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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: Oesia fossil – an acron worm

July 11th, 2016

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Paleontologists have finally identified two kinds of mysterious fossils misidentified for a century — and traced them both to some phallus-shaped worms that lived 505 million years ago and built themselves some very elaborate homes.Key to solving the mystery was an extraordinary new fossil bed discovered just four years ago and insights gained by the scientists through dissecting the rotting carcasses of some modern worms.

An Oesia fossil shows that it has an acorn-shaped structure near the top and a bright bulbous structure at the other end used to anchor the worm in its tube. (Jean-Bernard Caron)

In 1911, American paleontologist Charles Walcott collected a fossil of a strange worm called Oesia disjuncta at the Burgess Shale of B.C.’s Yoho National Park, a now world-famous fossil bed that Walcott had discovered two years earlier.Another unusual find at the Burgess Shale was Margaretia dorus, which paleontologists proposed in 1933 was an extinct, tubular algae.

Researchers have now concluded that Oesia is a relative of penis-shaped marine animals that still exist today, called acorn worms, and Margaretia was a tubular home that it built for itself, they report in the journal BMC Biology this week.

Margaretia dorus is the name given to a fossil that was originally believed to be a strange kind of tubular algae. The fibrous tubes with lots of pores turn out to be the homes built by Oesia. (Jean-Bernard Caron)

Acorn worms aren’t related to earthworms or parasitic worms such as roundworms. Instead, they belong to a group of animals called hemichordates that are more closely related to sea urchins and starfish; and to chordates, the group of animals that includes humans and many other animals with a backbone.

Modern acorn worms don’t build and live in tubes. Instead, they bury themselves in the mud of seashores around the world.But several years ago, Jean-Bernard Caron, a paleontologist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and some colleagues identified a Burgess Shale fossil that appeared to be a tube-dwelling acorn worm, namedSpartobranchus tenuis.

Karma Nanglu, lead author of the new paper, said previous decades saw a lot of debate about what kind of animal Oesia was, but researchers didn’t have much to go on other than fragments of poorly preserved specimens.

“Oesia is an extremely rare animal at the original location where it was discovered,” said Nanglu, a PhD student working with Prof. Jean-Bernard Caron at the University of Toronto.

Key: WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev

WFS News: Giant Blobs of Rock, Deep Inside the Earth ?

July 8th, 2016

Riffin

Two massive blob-like structures lie deep within Earth, roughly on opposite sides of the planet. The two structures, each the size of a continent and 100 times taller than Mount Everest, sit on the core, 1,800 miles deep, and about halfway to the center of Earth.

Arizona State University scientists Edward Garnero, Allen McNamara and Sang-Heon (Dan) Shim, of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, suggest these blobs are made of something different from the rest of Earth’s mantle. The scientists’ work appears in the June issue of Nature Geoscience.

“While the origin and composition of the blobs are yet unknown,” said Garnero, “we suspect they hold important clues as to how Earth was formed and how it works today.”

The blobs, he says, may also help explain the plumbing that leads to some massive volcanic eruptions, as well as the mechanism of plate tectonics from the convection, or stirring, of the mantle. This is the geo-force that drives earthquakes.

Deep stirring

Earth is layered like an onion, with a thin outer crust, a thick viscous mantle, a fluid outer core and a solid inner core. The two blobs sit in the mantle on top of Earth’s core, under the Pacific Ocean on one side and beneath Africa and the Atlantic Ocean on the other.

Waves from earthquakes passing through Earth’s deep interior have revealed that these blobs are regions where seismic waves travel slowly. The mantle materials that surround these regions are thought to be composed of cooler rocks, associated with the downward movement of tectonic plates.

Cutaway of the Earth’s surface, down to the liquid core. A numerical convection experiment shows blobs in green, surrounding mantle rock in blue, and former oceanic crust from the surface that has subducted into the interior in yellow.Credit: Dr. Mingming Li/University of Colorado

The blobs, also called thermochemical piles, have long been depicted as warmer-than-average mantle materials, pushed upward by a slow churning of hot mantle rock. The new paper argues they are also chemically different from the surrounding mantle rock, and may partly contain material pushed down by plate tectonics. They might even be material left over from Earth’s formation, 4.5 billion years ago.

