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Life reconstruction of Patagotitan mayorum. Image credit: Jorge Gonzalez.
The Field Museum's twitter account has an update on the new titanosaur coming to the museum in the next month or so. Recall that this Patagotitan is taking Sue's place in the main gallery. It lived back in the middle Cretaceous of Patagonia, about 101 million years ago. One of the largest dinosaurs to ever live, it was 120 feet long, and weighed about 70 tons!
We all miss Sue, she will be getting a new special room upstairs, but this new guy will be very cool!
Note: New time - 7:30 and different bldg and room - HSC, Room 1234
ESCONI General Meeting, 7:30 PM College of Dupage - Health and Science Center (HSC) Building, Room 1234 (Map) - Topic: "Great Steps in the History of Life: The Origin of Limbed Vertebrates" by Dr. Ted Daeschler from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University in Philadelphia
(this talk is presented in partnership with ESCONI, The Field Museum, Northern Illinois University, the Paleontological Society, UIC, and the College of Dupage)
Head on over to www.trilobites.info for the April 2018 "Trilobite of the Month". It is Lanceaspis hammondi from the Lower Devonian of Morocco. Another interesting and unique trilobite from Morocco!
Trilobites.info is a great resource for all things trilobite. There is even a book! The book is an adaptation of the website and it has everything you ever wanted to know about these cool extinct arthropods!
This mummified, severed head was recovered from an ancient Egyptian tomb in 1915. Scientists needed to collect DNA to figure out whom the head belonged to.Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The New York Times has a story about a 4,000 year mystery, which involves a mummy's head. Was it Mr. or Mrs. Djehutynakht's (juh-HOO-tuh-knocked) head? Interesting story, read it to find out!
In 1915, a team of American archaeologists excavating the ancient Egyptian necropolis of Deir el-Bersha blasted into a hidden tomb. Inside the cramped limestone chamber, they were greeted by a gruesome sight: a mummy’s severed head perched on a cedar coffin.
The room, which the researchers labeled Tomb 10A, was the final resting place for a governor named Djehutynakht (pronounced “juh-HOO-tuh-knocked”) and his wife. At some point during the couple’s 4,000-year-long slumber, grave robbers ransacked their burial chamber and plundered its gold and jewels. The looters tossed a headless, limbless mummified torso into a corner before attempting to set the room on fire to cover their tracks.
The archaeologists went on to recover painted coffins and wooden figurines that survived the raid and sent them to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1921. Most of the collection stayed in storage until 2009 when the museum exhibited them. Though the torso remained in Egypt, the decapitated head became the star of the showcase. With its painted-on eyebrows, somber expression and wavy brown hair peeking through its tattered bandages, the mummy’s noggin brought viewers face-to-face with a mystery.
Scientific American has a story about the largest pterosaur ever found. It has been nicknamed "Dracula". It lived during the Cretaceous period. At 3.5 meters tall, it was the size of a giraffe. It is on display at the Altmuhltal Dinosaur Museum in Denkendorf, Germany. The bones were discovered by Romanian scientists in 2009 among the hills and rock structure near a small town called Sebes in Romania's Translyvania region.
Unlike bats, which have three fingers embedded in their wings and one free digit for climbing, pterosaurs had one elongated finger that formed the front edge of each wing and three exposed digits for running and climbing. Some earlier species had tails that scientists believe were used to help maneuver, but these disappeared as the pterosaurs evolved into more graceful flyers.
Researchers are not sure whether pterosaurs this size could actually fly. According to the exhibit’s introductory information there is no conclusive evidence to the contrary, but Dracula has a wrist joint that differs greatly from that of other species that have been found, which could mean it was not meant for flight. But if it did fly, Dracula would have been quite a sight (and probably sound): a small-aircraft-sized animal circling the skies, throwing giant shadows over land-dwellers below.
Twitter has all kinds of dimetrodon fun. Who knew?!? How did you celebrate?
The Mid-America Paleontology Society (MAPS) EXPO for 2018 will be held from tomorrow, Friday, April 6th to Sunday, April 8th, 2018. MAPS EXPO is the largest fossil only show in the world. This is the 40th annual show. The topic this year is the Permian-Triassic Periods. The keynote speaker is Dr. Margaret Fraiser of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her talk is titled "Earth's Largest Extinction and Life's Recovery". It should be a good one!
The show will be held at Sharpless Auctions Facility, I-80 Exit 249, Iowa City, IA. Here is the 2018 MAPS Flyer with all the details.
Show hours are:
Friday, April 6th: 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Saturday, April 7th: 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Sunday, April 8th: 8:00 to 3:00 PM
On the flanks of Graphite Peak, Rudolph Serbet uncovers a 250 million- year-old fossilized tree stump. PHOTOGRAPH BY DANNY UHLMANN
National Geographic has a story about multiple new fossil forests which were recently found in Antarctica. Back in the Permian, Antarctica was covered in prehistoric greenery. The team of scientists, which included Erik Gulbranson from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, that discovered these forests were there to look for clues to what caused the Permian Mass Extinction Event.
Antarctica is one of the harshest environments on the planet. As the coldest, driest continent, it harbors a world of extremes. The powerful katabatic winds that rush from the polar plateau down the steep, vertical drops around the continent's coast can stir up turbulent snowstorms lasting days or weeks, and the endlessly barren terrain gives Antarctica the title of the world's largest desert.
Today, polar summers pound the continent with 24 unforgiving hours of light for about half the year, before polar winters plunge it into complete darkness for the other half. Regardless of the season, the temperatures are consistently below freezing, making treks to the landmass unthinkable for the faint of heart.
But Antarctica wasn't always like this. Hundreds of millions of years ago, the continent was smushed together with other modern-day landmasses to form the supercontinent Gondwana. Gondwana was humid and carpeted with a network of hardy plants. As the turbulent climate shifted from hot to cold on a sometimes monthly basis, the streamlined foliage would have needed to withstand extremes.
But then, a massive extinction event pulsed through the land. It catapulted nearly all life to an end, obliterating more than 90 percent of the world's species at the time.
What caused this die-off, called the Permian extinction or the Great Dying, is still shrouded in mystery. Clues to the massacre come to us in the form of fossilized trees, but much of the reasons behind this extinction remain unsolved. And that's why a handful of intrepid scientists traveled to Antarctica this winter, curious to uncover clues about what led to the end of the continent's forested past.
