Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois - ESCONI

Trilobite Tuesday #18: Early trilobites had stomachs #trilobite #fossils #TrilobiteTuesday

A specimen of the trilobite Palaeolenus lantenoisi from the Guanshan Biota in southern Yunnan Province, China. Rarely are internal organs preserved in fossils, but this specimen shows the digestive system preserved as reddish iron oxides. The digestive system is comprised of a crop (inflated region at top of specimen), lateral glands, and a central canal that runs along the length of the body; the iron oxides that extend beyond the fossil are the remains of gut contents that were extruded during preservation. Credit: © F. Chen

Phys.org has a story about some interesting details of trilobite digestion.  A paper, published in 2017 in the journal PLOS ONE, revealed that trilobites had a stomach structure about 20 million years earlier than what had been known.  The exceptionally preserved specimens of Palaeolenus lantenoisi used in the study lived about 514 million years ago during the Cambrian.  They are shown to have both a crop and digestive glands.  This study backs up some earlier research from Sweden.  Trilobites are known to have have two body plans of their digestive system.  One is a tube down the length of the body with lateral digestive glands.  The other consists of an expanded stomach, called a "crop", leading into a tube with no lateral glands.

"Trilobites are one of the first types of animals to show up in large numbers in the fossil record," said lead author Melanie Hopkins, an assistant curator in the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History. "Their exoskeletons were heavy in minerals, and so they preserved really well. But like all fossils, it's very rare to see the preservation of soft tissues like organs or appendages in trilobites, and because of this, our knowledge of the trilobite digestive system comes from a small number of specimens. The new material in this study really expands our understanding."

Trilobites are a group of extinct marine arthropods—distantly related to the horseshoe crab—that lived for almost 300 million years. They were extremely diverse, with about 20,000 species, and their fossil exoskeletons can be found all around the world. Most of the 270 specimens analyzed in the new study were collected from a quarry in southern Kunming, China, during an excavation led by Hopkins' co-author, Zhifei Zhang, from Northwest University in Xi'an.

Mazon Monday #20: Fossil Preservation #MazonCreek #fossils #MazonMonday @Palaeocast #taphonomy

This is Mazon Monday post #20.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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Back in 2017, Palaeocast posted a lecture called "Is a 'one size fits all' taphonomic model appropriate for the Mazon Creek" by Dr. Thomas Clements, of the University of Birmingham in the UK.  You may remember Dr. Clements... he was part of a 2016 paper that looked at the preservation of the eyes of the Tullymonster to determine that it is a vertebrate.  That study looked into the chemical makeup of the preservation of the eyes.  More recently, he was co-author of "The Mazon Creek Lagerstätte: a diverse late Palaeozoic ecosystem entombed within siderite concretions".  A paper that looks at siderite concretion formation within the Mazon Creek deposit.

In this lecture, he details research which aims to understand the taphonomy of Mazon Creek fossils.  Following in a similar fashion to the Tullymonster research, it includes a survey of which tissues are preserved across multiple specimens of the same species to see if there are patterns to the modes of preservation.  Additionally, multiple taxa are included in the research, including but not limited to chitons, arthropods, and polychaete worms.  The decay of modern species of polychaetes is also helping in the analysis.  Although this video only 10 minutes long, it is a fascinating glimpse into some new modern statistical and chemical methods of Paleontology.  Hopefully, this research will lead to more papers published which will shed some light on the amazing fossils.

Doctors diagnose advanced cancer—in a dinosaur #dinosaurs #science #cancer

© ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM/MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

Science Magazine has an article out of the Royal Ontario Museum about a malignant dinosaur bone.  The dinosaur, Centrosaurus, lived about 76 million years ago in what is now Dinosaur Park in southern Alberta, Canada.  It suffered from osteosarcoma of the fibula, which is a lower leg bone.  In humans, osteosarcoma primarily attacks teens and young adults.  Previously, other cases of tumors have been found in fossil skeletons, including osteosarcoma in a 240 million year old turtle.  As to other diseases, arthritis is commonly found in fossil bones.  It seems that nothing escapes the ravages of time...