Much is yet to be learned about these blobs. But the emerging view from seismic and geodynamic information is that they appear denser than the surrounding mantle materials, are dynamically stable and long-lived, and have been shaped by the mantle’s large-scale flow. The scientists expect that further work on the two deep-seated anomalies will help clarify the picture and tell of their origin.

“If a neuroscientist found an unknown structure in the human brain, the whole community of brain scientists, from psychologists to surgeons, would actively pursue understanding its role in the function of the whole system,” Garnero said.

“As the thermochemical piles come into sharper focus, we hope other Earth scientists will explore how these features fit into the big puzzle of planet Earth.”

Citation: Arizona State University (ASU). “Giant Blobs of Rock, Deep Inside the Earth, Hold Important Clues About Our Planet.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 24 June 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160624155000.htm

Key: WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev

WFS News: Ameloblastoma — a rare, non-cancerous tumor on Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus

July 6th, 2016

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The dinosaur fossil, estimated to be 69-67 million years old (Cretaceous period), was discovered in an outcrop of the Sinpetru Formation along the banks of the Sibisel River, in the Haţeg County Dinosaurs Geopark, western Romania.

The specimen is represented by a pair of well-preserved, associated lower jaws belonging to a sub-adult individual of the hadrosauroid dinosaurTelmatosaurus transsylvanicus.

It provides the first evidence of a pathological condition previously unrecognized in the dinosaurian fossil record.

Structure of the pathological Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus dentary: (A) – surface scans of the left and right rami positioned in anatomical articulation; (B) – segmented internal structures of the left ramus exhibiting the pathology (red – primary neurovascular canal, yellow – secondary neurovascular pathways, orange – functional teeth, blue – replacement teeth, light blue – segmented dentary bone, purple – lytic density areas); (C) – 3D micro-CT image with rectangular cutout in the area of the exostosis; (D) 3D micro-CT image of the investigated portion of the dentary showing the external appearance of the exostosis. Scale bars: (A,B) – 50 mm; (C-D) – 5 mm. Image credit: Mihai D. Dumbrava et al.

“This discovery is the first ever described in the fossil record and the first to be thoroughly documented in a dwarf dinosaur,” said Katharine Acheson, a PhD student at the University of Southampton and co-author of the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports.

“Telmatosaurus is known to be close to the root of the duck-billed dinosaur family tree, and the presence of such a deformity early in their evolution provides us with further evidence that the duck-billed dinosaurs were more prone to tumors than other dinosaurs.”

“It was obvious that the fossil was deformed when it was found more than a decade ago but what caused the outgrowth remained unclear until now,” said co-author Dr. Zoltán Csiki-Sava, from the University of Bucharest, Romania.

It is unlikely that the tumor caused the dinosaur any serious pain during its early stages of development, just as in humans with the same condition, but the paleontologists can tell from its size that this particular dinosaur died before it reached adulthood.

“We know from modern examples that predators often attack a member of the herd that looks a little different or is even slightly disabled by a disease,” Dr. Csiki-Sava said.

Artistic reconstruction of the pathological individual of the hadrosauroid dinosaur Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus from the uppermost Cretaceous of the Hateg Basin, Romania, in rostral view, showing the probable life appearance of the mandibular deformity caused by ameloblastoma. Image credit: Mihai D. Dumbrava.

“The tumor in this dinosaur had not developed to its full extent at the moment it died, but it could have indirectly contributed to its early demise.”

“The particular make-up of the rocks allowed us to identify that this fossil was preserved near the channel of an ancient river,” Acheson added.

“In a setting like this, it is extremely rare to find the complete specimen, and so it is almost impossible to determine the specific cause of death. One can only make an informed guess based upon the evidence we have.”

