Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Palaeocast Episode 47: Lobopodians

Published on June 29th, 2015 | by Dave Marshall

Palaeocast has a new episode.  The topic is Lobopodians.  This episode has two interviews.  Recall that earlier this week Nature had a paper that redescribed Halluciginia.  The first is with Dr. Martin Smith and is about that paper.  Halluciginia is one of the "weird wonders" of the Burgess Shale.  It was originally reconstructed upside down.  And now, the new paper has it flipped front to back. 

The second interview is about an older and more armored lobopodian from the early Cambrian of the Xiaoshiba biota of China.  This new animal is called Collinsium ciliosum.  Dr. Javier Ortega-Hernandez discusses the paper that describes this strange creature.

 

How the Turtle Got Its Shell

A reconstruction of "grandfather turtle." (Photo: Rainer Schoch)

It was hard to miss last week's story about turtle evolution.  The story appeared at Smithsonian.com, LiveScience, and Science Magazine among others, with the original paper appearing in Nature.  CBC Radio did an interview with Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues, the Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington.  Dr. Sues and Rainer R. Schoch, from the Natural History Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, studied the fossils (18 specimens) of the turtle ancestor which were found in Germany.  The animal, called Pappochelys (Greek for "grandfather turtle"), lived about 240 million years ago, during the Triassic.  When alive, the animal measured about 8 inches long, about the same size as a modern-day box turtle.

Pappochelys looked quite different than the turtles and tortoises of today, however. The animal had no shell, but it did have what appear to be the makings of one. Its ribs are broad and sturdy, and they fan out from the spine, a physiological set-up that the researchers suspect evolved not only for protection but also as a “bone ballast”—a way for the animal, which was likely aquatic or semiaquatic, to better control its buoyancy. That wasn’t the only hint of what would eventually become turtles’ trademark feature: Pappochelys also has a line of hard, almost shell-like bones along its belly.

CBC Quirks & Quarks - Hallucigenia Fossil A-head of the Game

Reconstruction of Hallucigenia (Danielle Dufault)

CBC Radio's Quirks & Quarks has a segment about Hallucigenia.  Recall that Hallucigenia is the "weird" worm that was found in the Burgess Shale fossil deposit in British Columbia, CA.  It was first described by Simon Conway Morris.  He discovered it in 1979 when examining fossils originally found by Charles Doolittle Walcott in the early 1900s.  The new interpretation, by Dr. Martin Smith, a paleontologist in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues, includes a reconstruction of its head.  They used an electron microscope to get at the details.  And, guess what... its mouth and throat were filled with sharp teeth!   The original paper appeared in the journal Nature.

What If Jurassic Park Took Place In Other Geologic Eras?

College Humor has a funny clip that explores other geological eras as the basis of Jurassic Park.  Enjoy!

 

The Earth stands on the brink of its sixth mass extinction and the fault is ours

The Guardian has a story about the current mass extinction event in Earth's history.  The story summarizes a paper that appeared in the journal Science Advances.

The oft-repeated claim that Earth’s biota is entering a sixth “mass extinction” depends on clearly demonstrating that current extinction rates are far above the “background” rates prevailing between the five previous mass extinctions. Earlier estimates of extinction rates have been criticized for using assumptions that might overestimate the severity of the extinction crisis. We assess, using extremely conservative assumptions, whether human activities are causing a mass extinction. First, we use a recent estimate of a background rate of 2 mammal extinctions per 10,000 species per 100 years (that is, 2 E/MSY), which is twice as high as widely used previous estimates. We then compare this rate with the current rate of mammal and vertebrate extinctions. The latter is conservatively low because listing a species as extinct requires meeting stringent criteria. Even under our assumptions, which would tend to minimize evidence of an incipient mass extinction, the average rate of vertebrate species loss over the last century is up to 100 times higher than the background rate. Under the 2 E/MSY background rate, the number of species that have gone extinct in the last century would have taken, depending on the vertebrate taxon, between 800 and 10,000 years to disappear. These estimates reveal an exceptionally rapid loss of biodiversity over the last few centuries, indicating that a sixth mass extinction is already under way. Averting a dramatic decay of biodiversity and the subsequent loss of ecosystem services is still possible through intensified conservation efforts, but that window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

 

Evolution: 550 million years in 1 minute

Here's an animated video of human evolution.  Nevermind that this didn't necessarily need to be centered around Homo sapiens.   It could have just as easily ended in a squirrel, a cat, or better yet a dog.  There is a book version that unfolds to be 30 meters long.  Enjoy!

