Tag: fossil
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NPR: Dinosaur-Killing Impact Came From Edge Of Solar System, New Theory Suggests
NPR has a story about the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. New research from Harvard University proposes that a comet and not a meteor impacted in the Yucatan peninsula. The research is detailed in a paper that was published in the journal Scientific Reports. For decades, the prevailing theory about the extinction of the…
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Fossil Friday #47: Roachoid!
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #47. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! —————————————————– Okay, don’t get put off from…
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Trilobite Tuesday #33: Some trilobites crushed their prey to death with their legs
The Science News column from the Natural History Museum in London has a story about trilobites. A new paper by Dr. Greg Edgecombe, a researcher at the museum who focuses on the evolutionary history of arthropods, about how some trilobites fed was published in the Royal Society B. Instead of teeth, it appears that these…
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Mazon Monday #50: The Dancing Worm of Turkana
This is Mazon Monday post #50. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Today, we have a real treat. Dr. Eugene Richardson was the Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Field Museum of Natural History from the 1950s until his death in 1983. He had a huge influence on the research of…
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NPR: Utah Considers State Park Named For Utahraptor Dinosaur
NPR Morning Edition has a story about a new proposed State Park in Utah. The park, called Utahraptor State Park, would commemorate the discovery of a large block of Utahraptor fossils found back in 2001. The animals lived about 136 million years ago and would have looked similar to Deinonychus, but larger. Utah State paleontologist…
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Nature: Insects with 100 million-year-old dinosaur feathers are not ectoparasites
Nature has an open access paper which looked deeper into the discovery of insects found on dinosaur feathers preserved in amber. The amber was found in the Myanmar and dates to the mid-Cretaceous Period about 100 million years ago. The original paper “New insects feeding on dinosaur feather in mid-Cretaceous amber” was published in 2019.…
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Fossil Friday #46: Elonichthys peltigerus
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #46. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! This week, we have an absolutely stunning…
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All Dinosaurs Considered: Looking Back at Prehistoric Illinois
NPR’s All Things Considered The 21st Show has a look back at prehistoric Illinois. They interview Paleontologists Joe Devera, Senior Paleontologist at the Illinois State Geological Survey and Jingmai O’Connor, Vertebrate Paleontologist and associate curator of Fossil Reptiles at the Field Museum in Chicago about what might Illinois looked like during the time of the…
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Mazon Monday #49: Mazon Creek Fossils Honoring Collectors
Since the beginning, amateur fossil collectors have played a huge role in the science and research of Mazon Creek. Joseph Even, Joseph C. Carr, Samuel S. Strong, and Homer Hill were some of the earliest amateur collectors of Mazon Creek fossils back in the mid 1800’s. They and others did much to popularize the fossils…
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Fossil Friday #45: Eutrephoceras
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #45. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! We have another mollusk this week. This…
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Mazon Monday #48: Kallidecthes richardsoni
This is Mazon Monday post #48. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Kallidecthes richardsoni was described in 1969 by Frederick Schram. It was named for Eugene Richardson, who was then the Curator of Fossil Invertebrates at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, IL. It’s an extinct species of shrimp…
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Cretaceous Amber Fossil Sheds Light on Evolution of Bioluminescence in Beetles
Science Tech Daily has a story about bioluminescence in beetles. This study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, looked at an insect preserved in amber from Myanmar. Myanmar amber dates to Cretaceous Period about 99 million years ago, Bioluminescence has fascinated people since time immemorial. The majority of organisms…
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Fossil Friday #44: Braceville Scallop
Scallops. Who hasn’t enjoyed a nice tasty plate of scallops at a nice restaurant? Maybe a nice Italian restaurant? Well, maybe again soon… once we get past this pandemic. For today, we have a scallop that wouldn’t be too tasty and would probably break one of your teeth! It’s a multiple Aviculopecten mazonensis from Braceville.…
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Phys.org: Enormous ancient fish fossil discovered in search of pterodactyl remains
Phys.org has a post about an absolutely enormous fish fossil. A paper published in the journal Cretaceous Research describes a coelacanth from the Cretaceous Period that may have measured 5 meters in length. Compared to modern day coelacanth, which rarely grow to 2 meters, this specimen is a giant. The animal lived about 66 million…
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Mazon Monday #47: Centipedes
