Futurity.org » paleobiology

Fossils show early love of sun and sex

Shemina Davis-Sheffield — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:39:44 +0000

U. SHEFFIELD (UK) — Fossils found on remote lochs on the west coast of Scotland are illuminating the key moment in evolutionary time when life made the leap to land.

Some of the ancient fossils that lived on the bottom of the ancient lake bed as long as a billion year ago, are so finely ornamented, and so large and complex, that they are evidence for a surprisingly early start for the emergence of eukaryote cells on land.

Dino ecosystem as big as a continent

Cynthia Lee-McGill — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:39:46 +0000

“Despite their appearance, dinosaurs are ecologically very similar to mammals of today,” says Matthew Vavrek. “They were able to colonize and dominate the landscape over very large distances, and were not nearly as constrained as we might have once thought.” By examining a single time slice and all known specimens of dinosaurs from North America’s western interior, researchers concluded multiple dinosaur faunal regions did not exist. (Credit: Adrian Bobb/McGill)

MCGILL (CAN)—New evidence suggests the entire western interior of North America was likely once populated by a single community of dinosaurs thanks to a warm and moderate climate.

According to a statistical analysis of the fossil record, dinosaurs were adept at coping with all sorts of environments, and not as restricted in their geographic ranges as previously thought.

Climate mayhem let dinosaurs dominate

Richard Lewis-Brown — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:35:20 +0000

Why did the early dinosaurs survive the volcanism that extinguished the Triassic crurotarsans? “They had the blind luck of being unwittingly adapted to get through that climate catastrophe,” Jessica Whiteside says. Freed from their main competitor, early theropods—a category including all meat-eating dinosaurs from velociraptors to Tyrannosaurus rex—became dominant. (Courtesy: iStockphoto)

BROWN (US)—Widespread volcanic eruptions and a spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide wiped out dinosaurs’ biggest competitors, according to a new climate analysis, allowing dinosaurs to rule the Earth more than 200 million years ago.

“The big thing is many people have heard why dinosaurs went extinct,” says Jessica Whiteside, assistant professor of geological sciences at Brown University. “But the question why they came to be is much more exciting.”

Ice Age sloth bone unearthed in Iowa

Futurity-Jenny Leonard — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:27:23 +0000

This bone from an Ice Age sloth is the first of its kind found in Iowa.

U. IOWA (US)—Researchers excavating a site in southwestern Iowa have discovered a bone from a type of giant Ice Age sloth never before recorded in the state.

The five-inch long bone, from a Paramylodon harlani, was originally misidentified as a Megalonyx jeffersonii sloth, three of which—an adult, a toddler, and a baby—have been uncovered at the site.