WFS

Formation of sedimentary layers of white clay, Tamilnadu, India

Fossil site for wood fossils, Tamilnadu, India

Fossil site in Kerala, India

Fossil wood park maintained by geological survey of India at Tamilnadu

Cretaceous fossil sites india

Fossils in rack:-Cyad

Fossils in rack:-echiniderms

Fossils in rack:-Rastellum sp

Pre-historic seabed, Cretaceous period

WFS News: Giant Fossil Beans Unlock Secrets of Ancient Rainforests

August 25th, 2024

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@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev

Scans of a giant fossil legume revealed the extinct species is a relative of the modern black bean tree. Credit: Edward Spagnuolo

Ancient fossil beans the size of modern limes may provide new insight into the evolution of today’s diverse Southeast Asian and Australian rainforests, according to Penn State researchers who identified the plants.

The researchers determined that the fossils, which are among the largest seeds in the fossil record, represent a now-extinct legume genus that lived in Southeast Asia and was closely related to modern Castanospermum, known as the black bean tree. This tree is only found today in the coastal rainforests of northern Australia and neighboring islands.

The study, conducted in collaboration with paleontologists from Indonesia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere in the United States, was recently published in the International Journal of Plant Sciences.

Insights from Eocene-Era Fossils

The fossils, discovered in Indonesian Borneo, date back to the Eocene period approximately 34 to 40 million years ago. They suggest that the ancestors of the black bean tree migrated from Asia into Australia during the tectonic-plate collision that brought the land masses together and allowed for an exchange of plants and animals between the continents. The collision of the Southeast Asian and Australian tectonic plates, which began about 20 million years ago and continues today, led to a large exchange of plant and animal species between the landmasses, the scientists said.

Giant bean fossils of the newly described extinct legume Jantungspermum gunnellii were found in Indonesian Borneo. The legumes were closely related to the Australian back bean tree, Castanospermum, found today only in lowland rainforests of northern Australia and neighboring islands. Credit: Edward Spagnuolo

The findings provide the first macrofossil evidence of a plant lineage moving from Asia into Australia after the Asia-Australia tectonic collision, the researchers said. The fossils are also the oldest definite fossil legumes — the bean family — from the Malay Archipelago and the first fossil record anywhere of plants related to the black bean tree.

“These fossil seeds suggest that the ancient relatives of Castanospermum migrated into Australia from Southeast Asia during the tectonic collision event and later went extinct in Asia,” said Edward Spagnuolo, a doctoral student in the Department of Geosciences at Penn State and lead author of the study.

Overcoming Challenges in Fossil Collection

These findings challenge most of the existing direct macrofossil evidence for plant migrations, which represents lineages that moved from Australia into Asia. According to the scientists, the lack of direct evidence for movement from Asia to Australia is at least partially due to a poor plant fossil record in the Malay Archipelago, which includes the Philippines, Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea, and parts of Malaysia.

“It’s really hard to collect fossils in this part of the world,” Spagnuolo said. “Most surface rocks are destroyed by the heavy tropical rainfall or covered by vegetation, agriculture and buildings, so there are few places to look for fossils other than mine and quarry exposures. There is also very little paleontological infrastructure. We’re fortunate to have a partnership with Indonesian paleontologists at Institut Teknologi Bandung in Java, who make this work possible.”

Field Discoveries and Fossil Analysis

An international research team, including Peter Wilf, professor of geosciences at Penn State, collected the fossils in 2014 from the seams of a coal mine in South Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. The collection included three large beans, pollen samples, and about 40 leaves. Along with plants, the team also discovered diverse fossilized bird tracks, burrowing traces of marine invertebrates and fossil turtle remains, among other fossils recently published or under continued study.

The seeds are some of the largest in the fossil record, excluding coconuts and some other palms. They would have grown in a pod that most likely reached up to 3 feet long, or the length of a baseball bat, and fit up to five seeds, the scientists said.

