Life Through Geologic Time

I'm just a Paleobiology major trying to share the beauty of the past, praise silt, and all of its wonders yet to be uncovered.

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Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor

 

Living Fossils - Red Panda Red pandas are small arboreal mammals of the genus Ailurus, and are the only extant species (Ailurus fulgens) in said genus. The red panda is slightly larger than a domestic cat, looks a bit like a red raccoon, and waddles because it’s front legs are shorter than the back legs. It feeds mostly on bamboo, but is omnivorous, eating birds, eggs, insects, and small mammals. It is mainly nocturnal, and, much like tumblr users, leads a very sedentary lifestyle in the day. It used to be classified with raccoons, and then bears, but is now seperated into it’s own family, Ailuridae.  Photo from the Wikimedia Commons, for more information visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ailurus_fulgens_RoterPanda_LesserPanda.jpg

Living Fossils - Red Panda

Red pandas are small arboreal mammals of the genus Ailurus, and are the only extant species (Ailurus fulgens) in said genus. The red panda is slightly larger than a domestic cat, looks a bit like a red raccoon, and waddles because it’s front legs are shorter than the back legs. It feeds mostly on bamboo, but is omnivorous, eating birds, eggs, insects, and small mammals. It is mainly nocturnal, and, much like tumblr users, leads a very sedentary lifestyle in the day. It used to be classified with raccoons, and then bears, but is now seperated into it’s own family, Ailuridae. 

Photo from the Wikimedia Commons, for more information visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ailurus_fulgens_RoterPanda_LesserPanda.jpg

rhamphotheca: Transitional Whale Species Hunted at Sea, Gave Birth on Land by Brandon Keim Early whales hunted at sea but spent the rest of their time on land, suggest two newly-described fossil whales — one of them a pregnant female — believed to represent a transitional species between earth- and water-bound behemoths.  Dating from 47.5 million years ago, the whales had large teeth suited for consuming fish, and flipper-like limbs that could support their weight on land, albeit awkwardly. The fetal skeleton was positioned for head-first delivery, typically seen in land mammals. Modern whales give birth tail-first. “They clearly were tied to the shore,” said study co-author Philip Gingerich, a University of Michigan paleontologist, in a press release. “They were living at the land-sea interface and going back and forth.” Gingerich’s team dubbed the whales Maiacetus inuus. Maicetus means “mother whale,” and Inuus was a Roman fertility god… (read more: Wired Science) Citation: “New Protocetid Whale from the Middle Eocene of Pakistan: Birth on Land, Precocial Development, and Sexual Dimorphism.” By Philip D. Gingerich, Munir ul-Haq, Wighart von Koenigswald, William J. Sanders, B. Holly Smith and Iyad S. Zalmout. Public Library of Science ONE, Vol. 4 No. 2, Feb. 3, 2009. Image: Maternal M. inuus skeleton, with fetal whale in blue / PLoS ONE

rhamphotheca:

Transitional Whale Species Hunted at Sea, Gave Birth on Land

by Brandon Keim

Early whales hunted at sea but spent the rest of their time on land, suggest two newly-described fossil whales — one of them a pregnant female — believed to represent a transitional species between earth- and water-bound behemoths. 

Dating from 47.5 million years ago, the whales had large teeth suited for consuming fish, and flipper-like limbs that could support their weight on land, albeit awkwardly. The fetal skeleton was positioned for head-first delivery, typically seen in land mammals. Modern whales give birth tail-first.

“They clearly were tied to the shore,” said study co-author Philip Gingerich, a University of Michigan paleontologist, in a press release. “They were living at the land-sea interface and going back and forth.” Gingerich’s team dubbed the whales Maiacetus inuus. Maicetus means “mother whale,” and Inuus was a Roman fertility god…

(read more: Wired Science)

Citation: “New Protocetid Whale from the Middle Eocene of Pakistan: Birth on Land, Precocial Development, and Sexual Dimorphism.” By Philip D. Gingerich, Munir ul-Haq, Wighart von Koenigswald, William J. Sanders, B. Holly Smith and Iyad S. Zalmout. Public Library of Science ONE, Vol. 4 No. 2, Feb. 3, 2009.

Image: Maternal M. inuus skeleton, with fetal whale in blue / PLoS ONE

Othniel Charles Marsh was an American paleontologist who is responsible for the discovery of numerous ancient species, several “accidental” falsehoods, such as brontosaurus, which I refuse to capitalize as it is not real, yet, and the origin of birds. He was born into a “modest” family (which I shall take as meaning middle class,) and was able to afford higher education due to his awesome uncle, George Peabody, a wealthy businessman and philanthropist. O. C. Marsh went to Yale, studying anatomy, geology, and mineralogy after he graduated, while he traveled the world. He started the Bone Wars with Edward Drinker Cope, a former close friend, who he drove to being a rival by being mean spirited about a mix-up of a fossil that Cope put together. He started the Bone Wars in the 1870’s and it didn’t end until the 1890’s, that’s twenty years of quarreling over fossil finds, funding, and misnomers. He even destroyed fossils that he could not immediately recover so that other paleontologists couldn’t get their grubby little scientific hands on them. Marsh ended up with financial troubles near the end and had to forfeit almost his entire collection to the government, as the government funded most of his digs. He had something to do with the USGS, but I can’t seem to find it, sorry. Altogether, he was a horrible scientist, but he brought so much to the field of paleontology, that he is one of the greatest paleontologists of all time.

