251 posts · 189,007 views
Laelaps primarily deals with paleontology, ecology, natural history, and other zoological sciences.
Laelaps
251 posts
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- February 10, 2012
- 05:33 PM
- 39 views
The Terrible, Prehistoric Frog That Wasn’t
Over 300 million years ago, long before the time of the dinosaurs, giant amphibians hopped along the sandy shores of Pennsylvania. At least, that was what Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter James Ross explained to readers of the newspaper’s November 28th, 1948 issue. The inspiration for the report was a set of strange tracks found in the [...]... 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
- February 6, 2012
- 12:45 PM
- 61 views
Mosasaurs: Masters of the Bronx Cheer
[Author's Note: After months of fieldwork, museum visits, and other research, A Date With a Dinosaur is finally coming together. And not a moment too soon - my deadline is rapidly approaching. New essays will continue to surface here, but I'm also going to dredge up some favorite posts from years past to help keep [...]... Read more »
Schulp, A.; Mulder, E.; Schwenk, K. (2002) Did mosasaurs have forked tongues?. Netherlands Journal of Geosciences, 84(3), 359-371. info:/
- February 3, 2012
- 06:47 PM
- 63 views
Why Margarita Can Purr, but Can’t Roar
I rolled out of bed later than I intended to this morning. I blame the cats. Our youngest cat, a diminutive calico named Margarita, sprung onto the bed as soon as she heard me start to stir. She immediately started purring — the sound started as a low rumble and rose to a constant vibrato [...]... Read more »
Peters, G. (2002) Purring and similar vocalizations in mammals. Mammal Review, 32(4), 245-271. DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2907.2002.00113.x
Sissom, D., Rice, D., & Peters, G. (1991) How cats purr. Journal of Zoology, 223(1), 67-78. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7998.1991.tb04749.x
Weissengruber, G., Forstenpointner, G., Peters, G., Kubber-Heiss, A., & Fitch, W. (2002) Hyoid apparatus and pharynx in the lion (Panthera leo), jaguar (Panthera onca), tiger (Panthera tigris), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) and domestic cat (Felis silvestris f. catus). Journal of Anatomy, 201(3), 195-209. DOI: 10.1046/j.1469-7580.2002.00088.x
- February 1, 2012
- 04:42 PM
- 36 views
How an African Elephant Comes Together
Before my love of dinosaurs kicked in, I adored elephants. My four-year-old self spent hours on the couch watching elephant documentaries, pith helmet firmly affixed to my head and my faithful companion Koba at my side. (A black, plush elephant bigger than I was, Koba was filled with a cheap stuffing I was allergic to. [...]... Read more »
Hautier, L., Stansfield, F., Allen, W., & Asher, R. (2012) Skeletal development in the African elephant and ossification timing in placental mammals. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2011.2481
- January 30, 2012
- 01:31 PM
- 27 views
Preening the History of Primates
When viewed within the broader context of our evolutionary history, we are anthropoid primates. That’s the group which contains monkeys and apes (with our species being a specialized variety of ape, and apes being a particular subset of monkeys, and monkeys representing the major group of anthropoids). But how anthropoid primates originated has been a [...]... Read more »
Maiolino, S., Boyer, D., & Rosenberger, A. (2011) Morphological Correlates of the Grooming Claw in Distal Phalanges of Platyrrhines and Other Primates: A Preliminary Study. The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, 294(12), 1975-1990. DOI: 10.1002/ar.21498
Maiolino, S., Boyer, D., Bloch, J., Gilbert, C., & Groenke, J. (2012) Evidence for a Grooming Claw in a North American Adapiform Primate: Implications for Anthropoid Origins. PLoS ONE, 7(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0029135
Williams, B., Kay, R., & Kirk, E. (2010) New perspectives on anthropoid origins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(11), 4797-4804. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0908320107
- January 26, 2012
- 01:26 PM
- 81 views
New Jersey’s Turnpike Croc
Two years ago, when I was still stuck in the middle of the garden state, New Jersey State Museum assistant curator of natural history Jason Schein took me on a brief tour of his institution’s collections. There were crocodyliforms everywhere. Shelf after shelf contained the teeth, armor, and bones of a variety of prehistoric crocs [...]... Read more »
Brochu, C., Parris, D., Grandstaff, B., Denton, R., & Gallagher, W. (2012) A new species of (Crocodyliformes, Eusuchia) from the Late Cretaceous–early Paleogene of New Jersey . Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 32(1), 105-116. DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2012.633585
- January 25, 2012
- 02:10 PM
- 92 views
Real-Life DinoCrocs Crushed the Competition
Giant "DinoCrocs" of the Cretaceous didn't just hang out in the background while predatory dinosaurs stole the spotlight. Laelaps blogger Brian Switek explains how new fossils show they competed as a top predator.... Read more »
RIFF, D., & KELLNER, A. (2011) Baurusuchid crocodyliforms as theropod mimics: clues from the skull and appendicular morphology of Stratiotosuchus maxhechti (Upper Cretaceous of Brazil). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00713.x
- January 23, 2012
- 03:32 PM
- 87 views
Glow, Little Spewing Shrimp, Glow
I have spent the better part of two days trying to learn about glowing shrimp puke. ScienceOnline made me do it.