After fieldwork, the fossils were loaned to Penn State, where the seeds underwent CT scan imaging. Spagnuolo and Wilf analyzed the fossil beans taxonomically, describing anatomical characters useful for identification, and found they most closely resembled modern Castanospermum, which has no previous fossil representatives.

“Although some of the characteristics of these fossils are common across legumes, there is no fossil or living legume group besides Castanospermum that has a combination of features closely matching the fossils,” Spagnuolo said. “That makes us confident with our identification.”

The fossil seeds were named Jantungspermum gunnellii. The genus name refers to the heart shape of the fossil — jantung means heart in Indonesian and spermum means seed in Latin. The species name honors the late Gregg Gunnell, a vertebrate paleontologist formerly of the Duke University Lemur Center, who led the field trip.

Legumes are a diverse family of flowering plants, with about 20,000 species alive today that include many large tropical trees, the scientists said. But despite their abundance and diversity in modern ecosystems, these seeds are the only definite legume fossils from before the Neogene period, the interval between 2.6 million and 23 million years ago, in the Southeast Asian wet tropics.

“The tropics are the most diverse biome on Earth,” Wilf said. “We know very little from the fossil record about how tropical ecosystems evolved, especially in Asia, even as extinction risks are rising quickly, and we lose vast areas every year to deforestation. The Penn State paleobotany group is working on this problem in the field with colleagues in several Asian countries, and the new giant fossil beans from Borneo are a fantastic example of the discovery potential.”

These findings confirm legumes’ presence in Southeast Asia and fill a critical hole in the fossil record, the scientists said.

“We have a great legume fossil record for much of the world but not Southeast Asia,” Spagnuolo said. “Our work highlights the neglected paleobotanical potential of this region and the need for more fossil sampling in the Malay Archipelago.”

Reference: “Giant Seeds of an Extant Australasian Legume Lineage Discovered in Eocene Borneo (South Kalimantan, Indonesia)” by Edward J. Spagnuolo, Peter Wilf, John-Paul Zonneveld, David Shaw, Aswan, Yan Rizal, Yahdi Zaim, Jonathan I. Bloch and Russell L. Ciochon, 25 July 2024,

Source : Article By MATTHEW CARROLL, PENN STATE in https://scitechdaily.com

WFS News:A new theropod dinosaur from the Callovian Balabansai Formation of Kyrgyzstan

August 24th, 2024

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@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev

Theropod dinosaurs are one of the most important large groups of dinosaurs, including well-known predators, such as Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus, as well as modern birds. A variety of theropods are known from the Mesozoic Era, the age of the dinosaurs.

Just as lions today are mainly found in Africa and tigers only in Asia, Allosaurus, for example, was widespread in the Jurassic of North America and south-western Europe, while the similarly sized Metriacanthosaurs lived in China. However, the region in between, i.e., between central Europe and East Asia, was so far terra incognita—no large Jurassic predatory dinosaurs were previously known from this huge region.

Postorbital of A. kyrgyzicus. A–D, left postorbital IGB 2-1 in lateral (A, stereophotographs), posterior (B), medial (C), and dorsal (D, stereophotographs) views. E, F, right postorbital IGB 2-2 in lateral (E) and medial (F) views. Abbreviations: g, groove; jf, jugal facet; ls, laterosphenoid contact; ob, orbital brow; pp, posterior process; sf, supratemporal fossa; sq, squamosal facet; st, step. Scale bar is 5 cm.

A new discovery has now significantly altered the situation: Alpkarakush kyrgyzicus is the name of the first theropod dinosaur found in Kyrgyzstan. The first remains of the fossil were discovered in 2006 by Kyrgyz paleontologist Aizek Bakirov.

The discovery site is located in the mountainous desert regions near the city of Tashkumyr in western Kyrgyzstan. The sediments of the Balabansai Formation exposed here were deposited during the Middle Jurassic period around 165 million years ago.

