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

Dinosaur fossil resembling the ‘loch ness myth’ found in Alaska

August 8th, 2015

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Researchers in Alaska have uncovered the bones of a prehistoric marine reptile dating back 70 million years.

Elasmosaurs had extremely long necks, small heads and paddle-shaped limbs for swimming Photo: Nobu Tamura

This is the first time an elasmosaur has ever been unearthed in this state. Its vertebrae were discovered embedded in an eroding cliff.

Elasmosaurs had extremely long necks, small heads and paddle-shaped limbs for swimming.

Curvin Metzler (left) and Dr Patrick Druckenmiller on the cliff face where the elasmosaur was discovered Photo: University of Alaska Museum of the North

There are many theories to explain the length of its neck, but most believe it was to help with feeding.

Researchers are hopeful the find will provide new information.

A neck vertebra exposed in the cliff face (upper right) Photo: University of Alaska Museum of the North

Patrick Druckenmiller, Associate Professor at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, said: “If you think of the Loch Ness Monster, that mythical creature’s body was based on the elasmosaur.”

Source : telegraph.co.uk

fastest mammal evolution in Jurassic period

August 4th, 2015

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Mammals were evolving up to ten times faster in the middle of the Jurassic than they were at the end of the period, coinciding with an explosion of new adaptations, new research shows.

Early mammals lived alongside the dinosaurs during the Mesozoic era (252-66 million years ago). They were once thought to be exclusively small nocturnal insect-eaters, but fossil discoveries of the past decade — particularly from China and South America — have shown that they developed diverse adaptations for feeding and locomotion, including gliding, digging, and swimming.

To find out when and how rapidly these new body shapes emerged a team led by Oxford University researchers did the first large-scale analysis of skeletal and dental changes in Mesozoic mammals. By calculating evolutionary rates across the entire Mesozoic, they show that mammals underwent a rapid ‘burst’ of evolutionary change that reached its peak around the middle of the Jurassic (200-145 million years ago).

Research led by Oxford University scientists shows that mammals were evolving up to ten times faster in the middle of the Jurassic than they were at the end of the period. An illustration showing docodonts, now extinct mammals that saw an explosion of skeletal and dental changes (including the special molar teeth that give them their name), in the Middle Jurassic.
Credit: April Neander

The team comprised researchers from Oxford University in the UK and Macquarie University in Australia. A report of the research is published in Current Biology.

‘What our study suggests is that mammal ‘experimentation’ with different body-plans and tooth types peaked in the mid-Jurassic,’ said Dr Roger Close of Oxford University’s Department of Earth Sciences, lead author of the report. ‘This period of radical change produced characteristic body shapes that remained recognisable for tens of millions of years.’

The team recorded the number of significant changes to body plans or teeth that occurred in mammal lineages every million years. During the mid-Jurassic the frequency of such changes increased to up to 8 changes per million years per lineage, almost ten times that seen at the end of the period. This is exemplified by therian mammals, the lineage leading to placental mammals and marsupials, which were evolving 13 times faster than average in the mid-Jurassic, but which had slowed to a rate much lower than average by the later Jurassic. This ‘slow-down’ occurred despite the increase in the number of mammal species seen in this later period.

‘We don’t know what instigated this evolutionary burst. It could be due to environmental change, or perhaps mammals had acquired a ‘critical mass’ of ‘key innovations’ — such as live birth, hot bloodedness, and fur — that enabled them to thrive in different habitats and diversify ecologically,’ said Dr Close. ‘Once high ecological diversity had evolved, the pace of innovation slowed.’

Multituberculates, for instance, saw radical changes to their skeletons and teeth during the mid-Jurassic. However, by the end of the period they had evolved their rodent-like body shape and distinctive teeth, a form that, despite diversifying into hundreds of different species, they would generally retain until they went extinct around 130 million years later.