A few days ago, during a quick tour organized by the annual science communication conference, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences exhibit director Roy Campbell pointed out a tiny invertebrate in the gloomy recesses of [...]... Read more »
Inouye, S., Watanabe, K., Nakamura, H., Shimomura, O. (2000) Secretional luciferase of the luminous shrimp Oplophorus gracilirostris: cDNA cloning of a novel imidazopyrazinone luciferase. FEBS Letters, 481(1), 19-25. DOI: 10.1016/S0014-5793(00)01963-3
Widder, E. (2010) Bioluminescence in the Ocean: Origins of Biological, Chemical, and Ecological Diversity. Science, 328(5979), 704-708. DOI: 10.1126/science.1174269
- January 17, 2012
- 12:07 PM
- 111 views
How the “Terrible Heads” Became World Travelers
Earlier this week, paleontologists described another of our distant, ancient cousins. This was no hominin, early primate, or even archaic mammal, but a much, much older variety of creature that would superficially seem to have more in common with terrible primeval reptiles than with us. Named Pampaphoneus biccai, this knobby-headed, 260 million year old predator [...]... Read more »
Modesto, S., Smith, R., Campione, N., & Reisz, R. (2011) The last “pelycosaur”: a varanopid synapsid from the Pristerognathus Assemblage Zone, Middle Permian of South Africa. Naturwissenschaften, 98(12), 1027-1034. DOI: 10.1007/s00114-011-0856-2
- January 15, 2012
- 01:06 PM
- 93 views
The Jurassic’s Housecat Croc
At long last, Fruitachampsa lives. Sort of. This strange crocodyliform has been extinct for around 150 million years. But, after three decades of waiting, this short-snouted croc has finally been officially named.
The new paper that describes Fruitachampsa callisoni calls the animal “A new shartegosuchid crocodyliform from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of western Colorado.” That’s [...]... Read more »
CLARK, J. (2011) A new shartegosuchid crocodyliform from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of western Colorado. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00719.x
- January 3, 2012
- 07:41 PM
- 137 views
The Sloth’s Evolutionary Secret
On the surface of things, a two-toed sloth doesn’t look much like its closest fossil kin. The tubby, pug-nosed mammal is not quite as imposing or majestic as Megalonyx – the “great claw” Thomas Jefferson discovered and mistakenly identified as an enormous lion over two centuries ago. But the two are relatively close relatives. In [...]... Read more »
Nyakatura, J. (2011) The Convergent Evolution of Suspensory Posture and Locomotion in Tree Sloths. Journal of Mammalian Evolution. DOI: 10.1007/s10914-011-9174-x
- December 21, 2011
- 04:40 PM
- 150 views
Did Hunger Drive the Evolution of Homo sapiens?
This time last year, science news headlines blared a spectacular claim – the first members of our species evolved 200,000 years earlier than previously thought. The evidence consisted of a small collection of teeth. Discovered in roughly 200,000 to 400,000 year old deposits in Israel’s Qesem Cave, these fossils were said to herald the archaic [...]... Read more »
Belmaker, M. (2009) Hominin Adaptability and Patterns of Faunal Turnover in the Early to Middle Pleistocene Transition in the Levant . Sourcebook of Paleolithic Transitions, 211-227. DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-76487-0_12
Ben-Dor, M., Gopher, A., Hershkovitz, I., & Barkai, R. (2011) Man the Fat Hunter: The Demise of Homo erectus and the Emergence of a New Hominin Lineage in the Middle Pleistocene (ca. 400 kyr) Levant. PLoS ONE, 6(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0028689
Hershkovitz, I., Smith, P., Sarig, R., Quam, R., Rodríguez, L., García, R., Arsuaga, J., Barkai, R., & Gopher, A. (2011) Middle pleistocene dental remains from Qesem Cave (Israel). American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 144(4), 575-592. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21446
STUART, A. (2005) The extinction of woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) in Europe. Quaternary International, 171-177. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2004.04.021
- December 19, 2011
- 06:04 PM
- 225 views
Why is a Pelican Like a Whale?
