Scientific Illustration

jomobimo:

Hummingbird: Eustephanus Fernandensis, 1874

rhamphotheca:

Fossil Rodents With Supertough Teeth Found

Newfound species may have lived in world’s earliest grassland, study says.

by Brian Handwerk

Two new species of fossil rodent shed light on South America as an evolutionary hot spot, a new study says. Both have super-tough teeth, which suggest they may have roamed the world’s earliest grassland.

Andemys termasi, nicknamed the “mouse of the Andes,” would have looked like a rat and is the oldest known relative of the modern agouti, a rodent of Central and South American rain forests. The other new species, Eoviscaccia frassinettii, is the oldest known relative of the chinchilla—which it likely resembled—and vizcachas, which live in South American mountains and grasslands.

The newfound species, which lived 32 million years ago, are the second oldest ever found in South America after Peruvian mouselike and ratlike animals that date to some 41 million years ago…

(read more: National Geo)      (image: V. Simeonovski and D.A. Croft)

Rheas by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.

The birds of South America..
London,R. H. Porter [etc.,1912]-17..
biodiversitylibrary.org/page/13393276

jomobimo:

chactocerus bombilus, hummingbirds, 1874

rhamphotheca:

Fossil Turtle Found in Colombia, Round Like Car Tire

by PhysOrg staff

Paleontologist Carlos Jaramillo’s group at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and colleagues at North Carolina State University and the Florida Museum of Natural History discovered a new species of fossil turtle that lived 60 million years ago in what is now northwestern South America. The team’s findings were published in the Journal of Paleontology.

The new turtle species is named Puentemys mushaisaensis because it was found in La Puente pit in Cerrejón Coal Mine, a place made famous for the discoveries, not only of the extinct Titanoboa, the world’s biggest snake, but also of Carbonemys, a freshwater turtle as big as a smart car.

Cerrejon’s fossil reptiles all seem to be extremely large. With its total length of 5 feet, Puentemys adds to growing evidence that following the extinction of the dinosaurs, tropical reptiles were much bigger than they are now. Fossils from Cerrejon offer an excellent opportunity to understand the origins of tropical biodiversity in the last 60 million years of Earth’s history…

(read more: PhysOrg)           (image: Liz Bradford)

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More information: Cadena, E.A., Bloch, J.I., and Jaramillo, C.A. 2012. New Bothremydid turtle (Testudines, Pleurodira) from the Paleocene of Northeastern Colombia. Journal of Paleontology, 86(4):689-699.

Journal reference: Journal of Paleontology

Provided by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

jomobimo:

Hummingbirds: Ramphomicron Microrhynchus, 1874

jomobimo:

Thalurania Glaucopis, 1874

rhamphotheca:

Ceratophrys cornuta (foreground) et al.

from Bilder-Atlas zur wissenschaftlich-populären Naturgeschichte der Wirbelthiere Wien :K.K. Hof-und Staatsdruckerei,1867.

(via: Biodiversity Library)