Scientists find fossil of enormous bug
LONDON - This was a bug you couldn't swat and definitely couldn't step on. British scientists have stumbled across a fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature the biggest bug ever. How big? Bigger than you, and at 8 feet long as big as some Smart cars.
The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of the study's three authors.
"This is an amazing discovery," he said Tuesday.
"We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies. But we never realized until now just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were," he said.
The research found a type of sea scorpion that was almost half a yard longer than previous estimates and the largest one ever to have evolved.
The study, published online Tuesday in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters, means that before this sea scorpion became extinct it was much longer than today's average man is tall.
Prof. Jeorg W. Schneider, a paleontologist at Freiberg Mining Academy in southeastern Germany, said the study provides valuable new information about "the last of the giant scorpions."
Schneider, who was not involved in the study, said these scorpions "were dominant for millions of years because they didn't have natural enemies. Eventually they were wiped out by large fish with jaws and teeth."
Braddy's partner paleontologist Markus Poschmann found the claw fossil several years ago in a quarry near Prum, Germany, that probably had once been an ancient estuary or swamp.
"I was loosening pieces of rock with a hammer and chisel when I suddenly realized there was a dark patch of organic matter on a freshly removed slab. After some cleaning I could identify this as a small part of a large claw," said Poschmann, another author of the study.
"Although I did not know if it was more complete or not, I decided to try and get it out. The pieces had to be cleaned separately, dried, and then glued back together. It was then put into a white plaster jacket to stabilize it," he said.
Eurypterids, or ancient sea scorpions, are believed to be the extinct aquatic ancestors of today's scorpions and possibly all arachnids, a class of joint-legged, invertebrate animals, including spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks.
Braddy said the fossil was from a Jaekelopterus Rhenaniae, a kind of scorpion that lived only in Germany for about 10 million years, about 400 million years ago.
He said some geologists believe that gigantic sea scorpions evolved due to higher levels of oxygen in the atmosphere in the past. Others suspect they evolved in an "arms race" alongside their likely prey, fish that had armor on their outer bodies.
Braddy said the sea scorpions also were cannibals that fought and ate one other, so it helped to be as big as they could be.
"The competition between this scorpion and its prey was probably like a nuclear standoff, an effort to have the biggest weapon," he said. "Hundreds of millions of years ago, these sea scorpions had the upper hand over vertebrates — backboned animals like ourselves."
That competition ended long ago.
But the next time you swat a fly, or squish a spider at home, Braddy said, try to "think about the insects that lived long ago. You wouldn't want to swat one of those."
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
do you like to play with... poop? what?!?!
The 25 Most Baffling Toys From Around the World
These are weirdest, most ill-conceived toys from around the globe. If you're about to say that they're "weird" only because of our own xenophobic ignorance of other cultures, well, we have two words for you: Poop toys.
You'll see.
These are weirdest, most ill-conceived toys from around the globe. If you're about to say that they're "weird" only because of our own xenophobic ignorance of other cultures, well, we have two words for you: Poop toys.
You'll see.
ancient cow-vacuum
Dinosaur found with vacuum-cleaner mouth
Fri Nov 16, 5:44 PM ET
WASHINGTON - A dinosaur with a strange jaw designed to hoover-up food grazed in what is now the Sahara Desert 110 million years ago. Remains of the creature that "flabbergasted" paleontologist Paul Sereno went on display Thursday at the headquarters of the National Geographic Society, where they will remain until March.
Sereno and colleagues recovered, assembled and named the creature — Nigersaurus taqueti — that he said seems to break all the rules, yet still existed.
"The biggest eureka moment was when I was sitting at the desk with this jaw," he said. "I was sitting down just looking at it and saw a groove and ... realized that all the teeth were up front."
It's not normally a good idea to have all the teeth in the front of the jaw — hundreds in this case.
Sure, "it's great for nipping," Sereno said, "but that's not where you want do your food processing."
"That was an amazing moment, we knew we had something no one had ever seen before," Sereno recalled.
Sereno, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence and paleontologist at the University of Chicago, said the first evidence of Nigersaurus was found in the 1990s and now researchers have been able to reconstruct its skull and skeleton.