Pelicans and whales are not especially close relatives. I’m about as closely related to Tyrannosaurus rex as they are to each other. The specialized, flying dinosaurs and the highly-modified, aquatic artiodactyls (who long ago lost their hooves) last shared a common ancestor over 306 million years ago in the form of a visually unremarkable, lizard-like [...]... Read more »
Field, D., Campbell-Malone, R., Goldbogen, J., & Shadwick, R. (2010) Quantitative Computed Tomography of Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) Mandibles: Mechanical Implications for Rorqual Lunge-Feeding. The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, 293(7), 1240-1247. DOI: 10.1002/ar.21165
Field, D., Lin, S., Ben-Zvi, M., Goldbogen, J., & Shadwick, R. (2011) Convergent Evolution Driven by Similar Feeding Mechanics in Balaenopterid Whales and Pelicans. The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, 294(8), 1273-1282. DOI: 10.1002/ar.21406
- December 14, 2011
- 05:40 PM
- 454 views
Repost: Life in the Trees Shaped the Panda’s Thumb
[Author's Note: A funny thing happened on the way to the floor the other day. I blacked out at the gym and, when I collided with the floormat, the temple of my glasses punctured my face. As the gym's lifeguards told my wife when they ushered her in to see me, though, the damage looked [...]... Read more »
Salesa, M. (2006) Evidence of a false thumb in a fossil carnivore clarifies the evolution of pandas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(2), 379-382. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0504899102
- December 12, 2011
- 11:39 AM
- 433 views
Repost: The Dodo is Dead, Long Live the Dodo!
Author’s note -Last week I was surprised to learn that this post was selected for the 2011 edition of The Open Laboratory – a “best of” science blogs mixtape which features some of the top blog entries from the past year. Good to know that the dodo still has friends. I have a bit of [...]... Read more »
Angst, D., Buffetaut, E., & Abourachid, A. (2011) The end of the fat dodo? A new mass estimate for Raphus cucullatus. Naturwissenschaften. DOI: 10.1007/s00114-010-0759-7
DEN HENGST, J. (2009) The dodo and scientific fantasies: durable myths of a tough bird. Archives of Natural History, 36(1), 136-145. DOI: 10.3366/E0260954108000697
Hume, J. (2006) The history of the Dodo Raphus cucullatus and the penguin of Mauritius. Historical Biology, 18(2), 65-89. DOI: 10.1080/08912960600639400
Hume, Julian; Datta, Ann; Martill, David M. (2006) Unpublished drawings of the Dodo Raphus cucullatus and notes on Dodo skin relics. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club, 126(A). info:/
Hume, J., Cheke, A., & McOran-Campbell, A. (2009) How Owen 'stole' the Dodo: academic rivalry and disputed rights to a newly-discovered subfossil deposit in nineteenth century Mauritius. Historical Biology, 21(1), 33-49. DOI: 10.1080/08912960903101868
Nicholls, H. (2006) Ornithology: Digging for dodo. Nature, 443(7108), 138-140. DOI: 10.1038/443138a
RIJSDIJK, K., HUME, J., BUNNIK, F., FLORENS, F., BAIDER, C., SHAPIRO, B., VANDERPLICHT, J., JANOO, A., GRIFFITHS, O., & VANDENHOEKOSTENDE, L. (2009) Mid-Holocene vertebrate bone Concentration-Lagerstätte on oceanic island Mauritius provides a window into the ecosystem of the dodo (Raphus cucullatus). Quaternary Science Reviews, 28(1-2), 14-24. DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2008.09.018
Roberts, D., & Solow, A. (2003) Flightless birds: When did the dodo become extinct?. Nature, 426(6964), 245-245. DOI: 10.1038/426245a
Shapiro, B. (2002) Flight of the Dodo. Science, 295(5560), 1683-1683. DOI: 10.1126/science.295.5560.1683
Turvey, S., & Cheke, A. (2008) Dead as a dodo: the fortuitous rise to fame of an extinction icon. Historical Biology, 20(2), 149-163. DOI: 10.1080/08912960802376199
- December 6, 2011
- 03:04 PM
- 166 views
Teeth, From the Outside In
Where teeth came from is an unresolved question, but fossils in Canada's Mackenzie Mountains may help solve the mystery. Laelaps blogger Brian Switek reports.... Read more »
Blais, S., MacKenzie, L., & Wilson, M. (2011) Tooth-like scales in Early Devonian eugnathostomes and the ‘outside-in’ hypothesis for the origins of teeth in vertebrates. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 31(6), 1189-1199. DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2011.607992
- December 4, 2011
- 12:14 PM
- 182 views
Repost: Not a Wolf, But a Tiger
Evolution and extinction are inextricably linked together. An understanding of one is incomplete without a comprehension of the other, and no animal embodies these complementary concepts better than Thylacinus cynocephalus.
