Source: University of Toronto The first top predators to walk on land were not afraid to bite off more than they could chew, a University of Toronto Mississauga study has found. Graduate student and lead author Kirstin Brink along with Professor Robert Reisz from U of T Mississauga’s Department of Biology suggest that Dimetrodon, a […]
Archive for the ‘Featured Post’ Category
‘Steak-knife’ teeth reveal ecology of oldest land predators
February 7th, 2014 
Riffin 
Posted in Featured Post 
Tags: Dimetrodon, predators, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, Steak-knife, WFS, world fossil society 
No Comments »Bandringa fossils revealed
February 4th, 2014 Riffin Like salmon in reverse, long-snouted Bandringa sharks migrated downstream from freshwater swamps to a tropical coastline to spawn 310 million years ago, leaving behind fossil evidence of one of the earliest known shark nurseries. That’s the surprising conclusion of University of Michigan paleontologist Lauren Sallan and a University of Chicago colleague, who reanalyzed all known […]
Role of rare earths in interpreting certain fossils
February 3rd, 2014 Riffin Until now, interpreting flattened fossils was a major challenge. Now, a new approach for the analysis of such fossils has been developed by a team bringing together researchers from the IPANEMA unit (CNRS / French Ministry of Culture and Communication), the Centre de Recherche sur la Paléobiodiversité et les Paléoenvironnements (CNRS / MNHN / UPMC) […]
Bones of a previously unknown species prove to be one of the oldest seabirds
February 3rd, 2014 Riffin Fossils discovered in Canterbury, New Zealand reveal the nature of one of the world’s oldest flying seabirds. Thought to have lived between 60.5 and 61.6 million years ago, the fossil is suggested to have formed shortly after the extinction of dinosaurs and many marine organisms. Bones of the bird were discovered in 2009 by Leigh […]
Posted in Featured Post Tags: Bones, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev, seabirds, unknown species, WFS, world fossil society No Comments »Using rare earths to interpret certain fossils
February 2nd, 2014 Riffin Until now, interpreting flattened fossils was a major challenge. Now, a new approach for the analysis of such fossils has been developed by a team bringing together researchers from the IPANEMA unit (CNRS / French Ministry of Culture and Communication), the Centre de Recherche sur la Paléobiodiversité et les Paléoenvironnements (CNRS / MNHN / UPMC) […]
New Mid-Cretaceous (Latest Albian) Dinosaurs from Winton, Queensland, Australia
February 1st, 2014 Riffin Background Australia’s dinosaurian fossil record is exceptionally poor compared to that of other similar-sized continents. Most taxa are known from fragmentary isolated remains with uncertain taxonomic and phylogenetic placement. A better understanding of the Australian dinosaurian record is crucial to understanding the global palaeobiogeography of dinosaurian groups, including groups previously considered to have had Gondwanan […]
“Yongjinglong datangi” The New dinosaur fossil discovered in China
January 31st, 2014 Riffin Scientists have discovered the fossil of a 60-feet long plant-eating dinosaur in China that lived about 100 million years ago. A team led by University of Pennsylvania paleontologists has characterised the new dinosaur based on fossil remains found in northwestern China. The species, a plant-eating sauropod named Yongjinglong datangi, roamed during the Early Cretaceous period, […]
Rare female phytosaur skull found in West Texas more than 200 million years old
January 30th, 2014 Riffin In the dangerous waters of an ancient oxbow lake created by a flooded and unnamed meandering river, the female phytosaur died and sank to the bottom 205 million years ago. About 40 yards away the remains of a larger male also came to rest, and both disappeared in a tomb of soil and sediment. Evidence […]
Dinosaur-chewing mammals leave behind oldest known tooth marks
January 29th, 2014 Riffin Paleontologists have discovered the oldest mammalian tooth marks yet on the bones of ancient animals, including several large dinosaurs. They report their findings in a paper published online June 16 in the journal Paleontology. Nicholas Longrich of Yale University and Michael J. Ryan of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History came across several of the […]
Old Bird, New World: Did the South American Hoatzins Originate in Europe?
January 23rd, 2014 Riffin The oldest fossil discoveries from France show that hoatzins once existed in Europe. Where did hoatzins come from? These unusual birds, only one species of which exists in South America today, originated in the Old World. Studies of the oldest known fossils of Hoatzin ancestors have now shown that these birds existed around 34 million […]