‘This is characteristic of other ‘adaptive radiation’ events of this kind, such as the famous ‘Cambrian explosion’,’ said Dr Close. ‘In the Jurassic we see a profusion of weird and wonderful bodies suddenly appear and these are then ‘winnowed down’ so that only the most successful survive. What we may have identified in this study is mammals’ own ‘Cambrian explosion’ moment, when evolutionary experimentation ran wild and the future shape of mammals was up for grabs.’

Trajectory of Nepal earthquake

August 2nd, 2015

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Researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have accurately mapped out the movement of the devastating 7.8-magnitude Nepal earthquake that killed over 9,000 and injured over 23,000 people. Scientists have determined that the earthquake was a rupture consisting of three different stages. The study could help a rapidly growing region understand its future seismic risks.

The Himalayan region is particularly prone to earthquakes and this study will serve as an important benchmark for understanding where future earthquakes may occur, especially since the area has experienced high population growth over the past few decades.

The study assessed the presence of low frequency and high frequency waves over the three stages of the earthquake. High frequency waves cause more shaking, thereby posing the greatest risks for structural damages. Low frequency waves are less violent and less damaging to buildings and infrastructure.

“The Nepal earthquake is a warning sign that the region is of high seismic risk, and each earthquake behaves differently. Some earthquakes jump from one fault line to another, whereas the Nepal quake apparently occurred on the same fault line in three different stages, moving eastward,” said Scripps geophysicist Peter Shearer, “Using this research, we can better understand and identify areas of high seismic hazard in the region.”

This first peer-reviewed study on the April 2015 earthquake in Nepal, “Detailed rupture imaging of the 25 April 2015 Nepal earthquake using teleseismic P waves” was published online July 16 in the American Geophysical Union (AGU) journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Images showing the back-projected power and path of the Nepal earthquake.
Credit: Wenyuan Fan and Peter Shearer

Using the Global Seismic Network (GSN), Shearer and Scripps graduate student Wenyuan Fan were able to unravel the complex evolution of fault slips during this earthquake. The study concludes that the rupture traveled mostly eastward and occurred in three distinct stages; Stage 1 was weak and slow; Stage 2 was near Kathmandu and had the greatest slip but was relatively deficient in high-frequency radiation; and Stage 3 was relatively slow as well. Overall, this earthquake was more complicated, with multi-stage movements on multiple faults, than smooth models of continuous rupture on a single fault plane.

“Using the GSN instead of regional array data really enhanced the spatial resolution of the back-projection images and helped us see that frequency-dependent rupture was one of the main features of this earthquake,” said Fan. “Stage 2 was high-frequency-deficient and occurred closest to Kathmandu, which was probably why ground shaking was less severer than expected for such a high-magnitude earthquake.”

The Global Seismic Network provides high-quality broadband digital seismic data for monitoring earthquakes and learning about Earth structure. A precursor to this network was initiated by Scripps researchers in the 1960s and is still in use today. Scripps currently operates one-third of the 153 global seismometers of the GSN. Fan and Shearer used the GSN data because they are open-source (available to anyone), have good coverage of the Nepal region, and have a long history of reliable recordings.

“In general, understanding large earthquakes will inform our ability to forecast the nature of future earthquakes,” said Shearer.

Shearer and Fan hope to use the same methodology to study other large, global earthquakes from the past decade to provide a broader picture of earthquake behavior and help in predicting ground shaking for future events.

Most ancient pinworm yet found ?

July 30th, 2015

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An egg much smaller than a common grain of sand and found in a tiny piece of fossilized dung has helped scientists identify a pinworm that lived 240 million years ago.It is believed to be the most ancient pinworm yet found in the fossil record.

The discovery confirms that herbivorous cynodonts — the ancestors of mammals — were infected with the parasitic nematodes. It also makes it even more likely that herbivorous dinosaurs carried pinworms.

Scott Gardner, a parasitologist and director of the Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, was among an international group of scientists who published the study in the journal Parasites & Vectors.

