68 posts · 23,460 views
Laelaps primarily deals with paleontology, ecology, natural history, and other zoological sciences.
Laelaps
68 posts
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- March 12, 2010
- 11:22 AM
- 41 views
Your Friday Dose of Weird: Two new Cambrian critters
When it comes to aliens, Hollywood really does not have much imagination. Most extraterrestrials that have appeared on the big screen look very much like us, or are at least some kind of four-to-six-limbed vertebrate, and this says more about out own vanity than anything else. It would be far more interesting, I think, to take the weird and wonderful organisms of the Cambrian as inspiration for alien life forms, and two new critters have just been added to the odd Cambrian menagerie. Read the ........ Read more »
Caron, J., Conway Morris, S., & Shu, D. (2010) Tentaculate Fossils from the Cambrian of Canada (British Columbia) and China (Yunnan) Interpreted as Primitive Deuterostomes. PLoS ONE, 5(3). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009586
STEIN, M. (2010) A new arthropod from the Early Cambrian of North Greenland, with a ‘great appendage’-like antennula. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 158(3), 477-500. DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2009.00562.x
- March 10, 2010
- 05:41 PM
- 40 views
Prehistoric DNA reveals the story of a Pleistocene survivor, the muskox
A muskox (Ovibos moschatus), photographed in Alaska. From Flickr user drurydrama.
Of all the mass extinctions that have occurred during earth's history, among the most hotly debated is the one which wiped out mammoths, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths, and the other peculiar members of the Pleistocene megafauna around 12,000 years ago. It was not the most severe mass extinction, not by a long shot, but unlike the end-Cretaceous catastrophe 65 million years ago there is no single "sm........ Read more »
Campos, P., Willerslev, E., Sher, A., Orlando, L., Axelsson, E., Tikhonov, A., Aaris-Sorensen, K., Greenwood, A., Kahlke, R., Kosintsev, P.... (2010) Ancient DNA analyses exclude humans as the driving force behind late Pleistocene musk ox (Ovibos moschatus) population dynamics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0907189107
- March 9, 2010
- 02:35 PM
- 65 views
Evolutionary history of early primates places human origins in context
A simplified evolutionary tree of primate relationships showing the placement of Darwinius in relationship to other groups. From Williams et al., 2010.
The study of human origins can be a paradoxical thing. We know that we evolved from ancestral apes (and, in fact, are just one peculiar kind of ape), yet we are obsessed with the features that distinguish us from our close relatives. The "big questions" in evolutionary anthropology, from why we stand upright to how our brains became so larg........ Read more »
Williams, B., Kay, R., & Kirk, E. (2010) New perspectives on anthropoid origins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0908320107
- March 5, 2010
- 10:37 AM
- 55 views
Finding a home for jaguars
A jaguar (Panthera onca). From Flickr user Prosper 973.
One year ago this week Macho B was euthanized. He had been captured in mid-February of 2009, the only known jaguar living inside the United States, but after he was caught and fitted with a radio collar his health quickly deteriorated. When he nearly stopped moving he was recaptured, taken to the Phoenix zoo, and put to sleep when it was discovered that he was suffering from irreparable kidney failure.
At first it seemed as if his ca........ Read more »
Rabinowitz, A., & Zeller, K. (2010) A range-wide model of landscape connectivity and conservation for the jaguar, Panthera onca. Biological Conservation. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2010.01.002
ROSAS-ROSAS, O., & VALDEZ, R. (2010) The Role of Landowners in Jaguar Conservation in Sonora, Mexico. Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01441.x
- March 3, 2010
- 08:16 AM
- 58 views
New Study Confirms That "Ida" is Not Our Great-Great-Great-Great-Etc. Grandmother
The exceptionally preserved skeleton of Darwinius, known popularly as "Ida." From PLoS One.