During several excavation campaigns between 2006 and 2023, skull bones, dorsal and pelvic vertebrae, fragments of the shoulder girdle and forelimbs as well as the almost complete pelvic girdle and hind limbs of a predatory dinosaur about 8–9 meters long were recovered.

It is a new genus and species with previously unknown characteristics. Particularly impressive is its extremely protruding “eyebrow” on the so-called postorbital bone, a skull bone behind the eye opening, which indicates the presence of a horn at that point. Other unique features are found on the dorsal vertebrae and the femur.

Left quadratojugal of A. kyrgyzicus, IGB 2-9, in lateral (A), posterior (B), and medial (C) views. Abbreviations: djp, articular facet for the dorsal jugal prong; dqc, dorsal quadrate contact; vjp, facet for the ventral jugal prong; vqc, ventral quadrat contact. Scale bar is 5 cm.

Comparisons with numerous other theropods show that the new species belongs to the metriacanthosaurids, and it is closely related to the large predatory dinosaurs of East Asia. Paleontologists suggest the origin of metriacanthosaurids and other important theropod groups in Southeast Asia, from where they spread to other continents via Central Asia and Europe.

“Although the affiliation of Alpkarakush with the metriacanthosaurids is not necessarily a surprise, this discovery closes a huge gap in our knowledge of the Jurassic theropods. It leads us to important new insights into the evolution and biogeography of these animals,” says Prof. Oliver Rauhut from the Bavarian Collection of Paleontology and Geology in Munich (SNSB-BSPG) and first author of the study published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

Alpkarakush kyrgyzicus were also found at the site. Examination of the internal bone structure revealed that the large specimen was almost an adult, at least 17 years old, and certainly already sexually mature, while the smaller individual is a juvenile. Maybe a parent animal was on tour with its young 165 million years ago.

Digital photogammetric 3D models of all relevant bones of the Alpkarakush were generated. “These models are now available online and allow researchers worldwide to carry out follow-up studies and make 3D prints,” says co-author Dr. Oliver Wings, Director of the Bamberg Natural History Museum.

The fossil is named after Alpkarakush, a giant bird in the mythological Kyrgyz “Manas” epic, which often comes to the aid of the heroes in critical moments. The species name “kyrgyzicus” refers directly to the Kyrgyz Republic, the origin of the new predatory dinosaur.

Alpkarakush kyrgyzicus could even become the first original dinosaur skeleton ever to be exhibited in Kyrgyzstan: if enough supporters are found, a reconstruction is planned with the original bones in the National Historical Museum in Bishkek, pending the acquisition of the necessary funding.

More information: Oliver W M Rauhut et al, A new theropod dinosaur from the Callovian Balabansai Formation of Kyrgyzstan, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society (2024). DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae090

Journal information: Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society

Provided by The Bavarian Natural History Collections

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WFS News: Half-a-billion-year-old slug reveals mollusc origins

August 17th, 2024

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@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev

The fossil was initially referred to as “the plastic bag” because of its appearance

A half-a-billion-year-old spiny slug has shed light on the origins of animals like oysters and octopuses, researchers have said.

Scientists, including experts from the University of Oxford, have discovered a new species of mollusc that lived 500 million years ago.

The fossil, called Shishania aculeata, reveals that the earliest molluscs were flat, shell-less slugs covered in a protective spiny armour.

Shishania was initially referred to as “the plastic bag” because of its appearance.

First author Guangxu Zhang, a recent PhD graduate from China’s Yunnan University who discovered the specimens, said the fossils were “completely different” from any others he had seen.

Molluscs are animals that do not have a backbone and today come in many different forms, from snails to squids.

This diversity evolved very quickly a long time ago, and very few fossils have been left behind that chronicle their early evolution.

The new species was found in well-preserved fossils from eastern Yunnan Province in southern China, dating from a geological period approximately 514 million years ago.