This deformed bone is the first clear example of a malignant tumor diagnosed in a dinosaur. The partial fibula—a bone from the lower leg—belonged to a horned, plant-eating Centrosaurus that lived roughly 76 million years ago in what is now Dinosaur Park in southern Alberta in Canada.

Paleontologists initially thought the bone’s strange shape was due to a fracture that hadn’t healed cleanly. But a new study, published today in The Lancet Oncology, compares the internal structure of the fossil (above) with a bone tumor from a human patient to seek a diagnosis. The conclusion: The dinosaur suffered from osteosarcoma, a cancer that, in humans, primarily attacks teens and young adults. The disease causes tumors of immature bone tissue, frequently in the long bones of the leg.

This isn’t the first time cancer has been found in fossil remains. Scientists have identified benign tumors in Tyrannosaurus rex fossils and arthritis in duck-billed hadrosaurs, as well as an osteosarcoma in a 240-million-year-old turtle. But the researchers say their study is the first to confirm a dinosaur cancer diagnosis at the cellular level.

PBS Eons: The Dinosaur Who Was Buried at Sea #paleontology #dinosaurs

 

There's a new episode of PBS Eons.  This one is about an amazing specimen of Nodosaur discovered in Canada in 2011.  It was found in a siderite concretion which formed in the ocean.

Paleontologists have been studying nodosaurs since the 1830s, but nobody had ever found a specimen like Borealopelta before. The key to its exceptional preservation was where it ended up after it died and how it got there.

Fossil Friday #18: Oligocene Mammals #fossils #fossil #FossilFriday #Oligocene #Oreodont #Canid

This is the "Fossil Friday" post #18.  Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website.  We will post any fossil pictures you send in to [email protected].  Please include a short description or story.  Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world!

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These fossil pictures here were contributed by ESCONI Board Member Keith Robitschek.  The fossils are of unidentified Oreodonts and Canids from the Oligocene epoch of what is now the White River Badlands of Wyoming.  Keith found these this summer.  What great finds!  Congratulations, Keith!

Oreodonts are extinct mammals.  Their name means "mountain teeth".  They belong to the Artiodactylids (even-toed mammals) and are closely related to camels and pigs.  They looked something like a cross between a donkey and a pig.  You can read more about them here.

Oreodonts are extinct Artiodactylids (even-toed mammals) most closely related to camels and pigs, with no close relatives living today. All are herbivorous, browsing on a diet of leaves and young shoots. Although tempting to think of them as feeding on "grass", true grasses did not appear until the late Oligocene, evolving and expanding widely during the Miocene as savannahs appeared during the cooling and drying of the that epoch.

Oreodonts fed on different types of vegetation than many modern artiodactylids do and therefore occupied an ecologically different niche than many living ungulates. True grazers such as equids did not start to appear until the middle Miocene when grasses became the dominant type of low forage. Found only in North America, oreodonts would eventually rival the large and diverse extant populations of modern bovid artiodactylids in Africa (antelopes, wildebeest, and buffalo) or the equally diverse populations of deer and goats of Asia.

Oreodonts are separated into two Families; Agriochoeridae was the earlier of the two families and consisted of a morphologically homogeneous group recorded from the latest Bridgerian or early Uintan North American Land Mammal Ages (NALMA) of the Lower to Middle Eocene to early Arikareean NALMA of the late Oligocene.

Canids are related to modern day foxes, dogs, and wolves.  A full skeleton resembles that of a dog.  Read more about them here.

Canidae - Dog or fox-like mammals, canids are familiarly dog-like, with straight, level backs, long, slender legs, large ears and long muzzles. All are built to run but many also use stealth and pouncing to secure birds and small mammals. Essentially monogamous, canids are unique among carnivores in regurgitating meat to feed pups and other non-hunting family members.

