10 posts · 3,908 views
Ramblings on the role of open source software in paleontology, the latest and sometimes not-so-greatest ways in which we reconstruct the past, and the occasional bits of career advice and paleo news.
Andrew Farke
10 posts
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- February 13, 2010
- 04:21 PM
- 90 views
Four-Winged, Psychedelic Dinosaurs
by Andrew Farke in The Open Source Paleontologist
When many of us think of viewing things under a "black light," we either think of those psychedelic posters from the 1960s or else the displays of fluorescent minerals that nearly every science museum has. It's also virtually mandatory to have a scene involving the use of "black light" in the popular CSI television programs - many bodily fluids show up nice and pretty under these conditions. "Black light," more properly known as "ultraviolet (UV) spectrum light", is just outside the visible ligh........ Read more »
David W. E. Hone1, Helmut Tischlinger, Xing Xu, & Fucheng Zhang. (2010) The extent of the preserved feathers on the four-winged dinosaur Microraptor gui under ultraviolet light. PLoS ONE, 5(2). info:/10.1371/journal.pone.0009223
- January 28, 2010
- 10:41 AM
- 80 views
Where is paleontology?
by Andrew Farke in The Open Source Paleontologist
Last week, many of the leading journals in evolutionary biology - including The American Naturalist, Molecular Ecology, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, and a number of others - announced a data archiving policy. In short, this policy states that the data behind the results of a paper should be publicly archived in well-known respositories such as Data Dryad, GenBank, or TreeBASE. Do you notice anything missing in this illustrious list of publications?Not a single one of those journal........ Read more »
Whitlock, M., McPeek, M., Rausher, M., Rieseberg, L., & Moore, A. (2010) Data Archiving. The American Naturalist, 175(2), 145-146. DOI: 10.1086/650340
- October 28, 2009
- 10:18 AM
- 171 views
A Happy Family of Pachycephalosaurus
by Andrew Farke in The Open Source Paleontologist
Distinguishing the skulls of juveniles and adults of the same species, and sometimes different species, can be a prickly thing in the fossil record. The result is that paleontology is littered with juvenile fossils that have been considered adults at some time or another. The crested duck-billed dinosaur Corythosaurus has also been known under names like Procheneosaurus, the famous Monoclonius is actually a juvenile of adult Centrosaurus, Styracosaurus, and kin, and the debate still continues on........ Read more »
Horner, J., & Goodwin, M. (2009) Extreme cranial ontogeny in the Upper Cretaceous dinosaur Pachycephalosaurus. PLoS ONE, 4(10). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007626
- July 3, 2009
- 02:34 AM
- 449 views
An Australian Dinosaur Extravaganza
by Andrew Farke in The Open Source Paleontologist
The Cretaceous of Gondwana - the formerly connected southern landmasses of Antarctica, Australia, South America, Africa, India, Madagascar, and Arabia - is a sticky problem. The terrestrial fossil record is spotty at best in most locations, and tremendous geographic and temporal gaps remain. As a consequence, there is considerable debate about the sequence of the tectonic breakup of Gondwana and even the very identity and relationships of some of its dinosaurs and other Mesozoic beasts. Once in ........ Read more »
Hocknull, S., White, M., Tischler, T., Cook, A., Calleja, N., Sloan, T., & Elliott, D. (2009) New mid-Cretaceous (Latest Albian) dinosaurs from Winton, Queensland, Australia. PLoS ONE, 4(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006190
- June 5, 2009
- 02:13 AM
- 436 views
How Big (Dead) Mammals Respond(ed) to Global Warming: Paleontology and Our Climate Crisis
by Andrew Farke in The Open Source Paleontologist
After all of the commotion over "Ida," I'm happy to point out a new, thought-provoking paper in PLoS ONE that perhaps has more relevance to modern humans than any old primate of debated affinity. This new contribution ties two rather cool issues together: charismatic megafauna and global warming. And what might they have to do with each other?Within the scientific community, our current cycle of climate change ("global warming") is pretty well-supported by numerous lines of evidence. In light of........ Read more »
DeSantis, L., Feranec, R., & MacFadden, B. (2009) Effects of global warming on ancient mammalian communities and their environments. PLoS ONE, 4(6). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005750