This is Mazon Monday post #47. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. For this week, we have a very rare Mazon Creek animal. The estimate of occurrence for centipedes was about 3 in 287,000 concretions in the paper “Relative Abundance of Different Mazon Creek Organisms” by Gordon C. Baird and John…
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TheOnion: Chicago Field Museum Director Uses Titanosaur Skull To Hold Parking Space In Snow
From The Onion, we have this… Chicago Field Museum Director Uses Titanosaur Skull To Hold Parking Space In Snow https://bit.ly/3cK9hJr
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Fossil Friday #43: Lung Fish Scales From Mazon Creek
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #43. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! There is a large amount of diversity…
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Mazon Monday #46: Insects Part 4 – Roachoids
This is Mazon Monday post #46. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. This week, as part of our series on Mazon Creek insects, we are looking at roaches, or to be more correct roachoids, as true roaches don’t show up in the fossil record until the late Jurassic. Roachoids are the…
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Fossil Friday #42: Acanthotelson stimpsoni
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #42. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Today’s fossil is a tasty shrimp from…
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Trilobite Tuesday #32: They Put the Bite in Trilobite
The New York Times Trilobites column has an article about predatory trilobites. While we have learned much about trilobites over the many years of study, there are some aspects of their life that we still don’t know. Those unknowns are mostly associated with soft parts like the guts and delicate parts like the legs and…
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Mazon Monday #45: Insects Part 3 – Gerarids
This is Mazon Monday post #45. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. The gerarids are large winged insects from the Carboniferous Period. Fossils of gerarids have been found in deposits from Mazon Creek and Commentry, France. The animals are known for a distinctive stalked head. Some have spikes on their thorax. …
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Fossil Friday #41: Hooded Tick Spider
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #41. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Today’s fossil is a “hooded tick spider”…
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How did forelimb function change as vertebrates acquired limbs and moved onto land?
Phys.org has a piece about some new research that explored how early tetrapods used they newly acquired legs. It’s generally accepted that tetrapods migrated from water to land about 390 million years ago, during the Devonian Period. And, while the stages in the transition are understood, this research was about function…. How did the animals…
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Mazon Monday #44: Insects Part 2 – Monurans
This is Mazon Monday post #44. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Monurans are an extinct order of wingless insects. They are known from the Mazon Creek biota, other Carboniferous localities, and have been found in later deposits that date to the Permian. They get their name for the single tail…
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SciNews: 250-Million-Year-Old Archosauriform Footprints Found in Italy
SciNews has a story about fossil footprints from the early Triassic by an archosauriform. Archosauriformes were animals that later evolved into archosaurs (“ruling lizards”), which includes dinosaurs, crocodiles, pterosaurs, and some other extinct groups, The tracks date to about 250 million years ago and were found on the Gardetta Plateau in the Western Alps. For…
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Fossil Friday #40: Heterologus langfordorum
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #40. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! Remember Heterologus langfordorum, a winged insect from…
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Mazon Monday #43: Insects Part 1
This is Mazon Monday post #43. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. The insects of Mazon Creek are a hugely, complex subject. We’ll take the next few posts of Mazon Monday to cover this topic. There will be information from multiple sources along with some breathtaking pictures and drawings. Insects are…
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Researchers Announce World’s First Dinosaur Preserved Sitting On Nest of Eggs With Fossilized Babies
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History has announced an amazing dinosaur find. The fossils are of an adult oviraptorid theropod dinosaur sitting on a nest of eggs, The eggs include fossilized baby dinosaurs. This specimen was found in the Jiangxi Providence of southern China. The animal lived about 70 million years ago. Ironically, oviraptors, whose…
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Fossil Friday #39: Annularia inflata
This is the “Fossil Friday” post #39. Expect this to be a somewhat regular feature of the website. We will post any fossil pictures you send in to esconi.info@gmail.com. Please include a short description or story. Check the #FossilFriday Twitter hash tag for contributions from around the world! For this week, we have an absolutely…
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Mazon Monday #42: “Mazon Creek Fossils” by Matthew H. Nitecki
This is Mazon Monday post #42. What’s your favorite Mazon Creek fossil? Tell us at email:esconi.info@gmail.com. Another Mazon Creek book that belongs in the collection of any serious collector is “Mazon Creek Fossils” edited by Matthew Nitecki. It was first published in 1979, and is a collection of most of the papers presented at the…