Almost ten months ago an international team of researchers introduced the world to an exquisitely-preserved primate from the 47 million year old oil shales of Messel, Germany. Dubbed Darwinius masillae, and nicknamed "Ida" and "The Link", the fossil was touted as one of our earliest primate ancestors in a massive media campaign worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster. Yet the trouble was that there was no........ Read more »
Williams, B., Kay, R., Christopher Kirk, E., & Ross, C. (2010) Darwinius masillae is a strepsirrhine—a reply to Franzen et al. (2009). Journal of Human Evolution. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.01.003
- March 1, 2010
- 11:42 AM
- 63 views
Uncovering the "Chimpanzee Stone Age"
An adult chimpanzee in Bossou, Guinea uses hammer and anvil stones to crack nuts as younger individuals look on. From Haslam et al., 2009.
Before 1859 the idea that humans lived alongside the mammoths, ground sloths, and saber-toothed cats of the not-too-distant past was almost heretical. Not only was there no irrefutable evidence that our species stretched so far back in time, but the very notion that we could have survived alongside such imposing Pleistocene mammals strained credulity. C........ Read more »
Mercader, J., Barton, H., Gillespie, J., Harris, J., Kuhn, S., Tyler, R., & Boesch, C. (2007) 4,300-Year-old chimpanzee sites and the origins of percussive stone technology. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(9), 3043-3048. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0607909104
- February 27, 2010
- 11:08 AM
- 61 views
"You just call out my name...": Friendships in Male and Female Baboons
Male (right) and female (left, with infant) friends in a population of Chacma baboons. (From Palombit, 2009).
Among other things, friends are people you count on to come to your aid when you need help. If you were at a bar and a stranger started acting aggressively towards you, for example, you would expect your friends to rush over to help you rather than just stand there, mojito in hand. Contrary to our feelings of human exceptionalism, however, ours is not the only species of primate to........ Read more »
Lemasson, A., Palombit, R., & Jubin, R. (2007) Friendships between males and lactating females in a free-ranging group of olive baboons (Papio hamadryas anubis): evidence from playback experiments. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 62(6), 1027-1035. DOI: 10.1007/s00265-007-0530-z
- February 24, 2010
- 06:16 PM
- 61 views
"Horned" crocodile may have preyed upon prehistoric humans
A Cuban crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer), photographed at the National Zoo.
No one knew what happened to William Olson. At about three in the afternoon on April 13, 1966 he had been swimming with his friends from the Peace Corps in the part of the Baro river that ran through Gambela, Ethiopia when he suddenly disappeared. The last person to remember seeing him was hunter Karl Luthy. One moment Olson was standing in the river, pressing his body against the current, and the next he was gone......... Read more »
Brochu, C., Njau, J., Blumenschine, R., & Densmore, L. (2010) A New Horned Crocodile from the Plio-Pleistocene Hominid Sites at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. PLoS ONE, 5(2). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009333
- February 22, 2010
- 07:49 AM
- 60 views
Ancient shark was a shell-crushing giant
An outline of the upper jaw of Ptychodus mortoni showing the position of the new fragment, and a comparison of the size of the shark next to an adult human. (From Shimada et al., 2010)
The study of prehistoric sharks is no easy task. Specialists in other branches of vertebrate paleontology at least have the reasonable hope of discovering complete skeletons of their subjects; except in instances of exceptional preservation the scientists who study sharks typically only have teeth and a few ........ Read more »
Shimada, K., Everhart, M., Decker, R., & Decker, P. (2010) A new skeletal remain of the durophagous shark, Ptychodus mortoni, from the Upper Cretaceous of North America: an indication of gigantic body size. Cretaceous Research, 31(2), 249-254. DOI: 10.1016/j.cretres.2009.11.005
- February 15, 2010
- 11:12 AM
- 67 views
Broken teeth tell of tough times for Smilodon
A reconstruction of Smilodon, photographed at the American Museum of Natural History.
When it comes to animals, encyclopedias often present us with generalized descriptions. Where a creature lives, what color it is, what it eats, and other tidbits of information are listed to distinguish one species from another, but what is lost is an appreciation of variation. Be they genetic, anatomical, or behavioral, variations are grist for natural selection's mill, and if you study any species in de........ Read more »
Wendy J. Binder; Blaire Van Valkenburgh. (2010) A comparison of tooth wear and breakage in Rancho La Brea Sabertooth Cats and dire wolves across time. Journal of Verterbrate Paleontology, 30(1), 255-161. info:/10.1080/02724630903413016
- February 3, 2010
- 11:13 AM
- 112 views
New study names a Titanoboa menu item
A restoration of Titanoboa (foreground) and Cerrejonisuchus improcerus (background, left) in their natural setting. (By Jason Bourque, image from Wikipedia.)