“The discovery of an ameloblastoma in a duck-billed dinosaur documents that we have more in common with dinosaurs than previously realized,” said co-author Dr. Bruce Rothschild, from the Northeast Ohio Medical University.

Citation: Mihai D. Dumbravă et al. 2016. A dinosaurian facial deformity and the first occurrence of ameloblastoma in the fossil record. Scientific Reports 6, article number: 29271; doi: 10.1038/srep29271

Courtesy: SCI News.com

WFS News: Atopodentatus unicus: Earth’s Earliest Herbivorous Marine Reptile

June 27th, 2016

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Nearly two years ago, an international team of paleontologists discovered a bizarre fossil — Atopodentatus unicus, a 10 feet (3 m) long marine reptile that lived in what is now China 247 to 242 million years ago (Middle Triassic).

Atopodentatus unicus’ head was poorly preserved, but it seemed to have a flamingo-like ‘beak.’

But according to a new paper, published in the journal Science Advances, that beak is actually part of a hammerhead-shaped jaw apparatus, whichAtopodentatus unicus used to feed on plants on the ocean floor.

It’s the earliest known example of a plant-eating marine reptile.

Life restoration of Atopodentatus unicus. Image credit: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.

“The wide jaw of Atopodentatus unicus was shaped like a hammerhead, and along the edge, it had peg-like teeth. Then, further into its mouth, it had bunches of needle-like teeth,” said co-author Dr. Olivier Rieppel from Field Museum in Chicago.

“That arrangement wouldn’t have been too useful for chewing prey.”

To figure out how Atopodentatus unicus’ jaw fit together and how the reptile actually fed, the scientists bought some children’s clay and rebuilt it with toothpicks to represent the teeth.

Prepared skulls of the newly-discovered specimens of Atopodentatus unicus. Scale bar – 2 cm. Image credit: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology.

“We looked at how the upper and lower jaw locked together, and that’s how we proceeded and described it,” Dr. Rieppel said.

The verdict: Atopodentatus unicus used its bizarre jaw to help it eat plants.

“Atopodentatus unicus used its front teeth to nip algae or other plants from rocky surfaces and then, with its mouth closed, forced mouthfuls of water through its side teeth, which acted as a filter trapping the plants and letting the water back out, like how whales filter-feed with their baleen,” Dr. Rieppel explained.

Not only does this discovery solve the mystery of the strange-toothedAtopodentatus unicus, but it also provides us with an example of the first herbivorous marine reptile.

“The jaw structure is clearly that of an herbivore. It has similarities to other marine animals that ate plants with a filter-feeding system, but Atopodentatus unicus is older than them by about 8 million years,” Dr. Rieppel said.

This reptile also helps tell a bigger story about the world’s largest mass extinction 252 million years ago.

“Animals living the years surrounding the Permian-Triassic extinction help us see how life on Earth reacted to that event,” Dr. Rieppel said.

“The existence of specialized animals like Atopodentatus unicus shows us that life recovered and diversified more quickly than previously thought. And it’s definitely a reptile that no one would have thought to exist.”

Courtesy: Li Chun et al. 2016. The earliest herbivorous marine reptile and its remarkable jaw apparatus. Science Advances, vol. 2, no. 5, e1501659; doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1501659

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WFS NEWS: Pterosaur flies safely home after 95 million years

June 24th, 2016

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With the help of University of Alberta scientists, a newly described pterosaur has finally flown home. This spectacular fossil material was discovered in a private Lebanese limestone quarry more than a decade ago and has led to what UAlberta paleontologist Michael Caldwell calls “priceless scientific findings.”

Michael Caldwell (L) and Philip Currie (R) pictured with the pterosaur before its return to Lebanon
Credit: U of Alberta

“This is the first complete pterosaur from Lebanon and the very first pterosaur from this age of marine-deposited rocks,” says Caldwell of the new genus and species, whose name is yet to be revealed. The animal lived in the Cenomanian era — 95 million years ago during the lowest part of the Upper Cretaceous — in the middle of what is now called the Tethys Seaway, a vast expanse of shallow seaway filled with reefs and lagoons, separating Europe from Africa and stretching all the way to southeast Asia. “That chunk of ocean was huge — think 10 or 20 times the size of the Great Barrier Reef and chock-full of living things. I’m sure our little pterosaur was living on one of the reef islands.”

