872-1876 expedition of the HMS Challenger

biomedicalephemera:

Callorhinchus milii - The Elephant Fish

This unfortunate-looking chap is an elephant fish, from the Antarctic basin. Antarctic elephant fish are smaller and more wrinkled than the variety that New Zealanders might know as elephant shark that comprises much of the “fish” side of fish & chips shops on the Islands. Their standard whitefish-like meat with palatable texture made them popular even before Europeans arrived in the South Pacific, with indigenous Maori populations. Since the fish come very close to shore during breeding season, Maori were able to catch and dry large numbers of them for the rest of the year.

The eponymous elephant-like trunk of the elephant fish is a proboscis, and the fish’s primary mode of food detection. As it weaves along the sea floor, the sensory nerves of the proboscis pick up movement from any buried crustacean life, and guide the fish to its prey. Though not prehensile by any means, most species of elephant fish are thought to use the proboscis to dig out the prey, as well as locate it.

Fishes and Fishing: Artificial Breeding of Fish, Anatomy of their Senses, Their Loves, Passions, and Intellects. W. Wright, Esq., 1858.

biomedicalephemera:

McCormick’s Skua - Feet

1. Nestling, right after hatching
2. Nestling, two to three weeks old
3. Juvenile, around the time of downy feather shedding
4. Normal adult
5. Piebald morph of adult - Juvenile coloring retained, with adult feathering

National Antarctic Expedition 1901-1904: Natural History - Vol II. Zoology. The Order of Trustees of the British Museum, 1907.

rhamphotheca:

Oldest Antarctic Whale Found; Shows Fast Evolution

by John Roach

The oldest known whale to ply the Antarctic has been found, scientists say. A 24-inch-long (60-centimeter-long) jawbone was recently discovered amid a rich deposit of fossils on the Antarctic Peninsula.

The creature, which may have reached lengths of up to 20 feet (6 meters), had a mouthful of teeth and likely feasted on giant penguins, sharks, and big bony fish, whose remains were also discovered with the jawbone.

The early whale swam polar waters during the Eocene period, some 49 million years ago. Its age suggests fully aquatic whales evolved from their mammalian ancestors more rapidly than previously thought, said researcher Thomas Mörs, paleozoologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

Based on 53-million-year-old fossils of whale-like, semi-aquatic mammals, scientists had thought mammals gave rise to whales in a process that took 15 million years. The new find suggests it took just 4 million years…

(read more: National Geo)   (image: Marcelo Reguero)

rhamphotheca:

Megalestris maccormicki (Saund.) = now South Polar Skua (Stercorarius maccormicki)

from Catalogue of the birds in the British Museum, Vol. 25, Plate I, 1896, by Joseph Smit