Ben Creisler
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
***
Some recent items:
Medical Needs for Dr. Jim Kirkland, Utah State Paleontologist
I'm wishing Jim the best. He's done great work and deserves everyone's support!
===
The Top Ten Dinosaur Discoveries of 2020
Paleontologists uncovered a great deal about the "terrible lizards" this year
Paleontologists uncovered a great deal about the "terrible lizards" this year
****
The 10 coolest dinosaur findings of 2020Â
****
5 of the Best Discoveries About Dinosaurs in 2020
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/28793/20201224/5-best-discoveries-dinosaurs-2020.htm
==
https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/28793/20201224/5-best-discoveries-dinosaurs-2020.htm
==
Happy Christmas! Hereâs why giraffes have short necks! (And sauropods have LONG necks...)
video talk by Michael Taylor
video talk by Michael Taylor
====
Ichnology: Following in the Footsteps of Giants
===
Synapsid with theropod-like teeth
https://news.umanitoba.ca/um-researcher-part-of-team-that-finds-surprising-connection-between-dinosaurs-and-mammals/
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-team-dinosaurs-mammals.html
https://news.umanitoba.ca/um-researcher-part-of-team-that-finds-surprising-connection-between-dinosaurs-and-mammals/
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-team-dinosaurs-mammals.html
===
Too good to be true Triassic Chinese ichthyosaur fossil was a fake, with skeletal parts formed by mixing coal gangue powder, calcite powder, ancient vertebrate bone powder and adhesive. (in Chinese)
====
Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs podcast
***
"Europasaurus" book review
Interview with Irish paleontologist Emma Dunne
===
MARY ANNING: ÂFOR THE LOVE OF THE BLUE LIAS
===
Who is Arkhane? (episode 1)
**
Arkhane: too young to die! (episode 2)
The Journey of a Fossil Part 2: The Collections
The Journey of a Fossil Part 3: The Gallery
Ammonites
Videos:
****
Julie Meachen, Matthew J. Wooller, Benjamin D. Barst, Juliette Funck, Carley Crann, Jess Heath, Molly Cassatt-Johnstone, Beth Shapiro, Elizabeth Hall, Susan Hewitson& Grant Zazula (2020)Â
A mummified Pleistocene gray wolf pup.
Current Biology, 2020; 30 (24): R1467
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.11.011
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)31686-9
Top 9 Discoveries in Human Evolution, 2020 Edition
Erik Tihelka, Mattia Giacomelli, Di-Ying Huang, Davide Pisani, Philip C. J. Donoghue, Chen-Yang Cai.
Fleas are parasitic scorpionflies.
Palaeoentomology 3(6): 641â653
DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/palaeoentomology.3.6.16
https://www.mapress.com/j/pe/article/view/palaeoentomology.3.6.16
Fleas (Siphonaptera) are medically important blood-feeding insects responsible for spreading pathogens such as plague, murine typhus, and myxomatosis. The peculiar morphology of fleas resulting from their specialised ectoparasitic lifestyle has meant that the phylogenetic position of this diverse and medically important group has remained one of the most persistent problems in insect evolution. Here we test competing hypotheses on the contentious evolutionary relationships of fleas and antliophoran insects using the largest molecular dataset available to date consisting of over 1,400 protein-coding genes, and a smaller mitogenome and Sanger sequence alignment of 16 genes. By removing ambiguously aligned sequence regions and using site-heterogeneous models, we consistently recover fleas nested within scorpionflies (Mecoptera) as sister to the relictual southern hemisphere family Nannochoristidae. Topology tests accounting for compositional heterogeneity strongly favour the proposed topology over previous hypotheses of antliophoran relationships. This clade is diagnosed by shared morphological characters of the head and sperm pump. Fleas may no longer be regarded as a separate insect order and we propose that Siphonaptera should be treated as an infraorder within Mecoptera, reducing the number of extant holometabolan insect orders to ten.