Thylacinus goes by a few different names – the marsupial wolf, the Tasmanian tiger, or, simply, the thylacine. Whatever you choose to call the species, though, [...]... Read more »
Figueirido, B., and Janis, C. (2011) The Predatory behavior of the Thylacine: Tasmanian tiger or marsupial wolf? . Biology Letters. info:/10.1098/rsbl.2011.0364
- December 2, 2011
- 05:58 PM
- 216 views
How Tylosaurus Lost Its Fringe, and Other Squamate Stories
‘Tho the death of a childhood memory makes folks twinge
Truth is, the great Tylosaurus had no fringe
As far as my younger, fossil-philic self was concerned, there was never a more terrible marine predator than Tylosaurus. This enormous, sea-going lizard was a true sea monster and the undoubted ruler of the ancient oceans. That impression came [...]... Read more »
Lindgren, J., Caldwell, M., Konishi, T., & Chiappe, L. (2010) Convergent Evolution in Aquatic Tetrapods: Insights from an Exceptional Fossil Mosasaur. PLoS ONE, 5(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011998
Lindgren, J., Everhart, M., & Caldwell, M. (2011) Three-Dimensionally Preserved Integument Reveals Hydrodynamic Adaptations in the Extinct Marine Lizard Ectenosaurus (Reptilia, Mosasauridae). PLoS ONE, 6(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0027343
- November 30, 2011
- 08:29 PM
- 193 views
Paleontologists Uncover Wyoming’s Formidable Fossil Frogmouth
Frogmouths are not especially cheerful-looking birds. During the day, these nocturnal avians mostly look like feathery bumps on a log. The first one I ever saw, perching in the Bronx Zoo’s aquatic bird house, was so stock still and serious-looking that for a moment it seemed as if the keepers had simply placed an inanimate [...]... Read more »
Mayr, G.; Daniels, M. (2001) A new short-legged landbird from the early Eocene of Wyoming and contemporaneous European sites. Acta Paleontologica Polonica, 46(3), 393-402. info:/
Nesbitt, S.; Ksepka, D.; Clarke, J. (2011) Podargiform Affinities of the Enigmatic Fluvioviridavis platyrhamphus and the Early Diversification of Strisores (“Caprimulgiformes” Apodiformes). PLoS One, 6(11). info:/10.1371/journal.pone.0026350
- November 28, 2011
- 06:30 PM
- 144 views
Inside the Columbian Mammoth, Signs of a Woolly Cousin
I’m picky about my paleo t-shirts. If I’m going to lay down twenty five bucks for fossil-themed apparel from a museum gift shop, I want the long-extinct critter on the tee to look reasonably accurate, and geeky humor is always a bonus.
My standards led me to an indecisive moment at the Page Museum gift shop [...]... Read more »
AGENBROAD, L. (2005) North American Proboscideans: Mammoths: The state of Knowledge, 2003. Quaternary International, 73-92. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2004.04.016
Enk, J., Devault, A., Debruyne, R., King, C., Treangen, T., O'Rourke, D., Salzberg, S., Fisher, D., MacPhee, R., & Poinar, H. (2011) Complete Columbian mammoth mitogenome suggests interbreeding with woolly mammoths. Genome Biology, 12(5). DOI: 10.1186/gb-2011-12-5-r51
LISTER, A., SHER, A., VANESSEN, H., & WEI, G. (2005) The pattern and process of mammoth evolution in Eurasia. Quaternary International, 49-64. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2004.04.014
Todd, N. (2010) New Phylogenetic Analysis of the Family Elephantidae Based on Cranial-Dental Morphology. The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, 293(1), 74-90. DOI: 10.1002/ar.21010
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