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Laelaps primarily deals with paleontology, ecology, natural history, and other zoological sciences.
Laelaps
259 posts
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- August 6, 2010
- 01:50 PM
- 8,112 views
Fossil Bonanza in Australian Cave Documents the Growth of a Prehistoric Marsupial
By now you have no doubt heard about the dinosaurian tempest-in-a-teacup I recently called #TriceraFAIL. To sum things up briefly - on the basis of skeletal anatomy and histology, paleontologists John Scannella and Jack Horner proposed that the horned dinosaur traditionally known as Torosaurus was actually the fully-mature growth stage of Triceratops. If further evidence [...]... Read more »
Black, K., Archer, M., Hand, S., & Godthelp, H. (2010) First comprehensive analysis of cranial ontogeny in a fossil marsupial—from a 15-million-year-old cave deposit in northern Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 30(4), 993-1011. DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2010.483567
- September 17, 2008
- 10:40 AM
- 2,077 views
What did Leonardo eat for lunch?
"Leonardo," the mummy dinosaur, courtesy of the HMNS.
Although it got a brief treatment in the book Horns and Beaks, many people have been waiting for more information on the exceptionally-preserved Brachylophosaurus skeleton named "Leonardo." Due to be unveiled next week at the Houston Museum of Natural Science (the date was pushed back due to Hurricane Ike; the museum and Leonardo were unharmed), the fossil provides a unique look at the soft tissues of this particular dinosaur.
Dinosaur "mu........ Read more »
J. S. Tweet, K. Chin, D. R. Braman, & N. L. Murphy. (2008) Probable Gut Contents Within A Specimen Of Brachylophosaurus Canadensis (Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae) From the Upper Cretaceous Judith River Formation Of Montana. PALAIOS, 23(9), 624-635. DOI: 10.2110/palo.2007.p07-044r
- April 20, 2009
- 12:02 PM
- 1,685 views
Can sexual selection account for giraffe necks?
A giraffe, photographed at the Bronx zoo.
Why do giraffes have long necks? We know that modern giraffes must have evolved gradually, but figuring out what selection pressures influenced giraffe evolution is another story altogether. One of the most popular recent explanations is that giraffes have long necks as a result of sexual selection.
The "necks for sex" hypothesis is primarily inspired by the contests between male giraffes. In these duels the males stand side by side and whack each othe........ Read more »
Mitchell, G., van Sittert, S., & Skinner, J. (2009) Sexual selection is not the origin of long necks in giraffes. Journal of Zoology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7998.2009.00573.x
- April 22, 2009
- 10:11 PM
- 1,636 views
Puijila darwini: A Significant Seal
Of all the evolutionary transitions that have ever taken place few have received as much attention as the origin of whales. (See here, here, here, here,and here for a few of my posts on the subject.) The story of how terrestrial hoofed mammals gave rise to the exclusively aquatic leviathans has been highlighted in headlines over and over again, but other marine mammals have not received the same amount of public attention. In the case of pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses) this may be at ........ Read more »
Rybczynski, N., Dawson, M., & Tedford, R. (2009) A semi-aquatic Arctic mammalian carnivore from the Miocene epoch and origin of Pinnipedia. Nature, 458(7241), 1021-1024. DOI: 10.1038/nature07985
- May 22, 2009
- 10:31 AM
- 1,622 views
Getting to know "Ida"
The exceptionally preserved skeleton of Darwinius, known popularly as "Ida." From PLoS One.
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It has been three days now since an international team of paleontologists promised to deliver the change we need change everything, but when I woke up this morning I was pleased to find that things had still not gone "Bizarro World" around here. There is still a lot going on with Darwinius (better known as "Ida"), though, and while I am sure we will still be talking about her for some time to come I w........ 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
- March 27, 2008
- 06:03 PM
- 1,621 views
A new Paleocene marine crocodile, Guarinisuchus munizi
The skull and mandible of Guarinisuchus.
After the end-Cretaceous extinction, an "empty" world was left to fill up. The non-avian dinosaurs were gone, as were the mosasaurs, ammonites, pterosaurs, and other creatures. Indeed, in marine environments the large Mesozoic predators were eliminated in the extinction event, allowing sharks and crocodiles to evolve and diversify now that they were no longer any mosasaurs patrolling the waters. One such crocodylian that moved into open ecol........ Read more »
José Barbosa, Alexander Wilhelm Kellner, & Maria Somália Viana. (2008) New dyrosaurid crocodylomorph and evidences for faunal turnover at the K–P transition in Brazil. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, -1(-1), -1--1. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0110
- July 14, 2008
- 12:03 PM
- 1,606 views
A new species of Velociraptor
The type skull of Velociraptor mongoliensis. From Osborn, et al. 1924.