===
Videos:
The Story of Triceratops
Benjamin Burger
Benjamin Burger
====
Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels
Privately owned allosaur on loan
Privately owned allosaur on loan
Who is Arkhane? (episode 1)
**
Arkhane: too young to die! (episode 2)
===
The Triassic Reptile With "Two Faces": Atopodentatus
PBS Eons
PBS Eons
===
Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum
The Journey of a Fossil Part 2: The Collections
**
The Journey of a Fossil Part 3: The Gallery
====
====
Non-dino:
Ammonites
===
ZhÃr: 57,000-year-old Wolf Pup Mummy from the Yukon
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/57000-year-old-mummified-wolf-pup-was-discovered-frozen-permafrost-180976615/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/57000-year-old-mummified-wolf-pup-was-discovered-frozen-permafrost-180976615/
Videos:
****
Free pdf link:
Julie Meachen, Matthew J. Wooller, Benjamin D. Barst, Juliette Funck, Carley Crann, Jess Heath, Molly Cassatt-Johnstone, Beth Shapiro, Elizabeth Hall, Susan Hewitson& Grant Zazula (2020)Â
A mummified Pleistocene gray wolf pup.
Current Biology, 2020; 30 (24): R1467
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.11.011
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)31686-9
Free pdf:
https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0960-9822%2820%2931686-9
In July 2016, a mummified carcass of an ancient wolf (Canis lupus) pup (specimen YG 648.1) was discovered in thawing permafrost in the Klondike goldfields, near Dawson City, Yukon, Canada (Figure 1A). The wolf pup mummy was recovered along a small tributary of Last Chance Creek during hydraulic thawing that exposed the permafrost sediment in which it was preserved. This mummified wolf pup is important to the local TrâondÃk HwÃchâin people, who named it ZhÃr, meaning âwolfâ in the HÃn language of their community. Here, we report detailed morphometric, isotopic, and genetic analyses of ZhÃr that reveal details of her appearance, evolutionary relationships to other wolves and short life-history and ecology. ZhÃr is the most complete wolf mummy known. She lived approximately 57,000 years ago and died in her den during a collapse of the sediments. During her short life, she ate aquatic resources, and is related to ancient Beringian and Russian gray wolves and her clade is basal to all living gray wolves.
https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0960-9822%2820%2931686-9
In July 2016, a mummified carcass of an ancient wolf (Canis lupus) pup (specimen YG 648.1) was discovered in thawing permafrost in the Klondike goldfields, near Dawson City, Yukon, Canada (Figure 1A). The wolf pup mummy was recovered along a small tributary of Last Chance Creek during hydraulic thawing that exposed the permafrost sediment in which it was preserved. This mummified wolf pup is important to the local TrâondÃk HwÃchâin people, who named it ZhÃr, meaning âwolfâ in the HÃn language of their community. Here, we report detailed morphometric, isotopic, and genetic analyses of ZhÃr that reveal details of her appearance, evolutionary relationships to other wolves and short life-history and ecology. ZhÃr is the most complete wolf mummy known. She lived approximately 57,000 years ago and died in her den during a collapse of the sediments. During her short life, she ate aquatic resources, and is related to ancient Beringian and Russian gray wolves and her clade is basal to all living gray wolves.
====
Top 9 Discoveries in Human Evolution, 2020 Edition
====
Jurassic origin of fleas
Erik Tihelka, Mattia Giacomelli, Di-Ying Huang, Davide Pisani, Philip C. J. Donoghue, Chen-Yang Cai.
Fleas are parasitic scorpionflies.
Palaeoentomology 3(6): 641â653
DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/palaeoentomology.3.6.16
https://www.mapress.com/j/pe/article/view/palaeoentomology.3.6.16
Fleas (Siphonaptera) are medically important blood-feeding insects responsible for spreading pathogens such as plague, murine typhus, and myxomatosis. The peculiar morphology of fleas resulting from their specialised ectoparasitic lifestyle has meant that the phylogenetic position of this diverse and medically important group has remained one of the most persistent problems in insect evolution. Here we test competing hypotheses on the contentious evolutionary relationships of fleas and antliophoran insects using the largest molecular dataset available to date consisting of over 1,400 protein-coding genes, and a smaller mitogenome and Sanger sequence alignment of 16 genes. By removing ambiguously aligned sequence regions and using site-heterogeneous models, we consistently recover fleas nested within scorpionflies (Mecoptera) as sister to the relictual southern hemisphere family Nannochoristidae. Topology tests accounting for compositional heterogeneity strongly favour the proposed topology over previous hypotheses of antliophoran relationships. This clade is diagnosed by shared morphological characters of the head and sperm pump. Fleas may no longer be regarded as a separate insect order and we propose that Siphonaptera should be treated as an infraorder within Mecoptera, reducing the number of extant holometabolan insect orders to ten.
===
THE FOSSIL HISTORY OF THE CHRISTMAS TREE
====
New flower from 100 million years ago brings fresh holiday beauty to 2020
===
How Bad Was The Great Oxidation Event? (video)