Although taxonomically diverse today, the geographically and ecologically broad distribution of canids is a relatively recent phenomenon. Prior to the latest Miocene (Hemphillian), all canids were restricted to North America where their members were more diverse in size, and presumably habit, than they are today. Canids first appeared in late Middle Eocene and went through three major successive and partly overlapping radiations. In the White River Badlands, the primitive Hesperocyon is the earliest canid of the North America and survived through the late Arikareean. The size of a small fox, later representatives of three different lineages would be much larger, occupying both predatory and scavenging niches. Regardless, early canid evolution was shaped by the spread of savanna and grassland environments as more tropical environments with their forest and woodland habitats gave way to transitional grassland and then arid vegetative regimes. Most modern taxa of canids did not appear until the Pliocene.

Oreodont skull

Various Oreodont bones, legs (front and back), partial spinal column, and ribs

Canid lower jaw (mandible)

Additional Canid mandible.

Various Oreodont and Canid bones.  The skull is also shown above.

Throwback Thursday #19: ESCONI Show 2009 #fossils #minerals

This is Throwback Thursday #19.  In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general.  If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc ...), please sent them to [email protected].  Thanks!

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Here are some photos from the 2009 ESCONI Gem, Mineral, and Fossil Show.  Wow, there's a whole bunch of familiar faces!  This is when the show was held at College of Dupage.

Jim Fairchild and his daughters run the Juniors booth.

Don Cronauer demonstrates his craft.

Jeanine Mielecki.

Lorell Abrell demonstrates her jewelry making.

Sheila Bergmann demonstrates her lapidary craft.

 

How Marie Tharp Changed Geology Forever #geology #WomenInSTEM @FM_WIS #platetectonics

Marie Tharp used hundreds of seismic profiles to reconstruct the topography of the seafloor, like here of the Atlantic Ocean. LAMONT-DOHERTY EARTH OBSERVATORY,

Forbes has a story about Marie Tharp and her contributions to geology.   During the International Geophysical Year 1857, Marie Tharp noticed a series of valleys and ridges in the middle Atlantic Ocean.  These "lines" are essentially the mark of the sea floor spreading at the tectonic plate boundary, although at the time, the concept of plate tectonics was unknown.  This evidence was proof that the continents moved... a basic key to understanding the history of life on our planet!

At the time, the U.S. Navy was interested in mapping the seafloor, believed to be of strategic importance for future submarine warfare. Marie started a prolific collaboration with geologist Bruce Charles Heezen, a specialist for seismic and topographic data obtained from the seafloor. As a woman, Marie was not allowed aboard the research ships. Instead, she interpreted and visualized the collected data in her laboratory, producing large hand-drawn maps of the seafloor.

By interpolating and plotting the echo soundings of the seafloor collected from the research ships and after months of very detailed and careful work, in 1957 Marie Tharp noted a series of valleys and ridges in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean.

The existence of a single ridge under the Atlantic Ocean was discovered during the expedition of HMS Challenger in 1872, taking depth measurements across the ocean. In 1925, it was confirmed by sonar that the ridge of unknown origin extends around the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean, making it one of the largest mountain ranges on Earth. Marie Tharp suggested that the mid-Atlantic ridge was in fact a series of rift valleys, running parallel along a central axis where new oceanic crust is formed, pushing apart blocks of older seafloor, forming the ridge topography. Her idea rejected as "girl talk" at first. Even Heezen stubbornly refused to accept this explanation for the ridge, claiming that it sounded like the "debunked" continental drift hypothesis as proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1912.

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Unlike Alfred Wegener, who died in 1930, Marie Tharp lived long enough to see her research become a fundamental part of modern geology.

"Not too many people can say this about their lives: The whole world was spread out before me (or at least, the 70 percent of it covered by oceans). I had a blank canvas to fill with extraordinary possibilities, a fascinating jigsaw puzzle to piece together: mapping the world’s vast hidden seafloor. It was a once-in-a-lifetime—a once-in-the-history-of-the-world—opportunity for anyone, but especially for a woman in the 1940s. The nature of the times, the state of the science, and events large and small, logical and illogical, combined to make it all happen."