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The extremely fragile yet nearly perfectly preserved fossil was split into two pieces when it was discovered in its slab of limestone rock. Though the limestone quarries leftover from the ancient oceans are famously filled with fossil fish, this is the first ever complete pterosaur discovered in that region. Besides a fracture to the skull from the pick axe of a quarry worker, the skull is intact, as are the wings, legs, and body. “It is in immaculate condition as a result of a lot of delicate preparation work,” says Caldwell. “We can really see how this animal was built. It’s a nice little piece of science and a great story about rescuing this specimen from certain doom.”

The University of Alberta has long dominated the field of vertebrate paleontology, and the quarry owner allowed a team of experts to prepare and describe the specimen with the intent that it would one day be sold — an activity that is legal in Lebanon. Caldwell teamed up with his University of Alberta colleague, dinosaur paleobiologist Philip Currie along with lead authors Alexander Kellner from the National Museum in Brazil and Fabio Dalla Vecchia in Italy. The group has described the new species and genus, and scientific results are forthcoming in a prestigious journal.

From one university to another

Following a decade of stewardship at the University of Alberta, the quarry owner recently sold the pterosaur. The buyer subsequently donated the specimen to the Mineralogy Museum at Saint Joseph’s University in Beirut — the oldest university in Lebanon — to become the centrepiece of their Lebanese vertebrate fossil exhibition.

For his part, Caldwell is pleased to see that the specimen will not only continue to be used for teaching and research but also that it will be publicly exhibited back in its home country of Lebanon. A cast of the specimen now resides at the University of Alberta.

@WFS News:

Citation:University of Alberta. “Pterosaur flies safely home after 95 million years.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 23 June 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com

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WFS News: Dinosaur-era fossils unearthed in Antarctica

June 22nd, 2016

Riffin

An international research team just made a big fossil discovery in Antarctica, unearthing a haul of remains that date between 67 million and 71 million years old.

“We found a lot of really great fossils,” Steve Salisbury, of the University of Queensland School of Biological Sciences, said in a press release. “The rocks the were focusing on come from the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.”

Salisbury was one of 12 scientists who traveled to the James Ross Island area in a research trip that lasted from February through March. The research was funded through the National Science Foundation and the United States Antarctic Program. Salisbury was part of a research team that included scientists from the U.S., South Africa and Australia.

A member of the research team holds one of their finds in Antarctica. UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND/VIMEO

Given that they were looking at shallow marine rocks, most of the fossils they found were of ancient ocean-dwelling animals.

“We did find a lot of marine reptile remains, so things like plesiosaurs and mosasaurs — a type of marine lizard made famous by the recent film ‘JurassicWorld,’” he added.

The team also found a few dinosaur remains as well. They hope to publish those findings separately in the future.Right now, the fossils are in Chile, but will soon be shipped to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for further study.

Salisbury stressed that a lot of the larger bones will need more preparation before research can be conducted on them, and added that it might be “a year or two” before final results of the research are released.

The research trip was a little “Indiana Jones” in its globetrotting. To get to the research area, the team had to first fly to South America and then reach the Antarctic peninsula by ship. They used helicopters and inflatable boats to ultimately reach the shore.

“Crossing the Drake Passage can be kind of rough — some of the biggest seas in the world occur in that area — so most of us just bunkered down for the time we were crossing it,” Salisbury recounted. “I’ve tried to get to Antarctica to do this research several times before, but sea ice has prevented us from making land.”

Salisbury added that the discovery of this fossil haul lays the groundwork for more expeditions in the future.

“We found a lot of new ground to continue the search,” he added. “So, we’d all really love to get back down there at some point soon.”