 

Fossil of huge 'walking' bat discovered in New Zealand

Mystacina tuberculata foraging on South Island, New Zealand.
Credit: Rod Morris

ScienceDaily has a piece about a huge 'walking' bat.  The new species, Mystacina miocenalis, lived about 16 million years ago.  It walked on four limbs and was about three times larger than the average modern bat.  Due to their size and living environments, bats are rare in the fossil record.  Until now, the oldest known bat of the genus Mystacina was 17,500 years old; it was also found on New Zealand.  The original paper appeared in PLOS One.

The fossils were found near Central Otago on South Island, in sediment left over from a vast prehistoric body of water known as Lake Manuherikia, which was part of warmer subtropical rainforest during the early Miocene era, between 16 and 19-million-years-ago.

The new species, Mystacina miocenalis, was described today in the journalPLOS ONE, and is related to another bat, Mystacina tuberculata, which still lives in New Zealand's old growth forests.

"Our discovery shows for the first time that Mystacina bats have been present in New Zealand for upwards of 16 million years, residing in habitats with very similar plant life and food sources," says lead author and vertebrate palaeontologist, Associate Professor Suzanne Hand from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia.

Last Study Group Meeting Until September

ESCONI Archaeology Study Group Meeting, 7:30 p.m. College of Dupage - Tech Ed (TEC) Building, Room 1038B (Map) - Topic: "Primitive Money - design and use; 3000 BCE to 500 CE" 

In addition to the fascinating talk about ancient and primitive coinage-feel free to bring a coin or two that you need identified. Eric will gladly look it over and do his best to identify it for you.

 

CBC Quirks & Quarks - Spectacular New Horned Dinosaur

Reconstruction of Regaliceratops peterhewsi (Julius T. Csotonyi. Courtesy of Royal Tyrrell Museum)

Another new dinosaur has been described.  This one is called Regaliceratops peterhewsi.  CBC Radio's Quicks & Quarks show has an interview with Dr. Caleb Brown, a paleontologist and Betsy Nichols PostDoctoral Research Fellow at the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, CA.  The animal, a ceratopsian, lived about 68 million years ago, and has been nicknamed Hellboy.  The name stems partially from its appearance and partially because of the hard rock in which it was entombed.  The original paper appeared in Current Biology.

 

CBC Quirks & Quarks - Dinosaur Fossils Preserve Blood Cells

Soft tissue preservation in dinosaur bones is not a new topic.  CBC Quirks & Quarks has a segment on a paper that appeared in Nature Communications back in January.  Using a range of tools that are currently used to study nanostructures in living animals, the researchers, from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, think they have found blood cells and collagen remnants. 

The best part of all this is that this whole field of paleo-bone histology is just getting started.  Who knows what will be discovered next...  Maybe, they can shed some light on that ago old question about the dinosaurs, where they warm or cold blooded?

 

Coal Through a Microscope

When viewed closely, most pieces of coal are composed of alternating bands of bright and dull material. Image by West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey.

Geology.com has an interesting article about coal.   Here in Illinois, we have a huge amount of it.  Most, if not all, is from the Pennsylvanian and is closely associated with Mazon Creek fossils.  Next time you're out hunting for fossils and you come across a lump of coal.  Have a closer look and appreciate the hidden beauty of coal!

 

 

Dinosaur Welsh cousin of T-Rex found on a beach in Penarth

A distant relative of our friend T-rex has been discovered in Wales.  The animal lived about 201 million years ago and could represent the earliest dinosaur from the Jurassic.  It was found by brothers Nick and Rob Hanigan from Llantwit Major while fossil hunting along the Lavernock beach in the Vale of Glamorgan.

The “discovery of a lifetime” was made by Nick and Rob Hanigan from Llantwit Major while fossil hunting along the Lavernock beach in the Vale of Glamorgan after storms in spring 2014.

After a cliff fall on the beach, they spotted several loose blocks containing part of the skeleton of a small dinosaur and collected the specimen, including its razor sharp teeth, and claws.