Trilobite Tuesday #17: The Cambrian Creatures That Grew Up Over the Course of 28 Bodies #trilobite #fossils #TrilobiteTuesday #Cambrian #Utah

Atlas Obscura has a story about Elrathia kingii.  E. kingii is a very common trilobite found in the Cambrian rocks of Utah.  This article is a great summary on how they lived and most importantly... how they grew.

WITH ANY LUCK, HUMANS CHANGE a lot over the course of our time on Earth. As we grow out of our teeny onesies and our teenage styles, the aging process can feel a lot like shedding a past self. But other creatures literally do that: step out of their bodies and grow into a new one. For trilobites—marine arthropods that appeared in the Cambrian period, more than 500 million years ago—molting was a key part of growing up.

Trilobites could crawl out of their exoskeletons more than two dozen times in a single lifespan, typically by arching their bodies, lodging themselves into the sediment, and pushing out of the exoskeleton through the head, which separated into pieces. “The animal pulled itself out of its molt and walked out through the opening,” says Melanie Hopkins, an associate curator of paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History. Hopkins recently researched how a species called Elrathia kingii changed over the course of many, many molts.

Mazon Monday #19: Species Spotlight: Bandringa rayi #MazonCreek #fossils #MazonMonday #shark

This is Mazon Monday post #19.  What's your favorite Mazon Creek fossil?  Tell us at email:[email protected].

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Reconstruction of Mazon Creek by John Megahan

Would you believe that Illinois has a shark nursery?  OK, it is about 307 million years old and the evidence resides in Mazon Creek fossil concretions.  The first species, Bandringa rayi, was described in a paper published by Rainer Zangerl in the Field Museum's journal Fieldiana back in 1969.  The specimen used is the paper is the one pictured below, which is an absolutely awesome specimen!

In 2014, a paper by Lauren Cole Sallan and Michael I. Coates was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology called "The long-rostrumed elasmobranch Bandringa Zangerl, 1969, and taphonomy within a Carboniferous shark nursery". It looked at two species, B. rayi and B. herdinae to better understand the morphology of the sharks and the environment they lived in.

The shark Bandringa (Elasmobranchii, Chondrichthyes), from the Pennsylvanian (Moscovian) Lagerstätte of Mazon Creek, Illinois, is notable for an elongated snout constituting up to half of total body length. This genus formerly contained two distinct species (B. rayi and B. herdinae). However, reexamination of all cataloged material from Mazon Creek and similarly aged North American coal measure localities shows that characteristics previously considered diagnostic at the species level can be attributed to differential taphonomy in adjacent marine and non-marine deposits. We find no evidence of morphologically distinct populations. A monospecific Bandringa exhibiting complementary data sets from localities with different modes of preservation provides a more complete picture of hard- and soft-tissue anatomy than resident taxa from a single deposit. Our new reconstruction of Bandringa incorporates several previously unreported features, including ventrally directed jaws, stellate squamation, a branched lateral line, and fin spines bearing smooth costae. Bandringa occupies an unresolved position within total-group Elasmobranchii, but displays similarities with sphenacanthids, hybodontiforms, and other member clades of the stem group. Bandringa is most simply interpreted as a freshwater, benthic, suction-feeding shark, and as a plausible analogue of modern sawfish (Pristidae). Juveniles of the Carboniferous Bandringa appear to have inhabited one of the earliest known shark nurseries at the brackish and marine Mazon Creek before migrating to freshwaters elsewhere.

Additionally, Bandringa rayi was discussed in Creature Corner back in April 1990.