Othniel Charles Marsh was an American paleontologist who is responsible for the discovery of numerous ancient species, several “accidental” falsehoods, such as brontosaurus, which I refuse to capitalize as it is not real, yet, and the origin of birds. He was born into a “modest” family (which I shall take as meaning middle class,) and was able to afford higher education due to his awesome uncle, George Peabody, a wealthy businessman and philanthropist. O. C. Marsh went to Yale, studying anatomy, geology, and mineralogy after he graduated, while he traveled the world. He started the Bone Wars with Edward Drinker Cope, a former close friend, who he drove to being a rival by being mean spirited about a mix-up of a fossil that Cope put together. He started the Bone Wars in the 1870’s and it didn’t end until the 1890’s, that’s twenty years of quarreling over fossil finds, funding, and misnomers. He even destroyed fossils that he could not immediately recover so that other paleontologists couldn’t get their grubby little scientific hands on them. Marsh ended up with financial troubles near the end and had to forfeit almost his entire collection to the government, as the government funded most of his digs. He had something to do with the USGS, but I can’t seem to find it, sorry. Altogether, he was a horrible scientist, but he brought so much to the field of paleontology, that he is one of the greatest paleontologists of all time.

Dammit… I had it finished too… Third times the charm… T_T Basilosaurus, from the Greek basileus and sauros meaning king and lizard respectively, has a somewhat ironic name in that it is actually a mammal, more specifically an early whale. It lived in the late Eocene, 40 - 34 mya. A Sir Richard Owen wanted to rename it Zeuglodon (Yoked Tooth), but, because of the rules of taxonomy, it remained Basilosaurus, much like how Brontosaurus is actually Apatosaurus.  The average size of Basilosaurus was about 18 meters (60 feet) in length. It is believed to be the largest animal of its time. It’s vestigial hind limbs are of great interest to paleontologists and evolutionary biologists alike. They were basically useless, being only .6 meters (2 feet) in length. Analysis shows that they could only flap them between two positions. Basilosaurus had extremely long vertebrae and was the closest whales ever came to being snake-like (I shit you not, that is what Wikipedia says. It’s not a direct quote, mind you). It likely moved in an anguilliform (eel-like) fashion (mostly horizontal movement) and had a small fluke to assist with vertical movement. It is believed that it was incapable of terrestrial locomotion. It had a smaller head (you could not fit a melon in it like you could with modern toothed whales) and brain than modern toothed whales, and it is suspected that they did not have the social capabilities of modern whales. On a cultural note, it is the state fossil of both Mississippi and Alabama. Also, its fossils were so prevalent and large in Southern America, that its fossils were used as furniture, much like how Shonisaurus’s (an icthyosaur) vertebrae were used as plates by miners in the Shoshone Mountains when it was first discovered. Herman Melville mentions the discovery of Basilosaurus in chapters 104-105 in Moby-Dick.

Dammit… I had it finished too… Third times the charm… T_T

Basilosaurus, from the Greek basileus and sauros meaning king and lizard respectively, has a somewhat ironic name in that it is actually a mammal, more specifically an early whale. It lived in the late Eocene, 40 - 34 mya. A Sir Richard Owen wanted to rename it Zeuglodon (Yoked Tooth), but, because of the rules of taxonomy, it remained Basilosaurus, much like how Brontosaurus is actually Apatosaurus. 

The average size of Basilosaurus was about 18 meters (60 feet) in length. It is believed to be the largest animal of its time. It’s vestigial hind limbs are of great interest to paleontologists and evolutionary biologists alike. They were basically useless, being only .6 meters (2 feet) in length. Analysis shows that they could only flap them between two positions. Basilosaurus had extremely long vertebrae and was the closest whales ever came to being snake-like (I shit you not, that is what Wikipedia says. It’s not a direct quote, mind you). It likely moved in an anguilliform (eel-like) fashion (mostly horizontal movement) and had a small fluke to assist with vertical movement. It is believed that it was incapable of terrestrial locomotion. It had a smaller head (you could not fit a melon in it like you could with modern toothed whales) and brain than modern toothed whales, and it is suspected that they did not have the social capabilities of modern whales.

On a cultural note, it is the state fossil of both Mississippi and Alabama. Also, its fossils were so prevalent and large in Southern America, that its fossils were used as furniture, much like how Shonisaurus’s (an icthyosaur) vertebrae were used as plates by miners in the Shoshone Mountains when it was first discovered. Herman Melville mentions the discovery of Basilosaurus in chapters 104-105 in Moby-Dick.