Scott Gardner examines parasite samples in the Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln – Craig Chandler/University Communications/University of Nebraska-Lincoln

“This discovery represents a first for our team and I think it opens the door to finding additional parasites in other species of fossil organisms,” he said.The team found the pinworm egg in a coprolite — fossilized feces — collected in 2007 at an excavation site in Rio Grande do Sul state in southern Brazil.The coprolite was collected at a site with abundant fossilized remains of cynodonts. Previously, an Ascarid-like egg — resembling a species of nematode commonly found in modern-day mammals — was found in the coprolite.

The pinworm egg, representing an undescribed or “new species,” was named Paleoxyuris cockburni, in honor of Aidan Cockburn, founder of the Paleopathology Association.

The structure of the pinworm egg placed it in a biological group of parasites that occur in animals that ingest large amounts of plant material. Its presence helped scientists deduce which cynodont species, of several found at the collection site, most likely deposited the coprolite.

Since the field of paleoparasitology, or the study of ancient parasites, emerged in the early 20th century, scientists have identified parasites of both plants and animals that date back as far as 500 million years ago.The study of parasites in ancient animals can help determine the age of fossilized organisms and help establish dates of origin and diversification for association between host species and parasites. Coprolites are a key part of the study, enabling a better understanding of the ecological relationships between hosts and parasites.

Other members of the team were Jean-Pierre Hugot of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris; Victor Borba, Juliana Dutra, Luiz Fernando Ferreira and Adauto Araujo of Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro; Prisiclla Araujo and Daniela Leles of Fluminense Federal University in Rio de Janeiro; and Atila August Stock Da-Rosa of the Federal University of Santa Maria in Rio Grande do Sul.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Ancient marine ecosystem uncovered

July 29th, 2015

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Hidden secrets about life in Somerset 190 million years ago have been revealed by researchers at the University of Bristol and the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (BRLSI) in a new study of some remarkable fossils. Thanks to exceptional conditions of preservation, a whole marine ecosystem has been uncovered — and yet it was already known 150 years ago.

The fossils come from Strawberry Bank in Ilminster, Somerset, but the site has now been lost, having been built over. They were discovered by noted Bath-based geologist Charles Moore (1815-1881), who first spotted them when he saw some school boys kicking a rounded boulder about. He cracked it open, and to his amazement, a perfect three-dimensionally preserved fish lay inside. After this first find, Moore collected hundreds more nodules, and the entire collection has lain, almost forgotten, in the museum of the BRLSI in Queen’s Square, Bath ever since.

An infant marine crocodile, Pelagosaurus typus, (BRLSI.M1418), just 23 cm long. Many of the marine reptiles from Strawberry Bank are juveniles.
Credit: © Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution

Matt Williams, curator of the collection, said: “It was obvious that these fossils where very special from the first time I saw them on joining the BRLSI. Our stores are full of treasures, but these specimens are truly unique. We secured some funding to clean up the specimens, and curate them, and we even uncovered some unexpected treasures.”

Collaborator Professor Michael Benton from Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, said: “When Matt first showed me the fossils I couldn’t believe it. There are 100 nodules containing a large fish called Pachycormus, five or six tiny marine crocodiles, and two species of ichthyosaurs. There are also early squid with their ink sacs and other soft tissues preserved, and hundreds of insects that had flown out over the shallow, warm seas of the day.”

Work will now begin in earnest on the fossils, thanks to a £250,000 grant from the Leverhulme Trust which will allow for three-dimensional scanning to be carried out and also fund young researchers to work in Bristol and Oxford with fossil fish expert, Dr Matt Friedman.

A review of the fossils is published today in the premier British geological journal, Journal of the Geological Society.

Citation: University of Bristol. “Ancient life in three dimensions: Exceptionally well preserved whole marine ecosystem uncovered.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 19 July 2015. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150719124838.htm>.

Tetrapodophis :Four-legged snake fossil ?

July 24th, 2015

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Scientists have described what they say is the first known fossil of a four-legged snake. The limbs of the 120-or-so-million-year-old, 20-centimeter-long creature are remarkably well preserved and end with five slender digits that appear to have been functional. Thought to have come from Brazil, the fossil would be one of the earliest snakes found, suggesting that the group evolved from terrestrial precursors in Gondwana, the southern remnant of the supercontinent Pangaea. But although the creature’s overall body plan—and indeed, many of its individual anatomical features—is snakelike, some researchers aren’t so sure that it is a part of the snake family tree.