The specimens are all only a few centimetres long and are covered in small spikey cones.

Some of the fossils were preserved upside down and show that the bottom of the animal was naked, with a muscular foot like that of a slug.

Experts suggest it would have used this food to creep across the seafloor.

Corresponding author associate prof Luke Parry, of the department of earth sciences at Oxford, said it showed “the very earliest mollusc ancestors were armoured spiny slugs”.

Its spines show an internal system of canals that are less than a hundredth of a millimetre in diameter.

These features show that the cones were secreted at their base by tiny protrusions of cells, which researchers compared to the workings of a natural 3D printer.

Source: Galya Dimitrova & PA Media,BBC News

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WFS News : Ammonites’ fate sealed by meteor strike that wiped out dinosaurs

June 29th, 2024

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@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev

Ammonites basking under the Late Cretaceous sun. Credit: Artwork by Callum Pursall

Ammonites were not in decline before their extinction, scientists have found

The marine mollusks with coiled shells, one of paleontology’s great icons, flourished in Earth’s oceans for more than 350 million years until they died out during the same chance event that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

Some paleontologists have argued that their demise was inevitable and that ammonite diversity was decreasing long before they went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous.

However, new research, published in Nature Communications and led by paleontologists at the University of Bristol, shows that their fate was not set in stone. Instead, the final chapter in ammonite evolutionary history is more complex.

“Understanding how and why biodiversity has changed through time is very challenging,” said lead author Dr. Joseph Flannery-Sutherland. “The fossil record tells us some of the story, but it is often an unreliable narrator. Patterns of diversity can just reflect patterns of sampling, essentially where and when we have found new fossil species, rather than actual biological history.

“Analyzing the existing Late Cretaceous ammonite fossil record as though it were the complete, global story is probably why previous researchers have thought they were in long-term ecological decline.”

To overcome this issue, the team assembled a new database of Late Cretaceous ammonite fossils to help fill in the sampling gaps in their record.

“We drew on museum collections to provide new sources of specimens rather than just relying on what had already been published,” said co-author Cameron Crossan, a 2023 graduate of the University of Bristol’s Palaeobiology MSc program. “This way we could be sure that we were getting a more accurate picture of their biodiversity prior to their total extinction.”

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Using their database, the team then analyzed how ammonite speciation and extinction rates varied in different parts of the globe. If ammonites were in decline through the Late Cretaceous, then their extinction rates would have been generally higher than their speciation rates wherever the team looked. What the team instead found was that the balance of speciation and extinction changed both through geological time and between different geographic regions.

“These differences in ammonoid diversification around the world are a crucial part of why their Late Cretaceous story has been misunderstood,” said senior author Dr. James Witts of the Natural History Museum, London. “Their fossil record in parts of North America is very well sampled, but if you looked at this alone, then you might think that they were struggling, while they were actually flourishing in other regions. Their extinction really was a chance event and not an inevitable outcome.”

To find out what was responsible for the continued success of ammonites through the Late Cretaceous, the team looked at potential factors that might have caused their diversity to change through time. They were particularly interested in whether their speciation and extinction rates were driven mainly by environmental conditions like ocean temperature and sea level (the Court Jester Hypothesis), or by biological processes like pressure from predators and competition between ammonites themselves (the Red Queen Hypothesis).

“What we found was that the causes of ammonite speciation and extinction were as geographically varied as the rates themselves,” said co-author Dr. Corinne Myers of the University of New Mexico. “You couldn’t just look at their total fossil record and say that their diversity was driven entirely by changing temperature, for example. It was more complex than that and depended on where in the world they were living.”

“Paleontologists are frequently fans of silver bullet narratives for what drove changes in a group’s fossil diversity, but our work shows that things are not always so straightforward,” Dr. Flannery Sutherland concluded. “We can’t necessarily trust global fossil datasets and need to analyze them at regional scales. This way we can capture a much more nuanced picture of how diversity changed across space and through time, which also shows how variation in the balance of Red Queen versus Court Jester effects shaped these changes.”