When I was growing up I used to spend hours poring over the Time/Life series of nature books in my little library, absolutely enthralled by images of strange creatures from all over the world, but one photograph was particularly arresting. A grainy black-and-white double-page spread showed an anaconda that had wrapped its crushing coi........ Read more »
Alexander K. Hastings; Jonathan I. Bloch; Edwin A. Cadena; Carlos A. Jaramillo. (2010) A new small short-snouted dyrosaurid (Crocodylomorpha, Mesoeucrocodylia) from the Paleocene of northeastern Colombia. Journal of Verterbrate Paleontology, 30(1), 139-162. info:/10.1080/02724630903409204
- February 2, 2010
- 11:03 AM
- 97 views
The Fearsome Short-Faced Bear Gets a Makeover
A grizzly bear (the black dot in the middle of the photo) walking near the treeline in Yellowstone's Hayden Valley.
The quiet of my evening wildlife watching was suddenly broken by a thick Boston accent. "Oh my gawd! Look! It's a grizz! That's the last animal I needed to see! It's a grizz!"
He was right. Lumbering across the valley was a big dark shape that could only be a bear. It was not very close, being little more than a dot moving along the distant treeline, but through the zoom len........ Read more »
Figueirido, Borja, Pérez-Claros, Juan A., Torregrosa, Vanessa, Martín-Serra, Alberto and Palmqvist,, & Paul. (2010) Demythologizing Arctodus simus, the 'Short-Faced' long-legged and predaceous bear that never was. Journal of Verterbrate Paleontology, 30(1), 262-275. info:/10.1080/02724630903416027
- January 28, 2010
- 04:18 PM
- 124 views
Evo. Anthro. Study Suggests You Might Be Running Wrong
"The Barefoot Professor", a behind-the-scenes look at the new Nature paper.
Humans that had to escape from saber-toothed cats, giant hyenas, and charging mammoths did not wear Nike or Adidas sneakers. They ran barefoot, but don't feel too bad that they did not have good running shoes to help them. As suggested by a team of researchers led by Daniel Lieberman in the latest issue of Nature, habitually shoeless runners have a unique step that may be better for our feet than even the most expe........ Read more »
Lieberman, D., Venkadesan, M., Werbel, W., Daoud, A., D’Andrea, S., Davis, I., Mang’Eni, R., & Pitsiladis, Y. (2010) Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually barefoot versus shod runners. Nature, 463(7280), 531-535. DOI: 10.1038/nature08723
- January 20, 2010
- 05:47 PM
- 139 views
Surf's up!: How rafting lemurs colonized Madagascar
A ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta), photographed at the Bronx Zoo.
Who doesn't love lemurs? The strepsirrhine primates, or wet-nosed cousins of ours, are favorite documentary subjects and extremely popular zoo attractions. And, in one of those bits of zoological trivia that everyone knows, lemurs only live on the island of Madagascar off Africa's southeastern coast. The question is how they got there.
Documenting the paths of animals during geological history is not an easy task. In the da........ Read more »
Ali, J., & Huber, M. (2010) Mammalian biodiversity on Madagascar controlled by ocean currents. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature08706
- January 19, 2010
- 05:20 PM
- 138 views
An Ancient, "Hidden" Elephant Gets a New Name
The restored lower jaw of Arcanotherium (formerly Numidotherium savagei). (From Delmer, 2009)
Unlike the folks at this past weekend's ScienceOnline 2010 meeting, fossils don't come with nametags. The identification of preserved bits of ancient life relies upon careful comparison with what is already known, a task made all the more difficult for vertebrate paleontologists by the fragmentary nature of many of their subjects. Scraps of bone given one name could turn out to be parts of another........ Read more »
Delmer, C. (2009) Reassessment of the generic attribution of Numidotherium savagei and the homologies of lower incisors in proboscideans. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. DOI: 10.4202/app.2007.0036
- January 12, 2010
- 01:25 PM
- 162 views
Did the "Marsupial Lion" Climb Trees?