Citation: Article By BRIAN MASTROIANNI CBS NEWS

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WFS News: ‘Fossil’ meteorite was from asteroid smash-up

June 17th, 2016

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Scientists have identified a completely new type of meteorite.

The 8cm space rock is said to be chemically distinct from any of the 50,000 other such objects held in collections.Called Österplana 65, it was found in a limestone quarry in Thorsberg, Sweden, that produces floor tiles.Dating suggests the meteorite’s parent body was involved in a huge collision in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter some 470 million years ago.

This would have been the same smash-up that produced a large class of other rocks known as L chondrites, Birger Schmitz and colleagues tell the journal Nature Communications.

The chemistry of the meteorite is distinct from anything in the catalogues

The L chondrites are picked up in significant quantities in the Thorsberg sediments of Ordovician age – a period in Earth history when the Northern Hemisphere was largely under water and marine lifeforms such as the trilobites were flourishing.Dr Schmitz’ team has recovered more than a hundred of these “fossil” objects in the quarry. But the new meteorite stands out because geochemically its oxygen and chromium signatures are distinct.

“We’ve been hunting these Ordovician meteorites for 25 years. We found 50, then 60, then 70 – and it was getting boring,” he told BBC News.

“Then in 2011, we found one meteorite that was entirely different. For a long time we called it ‘the mysterious object’ because it didn’t resemble anything. For five years, we have done all types of analysis and now we’re certain of what it is.”

The meteorites are deemed to spoil the floor tiles and will be rejected by the quarry

The hypothesis is that Öst 65 comes from the “second asteroid” in the collision.The scientists can make this claim because of the results of so-called cosmogenic dating.This is a technique that will reveal how long the fresh surface of a broken object has been exposed to space radiation.Impacts from high energy particles generate particular types, or isotopes, of atoms in the rock – in this case, it is forms of helium and neon.

The more of these isotopes that are present, the greater the time since the fragmentation event.When this dating is done for the L chondrites and Öst 65, the exposure times line up.

“We show that Öst 65 was liberated from its parent body at the same time as the L chondrites were released from their parent body, and that’s very strong empirical evidence that this new meteorite comes from the same impact,” said Dr Schmitz.

The discovery reinforces the idea that different types of meteorite have fallen to Earth through geological time; that the space rocks we find on the surface of our planet today reflect a somewhat different Solar System to the one that existed 500 million years ago.Dr Schmitz refers to Öst 65 as an “extinct meteorite”. Just as the trilobites eventually died out, so other members of the Öst 65 family are likely only to be found in fossil sediments like those at Thorsberg.Dr Schmitz’ meteorite hunt in the quarry is certainly more interesting now: “It used to be that they threw away the floor tiles that had ugly black dots in them. One of my co-authors on the paper, Mario Tassinari, contacted the quarry owners to ask them not to do that. The very first fossil meteorite we found was in one of their dumps.”

Courtesy: Article by By Jonathan Amos BBC Science Correspondent.

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WFS News: Last dinosaur before mass extinction discovered

June 13th, 2016

Riffin

A team of scientists has discovered the youngest dinosaur preserved in the fossil record before the catastrophic meteor impact 65 million years ago. The finding indicates that dinosaurs did not go extinct prior to the impact and provides further evidence as to whether the impact was in fact the cause of their extinction.

Researchers from Yale University discovered the fossilized horn of a ceratopsian — likely a Triceratops, which are common to the area — in the Hell Creek formation in Montana last year. They found the fossil buried just five inches below the K-T boundary, the geological layer that marks the transition from the Cretaceous period to the Tertiary period at the time of the mass extinction that took place 65 million years ago.

Three small primitive mammals walk over a Triceratops skeleton, one of the last dinosaurs to exist before the mass extinction that gave way to the age of mammals. Credit: Mark Hallett

Since the impact hypothesis for the demise of the dinosaurs was first proposed more than 30 years ago, many scientists have come to believe the meteor caused the mass extinction and wiped out the dinosaurs, but a sticking point has been an apparent lack of fossils buried within the 10 feet of rock below the K-T boundary. The seeming anomaly has come to be known as the “three-meter gap.” Until now, this gap has caused some paleontologists to question whether the non-avian dinosaurs of the era — which included Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, Torosaurus and the duckbilled dinosaurs — gradually went extinct sometime before the meteor struck. (Avian dinosaurs survived the impact, and eventually gave rise to modern-day birds.)

