Tag Archives: fossils

650-pound fossil whale skull found in Maryland

January 18, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

A Pennsylvania family discovered a 650-lb fossil whale skull on the Chesapeake Bay in southern Maryland.

Cody Goddard, his wife, and their son were on Matoaka Beach in Calvert County when they saw a large, hardened block of sediment laying on the beach. According to the Calvert Marine Museum, the sediment had an “unusual” fossil protruding from one end.

The discovery was made in October, but due to the fossil’s sheer size, it took about two months for the fossil to be extracted.

The whale skull fossil was about five and a half feet long, 18 inches wide, and weighed approximately 650 pounds, according to the curator of paleontology at the Calvert Marine Museum, Stephen J. Godfrey.

Godfrey was contacted by Goddard about his discovery in October and worked with him to examine the large fossil.

Godfrey stated that the weight of the fossil mostly came, not from the skull itself, but from the unusual, cemented sediment that had formed around the skull.

“In a way, it created its own sarcophagus – its own little burial chamber that preserved it for millions of years and for us to be able to find,” he said.

A 650-pound fossilized whale skull was found in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

Calvert Marine Museum/Facebook

The skull is estimated to be 12 million years old.

On Dec. 19, Godfrey and his team from the Calvert Marine Museum Fossil Club successfully removed the fossil from the beach and brought it to the bayside museum for further research.

According to Godfrey, the skull is around 12 million years old, based on the sediment age along Calvert Cliffs. The skull came from a baleen whale, a type of whale that uses its teeth to filter its prey, plankton, from ocean water.

Compared to modern baleen whales, such as humpback whales, the prehistoric whale the skull came from was quite small and narrow at 5 1/2 feet long and about 18 inches wide.

The fossil was originally discovered in October, but it took two months for it to be extracted.

Scientists will be able to determine which baleen whale species the skull belonged to after the sediment is removed.

“This would have been a very hydrodynamic type of whale, so it could probably swim fairly quickly,” Godfrey said. “And, of course, you’d want to because you have Megalodon swimming at that time, and you’re doing all you can to avoid being Megalodon’s next meal.”

Godfrey noted that the skull would be more completely analyzed in about two months, which will be the amount of time needed to remove the hardened sediment surrounding the skull.

When the skull is free of sediment, Godfrey and his team will be able to determine which baleen whale species the skull belonged to.

According to the Calvert Marine Museum, the skull — called “Cody” after Cody Goddard — is the most complete fossil whale skull ever recovered from that section of Calvert Cliffs.

Read original article here

Science

Scientists unearth megaraptors in Chile’s Patagonia

January 17, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

Scientists in Chile’s Patagonia region are unearthing the southernmost dinosaur fossils recorded outside Antarctica, including remains of megaraptors that would have dominated the area’s food chain before their mass extinction.

Fossils of megaraptors, a carnivorous dinosaur that inhabited parts of South America during the Cretaceous period some 70 million years ago, were found in sizes up to 10 meters long, according to the Journal of South American Earth Sciences.

“We were missing a piece,” Marcelo Leppe, director of the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH), told Reuters. “We knew where there were large mammals, there would also be large carnivores, but we hadn’t found them yet.”

The remains, recovered from Chile’s far south Rio de las Chinas Valley in the Magallanes Basin between 2016 and 2020, also include some unusual remains of unenlagia, velociraptor-like dinosaurs which likely lived covered in feathers.

The specimens, according to University of Chile researcher Jared Amudeo, had some characteristics not present in Argentine or Brazilian counterparts.

A fossil at ‘Guido’ hill, where megaraptor fossils were unearthed.

Reuters

“It could be a new species, which is very likely, or belong to another family of dinosaurs that are closely related,” he said, adding more conclusive evidence is needed.

The studies also shed more light on the conditions of the meteorite impact on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula that may have triggered the dinosaurs’ extinction some 65 million years ago.

A team works in the Chilean Patagonia area, where feathered dinosaur fossils were found.

INACH’s Leppe pointed to a sharp drop in temperatures over present-day Patagonia and waves of intense cold lasting up to several thousand years, in contrast to the extremely warm climate that prevailed for much of the Cretaceous period.

“The enormous variation we are seeing, the biological diversity, was also responding to very powerful environmental stimuli,” Leppe said.

“This world was already in crisis before (the meteorite) and this is evidenced in the rocks of the Rio de las Chinas Valley,” he said.

Read original article here

Science

Scientists unearth megaraptors, feathered dinosaur fossils in Chile’s Patagonia

January 17, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

Jan 16 (Reuters) – Scientists in Chile’s Patagonia region are unearthing the southernmost dinosaur fossils recorded outside Antarctica, including remains of megaraptors that would have dominated the area’s food chain before their mass extinction.

The specimens, according to University of Chile researcher Jared Amudeo, had some characteristics not present in Argentine or Brazilian counterparts.

[1/5] A man works at the area where scientists discovered megaraptor fossils at ‘Guido’ hill in the Chilean Patagonia area, close to Torres del Paine park, in Magallanes and Antarctic region, Chile in this undated handout photo provided by the Instituto Chileno Antartico on January 16, 2023. Instituto Chileno Antartico/Handout via REUTERS

“It could be a new species, which is very likely, or belong to another family of dinosaurs that are closely related,” he said, adding more conclusive evidence is needed.