Restoration of the skull of Thylacoleo. From The Ancient Life History of the Earth.
Thylacoleo was one strange mammal. A close relative of living koalas, kangaroos, and wombats, the largest species of Thylacoleo were lion-sized carnivores that stalked the Australian continent between 2 million and 45 thousand years ago. Despite its popular nickname "marsupial lion", however, Thylacoleo was quite different from any feline predator. Even though its long forelimbs were tipped with retractable........ Read more »
Wells, R., Murray, P., & Bourne, S. (2009) Pedal Morphology of the Marsupial Lion (Diprotodontia: Thylacoleonidae) from the Pleistocene of Australia . Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 29(4), 1335-1340. DOI: 10.1671/039.029.0424
- January 8, 2010
- 09:42 AM
- 179 views
An itty-bitty armored mammal
A comparison between the complete skull of a Glyptodon and the skull fragments of a fetal specimen. (From Zurita et al, 2009)
Early in 2009 a team of paleontologists led by Philip Gingerich announced the discovery of a baby archaeocete (early whale) embedded inside the skeleton of an adult of the same species. Since these fossils represented a new species of fossil whale to boot the story was immediately picked up by news outlets, but less well-publicized was another discovery made later t........ Read more »
Zurita, A., Miño-Boilini, A., Soibelzon, E., Scillato-Yané, G., Gasparini, G., & Paredes-Ríos, F. (2009) First record and description of an exceptional unborn specimen of Cingulata Glyptodontidae: Glyptodon Owen (Xenarthra). Comptes Rendus Palevol, 8(6), 573-578. DOI: 10.1016/j.crpv.2009.04.003
- January 6, 2010
- 05:10 PM
- 157 views
Ancient Tracks Question Ideas About Tetrapod Origins
Tiktaalik is practically a household name. Since its description in 2006 the flat-headed "fishapod" has appeared in books, on t-shirts, and has even starred in its own music video. Hailed as a "missing link", Tiktaalik has become a poster child fossil for evolution, but it is hardly the first such creature to be given this honor. Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Niedźwiedzki, G., Szrek, P., Narkiewicz, K., Narkiewicz, M., & Ahlberg, P. (2010) Tetrapod trackways from the early Middle Devonian period of Poland. Nature, 463(7277), 43-48. DOI: 10.1038/nature08623
- January 5, 2010
- 10:06 AM
- 192 views
Early "Baleen Whale" Was a Tooth-Bearing Mud-Grubber
A restoration of Mammalodon by Brian Choo (published in Fitzgerald, 2009).
In the introduction to his 1883 lecture on whales, the English anatomist William Henry Flower said;
Few natural groups present so many remarkable, very obvious, and easily appreciated illustrations of several of the most important general laws which appear to have determined the structure of animal bodies, as that selected for my lecture this evening. We shall find the effects of the two opposing forces--that of he........ Read more »
FITZGERALD, E. (2010) The morphology and systematics of (Cetacea: Mysticeti), a toothed mysticete from the Oligocene of Australia . Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2009.00572.x
- December 22, 2009
- 02:46 PM
- 211 views
The extended twilight of the mammoths
One of Charles R. Knight's wonderful paintings of woolly mammoths walking through the snow of ancient Europe. On display at the Field Museum in Chicago.
When did the last woolly mammoths die?
There is no easy answer to the question. In its heyday the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) was distributed across much of the northern hemisphere, from southern Spain to the eastern United States, and the entire species did not simply lay down and die at one particular moment. Some populations........ Read more »
Haile, J., Froese, D., MacPhee, R., Roberts, R., Arnold, L., Reyes, A., Rasmussen, M., Nielsen, R., Brook, B., Robinson, S.... (2009) Ancient DNA reveals late survival of mammoth and horse in interior Alaska. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0912510106
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