While Nigersaurus' mouth is shaped like the wide intake slot of a vacuum, it has something lacking in most cleaners — hundreds of tiny, sharp teeth to grind up its food.
The 30-foot-long Nigersaurus had a feather-light skull held close to the ground to graze like an ancient cow. Sereno described it as a younger cousin of the North American dinosaur Diplodicus.
Its broad muzzle contained more than 50 columns of teeth lined up tightly along the front edge of it's jaw. Behind each tooth more were lined up as replacements when one broke off.
Using CT scans the researchers were able study the inside of the animal's skull where the orientation of canals in the organ that helps keep balance disclosed the habitual low pose of the head, they reported.
Nigersaurus also had a backbone consisting of more air than bone.
"The vertebrae are so paper-thin that it is difficult to imagine them coping with the stresses of everyday use — but we know they did it, and they did it well," Jeffrey Wilson, assistant professor at the University of Michigan and an expedition team member, said in a statement.
The dinosaur's anatomy and lifestyle were to be detailed in the Nov. 21 issue of PLoS ONE, the online journal from the Public Library of Science, and in the December issue of National Geographic magazine.
The first bones of Nigersaurus were picked up in Niger in the 1950s by French paleontologists led by Philippe Taquet, but the species was not named at that time. Sereno and his team honored this early work by naming Nigersaurus taqueti after the nation where it was found and the French scientist.
The research was partly funded by National Geographic where, Sereno said, "you can see the hideous jaw elements in person."
Fri Nov 16, 5:44 PM ET
WASHINGTON - A dinosaur with a strange jaw designed to hoover-up food grazed in what is now the Sahara Desert 110 million years ago. Remains of the creature that "flabbergasted" paleontologist Paul Sereno went on display Thursday at the headquarters of the National Geographic Society, where they will remain until March.
Sereno and colleagues recovered, assembled and named the creature — Nigersaurus taqueti — that he said seems to break all the rules, yet still existed.
"The biggest eureka moment was when I was sitting at the desk with this jaw," he said. "I was sitting down just looking at it and saw a groove and ... realized that all the teeth were up front."
It's not normally a good idea to have all the teeth in the front of the jaw — hundreds in this case.
Sure, "it's great for nipping," Sereno said, "but that's not where you want do your food processing."
"That was an amazing moment, we knew we had something no one had ever seen before," Sereno recalled.
Sereno, a National Geographic explorer-in-residence and paleontologist at the University of Chicago, said the first evidence of Nigersaurus was found in the 1990s and now researchers have been able to reconstruct its skull and skeleton.
While Nigersaurus' mouth is shaped like the wide intake slot of a vacuum, it has something lacking in most cleaners — hundreds of tiny, sharp teeth to grind up its food.
The 30-foot-long Nigersaurus had a feather-light skull held close to the ground to graze like an ancient cow. Sereno described it as a younger cousin of the North American dinosaur Diplodicus.
Its broad muzzle contained more than 50 columns of teeth lined up tightly along the front edge of it's jaw. Behind each tooth more were lined up as replacements when one broke off.
Using CT scans the researchers were able study the inside of the animal's skull where the orientation of canals in the organ that helps keep balance disclosed the habitual low pose of the head, they reported.
Nigersaurus also had a backbone consisting of more air than bone.
"The vertebrae are so paper-thin that it is difficult to imagine them coping with the stresses of everyday use — but we know they did it, and they did it well," Jeffrey Wilson, assistant professor at the University of Michigan and an expedition team member, said in a statement.
The dinosaur's anatomy and lifestyle were to be detailed in the Nov. 21 issue of PLoS ONE, the online journal from the Public Library of Science, and in the December issue of National Geographic magazine.
The first bones of Nigersaurus were picked up in Niger in the 1950s by French paleontologists led by Philippe Taquet, but the species was not named at that time. Sereno and his team honored this early work by naming Nigersaurus taqueti after the nation where it was found and the French scientist.
The research was partly funded by National Geographic where, Sereno said, "you can see the hideous jaw elements in person."
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