The fossilised bones were found spread across five slabs of rock and although some were preserved together in the correct position, others had been scattered and separated by the actions of scavenging fish and sea-urchins.

The specimen was preserved with the fossilised remains of these sea-urchins.

A Whale Inside A Whale, That Was Eaten By A Shark, Discovered In Egypt

A prehistoric turducken, of sort, was discovered in Egypt.  The story is in the "Weird News" column over at Huffington Post.  That really is weird!

It's like a prehistoric turducken, but on a colossal scale: Scientists in Egypt have discovered the remains of a 40 million-year-old whale with another whale inside it, and researchers believe the two were then eaten by sharks.

The smaller whale found inside the fossils of the 60-foot-long basilosaurus may have been a fetus. However, basilosaurus had some pretty unusual dining habits. Like today's orcas, this fierce and ancient predator was known to eat other whales, so the whale inside might not have been a fetus so much as a meal. National Geographic reports that basilosaurus had such powerful jaws that it could crush the skull of any whale unlucky enough to get near its mouth.

The fossils were found at Wadi al-Hitan, a UNESCO World Heritage site also known as "Whale Valley" located in the desert to the southwest of Cairo.

Environment Minister Khaled Fahmy said the fossils include the smallest vertebras of the tail,making it the only complete basilosaurus skeleton in the world, per the Cairo Post.

Dinomania: the story of our obsession with dinosaurs

The Guardian has a story about our ongoing obsession with dinosaurs.  It's all there from the beginning in the 1840s to the present.  Enjoy!

Deep in the bowels of the world’s greatest palaeontological museum, a hitherto unknown species of dinosaur has been waiting to be unveiled. Concealed behind a black cloth, it has spent the past month placed discreetly at the back of an immense storeroom filled with row after row of fossils. Some lie stored in wooden boxes like the Ark of the Covenant in the Indiana Jones films; others, less delicate, are stacked on open shelves. Horned skulls, beaked skulls, armoured skulls: all the astounding variety of late Cretaceous megafauna is arrayed amid the shadows. No more remarkable an ossuary is to be found anywhere in the world – and still the finds keep on being made.

The Royal Tyrrell Museum was founded 30 years ago, to serve as a monument to the wonders among which it stands. Back in the late Mesozoic era, the barren prairie land of the Canadian province of Alberta wore a very different aspect. Lush, steaming and lapped by shallow seas, its forests were as ideally suited to sustaining vast herds of dinosaurs as its muds and sands were to fossilising their remains. When a glacier scored a great gash across the prairie during the most recent ice age, the Cretaceous sediment and all its incomparable freight of fossils were exposed to the weathering effects of wind and rain. What the Valley of the Kings is to Egyptology, the badlands of Alberta are to palaeontology – except that they contain, unlike the Valley of the Kings, a seemingly infinite reservoir of treasures. With every storm, more of them are exposed: everything from the scattered teeth or claws of isolated specimens to the bone beds of entire herds. As a result, our knowledge of the late Mesozoic is improving exponentially, year on year. Much that was mysterious about dinosaurs is no longer so, and much that was misunderstood has been corrected. It is, as a feat of resurrectionism, as dazzling as anything in the history of science.

Jurassic World, Opens June 12th, 2015

Jurassic World opens on June 12th 2015.  Yeah, they could have done the science better.  And, where are the feathers?  But, it should be interesting.  Remember, if nothing else, the original movie did increase interest in dinosaurs and science.  This one has a new story with new animals, here's the trailer.

 

The mystery of the 132-year-old Winchester rifle found propped against a national park tree

There is an interesting story over at the Washington Post about a 132 year old rifle that was discovered in Nevada's Great Basin National Park.  Archaeologists were conducting surveys, when they came upon the rifle, which was propped up against a juniper tree.

Archaeologists conducting surveys in Nevada’s Great Basin National Park came upon a gun frozen in time:  a .44-40 Winchester rifle manufactured in 1882. It was propped up against a juniper tree.

“They just happened to notice the rifle under the tree,” said Nichole Andler, Basin National Park’s chief of interpretation. The public will get a chance to view the rifle over the weekend.

Although staff have no idea how the rifle ended up there, “it looked like someone propped it up there, sat down to have their lunch and got up to walk off without it,” Andler said.