“This discovery suggests the three-meter gap doesn’t exist,” said Yale graduate student Tyler Lyson, director of the Marmarth Research Foundation and lead author of the study, published online July 12 in the journal Biology Letters. “The fact that this specimen was so close to the boundary indicates that at least some dinosaurs were doing fine right up until the impact.”

While the team can’t determine the exact age of the dinosaur, Lyson said it likely lived tens of thousands to just a few thousand years before the impact. “This discovery provides some evidence that dinosaurs didn’t slowly die out before the meteor struck,” he said.

Eric Sargis, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, and graduate student Stephen Chester discovered the ceratopsian last year while searching for fossilized mammals that evolved after the meteor impact. At first, Lyson said, the team thought it was buried within about three feet of the K-T boundary, but were surprised to learn just how close to the boundary — and hence, how close in time to the impact — it was. They sent soil samples to a laboratory to determine the exact location of the boundary, which is marked by the relative abundance of certain types of fossilized pollen and other geological indicators but is difficult to determine visually while in the field.

Because the dinosaur was buried in a mudstone floodplain, the team knew it hadn’t been re-deposited from older sediments, which can sometimes happen when fossils are found in riverbeds that may have eroded and re-distributed material over time.

The team is now examining other fossil specimens that appear to be buried close to the K-T boundary and expect to find more, Lyson said. He suspects that other fossils discovered in the past may have been closer to the boundary than originally thought and that the so-called three-meter gap never existed.

“We should be able to verify that using the more sophisticated soil analysis technique rather than estimating the boundary’s location based solely on a visual examination of the rock formations while in the field, which is what has typically been done in the past,” Lyson said.

Other authors of the paper include Eric Sargis and Stephen Chester (Yale University); Antoine Bercovici (China University of Geosciences); Dean Pearson (Pioneer Trails Regional Museum) and Walter Joyce (University of Tübingen).

Citation: Yale University. “Last dinosaur before mass extinction discovered.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 July 2011. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110712211016.htm

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If Dung Beetles (Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) Arose in Association with Dinosaurs, Did They Also Suffer a Mass Co-Extinction at the K-Pg Boundary?

June 12th, 2016

Riffin

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The evolutionary success of beetles and numerous other terrestrial insects is generally attributed to co-radiation with flowering plants but most studies have focused on herbivorous or pollinating insects. Non-herbivores represent a significant proportion of beetle diversity yet potential factors that influence their diversification have been largely unexamined. In the present study, we examine the factors driving diversification within the Scarabaeidae, a speciose beetle family with a range of both herbivorous and non-herbivorous ecologies. In particular, it has been long debated whether the key event in the evolution of dung beetles (Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) was an adaptation to feeding on dinosaur or mammalian dung. Here we present molecular evidence to show that the origin of dung beetles occurred in the middle of the Cretaceous, likely in association with dinosaur dung, but more surprisingly the timing is consistent with the rise of the angiosperms.

Bayesian Phylogeny of scarab beetles (Scarabaeidae).
Taxa color-coded by scarab subfamily, with outgroups in grey (superfamily) and black (other beetles). Grey circles indicate polyphagous (P) and saprophagous (S) lifestyles. White circles represent the node priors A-S as per Table 2.* represents nodes for which divergence dates are inferred. See also S1 Fig for posterior probability and terminal names.

