Palaeontology yays

[comrade_general]

Ha didn't notice that until now.

[Jubal]

A new yay spotted on the Beeb website recently: ankylosaurs were apparently probably camouflaged, which is super interesting as you wouldn't have thought they'd need it...

A new species of mega-herbivore dinosaur discovered in Alberta, Canada, preserves incredible details of its skin, scales and spines.

The exquisite specimen is a type of amour-plated nodosaurid ankylosaur.

It was camouflaged which suggests that, despite its tank-like appearance, it hid to avoid predation.

That such a large creature needed camouflage indicates the presence of even larger, keen-eyed meat-eating theropod dinosaurs.

Link:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40815935

[Clockwork]

Nice

[Jubal]

I guess one of the things that interests me from this is wondering what actually drives people's ideas of what these dinos etc should look like - it's interesting to find out what the real colour schemes were, but it'd also be really interesting to work out what makes people assume or project different colour ideas in the absence of other evidence. Do we assume that things were less colourful/patterned than makes sense on a simplest-answer basis, or do we accurately project across from real-world animals in similar niches, or neither?

[Clockwork]

That's a good point, possibly a bit of both?

[Jubal]

Yeah... I'm sure one could do quite an interesting study on it. But I'd probably want an art historian, a psychologist, a palaeontologist, and like a hundred grand in funding minimum none of which I have to hand :/

[Jubal]

More on dinosaur colour markings, from the BBC recently:

A dinosaur from China sported a "bandit mask" pattern in the feathers on its face, scientists have said.

Researchers came to their conclusion after studying three well-preserved fossil specimens of the extinct creature, called Sinosauropteryx. They were able to discern the dinosaur's colour patterns, showing that it had a banded tail and "counter-shading" - where animals are dark on top and lighter on their underside. The bandit mask pattern is seen in numerous animals today, from mammals - such as raccoons and badgers - to birds, such as the nuthatch.

"This is the first time it's been seen in a dinosaur and, to my knowledge, any extinct animal that shows colour bands," co-author Fiann Smithwick, from Bristol University, told BBC News.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41763478

[Jubal]

Super giant ancient turtle yays

Car-sized turtle fossils unearthed



Fossils of a turtle the size of a car have been unearthed in what is now northern South America.

The turtle - Stupendemys geographicus - is believed to have roamed the region between 13 and 7 million years ago.

The fossils were found in Colombia's Tatacoa Desert and Venezuela's Urumaco region.

The first Stupendemys fossils were discovered in the 1970s but many mysteries have remained about the 4-metre long animal.

It was about the size and weight of a saloon car and inhabited a huge wetland across northern South America before the Amazon and Orinoco rivers were formed.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51485011

[Jubal]

A couple of new yays to report here. Firstly this rather cute burrowing mammal from the late Mesozoic Era:

'Crazy beast' lived among last of dinosaurs



A cat-sized mammal dubbed "crazy beast" lived on Madagascar among some of the last dinosaurs to walk the Earth, scientists have revealed.

The 66-million-year-old fossil is described in the journal Nature. Its discovery challenges previous assumptions that mammals were generally very small - the size of mice - at this point in their evolutionary history. Researchers say this individual animal weighed 3kg (6.6lbs) and had not reached its full adult size.

Scientists think that the badger-like creature, known as Adalatherium hui, would have burrowed. It had a large collection of nerves in the snout, making this area extremely sensitive - a feature frequently seen in burrowing animals.

Rest of article: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52465584

And also, something I missed from mid-March (almost as if I had other things on my mind) the discovery of an important new early bird fossil, dubbed "Wonderchicken":

Fossil 'wonderchicken' could be earliest known fowl

A newly discovered fossil bird could be the earliest known ancestor of every chicken on the planet. Living just before the asteroid strike that wiped out giant dinosaurs, the unique fossil, from about 67 million years ago, gives a glimpse into the dawn of modern birds.

Birds are descended from dinosaurs, but precisely when they evolved into birds like the ones alive today has been difficult to answer. This is due to a lack of fossil data. The newly discovered - and well-preserved - fossil skull should help fill in some of the gaps.

"This is a unique specimen: we've been calling it the 'wonderchicken'," said Dr Daniel Field of the University of Cambridge.

Rest of article: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51925335

[Pentagathus]

Paleontologists seem to have a lot of fun when they're naming things

[Jubal]

ECHIDNAPUS

I am getting an unreasonable amount of enjoyment from the news that someone has discovered the echidnapus, a new prehistoric species of monotreme, among finds which are significantly expanding the range of monotremes we know about. Also the reconstructions look adorable and I'm a bit sad they're long extinct.

[Glaurung]

I'm guessing from the name that this is thought to be a common ancestor of the echidna and the platypus - is that right?

[Jubal]

I'm guessing from the name that this is thought to be a common ancestor of the echidna and the platypus - is that right?

My impression is that it's more that it shares typical features of both, rather than definitely being an ancestor of both, but I've not dug out the actual papers to check