More information: Late Cretaceous ammonoids show that drivers of diversification are regionally heterogeneous, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49462-z

Journal information: Nature Communications

Source:Phys.org

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WFS News: Shifts in marine community structures can predict future extinctions

June 26th, 2024

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@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev

A study using foraminifera fossils suggests that shifts in marine community structures can predict future extinctions, highlighting the role of historical data in forecasting climate change impacts on biodiversity.

For hundreds of millions of years, single-celled organisms known as foraminifera, which are microscopic and hard-shelled, have thrived in the oceans. These tiny creatures form the foundation of the food chain. The fossils of these ancient organisms provide insights into potential shifts in global biodiversity linked to our warming climate.

Using a high-resolution global dataset of planktonic foraminifera fossils that are among the richest biological archives available to science, researchers have found that major environmental stress events leading to mass extinctions are reliably preceded by subtle changes in how a biological community is composed, acting as a pre-extinction early warning signal.

Planktonic foraminifera fossils. Credit: Tracy Aze / University of Leeds

The results are in Nature, co-led by Anshuman Swain, a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows, a researcher in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and an affiliate of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. A physicist by training who applies networks to biological and paleontological data, Swain teamed with co-first author Adam Woodhouse at the University of Bristol to probe the global, community structure of ancient marine plankton that could serve as an early warning system for future extinction of ocean life.

“Can we leverage the past to understand what might happen in the future, in the context of global change?” said Swain, who previously co-authored a study about the formation of polar ice caps driving changes in marine plankton communities over the last 15 million years. “Our work offers new insight into how biodiversity responds spatially to global changes in climate, especially during intervals of global warmth, which are relevant to future warming projections.”

Leveraging Historical Data for Future Predictions

The researchers used the Triton database, developed by Woodhouse, to ascertain how the composition of foraminifera communities changed over millions of years – orders of magnitude longer time spans than are typically studied at this scale. They focused on the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum, the last major period of sustained high global temperatures since the dinosaurs, analogous to worst-case global warming scenarios.

They found that, before an extinction pulse of 34 million years ago, marine communities became highly specialized everywhere but southern high latitudes, implying that these micro-plankton migrated en masse to higher latitudes and away from the tropics. This finding indicates that community-scale changes like the ones seen in these migration patterns are evident in fossil records long before actual extinctions and losses in biodiversity occur.

The researchers thus think it’s important to place emphasis on monitoring the structure of biological communities to predict future extinctions.

According to Swain, the results from the foraminifera studies open avenues of inquiry into other organismal groups, including other marine life, sharks, and insects. Such studies may spark a revolution in an emerging field called paleoinformatics, or use large spatiotemporally resolved databases of fossil records to glean new insights into the future of Earth.

Reference: “Biogeographic response of marine plankton to Cenozoic environmental changes” by Anshuman Swain, Adam Woodhouse, William F. Fagan, Andrew J. Fraass and Christopher M. Lowery, 17 April 2024, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07337-9

WFS News,Simpsonigobius, new species of fossil fish

June 17th, 2024

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@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev,

Gobies or Gobioidei are one of the most species-rich groups of marine and freshwater fish in Europe. Spending most of their lives on the bottom of shallow waterbodies, they make substantial contributions to the functioning of many ecosystems.

Fossil fish of the new genus †Simpsonigobius. Credit: Moritz Dirnberger

With the identification of a new genus of a fossil freshwater goby, students of the international master program Geobiology and Paleobiology at LMU and paleontologist Bettina Reichenbacher, professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at LMU, have made a discovery that provides critical insights into the evolutionary history of these fish.

The find is reported in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

Measuring up to 34 mm, the small fish of the new genus †Simpsonigobius were discovered in 18-million-year-old rocks in Turkey and are marked by a distinct combination of morphological features, including otoliths (hearing stones) with a unique shape.