Bandringa rayi (fish)

Bandringa rayi is a superb example of Nature copying/developing similar structures in different Phyla or Classes, often millions of years after the extinction of the original design. Much like stealing someone else's patent. That relict of the Cretaceous Period, Polyodon spathula (paddlefish, spoonbill) which is found in the large rivers and lakes of the Mississippi River system has a near relative living in the Yangtze River in China and bears a great resemblance to the Pennsylvanian-Permian freshwater shark Bandringa rayi. Their feeding habits are presumed to have been the same. "My impression of Bandringa is one of a bottom dwelling fish that fed on organisms stirred up from the mud by the rostrum" (D. Baird, 1978). The same can be said of the paddlefish. Physical similarity goes beyond the amazingly like construction of the long paddle/snout/rostrum. Both animals also possess a shark-like tail. have a body lacking scales or dermal denticles, with skeletons that are chiefly cartilage. Yet Bandringa is a member of the Class Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous jawed fishes) Suborder Ctenacanthoidea, while Po/yodon is a member of the Class Osteichthyes (bony fish). Similar life-style, similar construction?

8andringa rayi was first described by Zangerl (1969) from a Pit 11 concretion that contained a small, immature shark about 110 mm (4 and ½ inches) long. This first known specimen of 8. rayi was preserved so as to give an overhead view of it. Long rostrum, large eyes, two dorsal fins with spines, anal and tail fins can be seen. In 1978, D. Baird described a second specimen of 8. rayi from Cannelton, PA that had been laying undescribed in the Princeton Museum collection since 1877. This specimen was five times the length of the type specimen. Several features, notably the larger teeth of this more mature specimen, aided in a better reconstruction of 8. rayi. Baird went on to state that this "spoonbill dogfish" was in truth a freshwater shark, since the Cannelton biota was unquestionably a freshwater environment, and ctenacanthoid sharks were inhabitants of freshwater lakes and streams during the Carboniferous-Permian. 

The uncertainly of a freshwater or marine environment for B. rayi continues. Several specimens of this spoonbill shark have been discovered at Pit 11 during the last few years. Since Pit 11 contains the Essex biota , which consists of marine animals and/or animals that have been washed in from fresh or brackish water areas Baird's hypothesis remains in question.

- Andrew A. Hay

 

Palaeocast Episode 113: PBS Eons Host Kallie Moore @Palaeocast #fossils #paleontology @EonsShow

Here's a great Palaeocast podcast episode about a great YouTube channel, PBS Eons.  The show is an interview with Kallie Moore, the Collections Manager at University of Montana Paleontology Center, who is one of the hosts of the show.  Two of my favorite podcasts meet!

With palaeontology as popular as it is you will never be short of content online, whether that be articles, blogs, podcasts (of which there are now many others you should also be listening to) or videos. This allows you, the public, to enjoy learning about past life on demand and in a format that best suits you. The only issue with having so many sources of information/ entertainment is that the quality can be highly variable and it can be difficult to determine whether any given outlet/channel values more the accurate communication of palaeontological science or the number of viewers/ad revenue they get.

Amongst some notable exceptions to this issue is the YouTube channel PBS Eons, who have produced a hugely successful series that stands up to scientific scrutiny. In this interview, we’re joined by Eons host Kallie Moore who discusses everything to do with the show, from how it is researched and shot, to the benefits of using YouTube for outreach.

Sue the T. Rex gets life-like model to match skeleton #Trex #dinosaurs @FieldMuseum @SUETheTrex

The SunTimes has a piece about a new exhibit at the Field Museum.  It's called "SUE in the Flesh" and features a life size model of SUE with a baby Edmontosaurus in her mouth.

For two decades, Sue has drawn dinosaur lovers to the Field Museum so they can catch a glimpse of the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered.

Now, museum-goers can walk up to a life-size model of what Sue would have looked like when alive.

The 40-foot-long, 14-foot-tall “Sue in the Flesh” exhibit was unveiled at the museum’s Stanley Field Hall Thursday. The life-size model prominently features a replica baby Edmontosaurus in its mouth. The Edmontosaurus was probably a popular part of a Tyrannosaurus rex’s diet, experts say.

“Sue in the Flesh” was created at Blue Rhino Studio in Minnesota and matches the exact dimensions and details of Sue’s skeletal counterpart, including scars and scratches. Just above the dinosaur’s left ankle is a scar experts guess caused a bone infection and was the result of Sue being rammed by a Triceratops or battered by the clubbed tail of an Ankylosaurus, said Bill Simpson, head of geological collections at the museum.