We hypothesize that the switch in dinosaur diet to incorporate more nutritious and less fibrous angiosperm foliage provided a palatable dung source that ultimately created a new niche for diversification. Given the well-accepted mass extinction of non-avian dinosaurs at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, we examine a potential co-extinction of dung beetles due to the loss of an important evolutionary resource, i.e., dinosaur dung. The biogeography of dung beetles is also examined to explore the previously proposed “out of Africa” hypothesis. Given the inferred age of Scarabaeinae as originating in the Lower Cretaceous, the major radiation of dung feeders prior to the Cenomanian, and the early divergence of both African and Gondwanan lineages, we hypothesise that that faunal exchange between Africa and Gondwanaland occurred during the earliest evolution of the Scarabaeinae. Therefore we propose that both Gondwanan vicariance and dispersal of African lineages is responsible for present day distribution of scarabaeine dung beetles and provide examples.

Citation: Gunter NL, Weir TA, Slipinksi A, Bocak L, Cameron SL (2016) If Dung Beetles (Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) Arose in Association with Dinosaurs, Did They Also Suffer a Mass Co-Extinction at the K-Pg Boundary? PLoS ONE 11(5): e0153570. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153570

Editor: Ben J. Mans, Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, SOUTH AFRICA

WFS NEWS: Martharaptor greenriverensis, a New Theropod Dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Utah

June 10th, 2016

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Citation:Senter P, Kirkland JI, DeBlieux DD (2012) Martharaptor greenriverensis, a New Theropod Dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Utah. PLoS ONE 7(8): e43911. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0043911Editor: Peter Dodson, University of Pennsylvania, United States of America

Therizinosaurs are an unusual group of Therapod Dinosaurs known from the Cretaceous of Asia and North America (with one dubious fossil from the Early Jurassic of China), usually placed within the Maniraptors, which makes them closely related to the early Birds. Unlike most Therapods they had well developed forelimbs with a wide range of movement and strongly curved claws and dentition suited to a vegetarian diet.

martha raptor greenriverensis

In a paper published in the journal PLoS One on 29 August 2012, Phil Senter of the Department of Biological Sciences at Fayetteville State University and James Kirkland and Donald DeBlieux of the Utah Geological Survey describe a new species of Therizinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation of western Utah.

The new dinosaur is named Martharaptor greenriverensis, or Martha’s Raptor from Green River, in honour of Martha Hayden, who co-discovered the site that produced Martharaptor greenriverensis (now named the Hayden-Corbett Site) and has served as the assistant to three successive state paleontologists of Utah over a period of about 25 years (including the current office holder, James Kirkland).

The new dinosaur is described on the basis of three partial vertebrae, a radius and partial ulna (lower arm bones) a number of hand bones, the left scapula (shoulder blade), part of the ischium (part of the hip), a bone which might be part of the pubis (also part of the hip), several foot bones and a large amount of fragmentary bone material.

Manual bones of Martharaptor greenriverensis. (A)–Presumed metacarpal I. (B)–Presumed phalanx I-1. (C)– Penultimate phalanx. (D) Penultimate phalanx. (E)–Unidentified phalanx. (F)–Unidentified phalanx. (G)–Ungual of digit I. (H)–Ungual of digit I. (I)– Ungual of digit II. (J)–Ungual of digit II. (K)–Ungual of digit III. (L)–Ungual of digit III. Scale bar = 50 mm. Numbers on sub-figures refer to proximal (1), distal (2), dorsal (3), palmar (4), and side (5) views; for side views, whether the side is medial or lateral cannot be determined. Senter et al. (2012).

Vertebrae, scapula, forelimb bones, and pelvic bones of Martharaptor greenriverensis. (A)–Partial cervical neural arch, dorsal view. (B–E)–Cranial dorsal centrum in cranial (B), caudal (C), right lateral (D), and left lateral (E) views. (F–G)–Distal caudal centrum in lateral (F) and ventral (G) views. (H)–Possible ulna. (I)–Possible radius. (J–K)–Left scapula in lateral (J) and medial (K) views. (L)–Proximal end of ischium. (M)–Possible distal end of pubis Scale bar = 50 mm. acr = acromium process, ar = acetabular rim, gl = glenoid, hyp = hypapophysis, poz = postzygapophysis, pnp = pneumatopore, prz = prezygapophysis. Senter et al. (2012).