It’s remarkable that anyone was able to spot the gun back in November, as it had blended in so well with its surroundings. The unloaded gun appears to have been left undisturbed for more than 100 years; its wooden base had turned gray and was partially buried, and the barrel had rusted.

 

Paleontology on National Geographic Channel this weekend

The National Geographic Channel has a paleontology theme this weekend.  From dinosaurs, to mammoths, and even a T.rex Autopsy, there's quite a bit of content.  Here's the schedule:

Saturday, June 6:

  4:00 p.m.: Mammoth: Back From the Dead (cloning mammoths)

  5:00 p.m.: Bizarre Dinosaurs

  6:00 p.m.: Waking the Baby Mammoth (about Lyuba!; again at 12:00 a.m.)

  8:00 p.m.: Dino Death Match (again at 10:00 p.m.)

  9:00 p.m.: Jurassic CSI (again at 11:00 p.m.)

 

Sunday, June 7:

11:00 a.m.: Dinosaurs Decoded

12:00 p.m.: Jurassic CSI

  1:00 p.m.: Dino Death Match (repeat, I believe)

  2:00 p.m.: Mammoths Unearthed 

  4:00 p.m.: When Crocs Ate Dinosaurs (Paul Sereno and Sarcosuchus)

  5:00 p.m.: Dino Death Trap ("Dinosaur Pompeii" in western China)

  6:00 p.m.: Explorer: 24 Hours After Asteroid Impact (K-T extinction; again at 1:00 a.m.)

  7:00 p.m.: Ultimate Dino Survivor (T. rex; again at 12:00 a.m.)

  8:00 p.m.: T. rex Autopsy (again at 10:00 p.m.)

 

Channel listings are here.

 

Most dinosaurs had scales, not feathers, fossil analysis concludes

The discovery last year of Kulindadromeus, which had both scales and feathers, prompted speculation that this may have been the case for all dinosaurs. Photograph: Andrey Atuchin /SWNS.com

Did dinosaurs have a feathery covering?  That's what a story in The Guardian discusses.  In recent years, researchers have been discovering more and more evidence that feathers were more common than previously thought.  However, a new study led by Nicolas Campione of the  Uppsala University in Sweden shows that most of the dinosaurs were probably covered in scales.  The original paper was published in the journal Biology Letters of the Royal Society.

Nicolás Campione, a dinosaur researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden, worked with scientists at the Natural History Museum in London and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto to survey some of the best-preserved dinosaur fossils from museums around the world.

The scientists collected information on around 75 species that are known from the fossil remains of their soft tissues to have had either scales or feathers. From these, they created a dinosaur family tree and used a statistical model to work out the odds of species having feathers at different points in dinosaur history.

“What we found from this analysis is that the first dinosaur was probably not feathered,” said Campione. “Feathers clearly evolved in the dinosaur lineage, but right now, the data do not point to a feathered ancestor for them all.”

The first dinosaurs evolved from reptiles more than 230 million years ago. Feathers are thought to have arisen more than once in dinosaur lineages, and while they live on and give flight to modern birds, feathers first emerged for other reasons: for warmth or to provide colourful plumage displays.

 

CBC Quirks & Quarks - 425-Million-Year Old Parasite Found With Its Host

The tongue worm parasite (orange) is attached to the host ostracod. (David Siveter)

CBC Radio's Quirks & Quarks has another interesting segment.  This one is about a 425 million year old parasite, a tongue worm, found attached to its host.  The host is an ostracod, which is a type of crustacean.  It was discovered in Herefordshire, England and is the first fossil of its kind.  The paper appeared in the journal Current Biology.

Dr. David Siveter, Emeritus Professor of Paleontology at the University of Leicester, studied the fossil and discovered three tongue worms - one inside attached to eggs and two on the outside of the crustacean's shell.

Because the fossil was found in an ancient marine environment, it indicates that the tongue worm made the transition to a land animal parasite at some point. The many species of tongue worm today are parasites of reptiles, snakes and humans.

 

Reminder: General Meeting in June Will Be Held the Friday, on June 5th, 2015

Due to a scheduling conflict, June's general meeting will be held on the first Friday of the month, June 5th, 2015.  The speaker will be Adam Smith of the Field Museum.  His topic is a good one, "The Evolution of Birds".  See you there!