By the summer of 1993 Velociraptor had become a household name. Although Deinonychus had long been my fleet-footed favorite the olive-green "clever girls" of Speilberg's film soon outshone all of their relatives and gave Tyrannosaurus a run for it's money.* Velocriaptor is hardly a new dinosaur, however. It was discovered during the famous expeditions to Mongolia made by the AMNH in the 1920's, t........ Read more »
Pascal Godefroit, Philip Currie, Li Hong, Shang Yong, & Dong Zhi-Ming. (2008) A New Species Of Velociraptor (Dinosauria: Dromaeosauridae) From the Upper Cretaceous Of Northern China. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 28(2), 432. DOI: 10.1671/0272-4634(2008)28[432:ANSOVD]2.0.CO;2
- January 28, 2008
- 11:03 PM
- 1,604 views
Eurasian Pleistocene Extinctions & Ecological "Overkill"
The skeleton of an Irish Elk (Megaloceros giganteus) at the AMNH.
Discussions of mass extinctions nearly always give rise to heated debates as to the mechanism(s) behind the disappearance of so many taxa in a short amount of time, and one of the most active debates still surrounds the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna. All over the world the extinction of large animals appears to be correlated with the movements of our own species, Homo sapiens, into new territories. Disease and climate ch........ Read more »
D PUSHKINA. (2008) Human influence on distribution and extinctions of the late Pleistocene Eurasian megafauna. Journal of Human Evolution. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2007.09.024
- March 17, 2008
- 04:09 PM
- 1,600 views
Megalosaurus, we hardly knew ye
The lower jaw of Megalosaurus, presently the only fossil that can accurately be attributed to this enigmatic genus.
Although it was one of the first dinosaurs to be scientifically described during the early 19th century, the theropod Megalosaurus remains one of the most enigmatic (and problematic) large dinosaurs known. Even though an entire family, the Megalosauridae (established by Huxley in 1869), bears the name of this famous dinosaur, the group has come to be seen as a taxonomic wasteba........ Read more »
ROGER BENSON, PAUL M BARRETT, H PHILIP POWELL, & DAVID B NORMAN. (2008) THE TAXONOMIC STATUS OF MEGALOSAURUS BUCKLANDII (DINOSAURIA, THEROPODA) FROM THE MIDDLE JURASSIC OF OXFORDSHIRE, UK. Palaeontology, 51(2), 419-424. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00751.x
- March 1, 2010
- 11:42 AM
- 1,587 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
- June 8, 2009
- 01:21 PM
- 1,573 views
Why intelligent design fails
Is intelligent design science, or not? Think carefully before you answer. The modern intelligent design (ID) movement is motivated by theological concerns and trades in on religious authority to meet its aims, but stripped of this background, can ID be relegated to the "junk science" bin? While the answer to this latter question is "Yes", in a new paper ("The science question in intelligent design") Sahotra Sarkar argues that proclaiming ID to be non-science without careful consideration does li........ Read more »
Sarkar, S. (2009) The science question in intelligent design. Synthese. DOI: 10.1007/s11229-009-9540-x
- June 3, 2009
- 08:43 AM
- 1,572 views
Meet Anoiapithecus, the flat-faced ape
The face of Anoiapithecus. From Moya-Sola et al. (2009).
One of the most controversial aspects of the whole Darwinius kerfuffle has been the primate's proposed status as "the ancestor of us all." The fossil, named "Ida", has been popularly touted as the "missing link" connecting us to all other mammals, but how can we really know if Darwinius fits this role? The truth is that we can't, and it is nearly impossible to parse direct ancestor-descendant relationships among fossil vertebrates, espec........ Read more »
Moya-Sola, S., Alba, D., Almecija, S., Casanovas-Vilar, I., Kohler, M., De Esteban-Trivigno, S., Robles, J., Galindo, J., & Fortuny, J. (2009) A unique Middle Miocene European hominoid and the origins of the great ape and human clade. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0811730106
- April 30, 2008
- 10:06 AM
- 1,566 views
Robust australopithecines and masticatory overkill
The skull of Paranthropus boisei (AKA "Zinj," "Dear Boy," "Nutcracker Man," etc.). From Ungar et al. 2008.
Ever since the discovery of the hominds we call Paranthropus robustus in 1938 and Paranthropus boisei in 1959, the dietary habits of these "robust australopithecines" have been controversial. With skulls that seem to have more in common with gorillas than with Homo habilis, another hominid more closely related to us that lived during the same time........ Read more »
Peter Ungar, Frederick E Grine, Mark F Teaford, & Michael Petraglia. (2008) Dental Microwear and Diet of the Plio-Pleistocene Hominin Paranthropus boisei. PLoS ONE, 3(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002044
- June 11, 2008
- 12:02 PM
- 1,564 views
Wandering Megaraptor
When I wrote about the new sauropod Futalognkosaurus dukei last October, I noted that the authors of the paper describing the animal also included a brief summary of the other animals found nearby. Remains of crocodiles, fish, and pterosaurs provided some clues as to the paleoecology of the area about 90 million years ago, but one of the big surprises was a big honkin' claw from Megaraptor. At first the remains of Megaraptor were thought to represent a coelurosaur, but the complete hand h........ Read more »
Nathan Smith, Peter J Makovicky, Federico L Agnolin, Martín D Ezcurra, Diego F Pais, & Steven W Salisbury. (2008) A Megaraptor-like theropod (Dinosauria: Tetanurae) in Australia: support for faunal exchange across eastern and western Gondwana in the Mid-Cretaceous. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, -1(-1), -1--1. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.0504
- April 10, 2009
- 10:38 AM
- 1,554 views
Another cool Cambrian critter
An artist's restoration of Hurdia. From the Science paper.