The team’s scientific interpretation may be the least controversial aspect of the discovery, which they report online today in Science. The specimen’s provenance seems to be murkier than the silty waters that once buried its carcass. Whereas the team’s analyses strongly suggest the fossil came from northeastern Brazil, details of when it was unearthed and how it eventually ended up in the German museum where it now resides remain a mystery. Those details matter to many researchers and especially to some from Brazil, because it’s been illegal to export fossils from that nation since 1942.

Aptly, the new species has been dubbed Tetrapodophis amplectus. The genus name, in Greek, means “four-footed serpent.” (Previously, fossils of creatures considered to be protosnakes have only sported one set of limbs, usually hindlimbs.) The species name amplectus, which comes from Latin, means “embracing” and refers to the creature’s flexibility and presumed ability to wrap tightly around its prey. The front part of the fossil—which appears to be complete and has all bones in their original, lifelike arrangement—lies in a tight coil, a demonstration of the animal’s extreme limberness, says Nicholas Longrich, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and co-author of the new study. Besides the tiny limbs, the specimen sports a skull the size of a human fingernail, 160 spinal vertebrae, and 112 vertebrae in the tail.

Dave Martill/University of Portsmouth
Tetrapodophis (rear limbs shown), had delicate but functional limbs that may have been used for grasping prey or used during mating.

The fossil had resided in a private collection for several decades before it gained the attention of team member David Martill of the University of Portsmouth. He stumbled across the specimen during a field trip with students to Museum Solnhofen in Germany. No notes about when or where it was collected are available, the researchers say. But certain characteristics of the limestone that entombed the fossil, as well as the distinct orange-brown color of the bones themselves, strongly suggest it came from a particular area of northeastern Brazil, Longrich says. The sediment that became those rocks accumulated in calm waters on the floor of a lake or a lagoon sometime between 113 million and 126 million years ago, he notes.

Regarding the legality of the fossil’s collection or export from its presumed home country, Martill says “Who knows how the fossil came from Brazil”? Furthermore, he notes, to assert that the fossil was collected illegally a person would need to ascertain when it was unearthed. But such questions are irrelevant to the fossil’s scientific significance, Martill maintains. “Personally I don’t care a damn how the fossil came from Brazil or when,” he says.

Many features of Tetrapodophis point to its snakiness. Among squamates, the group of reptiles that also includes lizards, only snakes have more than 150 spinal vertebrae, the researchers note. The creature’s teeth are pointy and slightly curved. Also, the fossil includes some scales that stretch across the full width of the belly, a trait known only in snakes. The dramatically reduced size of the creature’s limbs, as well as a cylindrical rather than a flattened tail, suggest that snakes evolved from terrestrial animals that burrowed, not from marine creatures as some researchers have proposed, Longrich says.

“This is the single most extraordinary fossil that I’ve ever seen,” says Bhart-Anjan Bhullar, a vertebrate paleontologist at Yale University who was not involved with the work. And Tetrapodophis is definitely a snake, he notes: “No other reptile has the combination of features that this creature has.”

Yet other scientists aren’t so sure. Michael Caldwell, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, in Canada, readily admits he has seen only the team’s images of the fossil, not the fossil itself. But some aspects of the creature’s spinal vertebrae don’t match that of other snakes and lizards, he notes. In particular, the front surfaces of the vertebrae of known snakes and lizards except geckoes are concave, and the rear surfaces are convex; that doesn’t appear to be the case in Tetrapodophis, he says.

Julius T. Cstonyi
Tetrapodophis (artist’s representation) is the first known snake known to have four limbs.