- May 19, 2009
- 09:33 PM
- 466 views
About That Adapid. . .Or, Hype In the Digital Age
by Andrew Farke in The Open Source Paleontologist
Today's PLoS ONE includes an article on a new primate from the Eocene of Germany, Darwinius masillae. Poor Darwinius has suffered heaps of abuse over her existence (we know the specimen is probably a she, based on the lack of a baculum). She died young, possibly suffocating during a belch of noxious gas from a volcanic lake. She got squashed ("lightly crushed," as her describers euphemistically say) under tons of rock, and then was rudely given a split personality upon her discovery. Each half o........ Read more »
Franzen, J., Gingerich, P., Habersetzer, J., Hurum, J., von Koenigswald, W., & Smith, B. (2009) Complete Primate Skeleton from the Middle Eocene of Messel in Germany: Morphology and Paleobiology. PLoS ONE, 4(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005723
- April 29, 2009
- 11:28 PM
- 483 views
Albatross vs. Pterosaur
by Andrew Farke in The Open Source Paleontologist
Today, there was a paper tangentially related to pterosaurs in the open access journal PLoS ONE. A team of investigators wired up albatrosses and petrels with accelerometers, in order to measure the percentage of time these animals spent flapping their wings and soaring. They found two main styles of wing flapping (as inferred from the accelerometer measurements): 1) high frequency flapping during take-off; and 2) low-frequency flapping during soaring. Interestingly, the frequencies scale with b........ Read more »
Sato, K., Sakamoto, K., Watanuki, Y., Takahashi, A., Katsumata, N., Bost, C., & Weimerskirch, H. (2009) Scaling of soaring seabirds and implications for flight abilities of giant pterosaurs. PLoS ONE, 4(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005400
- March 24, 2009
- 10:52 PM
- 551 views
Bone-ing Up on Allometry
by Andrew Farke in The Open Source Paleontologist
Allometric scaling - roughly defined, when different parts of an organism grow at different rates - is an important factor in biology. In part, allometry describes how babies have relatively larger heads than adults (we exhibit negative allometry in this trait, because our skulls don't grow as quickly as the rest of the body) or how some crabs have gigantic claws (an example of positive allometry, in which the claw grows much faster than the rest of the body). Allometry (and its counterpart isom........ Read more »
Doube, M., Conroy, A., Christiansen, P., Hutchinson, J., & Shefelbine, S. (2009) Three-Dimensional Geometric Analysis of Felid Limb Bone Allometry. PLoS ONE, 4(3). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0004742
- March 4, 2009
- 12:50 AM
- 594 views
Crouching Theropod, Hidden Dragon
by Andrew Farke in The Open Source Paleontologist
Fossil footprints (falling in the general category of "ichnofossils") reveal a wealth of information about dinosaur biology, such as speed, posture, and behavior. These traces are particularly useful when offering information independent from, but consistent with, hypotheses derived from purely anatomical studies.Today, a new paper in the open access journal PLoS ONE presents an unusual set of theropod (meat-eating dinosaur) ichnofossils from the Early Jurassic-aged Moenave Formation of southwes........ Read more »
Andrew R. C. Milner, Jerald D. Harris, Martin G. Lockley, James I. Kirkland, & Neffra A. Matthews. (2009) Bird-Like Anatomy, Posture, and Behavior Revealed by an Early Jurassic Theropod Dinosaur Resting Trace. PLoS ONE, 4(3). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0004591
- January 27, 2009
- 08:00 PM
- 588 views
Triceratops Combat?
by Andrew Farke in The Open Source Paleontologist
Exactly how did Triceratops and other horned dinosaurs use their cranial weaponry? Today, my co-authors Ewan Wolff, Darren Tanke, and I published new research in the online, open access journal PLoS ONE, giving our take on the issue. In a study spanning four years and over a dozen museums, we have marshalled what we think is the best evidence to date that Triceratops may have locked horns with their own kind.Restoration of Triceratops in horn-to-horn combat. Image copyright Lukas Panzarin, cour........ Read more »
Farke AA, Wolff EDS, & Tanke DH. (2009) Evidence of Combat in Triceratops. PLoS ONE, 4(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0004252
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