Re: The most important fossil discovery in 2004 (your opinions?)

[ANN SCHMIDT <ashmidt@flash.net>]

And was not the discovery of that Psittacosaurus (sp)
preserved with not 10, not 20, but 34 young an
important discovery in the controversy over whether or
not dinosaurs cared for their young any length of time
after they hatched?

--- Brian Choo <bchoo@bigpond.net.au> wrote:

> Guess nobody cares about Rhenopterus watersoni -
> first eurypterid from 
> the famous Gogo Fm, the most complete eurypterid
> from Oz and the 
> youngest rhenopterid in the fossil record. Poor
> thing...
> 
>  O. Erik Tetlie; Simon J. Braddy; Piers D. Butler;
> Derek E. G. Briggs - 
>  Palaeontology  July 2004, vol. 47, no. 4,   pp.
> 801-809(9)
> 
>  Brian Choo
> Website  = http://www.geocities.com/ozraptor4/
> 
> On 31/12/2004, at 6:04 AM, Jaime A. Headden wrote:
> 
> > In no particular order, important 2004
> paleogeological discoveries:
> >
> >   1. oldest land animal known, or rather oldest
> "air-breathing" animal,
> > *Pneumodesmus newmani,* (a millipede from the
> Devonian) from Scotland.
> >   2. fossil oldest orangutan, thus origins of
> pongids, and hominoids,
> > *Khoratpithecus piriyai* from the late Miocene of
> Thailand.
> >   3. earliest known tyrannosauroid theropod
> dinosaur, *Dilong 
> > paradoxus,*
> > from the Early Cretaceous of Liaoning Province,
> China.
> >   4. revision of the geological column and
> arrangement of nomenclature
> > revises ideas about ages and dates for some
> critical periods in the
> > Earth's history, including recognition of the
> Ediacaran and 
> > "abandonment"
> > of the terms Teriary and
> Pennsylvanian/Mississippian.
> >   5. fossil "erectine" hominin, *Homo
> floresiensis,* as a possible
> > outlying relative (but not precursor) to most
> hominins, from Flores in
> > Indonesia, suggest insular drawfism in the human
> lineage prior to 
> > modern
> > examples. [People have countered this idea in
> suggesting it is a
> > microcephalic dwarf, and that of a subfossil *Homo
> sapiens* rather than
> > related to *Homo erectus.*]
> >   6. *Mei long,* preserved in a sleeping pose, is
> a troodontid from 
> > China
> > (same area as *Dilong* above), and is termed the
> "sleeping dragon."
> > [People have pointed out that non-theropod
> dinosaurs like 
> > *Psittacosaurus*
> > and the other troodontid *Sinornithoides,* have
> also been preserved in
> > "sleeping" poses, and that it doesn't neccessarily
> follow the animal 
> > was
> > sleeping at the time.]
> >   7. Rolando Gonzalex-Jose described a possible
> multi-variant episodic
> > exploration of the New World by Asian emmigrants,
> indicating the the
> > so-called Mongoloid exploration event is out and
> out not viable as the
> > only initial colonization event, so that following
> mammoths would have
> > been only ONE reason to come to the New World.
> Thus human existence in
> > North America was pulsating, not steady.
> >   8. comparison of the human and Chimpanzee genome
> at Chromosome-21
> > suggests that human catabolism has been selected
> for, and in comparison
> > with the chimps, our lineage has undergone a
> selection event in which 
> > meat
> > was favored, supporting the idea that human
> ancestors were foraging and
> > hunting, rather than sitting back and munching on
> fruit and plants and
> > invertebrates, or "gardening."