Prehistoric Wombat May Have Climbed Trees
Recent research into the fossilized remains of Nimbadon lavarackorum, an early relative of the wombat, suggest that it may have lived in treetops approximately 15 million years ago.
The remains were originally found in a cave in Queensland, Australia, in 1990. Researchers from the University of New South Wales and the University of Adelaide examined the fossil and found that the 70kg marsupial had strong limbs to climb tree trunks. Physically, Nimbadon seems to have been close to the koala, and probably behaved similarly.
The original paper can be found here.
Image credit: Peter Schouten
(via rhamphotheca)
Not Your Typical Pterosaur
by Janet Raloff
For a decade, scientists largely ignored a fossil of a juvenile, late-Jurassic flying reptile that’s just 14 centimeters long. It appeared to be just another of some 120 specimens of the genus Rhamphorhynchus excavated at Germany’s famed Solnhofen limestone beds.
Closer inspection now shows it’s something new, David Hone of the University of Bristol in England and his colleagues report July 5 in PLoS ONE. They’re creating a genus dubbed Bellubrunnus, or Brunn beauty, to honor the German quarry where it was unearthed.
The tiny flyer has fewer teeth and a more flexible tail than other Rhamphorhynchus-like pterosaurs. And the outermost bone of each wing curves outward, distinguishing it from any known flying vertebrate alive or extinct. This would have made flying somewhat harder, Hone explains, but afforded somewhat improved maneuverability to this animal, which had a perhaps meter-wide wingspan at maturity.
(Source: ScienceNews)
(via rhamphotheca)
![rhamphotheca:
Prehistoric Panda Found in Spain - Could Pandas Have European Roots?
Small tree-climber is oldest known panda relative.
by Christine Dell’Amore
A prehistoric relative of the giant panda has been discovered in Spain, a new study says—which suggests that the charismatic Chinese bears might have originated in Europe.
The 11-million-year-old species, dubbed Agriarctos beatrix, lived in humid forests in what’s now Spain, according to scientists who recently found the animal’s fossil teeth near the city of Zaragoza. The teeth give paleontologists a lot of information about a species, according to study leader Juan Abella, a paleobiologist at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain.
“For example, all bear [teeth] have a series of characters that tell us that they are bears. And the same thing happens with dogs, cats, deer, or other vertebrate groups,” Abella said via email.
After analyzing the fossil teeth, he added, the researchers “concluded that they belong to the bear family, and more precisely to the giant panda’s subfamily.” And the subfamily resemblance may have been striking—Abella and colleagues speculate that the bear had panda-like patterns, because most existing species in the family also have the characteristic dark and white patches…
(read more: National Geo) (image: José Antonio Peñas, SINC)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5j24bYJD41qc6j5yo1_400.jpg)
Prehistoric Panda Found in Spain - Could Pandas Have European Roots?
Small tree-climber is oldest known panda relative.
by Christine Dell’Amore
A prehistoric relative of the giant panda has been discovered in Spain, a new study says—which suggests that the charismatic Chinese bears might have originated in Europe.
The 11-million-year-old species, dubbed Agriarctos beatrix, lived in humid forests in what’s now Spain, according to scientists who recently found the animal’s fossil teeth near the city of Zaragoza. The teeth give paleontologists a lot of information about a species, according to study leader Juan Abella, a paleobiologist at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain.
“For example, all bear [teeth] have a series of characters that tell us that they are bears. And the same thing happens with dogs, cats, deer, or other vertebrate groups,” Abella said via email.
After analyzing the fossil teeth, he added, the researchers “concluded that they belong to the bear family, and more precisely to the giant panda’s subfamily.” And the subfamily resemblance may have been striking—Abella and colleagues speculate that the bear had panda-like patterns, because most existing species in the family also have the characteristic dark and white patches…
(read more: National Geo) (image: José Antonio Peñas, SINC)
Kaprosuchus (“Boar Crocodile”)
… is an extinct genus of mahajangasuchid crocodyliform. It is known from a single nearly complete skull collected from the Upper Cretaceous Echkar Formation of Niger. Kaprosuchus is estimated to have been around 6 m (20 ft) in length. It possesses three sets of tusk-like caniniform teeth that project above and below the skull, one of which in the lower jaw fits into notches in upper jaw. This type of dentition is not seen in any other known crocodyliform. Kaprosuchus is thought to have been a primarily if not exclusively terrestrial predator…
(read more: Wikipedia)
____________________________
(top image: Nobu Tamura)
(bttm image: Sereno PC, Larsson HCE (2009) Cretaceous Crocodyliforms from the Sahara. ZooKeys 28: 1–143. doi:10.3897/zookeys.28.325)
BAMF!
