Posts Tagged ‘Athira’

WFS News: Long-Standing Question Answered – How Mass Extinction Paved the Way for Oysters and Clams

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev One of the biggest crises in Earth’s history, marked by a significant shift in shellfish, saw the widespread replacement of brachiopods, often referred to as ‘lamp shells’, with bivalve species such as oysters and clams. This happened as a result of the devastating end-Permian mass extinction, which effectively […]

WFS News: Large fossil spider found in Australia

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev A team of Australian scientists led by Australian Museum (AM) and University of New South Wales (UNSW) paleontologist Dr. Matthew McCurry have formally named and described a fossil spider, Megamonodontium mccluskyi, which is between 11–16 million years old. The findings on this new genus of spider […]

WFS News: The oldest three-dimensionally preserved vertebrate neurocranium.

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev A 455-million-year-old fossil fish provides a new perspective on how vertebrates evolved to protect their brains, a study has found. In a paper published in Nature today (Wednesday 20th September), researchers from the University of Birmingham, Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in Leiden, Netherlands; and the Natural History Museum have pieced […]

WFS News: Rhabdodontidae dinosaurs of Late Cretaceous Europe

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev A new study published in Fossil Record brings together intriguing details about the little-known Rhabdodontidae dinosaurs of Late Cretaceous Europe. These gregarious herbivores, characterized by robust builds and beaks specialized for tough vegetation, inhabited the European archipelago. Despite being widespread and abundant, they vanished in Western Europe due […]

WFS News: Sulfur minerals that make fossils are especially well-suited to radiography

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev New research reveals that sulfur minerals that make fossils in the Norwegian archipelago are especially well-suited to radiography. X-ray analysis has led to the categorization of a previously-unidentified marine reptile fossil discovered in Edgeøya, Svalbard. The research was recently published in the journal PLOS ONE.  The study, […]

WFS News: New insights into the sea spider fauna (Arthropoda, Pycnogonida) of La Voulte‐sur‐Rhône, France (Jurassic, Callovian)

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev An extremely rare collection of 160-million-year-old sea spider fossils from Southern France are closely related to living species, unlike older fossils of their kind. These fossils are very important to understand the evolution of sea spiders. They show that the diversity of sea spiders that still […]

WFS News:Burgessomedusa phasmiformis;Oldest known species of swimming jellyfish

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) announces the oldest swimming jellyfish in the fossil record with the newly named Burgessomedusa phasmiformis. These findings are announced in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Jellyfish belong to medusozoans, or animals producing medusae, and include today’s box jellies, hydroids, stalked jellyfish […]

WFS News: Newly discovered dinosaur, ‘Iani,’ was face of a changing planet

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev A newly discovered plant-eating dinosaur may have been a species’ “last gasp” during a period when Earth’s warming climate forced massive changes to global dinosaur populations. The specimen, named Iani smithi after Janus, the two-faced Roman god of change, was an early ornithopod, a group of […]

WFS News: Petrodactyle wellnhoferi gen. et sp. nov.: A new and large ctenochasmatid pterosaur from the Late Jurassic of Germany

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev A new 145-million-year-old pterosaur (extinct flying reptiles that lived alongside the dinosaurs) was named today by a team of British, American and German researchers. The animal was nicknamed ‘Elvis’ when the fossil was first unearthed in Bavaria, Germany because of the giant pompadour-like bony crest on […]

WFS News: “Achilles Neck” – Fossils Reveal Long-Necked Reptiles Were Decapitated by Predators

@WFS,World Fossil Society, Athira, Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev Fossil evidence reveals that the long necks of the ancient marine reptiles, Tanystropheus, made them vulnerable to predators. The study found bite marks on the necks of the fossils, providing the first direct proof of this long-suspected evolutionary disadvantage despite their survival success over a span […]