Ed Yong has an interesting story about Toxodon on the blog Phenomena over at National Geographic.  Seems the animal never really had a comfortable place in the tree of life.  But now, using molecular biology techniques on old bones, scientists were able to extract enough information from collagen molecules to place Toxodon near perissodactyls – odd-toed hoofed mammals like rhinos, tapirs, and horses. “Toxodon is perhaps one of the strangest animals ever discovered,” wrote Charles Darwin, a man who was no stranger to strangeness. He first encountered the creature in Uruguay on November 26th, 1834. “Having heard of some giant’s…

Moa Statues The Archaeology News Network has a piece about the discovery of Moa (Megalapteryx didinus) remains in an ancient oven.  The oven is thought to be at least 600 years old, which makes it one of the oldest archaeological sites in New Zealand.  Moas are extinct flightless birds that lived only in New Zealand.  They went extinct due to various reason all having to do with the settlement of New Zealand around 1300 CE.  The extinction took less that 100 years, but there is some speculation the a few Moas may have persisted in remote corners of the islands until…

Ordovician Weekly has a story about the Digital Atlas of Ordovician Life site.  The Ordovician Atlas has a massive amount of information about the life of the Cincinnati Arch.  All of the expected animals are there, Arthropoda, Brachiopoda, Bryozoa, Cnidaria, Echinodermata, Hemichordata, and Mollusca.  There are pictures for identification, notes on the geology of the area, geographic occurrence maps,  and (most important) links to places for collecting.  It looks like it’s part of a larger NSF project to document the history of life. Here is a paper that describes the site in detail.    

It’s being call Frankensquid, giant lobster, man-sized swimming centipede, or just plain weird.  The name is actually Aegirocassis benmoulae and it’s an anomalocaridid from the Early Ordovician Fezouata Biota of Morocco.  It measured about 2 meters (7 feet) in length and was a filter feeder that used a technique similar to modern day baleen whales.  Scientists spent about 500 hours preparing it’s fossil.  It is one of the biggest arthropods that ever lived, and is far larger than the largest modern arthropod.  Originally thought to have gone extinct in the Cambrian, anomalocaridids have been found in the Ordovician and on…

“The modern Amazon River basin contains the world’s richest biota, but the origins of this extraordinary diversity are really poorly understood,” said John Flynn, Frick Curator of Fossil Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History and an author on the paper. “Because it’s a vast rain forest today, our exposure to rocks–and therefore, also to the fossils those rocks may preserve–is extremely limited. So anytime you get a special window like these fossilized “mega-wetland” deposits, with so many new and peculiar species, it can provide novel insights into ancient ecosystems. And what we’ve found isn’t necessarily what you would…

Archaeologists have discovered a 15,000 year old knife in eastern Oregon.  The finding has yet to be published in a peer reviewed journal.  But it the research holds up, it will add to mounting evidence that humans migrated to North America much earlier than previously thought. The discovery is a small, beautiful knife carved out of a clear orange agate. One side has a number of serrated points, like a saw. The other edge has a steep, flaked edge that could have been used to scrape hides and cut meat off of bones. “Its kind of a neat little artifact,…

An artist’s impression of the ancient ocean on Mars, which lasted for billions of years more than was previously thought. Credits: Mars Geronimo Villanueva/Nasa It may not be Earth science (Mars science?), but it is a interesting story with interesting implications about our nearest neighbor in the Solar System.  Were there oceans on Mars?  Would it have been the red and blue or the blue planet? A massive ancient ocean once covered nearly half of the northern hemisphere of Mars making the planet a more promising place for alien life to have gained a foothold, Nasa scientists say. The huge body…

The Chicago Tribune has a story about efforts to obtain a pardon for Peter Larson.  Peter Larson was part of the team that discovered Sue the Tyrannosaurus rex back in 1990. South Dakota lawmakers plan to ask President Barack Obama to pardon renowned paleontologist Peter Larson, whose team discovered “Sue,” the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever found. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a resolution Thursday seeking a clean slate for Larson, who spent time in prison on charges unrelated to the T. rex discovery. As part of the resolution, lawmakers recognized Larson, who founded the Black Hills Institute of…

This is a close up view of the mandible just steps from where it was sighted by Chalachew Seyoum, ASU graduate student, who is from Ethiopia.  Credit: Brian Villmoare There are quite a few stories about the new fossil find that represents the earliest known record of the genus Homo, the human genus.  The fossil specimen is represented by a lower jaw with teeth.  It was recently found in the Afar region of Ethiopia and dates to between 2.8 and 2.75 million years ago. Summary article in Science Daily. Related article in Science Daily. Actual journal article in Science.  

The “Palaeocast” podcast has a new episode.  The subject is “Insects”.  Insects are arthropods, the most diverse phylum in the animal kingdom.  Discussed is their fossil record – when and where they first appear.  There are fossil insects as far back as the Devonian, but they are very sparse.  However, by the late Carboniferous and the Permian periods, the fossil record contains a fair bit of variety.  A good example is the diversity in the Mazon Creek biota. 

Enzo Pérès-Labourdette The New York Times has an opinion piece about the importance of natural history museums and their collections.  Museums have been under pressure recently with budget cutbacks, changing focus, and government regulations.  That has put their collections in danger.  These collections are even more important today, as the Earth undergoes an extinction event caused by human activity and human induced climate change.  Many species of plants, animals, and fungi are disappearing before they can be completely catalogued.  Fortunately, many of these species exist in these collections.   Natural history collections are as important to modern biologists as libraries…

Very few people today live a true hunter-gatherer lifestyle – and Paleo diets likely oversimplify what would have been on the table many millennia ago. Thiery, CC BY-NC The Paleo Diet may be very trendy.  However, the evidence shows us that it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Early hominids ate whatever was available and convenient.  Eating “natural” foods and abstaining from “processed” foods may be healthy, but it’s not because our ancient cousins ate that way.  We and the food we eat have changed greatly since the paleolithic age. Reconstructions of human evolution are prone to simple, overly-tidy scenarios. Our…