Posts Tagged ‘world fossil society’

WFS News: Sustained high rates of morphological evolution during the rise of tetrapods

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev One of the biggest questions in evolution is when and how major groups of animals first evolved. The rise of tetrapods (all limbed vertebrates) from their fish relatives marks one of the most important evolutionary events in the history of life. This “fish-to-tetrapod” transition took place somewhere between […]

WFS News: Phiomicetus anubis, A 4-Legged Whale With A Raptor-Like Eating Style

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev A semiaquatic whale that lived 43 million years ago was so fearsome, paleontologists have named it after Anubis, the ancient Egyptian god of death. The newly discovered 10-foot-long (3 meters) species, dubbed Phiomicetus anubis, was a beast; When it was alive more than 43 million years ago, it both walked on […]

WFS News: Carbon concentration increases with depth of melting in Earth’s upper mantle

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev Carbon concentration increases with depth of melting in Earth’s upper mantle Aiuppa, A., Casetta, F., Coltorti, M. et al.  Nat. Geosci. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00797-y Carbon in the upper mantle controls incipient melting of carbonated peridotite and so acts as a critical driver of plate tectonics. The carbon-rich melts that form control […]

WFS News: A billion years missing from geologic record: Where it may have gone.

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev The geologic record is exactly that: a record. The strata of rock tell scientists about past environments, much like pages in an encyclopedia. Except this reference book has more pages missing than it has remaining. So geologists are tasked not only with understanding what is there, but also […]

WFS News: Prehistoric Bat Fossil Discovered

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev A new paper appearing in Biology Letters describes the oldest-known fragmentary bat fossils from Asia, pushing back the evolutionary record for bats on that continent to the dawn of the Eocene and boosting the possibility that the bat family’s “mysterious” origins someday might be traced to Asia. A team based […]

WFS News: Evidence of preserved collagen in an Early Jurassic sauropodomorph dinosaur revealed by synchrotron FTIR microspectroscopy

WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev,Evidence of preserved collagen , Early Jurassic ,,sauropodomorph, dinosaur , synchrotron FTIR microspectroscopy

WFS News: Molecular and Paleontological Evidence for a Post-Cretaceous Origin of Rodents

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev Molecular and Paleontological Evidence for a Post-Cretaceous Origin of Rodents Citation: Wu S, Wu W, Zhang F, Ye J, Ni X, Sun J, et al. (2012) Molecular and Paleontological Evidence for a Post-Cretaceous Origin of Rodents. PLoS ONE 7(10): e46445. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0046445 Editor: Alistair Robert Evans, Monash University, Australia The timing […]

WFS News: Evidence of a belemnite’s “killer”

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T sajeev During the early Jurassic period, a squid-like creature was in the midst of devouring a crustacean, when it was interrupted by another marine beast, possibly a shark, that chomped into its squishy side and killed it, a new study finds. The shark swam away, but the crustacean and the […]

WFS News: Shingopana, New species of gigantic, long necked dinosaur

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev Scientists have discovered a new species of long-necked titanosaurian dinosaur in Tanzania that lived about 70 to 100 million years ago. The new species named Shingopana songwensis is a member of the gigantic, long-necked sauropods. Its fossil was discovered in the Songwe region of the Great Rift Valley […]

WFS News: Evidence of ancient protein?

@WFS,World Fossil Society,Riffin T Sajeev,Russel T Sajeev Dinosaurs roamed the Earth more than 65 million years ago, and paleontologists and amateur fossil hunters are still unearthing traces of them today. The minerals in fossilized eggs and shell fragments provide snapshots into these creatures’ early lives, as well as their fossilization processes. Now, researchers reporting in ACS […]