Modern research techniques elucidate position in family tree

To determine the relationships of †Simpsonigobius within the gobioid phylogenetic tree, the researchers utilized a “total-evidence” phylogenetic dataset, which they enhanced in order to combine a total of 48 morphological characters and genetic data from five genes for 48 living and 10 fossil species.

In addition, the team employed “tip-dating” for fossil gobioid species for the first time. This is a phylogenetic method in which the age of the fossils (= tips) included in the phylogenetic tree is used to infer the timing of the evolutionary history of the entire group.

The results show that the new genus is the oldest skeleton-based member of the family Oxudercidae—which is classified among the “modern” gobies (families Gobiidae and Oxudercidae)—and the oldest freshwater goby within this modern group.

The tip-dating analysis estimated the emergence of the Gobiidae at 34.1 million years ago and that of the Oxudercidae at 34.8 million years ago, which is consistent with previous dating studies using other methods. Moreover, stochastic habitat mapping, in which the researchers incorporated fossil gobies for the first time, revealed that the gobies probably possessed broad salinity tolerance at the beginning of their evolutionary history, which challenges previous assumptions.

“The discovery of †Simpsonigobius not only adds a new genus to the Gobioidei, but also provides vital clues about the evolutionary timeline and habitat adaptations of these diverse fishes. Our research highlights the importance of analyzing fossil records using modern methods to achieve a more accurate picture of evolutionary processes,” says Reichenbacher.

First author Moritz Dirnberger, currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Montpellier, adds, “The findings are expected to pave the way for further studies on gobioid evolution and the role of environmental factors in shaping their diversity.”

More information: Moritz Dirnberger et al, A new freshwater gobioid from the Lower Miocene of Turkey in a significantly amended total evidence phylogenetic framework, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology (2024). DOI: 10.1080/14772019.2024.2340498

Journal information: Journal of Systematic Palaeontology

SOurce: PHYS.ORG.Editors notes

Provided by Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

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WFS News: Scientists found a pterosaur with vast wingspan

June 15th, 2024

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@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev

Pterosaurs flew 170 million years ago

Scientists studying a fossil of a flying reptile that excavated from a gravel pit have found it had a vast wingspan of 3.75m (12ft).

The pterosaur was dug out from the floor of a quarry near Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, in June 2022.

Scans of its wing bones by Portsmouth and Leicester universities have revealed its wings were “absolutely huge” for a Jurassic pterosaur.

Pterosaurs from the period typically had wingspans of 1.5m to 2m (5ft to 6.5ft).

A topographic scan of the wing bones that were found broken into three pieces but still well-preserved

Prof David Martill, from the University of Portsmouth, said: “Although this [wingspan] would be small for a Cretaceous pterosaur, it’s absolutely huge for a Jurassic one.

“This fossil is particularly special because it is one of the first records of this type of pterosaur from the Jurassic period in the United Kingdom.

“This specimen is now one of the largest known pterosaurs from the Jurassic period, worldwide.”

Prof Martill added it was surpassed only by a specimen in Switzerland with an estimated wingspan of up to 5m (16ft).

The fossil is an adult ctenochasmatoid – a group of pterosaurs known for their long, slender wings, long jaws and fine bristle-like teeth.

A paper describing the details has been published in the in the Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association – an international geoscience journal.

The fossil is housed in the Etches Collection in Kimmeridge, Dorset.

Source : BBC News

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WFS News: Vasuki Indicus,49 Feet Long – Ancient Giant Snake Discovered in India

June 4th, 2024

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Researchers have discovered a new ancient snake species, Vasuki Indicus, in Gujarat, India, which may have been one of the largest snakes ever, reaching up to 15 meters in length and dating back 47 million years. Credit: Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-58377-0

New research published in Scientific Reports suggests that a recently identified ancient snake species, named Vasuki Indicus, may have been among the largest snakes ever. This species, which existed approximately 47 million years ago in Gujarat, India, reached lengths of 11 to 15 meters (36 – 49 feet). Belonging to the now-extinct madtsoiidae family, Vasuki Indicus represents a unique lineage that originated in India.