(via gogoatz)
Brachiosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Jurassic Morrison Formation of North America. Brachiosaurus had a proportionally long neck, small skull, and large overall size, all of which are typical for sauropods. However, the proportions of Brachiosaurus are unlike most sauropods. The forelimbs were longer than the hindlimbs, which result in a steeply inclined trunk, making the overall body shape reminiscent of a modern giraffe. Also, while the tail is a typical long dinosaur tail, it was relatively short for a sauropod… (read more: Wikipedia)
(top illustration: B. altithorax by Богданов, bottom: size comparison of B. altithorax with human by Matt Martyniuk)
(via gogoatz)
harryallard:dailyfossil: Diprotodon - The Giant Wombat
When: Pleistocene (1.6 million to 46,000 years ago)
Where: Australia
What: Diprotodon is the biggest marsupial to have ever lived. The largest specimens found were roughly the size of an extant hippopotomus; 10 feet (3 meters) long, 6.5 feet (2 meters) tall at the shoulder, and with a weight estimate of over 6,000 lbs (over 2,500 kgs). They inhabited forests and grasslands in Australia, and were herbivores that had an extremely varied diet. There was not much that their large grinding cheek teeth could not process. There are multiple ‘bone-bed’ deposits containing almost nothing but Diprotodon skeletons, offering strong support that they also traveled in herds. Many of these deposits are reconstructed as deaths due to droughts; it took a lot of plant material to sustain a Diprotodon. They occupied simular niches as large ungulate herds today on other continents.
The closest living relatives of Diprotodon are koalas and wombats. This was the largest member of the apt named Australian mega-fauna. This giant animal and many other Australian mega-fauna went extinct shortly after the arrival of humans on the continent, in a mirror of the extinction of the North American mega-fauna 10,000 years ago. In both extinction events this colonization was accompanied by climate changes, leading to much debate as to how influential human habitation was on the loss of these forms. It is thought that Diprotodon and its close relatives may be the basis for the bunyip of aboriginal folklore.
Tulip-shaped Creature Found in Canadian Rockies
by Karen A. Frenkel
If you could tiptoe through the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies 500 million years ago, you’d come across a tulip-shaped sea creature that defies classification. The 20-cm-long animal, given name Siphusauctum gregarium (Latin for “cup-shaped, gregarious herd member”),was first discovered in 1983. A detailed description was not attempted until now, however, until a Canadian graduate student took interest in it. Siphusauctum’s unusual shape and structure has no direct counterparts with any other organisms (fossil, left; artist’s impression, right).
It sported a long stem and bulbous cup-like structure, or calyx, near its top, which enclosed a unique filter feeding system and gut, according to an analysis of more than 1000 fossils reported this month in PLoS ONE. A small disc at the base of the stem anchored the animal to the sea floor, as the animal ate algae or pieces of detritus in the water. Siphusauctum lived in large clusters, so researchers nicknamed the region of the shale in which it was found Tulip Beds. It is not the only peculiar organism in phylogenetic limbo found in the Burgess Shale, however. Twenty other so-called “problematica” have eluded classification.
(via: Science NOW) (image: (L) Royal Ontario Museum; (R) M. Collins)
discoverynews: Was First Winged Dinosaur Jet Black?
by Jennifer Vieges
The winged dinosaur Archaeopteryx, which may represent the missing link in birds’ evolution to powered flight, had at least some jet-black feathers, according to new research published today in Nature Communications.
Aside from creating more of a cool visual for this raven-sized animal, the discovery suggests that Archaeopteryx could fly, since the color and parts of cells that would have supplied the black pigment are evidence that the wing feathers were rigid and durable. These are traits that probably would have permitted flight…
(Source: coldraresteaksandwich, via gogoatz)