The studies also shed more light on the conditions of the meteorite impact on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula that may have triggered the dinosaurs’ extinction some 65 million years ago.

“The enormous variation we are seeing, the biological diversity, was also responding to very powerful environmental stimuli,” Leppe said.

“This world was already in crisis before (the meteorite) and this is evidenced in the rocks of the Rio de las Chinas Valley,” he said.

Reporting by Marion Giraldo; Writing by Sarah Morland, Editing by Alistair Bell

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Read original article here

Science

Scientists unearth megaraptors, feathered dinosaur fossils in Chile’s Patagonia

January 16, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

By Marion Giraldo

(Reuters) – Scientists in Chile’s Patagonia region are unearthing the southernmost dinosaur fossils recorded outside Antarctica, including remains of megaraptors that would have dominated the area’s food chain before their mass extinction.

The specimens, according to University of Chile researcher Jared Amudeo, had some characteristics not present in Argentine or Brazilian counterparts.

“It could be a new species, which is very likely, or belong to another family of dinosaurs that are closely related,” he said, adding more conclusive evidence is needed.

The studies also shed more light on the conditions of the meteorite impact on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula that may have triggered the dinosaurs’ extinction some 65 million years ago.

“The enormous variation we are seeing, the biological diversity, was also responding to very powerful environmental stimuli,” Leppe said.

“This world was already in crisis before (the meteorite) and this is evidenced in the rocks of the Rio de las Chinas Valley,” he said.

(Reporting by Marion Giraldo; Writing by Sarah Morland, Editing by Alistair Bell)

Read original article here

Science

‘Sea monster’ fossils offer signs of ichthyosaur migration 230 million years ago

December 19, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

Comment

Fossil experts believe they have solved a decades-old mystery: How did at least 37 school-bus-size marine reptiles die and become embedded in stone about 230 million years ago in what is now central Nevada? If the scientists from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and other institutions are correct, the fossil graveyard near an old silver mine represents an early example of migration, one of the most fundamental and deeply ingrained of all animal behaviors.

The bones found at the Nevada site come from the giant ichthyosaur Shonisaurus, which resembled an enormous, out-of-shape dolphin. Shonisaurus glided barge-like thousands of miles through an ocean known as Panthalassa, the ancient version of today’s Pacific, to breed and deliver their offspring, according to a new study in Current Biology.

The finding offers a rare window into the behaviors of prehistoric animals, something that is not always captured by individual fossils. It raises the possibility that further clues embedded in sediment and soil may offer a deeper understanding of marine reptiles that inhabited the planet long before humans.

The earliest known evidence of migration dates back more than 300 million years to ancient Bandringa sharks with long spoon bill-shaped snouts and prehistoric fish with armored plates. Today billions of animals migrate, including species as diverse as hummingbirds and humpback whales, monarch butterflies and blue wildebeests.

Climate change might be playing a role in reports of larger-than-normal fish in unexpected areas. (Video: John Farrell, Brian Monroe/The Washington Post)

Clues from similar fossils found in other regions suggest that Shonisaurus migrated to central Nevada from parts of modern-day California, Alaska and New Mexico.

If so, that behavior could link the prehistoric Shonisaurus, the largest creature to travel the oceans in the Triassic period, with modern giants — the blue whales observed today with their calves in the Gulf of California. Whales tend to migrate to warmer waters to give birth, then to cooler waters that are rich in nutrients.

“One has to wonder if the same ecological rules are at play even though there are over 200 million years between [whales and Shonisauruses],” said Nicholas D. Pyenson, one of the new paper’s authors who works in the department of paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History.

Not all experts in the field believe Pyenson and his colleagues have solved the mystery surrounding the great abundance of Shonisaurus bones at the site and the absolute absence of any other ichthyosaurs.

“This study is probably not the final word, but it’s a good step forward,” cautioned Martin Sander, a professor of paleontology at the University of Bonn in Germany and research associate at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Sander, who was not involved in the study, added “I’m not entirely convinced. It’s a good idea but it’s awfully difficult to prove.”

The skeletons at Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in West Union Canyon show that the Shonisaurus grew up to 50 feet, five times the length of a modern dolphin, and weighed about 22 tons, the equivalent of three large elephants. Their offspring were only a few feet long.

Charles L. Camp, a University of California at Berkeley paleontologist, was first to excavate the alternating layers of limestone and mudstone at the site in the 1950s. He immediately wondered what might account for the large cluster of Shonisaurus skeletons.

“He thought it might be a mass stranding,” like those involving whales, said Neil P. Kelley, another of the paper’s authors and an assistant professor in Vanderbilt University’s department of earth and environmental sciences.

But the fossil evidence disproves that hypothesis, showing that the skeletons had settled underwater far from shore.

The effort to explain why Shonisaurus bones have so far been the only ichthyosaur fossils discovered at the Nevada site became a feat of scientific detective work. Researchers combined 3D scanning and geochemistry with more traditional tools such as museum collections, field notes, photographs and archival materials.