Debajit Datta and Sunil Bajpai describe a new specimen recovered from the Panandhro Lignite Mine, Kutch, Gujarat State, India, which dates to the Middle Eocene period, approximately 47 million years ago. The new species is named Vasuki Indicus after the mythical snake round the neck of the Hindu deity Shiva and in reference to its country of discovery, India. The authors describe 27 mostly well-preserved vertebra, some of which are articulated, which appear to be from a fully-grown animal.

Size Estimation and Ecological Role

The vertebrae measure between 37.5 and 62.7 millimeters in length and 62.4 and 111.4 millimeters in width, suggesting a broad, cylindrical body. Extrapolating from this, the authors estimate that V. Indicus may have reached between 10.9 and 15.2 meters in length. This is comparable in size to the longest known snake to have ever lived, the extinct Titanoboa, although the authors highlight the uncertainty around these estimates. They further speculate that V. Indicus’s large size made it a slow-moving, ambush predator akin to an anaconda.

The authors identify V. Indicus as belonging to the madtsoiidae family, which existed for around 100 million years from the Late Cretaceous to the Late Pleistocene and lived in a broad geographical range including Africa, Europe, and India. They suggest that V. Indicus represents a lineage of large madtsoiids that originated in the Indian subcontinent and spread via southern Europe to Africa during the Eocene, approximately 56 to 34 million years ago.

Reference: “Largest known madtsoiid snake from warm Eocene period of India suggests intercontinental Gondwana dispersal” by Debajit Datta, and Sunil Bajpai, 18 April 2024, Scientific Reports.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-58377-0

Source: By SCIENTIFIC REPORTS, https://scitechdaily.com

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WFS News: Scientists discover hidden step in evolution of dinosaur feather

June 3rd, 2024

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@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev

Palaeontologists at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland have discovered that some feathered dinosaurs had scaly skin like reptiles today, thus shedding new light on the evolutionary transition from scales to feathers.

The researchers studied a new specimen of the feathered dinosaur Psittacosaurus from the early Cretaceous (135-120 million years ago), a time when dinosaurs were evolving into birds. The study shows, for the first time, that Psittacosaurus had reptile-like skin in areas where it didn’t have feathers.

The specimen under natural light (a) and UV light (b) showing distinct fluorescence hues for bone (cyan) and soft tissues (yellow) against a dark purple sedimentary matrix.

The study, published today in Nature Communications, was led by UCC palaeontologists Dr Zixiao Yang and Prof. Maria McNamara of UCC’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, who teamed with scientists based in Nanjing University (China).

The team used ultraviolet (UV) light to identify patches of preserved skin, which are invisible in natural light. Further investigation of the fossil skin using X-rays and infrared light revealed spectacular details of preserved cellular structure.

Dr Yang says:

“The fossil truly is a hidden gem. The fossil skin is not visible to the naked eye, and it remained hidden when the specimen was donated to Nanjing University in 2021. Only under UV light is the skin visible, in a striking orange-yellow glow.

“What is really surprising is the chemistry of the fossil skin. It is composed of silica — the same as glass. This type of preservation has never been found in vertebrate fossils. There are potentially many more fossils with hidden soft tissues awaiting discovery.”

The most exciting aspect of the discovery, however, is what it tells us about the evolution of feathers in dinosaurs. Prof. McNamara, senior author on the study, says:

“The evolution of feathers from reptilian scales is one of the most profound yet poorly understood events in vertebrate evolution. While numerous fossils of feathers have been studied, fossil skin is much more rare.