And whereas the vertebrae of all living and fossil reptiles include a small bone called an intercentrum, Tetrapodophis’ vertebrae don’t have them. In fact, Caldwell notes, its vertebrae resemble those seen among a large group of extinct amphibians that died out during mass extinctions about 251 million years ago, long before Tetrapodophis appeared on the scene. Rather than being a protosnake, Tetrapodophis might be a surviving remnant of that previously presumed lost group, he suggests. “I think this creature is far more exciting for what it might be than for what [the team] says it is.”

Tetrapodophis “has a really interesting mix of characters,” says Susan Evans, a paleobiologist at University College London. Although the creature’s teeth look snakelike, she admits, “I’m trying to carefully sit on the fence as to whether this is actually a snake.” A radical elongation of the body and reduction in size or loss of limbs has occurred many times in other groups of reptiles, she notes.

Another puzzle, she adds, are why the bones at the tips of the creature’s digits are so long. Longrich and his colleagues suggest the long-fingered feet are used for grasping prey or possibly used during mating. But Caldwell notes that such feet “are remarkably unusual unless you’re a tree-climber.”

Regardless of what Tetrapodophis turns out to be, says Caldwell, “I’m looking forward to seeing the specimen.” Now permanently on loan to the Museum Solnhofen, the fossil will be made available for further scientific analysis, Longrich and his colleagues confirm.

Courtesy: Article by By Sid Perkins & additional reporting by Herton Escobar , http://news.sciencemag.org

Radiocarbon Dating may Inaccurate Due To Fossil Fuel Emissions

July 22nd, 2015

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Fossil fuel emissions could soon start to cause headaches for archaeologists and paleontologists using radiocarbon dating to study artifacts. New research suggests the release of carbon-based gases into the atmosphere by vehicles and factories could alter radiocarbon measurements of ancient material.

Radiocarbon dating measures levels of carbon-14, a naturally radioactive form of the atom. This technique, first developed in the 1940’s, determines the age of any organic material by measuring ratios between carbon-14 and nonradioactive atoms of the element.

Researchers stated that at current rates of atmospheric carbon emissions, so much error will have been introduced into radiocarbon measurements that by the year 2050, an item 1,000 years old would be indistinguishable from a brand-new sample. Researchers could begin seeing this effect as early as the year 2020, the study determined.

Radio carbon dating process

Carbon-14 atoms within organic material decline over time, allowing investigators to measure the age of a given artifact. Ancient organic remains, such as oil and coal, are so old, they are nearly devoid of carbon-14. As carbon emissions from human-based activities continue, concentrations of carbon-14 will decrease, as the radioactive atoms are diluted from the pollution and the radiocarbon “age” of the atmosphere is artificially raised.

“If we did any current measurements on new products, they will end up having the same fraction of radiocarbon to total carbon as something that’s lost it over time due to decay. So if we just measure the fraction they’ll look like they have the same age for radiocarbon dating,” Heather Graven of Imperial College London, lead author of an article detailing the study, said.

This is not the first time in modern history in which human activities are altering levels of carbon-14 in relics. Carbon first began to dilute the marker material at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, researchers state. Concentrations climbed once again during the 1950s and ’60s as nuclear tests released the radioactive atoms into the environment. Today, concentrations of carbon-14 measure about the same as they did prior to the rise of industry.

Radiocarbon dating can not only measure the age of ashes from a fire, or a bone within a knife handle, but has even been used to detect art fraud. However, within just 35 years, Graven predicts a robe worn while an anonymous writer penned Beowulf would be indistinguishable in age from a T-shirt worn last weekend by a guy watching football.

“If we reduced fossil fuel emissions, it would be good news for radiocarbon dating,” Graven said.

Study of how fossil fuel emissions affect radiocarbon dating was profiled in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Velociraptor ancestor was ‘winged dragon’ ?

July 19th, 2015

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Scientists have discovered a winged dinosaur – an ancestor of the velociraptor – that they say was on the cusp of becoming a bird.The 6ft 6in (2m) creature was almost perfectly preserved in limestone, thanks to a volcanic eruption that had buried it in north-east China and the 125-million year-old fossil suggests many other dinosaurs, including velociraptors, would have looked like “big, fluffy killer birds”. But it is unlikely that it could fly.