They came to view migration as the most likely scenario after eliminating other possibilities. Testing the sediment revealed an absence of the mercury levels that would have signaled volcanic activity, which is believed to have caused the largest mass extinction 252 million years ago.

Researchers were also able to eliminate the possibility that a deadly algal bloom poisoned the marine reptiles.

In the end, only the migration scenario appeared to make sense.

“Shonisaurus definitely occurs at other locations so the genus had a broad geographic range, and it is very reasonable that these large individuals traveled long distances, as most large marine vertebrates do today,” Kelley said. “It should be possible to gather additional data in the future which could test the hypotheses we present in the paper, including migration.”

At least two other mysteries remain surrounding the ancient marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs.

Sander at the University of Bonn said ichthyosaurs, like sea turtles, were originally land animals of some kind, “but they appear in the fossil record as fully blown open ocean animals. We don’t have the right rocks to show how the ichthyosaurs went to the sea.”

Also, while Shonisaurus went extinct about 200 million years ago at the end of the Triassic, “smaller ichthyosaurs survived into the Jurassic and beyond with the entire group going extinct around 88 million years ago in the Cretaceous,” Kelley said. Why the small ichthyosaurs survived and the giants didn’t is not clear.

Pyenson cannot help but think that the ultimate fate of Shonisaurus carries a lesson for modern-day blue whales, and other cetaceans, many of which are now classified as endangered.

“We should want a world,” he said, “with these large ocean giants in it.”

Read original article here

Science

Fossil found in drawer is found to be oldest known modern lizard | Fossils

December 2, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

The fossilised remains of a small, sharp-toothed lizard, left in a cupboard for more than half a century, have pushed back the origins of the group that encompasses modern snakes and lizards by tens of millions of years.

The specimen was collected in the 1950s from a quarry near Tortworth in Gloucestershire by the late fossil hunter Pamela L Robinson. But its true identity was not appreciated as the creature was erroneously labelled and stored, until recently when it was found in the Natural History Museum in London.

Now researchers say advances in technology have allowed them to take a second look, revealing that the creature holds a pivotal position in the reptile family tree.

Artist’s impression of Cryptovaranoides when it was alive. Photograph: Lavinia Gandolfi

“It’s partly a story of neglected fossils in [a] drawer, and partially a story [that] without the CT scan, you would not have been able to do the work that we did,” said Prof Michael Benton, a palaeontologist at the University of Bristol and a co-author of the research.

The long-tailed creature – about 25cm in length – is thought to have lived around 202m years ago It has been named Cryptovaranoides microlanius. The first term means hidden lizard-like animal, referring to its time spent unrecognised and its likely concealment in rock crevices during its life. The second term, which translates as microbutcher, is a nod to the creature’s recurved, blade-like teeth.

Using CT scanning, Benton and colleagues were able to look at the fossil in fine detail and study the bones trapped within the rock. Benson said the animal’s skull was 3cm in length. “The fossil is tiny, the ribs are just minute,” he said.

The results reveal that the animal was a squamate – one of a scaled reptile group that includes creatures such as lizards and snakes. “They start out as lizards – snakes evolve rather later in the Cretaceous,” Benton said.

The creature has key hallmarks of modern lizards, such as modified bones at the back of the skull to allow extra flexibility in jaw opening, making it the oldest such reptile found so far.

Modelling of the lizard head. Photograph: David Whiteside, Sophie Chambi-Trowell, Mike Benton and Natural History Museum UK

“It’s an anguimorph lizard, which today includes 350 species, including everything from the gila monster of North America to the Komodo monitor, the huge predatory lizard of Indonesia,” said Benton.

The team say the finding pushes back the origins of modern squamates by at least 34m years. The oldest known modern lizard previously was thought to have lived about 168m years ago.

The team add that the discovery has important implications for understanding the rate of evolution within the tree of life, and the timescale and triggers of biodiversity within modern squamates – the latter of which may help conservation of living species.

“Previously, the common ancestor of all those living forms was dated in the Middle Jurassic, whereas we’re now pulling it back to the late Triassic,” said Benton.

He said that while Cryptovaranoides microlanius was the nearest scientists now have to the last common ancestor of modern squamates, its advanced features mean the title probably belongs to another, possibly even older, creature.

Prof Steve Brusatte, a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh who was not involved in the work, said that while scientists had made many advances in understanding theorigins of mammals, birds, and crocodiles, the ancestry of lizards and snakes was more of a mystery.

An illustration of the skeleton showing the backbone, lower jaw and limbs. Photograph: David Whiteside, Sophie Chambi-Trowell, Mike Benton and Natural History Museum UK

“There are few skeletons of these delicate animals that have been preserved as fossils, and many of them are so fragile that they have proven very hard to study,” he said.

“If its identification as a modern-style lizard is correct, that meant that lizards were beginning to diversify during the Triassic period, alongside some of the earliest dinosaurs and mammal. It also proves that there are amazingly important British fossils still lurking, either in the field waiting to be discovered, or in museum collections waiting to be properly studied.”