$Plan view of the fossil surface (a, under UV light) and a fractured vertical section (b and c, under natural light and UV light, respectively) of the fossil skin (sampling location shown in Fig. 2g). Arrowheads in a and b indicate the same position on the rib bone. d–g Scanning electron micrographs of the fossil skin showing a layered structure with individual layers that are fragmented laterally. Close-up of the region indicated in g (h) with interpretive drawing (i) highlighting a single sublayer (dark grey in i) with tapering lateral tips; light grey shading in i denotes over- and underlying sublayers and dashed lines denote fractures.$

Plan view of the fossil surface (a, under UV light) and a fractured vertical section (b and c, under natural light and UV light, respectively) of the fossil skin (sampling location shown in Fig. 2g). Arrowheads in a and b indicate the same position on the rib bone. d–g Scanning electron micrographs of the fossil skin showing a layered structure with individual layers that are fragmented laterally. Close-up of the region indicated in g (h) with interpretive drawing (i) highlighting a single sublayer (dark grey in i) with tapering lateral tips; light grey shading in i denotes over- and underlying sublayers and dashed lines denote fractures.

“Our discovery suggests that soft, bird-like skin initially developed only in feathered regions of the body, while the rest of the skin was still scaly, like in modern reptiles. This zoned development would have maintained essential skin functions, such as protection against abrasion, dehydration and parasites. The first dinosaur to experiment with feathers could therefore survive and pass down the genes for feathers to their offspring.”

The Psittacosaurus specimen NJUES-10 is currently housed in Nanjing University.

Journal Reference:Zixiao Yang, Baoyu Jiang, Jiaxin Xu, Maria E. McNamara. Cellular structure of dinosaur scales reveals retention of reptile-type skin during the evolutionary transition to feathers. Nature Communications, 2024; 15 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48400-3

Source: University College Cork. “Researchers discover hidden step in dinosaur feather evolution.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 May 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/05/240521124309.htm>.

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev

WFS News: Abelisauroid, a dinosaur with very tiny arms

June 2nd, 2024

Riffin

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev

A team of paleontologists from Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Rivadavia, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, has identified a new species of abelisauroid dinosaur. They have named it Koleken inakayali.

The work is published in the journal Cladistics.

The fossilized remains were found in the La Colonia Formation, a geological formation located in what is now modern Argentina. The dig site there is being excavated as part of a project funded by the National Geographic Society called, “The Age of Dinosaurs.” The remains of the K. inakayali have been dated to approximately 70 million years ago.

In studying the remains, the team was able to identify multiple skull bones, most of the creature’s back, all of one hip, some of its tail bones and almost all the bones from both of its legs. They noted that the dinosaur had multiple traits that set it apart from Carnotaurus sastrei, particularly in its skull bones.

They also note that the ancient dinosaur was bipedal with extremely tiny arms. The research team found that it was a species of Furileusauria, which was a group of abelisauroid dinosaurs. Also, in comparing the remains with several other types of abelisauroid and noasaurids, they found evidence of rapid evolutionary changes during some spans of time, and little to none in others.

Abelisauroid dinosaurs were a family of theropod (hollow boned) dinosaurs that lived during the Cretaceous on the Gondwana continent—their fossilized remains have been found in many parts of South America, Africa, India and Madagascar. They are also believed to have been the most abundant type of theropod. The discovery of K. inakayali, the team suggests, indicates that abelisaurids were more diverse than prior research has suggested.

The team concludes by suggesting that the discovery of K. inakayali helps us to better understand the history of abelisaurids and underscores the importance of continuing to explore the history of dinosaurs in general. Doing so, they note, helps to explain the history of life on Earth, and possibly, offers insights into how humans might remain a viable species as the planet changes.

More information: Diego Pol et al, A new abelisaurid dinosaur from the end Cretaceous of Patagonia and evolutionary rates among the Ceratosauria, Cladistics (2024). DOI: 10.1111/cla.12583

Source: Phy.Org and onlinelibrary.wiley.com

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev, Russel T Sajeev