An artist’s impression of Zhenyuanlong shows how strange this feathered beast may have looked

The dinosaur has been named Zhenyuanlong, meaning “Zhenyuan’s dragon” – in honour of the man who procured the fossil for the museum in Jinzhou, allowing it to be studied. The University of Edinburgh and the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences collaboration is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Lead researcher Dr Steve Brusatte said it was “the single most beautiful fossil I have had the privilege to work on”.

“It has short arms, and it is covered in feathers [with] proper wings with layers of quill-pen feathers,” he said.

“So even though this is a dinosaur, even though it is a close relative of velociraptor, it looks exactly like a turkey or a vulture.”

Zhenyuanlong is an ancestor of the infamous velociraptor

Dr John Nudds, a senior lecturer in palaeontology at the University of Manchester, told BBC News the find was part of an “increasingly complex picture” of emerging evidence “that certainly a lot of [dinosaurs] and possibly even all of them had feathers or at least downy hair”.

Dr Brusatte said: “It will blow some people’s minds to realise that those dinosaurs in the movies would have been even weirder, and I think even scarier – like big fluffy birds from hell.”

He said its large body made it unlikely Zhenyuanlong would have been able to fly.

“So maybe [wings] did not evolve for flight – perhaps they evolved as a display structure, or to protect eggs in the nest,” he said.

“Or maybe this animal was starting to move around in the trees and was able to glide.”

Dr Brusatte said: “China is the epicentre of palaeontology right now.

“There are [museum] storerooms full of new dinosaur fossils that have never been studied before.

He added: “This is the most exciting time maybe in the history of palaeontology.”

Courtesy: Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News

The complex feathers of the dinosaur’s wings are beautifully preserved

A vanished history of skeletonization in Cambrian comb jellies

July 12th, 2015

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Ctenophores are traditionally regarded as “lower” metazoans, sharing with cnidarians a diploblastic grade of organization. Unlike cnidarians, where skeletonization (biomineralization and sclerotization) evolved repeatedly among ecologically important taxa (for example, scleractinians and octocorals), living ctenophores are characteristically soft-bodied animals. We report six sclerotized and armored ctenophores from the early Cambrian period. They have diagnostic ctenophore features (for example, an octamerous symmetry, oral-aboral axis, aboral sense organ, and octaradially arranged ctene rows). Unlike most modern counterparts, however, they lack tentacles, have a sclerotized framework, and have eight pairs of ctene rows. They are resolved as a monophyletic group (Scleroctenophora new class) within the ctenophores. This clade reveals a cryptic history and sheds new light on the early evolution of this basal animal phylum. Skeletonization also occurs in some other Cambrian animal groups whose extant members are exclusively soft-bodied, suggesting the ecological importance of skeletonization in the Cambrian explosion.

Science Advances 10 Jul 2015:Vol. 1, no. 6, e1500092,DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1500092

Gemmactena actinala gen. et sp. nov. (A) Holotype (ELEL-SJ100756A) showing radiating flap-like structures outlined by spokes, comb rows, and oral lappets. Apical organ not preserved. (B) Close-up of small focus area in (A) showing fine striae on spoke surface. (C) Close-up of large focus area in (A) showing remains of comb rows, as well as upper and lower spokes that frame a flap. (D) Paratype (ELEL-SJ081292A). (E) Close-up of focus area in (D) showing rigidity of a spoke with a medial groove (internal view). (F) Close-up of aboral region in (D) showing an ellipsoidal statolith preserved as dark remains surrounded by apical plates. (G) Counterpart of (F) showing complete apical plates detached from each other; remains of organic carbon are partially preserved as a dark band on the statolith. (H) Paratype (ELEL-SJ081366A) showing pointed dome-like apical organ walled by rigid plates (each with a medial groove continuous with a spoke). (I) Aborally compacted specimen ELEL-SJ120375A showing an apical organ and partially dislocated upper spokes (arrows). The apex of the apical organ was truncated and retained in counterpart during splitting. (J) Close-up of focus area in (I) showing distal end of upper spoke, with the kink marked by arrow. (K) Close-up of apical organ in (I); dark, equally spaced bands (arrowheads) radiating from the base of apical organ may represent remains of underlying meridional canals. (L) Close-up of apical organ showing considerable positive relief, presumably due to its rigidity imparted by apical plates (numbered). ao, apical organ; cr, comb row; fp, flap-like structure; ls, lower spoke; ol, oral lappet; os, oral skirt; pl, apical plate; sl, statolith; us, upper spoke. Scale bars, 5 mm (A, D, H, and I); 2 mm (C, F, and G); 1 mm (B, E, and J to L).