It is not easy working on Cambrian fossils. The petrified treasures are found in only a few places in the world, and even though many exhibit exquisite preservation they come from a time when life on earth would have looked very unfamiliar. One such creature, Anomalocaris, was a three foot long invertebrate that swam by undulating a series of lobes on either side of its body. In front of its mouth were two spiked tendrils that may have ........ Read more »
Daley, A., Budd, G., Caron, J., Edgecombe, G., & Collins, D. (2009) The Burgess Shale Anomalocaridid Hurdia and Its Significance for Early Euarthropod Evolution. Science, 323(5921), 1597-1600. DOI: 10.1126/science.1169514
- October 31, 2008
- 09:29 AM
- 1,544 views
There's more than one way to catch an elephant shrew
This past February I wrote about a new giant sengi (or elephant shrew) described in the Journal of Zoology. When attempts to capture live animals failed, researchers used camera traps to get a better look at these previously undescribed creatures. A new paper in the Journal of Mammalogy has announced the discovery of another (although smaller) species of elephant shrew, but it wasn't so easy to spot.
The new species of sengi (bottom, EPI), compared with Elephantulus edwardii (EED), and E. rupes........ Read more »
H. A. Smit, T. J. Robinson, J. Watson, & B. Jansen van Vuuren. (2008) A New Species of Elephant-shrew (Afrotheria: Macroscelidea: Elephantulus) from South Africa. Journal of Mammalogy, 89(5), 1257. DOI: 10.1644/07-MAMM-A-254.1
- April 22, 2008
- 11:06 AM
- 1,542 views
Amphibious Elephant Ancestors
Although not as aquatically-adapted as their distant ancestors, Indian elephants are certainly capable swimmers.
A number of my fellow ScienceBloggers have covered the "Aquatic Elephant Hypothesis" lately (see here, here, and here), and even though I'm a little late to the party I thought that I'd throw in my two cents about the significance of ancient, waterlogged pachyderms.
The idea that the ancestors of elephants (including the two living genera Loxodonta and Eleph........ Read more »
A Liu, E R Seiffert, & E L Simons. (2008) Stable isotope evidence for an amphibious phase in early proboscidean evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(15), 5786-5791. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0800884105
- April 1, 2010
- 10:27 AM
- 1,540 views
Fossil teeth tell of ancient ape diets
The partial faces of Anoiapithecus (left), Pierolapithecus (center), and Dryopithecus (right). (Images not to scale)
Our species is just one branch of a withering part of the evolutionary tree, the great apes. Along with the handful of species of chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, we are all that is left of the hominids, and considering the threats our close relatives face we could very soon be the only great apes left. It has not always been this way. During the swath of prehistory ~2........ Read more »
Alba, D., Fortuny, J., & Moya-Sola, S. (2010) Enamel thickness in the Middle Miocene great apes Anoiapithecus, Pierolapithecus and Dryopithecus. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2010.0218
- February 4, 2008
- 11:04 AM
- 1,526 views
Say hello to the Grey-Faced Sengi!
The grey-faced sengi (Rhynchocyon udzungwensis). From Rovero, et al. (2008).
Several years ago, while on a visit to the Philadelphia Zoo, I first saw a creature I had never heard of before; the black and rufus sengi (Rhynchocyon petersi). The exhibit caption simply called it a giant elephant shrew, and even though I was familiar with smaller members of the Macroscelididae like the short-eared elephant shrew (Macroscelides proboscideus), I had never seen their giant relatives. This perhaps re........ Read more »
F Rovero, G Rathbun, A Perkin, T Jones, D Ribble, C Leonard, R Mwakisoma, & N Doggart. (2008) A new species of giant sengi or elephant-shrew (genus Rhynchocyon) highlights the exceptional biodiversity of the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania. Journal of Zoology, 274(2), 126-133. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7998.2007.00363.x
- October 16, 2009
- 11:28 AM
- 1,518 views
A Different Kind of Whale
Three restorations (top, left side, and bottom) of the skull of Andrewsiphius. From the Journal of Paleontology paper.
During the past 30 years the evolution of fully aquatic whales from terrestrial ancestors has gone from one of the most enigmatic evolutionary transitions to one of the best documented. Evidence from the fossil record, genetics, and embryology have been combined to document how early whales walked into the sea, but what often has gone unnoticed is the diversity of early wh........ Read more »
Thewissen, J., & Bajpai, S. (2009) New Skeletal Material of Andrewsiphius and Kutchicetus, Two Eocene Cetaceans from India. Journal of Paleontology, 83(5), 635-663. DOI: 10.1666/08-045.1
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