Wendiceratops: Horned Dinosaur Evolutionary Tale

July 9th, 2015

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Paleontologists say a dinosaur from 79 million years ago, known as Wendiceratops pinhornensis, could help them hook into the mysteries of how horned dinosaurs evolved.

The species’ somewhat whimsical name is inspired by the place where its fossilized bones were found (the Pinhorn Provincial Grazing Reserve in Alberta) and the person who found them (Canadian fossil hunter Wendy Sloboda) in 2010. But the lessons learned from the more than 200 bones recovered from the site are anything but whimsical.

The picture that emerges is of a 1-ton, 20-foot-long (6-meter-long) dinosaur that had a pair of horns sticking up from its brow, plus another horn on the nose. It also had a weird frill with hornlets that curled forward on themselves like hooks — which is apt for a dinosaur whose name evokes J.M. Barrie’s classic tale of Wendy, Peter Pan and Captain Hook.

Skeletal reconstruction of Wendiceratops pinhornensis gen. et sp. nov.
Elements represented in the material collected from the bonebed are indicated in blue.

That combination of characteristics hasn’t been seen in other species of that time and place — and it hints at a surprising level of diversity among horned dinosaurs, said Michael Ryan, a paleontologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

The variations in skull ornamentation suggest that the way horned dinosaurs used their heads played a big role in how they evolved. “That’s where all the evolution is happening in these animals,” Ryan said.

Life reconstruction of Wendiceratops pinhornensis gen. et sp. nov.
Illustration by Danielle Dufault.

Ryan and David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum lay out the implications in a paper published Wednesday by the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

They say Wendiceratops appears to have been one of the first dinosaurs in its evolutionary line to have a prominent nasal horn. That suggests that such horns arose separately for two different branches of the dinosaur evolutionary tree — for the branch that includes Wendiceratops, and for the branch that includes the best-known horned dinosaur, Triceratops.

What’s more, Wendiceratops’ hooklike hornlets are similar to the frill ornaments seen in Sinoceratops, a Chinese horned dinosaur that lived about 72 million years ago. That suggests that Wendiceratops’ descendants may have migrated back from the Americas to Asia, Ryan said.

He said the different twists in the skulls of horned dinosaurs probably had to do with sexual signaling and head-butting competitions between the males of the species — analogous to what Bighorn sheep do today.

Whatever the reason, horned dinosaurs appear to have evolved more quickly than the norm for the Cretaceous Period. Ryan said vertebrate species usually arose, had their day and went extinct over a span of 2 million to 4 million years. “We’re finding that these horned dinosaurs replaced each other every half-million years,” he said.

There could be a lesson in that for modern times. Ryan noted that the era when Wendiceratops lived was marked by environmental change in North America, including warmer temperatures and the rise of the Western Interior Seaway.

“Maybe the rapid evolution we’re looking at is related to climate change,” Ryan said.

Ref: Evans DC, Ryan MJ (2015) Cranial Anatomy of Wendiceratops pinhornensis gen. et sp. nov., a Centrosaurine Ceratopsid (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Oldman Formation (Campanian), Alberta, Canada, and the Evolution of Ceratopsid Nasal Ornamentation. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0130007. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0130007

Editor: Peter Dodson, University of Pennsylvania, UNITED STATES