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aamukherjee Entropie -
alchymista Alchymista -
crownedrose Hymn To The Sea -
epistemophobiarunsdeep Falling Over Myself. -
expose-the-light Quarks to Quasars -
ikenbot cwl -
pieceinthepuzzlehumanity This Is The Right One -
project-argus Hello, Universe. -
torgothegreat God Delusion
Killer fungus hits endangered gray bats
After killing 6 million bats from six other species, white-nose syndrome is now attacking one of North America’s most vulnerable varieties.
ikenbot
Mesolimulus walchi (extinct arthropod) fossil and its track! It’s rare to have this kind of preservation, and very important to scientists.
(Photo by unforth on Flickr; approved to share)
(via crownedrose)
crownedrose
Octopus foils predators by stealing identities
The octopus’s clever camouflaging has to fool all different types of visual systems from all different angles to be truly effective.
Explore the Map of Life!
MappingLife.org is live, and incredibly informative. It has collected biodiversity survey data for tens of thousands of terrestrial and aquatic species around Earth. And it’s all there for you to search and draw maps with.
The data comes from field observations as well as other sources, like museum specimens. You can toggle several different types of observations for each species that you choose, and overlay them on customized Google-based maps.
The map above is one I made just now, showing the known habitats of a few bluefin tuna species (genus Thunnus, because they are critically threatened), African elephants (Loxodonta africana, also fighting with humans to retain their habitat) and sea otters (Enhydra lutris, because I love otters). Here’s a tutorial video.
It’s a tool that’s as much educational as it is fun, and a way for anyone to take part in biodiversity research. It’s all of our planet. They’re all of our species.
Go. Play. Learn. Conserve.
Ancient Turtle Was as Big as Small Car
Content via livescience.com. Artwork by Liz Bradford.
A turtle the size of a small car once roamed what is now South America 60 million years ago, suggests its fossilized remains.
Discovered in a coal mine in Colombia in 2005, the turtle was given the name Carbonemys cofrinii, which means “coal turtle.” It wasn’t until now that the turtle was examined and described in a scientific journal; the findings are detailed online today (May 17) in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology.
The researchers say C. cofriniibelongs to a group of side-necked turtles known as pelomedusoides. The turtle’s skull, roughly the size of an NFL football, was the most complete of the fossil remains.
In addition to its colossal size, the turtle would have been equipped with massive, powerful jaws, meaning it could’ve eaten just about anything in its range, from mollusks (a group that includes snails) to smaller turtles and even crocodiles, the researchers noted.
Statement from the President of Mongolia
As some of you might have seen in the media, there is going to be an auction in New York City tomorrow, May 20th 2012. Heritage Auctions is the auction house running the event. The biggest ticket item, and the one that is getting this auction a lot of coverage in the press, is an almost complete skeleton of Tarbosaurus bataar, which is being referred to as a T-rex in some stories. The two dinosaurs are very simular to one another. The problem is that this specimen assuredly comes from Mongolia. Thus, it is stolen.
Here is a letter from Dr. Mark Norell, the dinosaur curator at the American Museum of Natural History, explaining the situation:
It is with great concern that I see Mongolian dinosaur materials listed in the upcoming (May 20) Heritage Auctions Natural History catalogue. For the last 22 years I have excavated specimens Mongolia in conjunction with the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. I have been an author on over 75 scientific papers describing these important specimens. Unfortunately, in my years in the desert I have witnessed ever increasing illegal looting of dinosaur sites, including some of my own excavations. These extremely important fossils are now appearing on the international market. In the current catalogue Lot 49317 (a skull of Saichania) and Lot 49315 (a mounted Tarbosaurus skeleton) clearly were excavated in Mongolia as this is the only locality in the world where these dinosaurs are known. The copy listed in the catalogue, while not mentioning Mongolia specifically (the locality is listed as Central Asia) repeatedly makes reference to the Gobi Desert and to the fact that other specimens of dinosaurs were collected in Mongolia. As someone who is intimately familiar with these faunas, these specimens were undoubtedly looted from Mongolia. There is no legal mechanism (nor has there been for over 50 years) to remove vertebrate fossil material from Mongolia. These specimens are the patrimony of the Mongolian people and should be in a museum in Mongolia. As a professional paleontologist, am appalled that these illegally collected specimens (with no associated documents regarding provenance) are being are being sold at auction.
Sincerely,
Dr. Mark A. Norell
Chairman and Curator
Division of Paleontology
So far the only response from the auction house has been ‘we didn’t break any US laws, why didn’t the Mongolian government contact us before?’ and my favorite, and I will quote here: Mongolia won its independence in 1921 and this specimen is obviously quite a bit older than that.
What can be done? Probably not much, sadly. But it is important that people realize it is /NOT/ okay to take these materials out of their countries of origin with out working with the local governments. That is true for both for profit enterprises such as this auction but also for purely scientific studies. Most of the mongolian material at the AMNH currently is on long term loans, and many amazing specimens have already been returned to Mongolia.
It is very upsetting that the vast majority of articles in the media about this specimen and the auction make NO mention of the illegal source of the material. Spread the word! And please, never buy vertebrate fossils from private collectors.
Here, guys. Check out this petition on change.org which has 357/500 signatures! It may not do much, BUT you can at least show your support.
This kind of issue - like I said earlier - is big these days. Well, it’s been going on for far too long as it is, but with the advancement in media, technology, and things like the internet, deals are happening even more than before.
At one of my latest palaeo events, we discussed the issues of illegal (and even legal) fossil sales. Not to mention the looting that can happen at sites, as obviously stated above. It’s scary to leave half a skeleton in the middle of nowhere, hoping no one else will discover it until you can get back next year to dig the rest of it out.
There are specimens in private collections that could hold great information for us, yet those owners refuse to have scientists look at their collections. Now, not all owners are like this, but many are.
If this beauty sells, I truly hope the winner does the right thing and returns/donates it back to where it should be, and that this specimen (+ many others) is able to be studied more and put up at museums for all to enjoy.
Siberian salamanders have compounds in their blood that enable them to survive temperatures of -45°C(-49F). They can stay frozen solid for years before thawing and reviving as good as new. (Wild Russia - NDR)
:3!
So, so cool! You can read about these little guys over at newscientist.com
![What a Croc!Photo: Specimen KNM-ER 1683 of Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni. A-C is the skull seen from the top, bottom, and left side. D and E show the lower jaw from the top and the right side. Modified from Brochu and Storrs, 2012.Article Content via Wired.
“Paleontologists Christopher Brochu and Glenn Storrs have just named a new croc that hid in the rivers and lakes of prehistoric Kenya between 2 and 4 million years ago.”
“Brochu and Storrs named the predator Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni. The animal was an older cousin of Africa’s modern Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus). But the fossil crocodile was larger. While the biggest Nile crocodile ever recorded was a little short of 21 feet, Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni may have been over 27 feet long. If the estimates of Brochu and Storrs are correct, the newly-named fossil form was the largest species of Crocodylus ever.”
“Granted, that’s not as gargantuan as Deinosuchus, but a 27-foot crocodile would have surely been scary enough for the prehistoric humans of the Turkana Basin. As Brochu and Storrs lay out in the abstract of the paper describing the crocodile, “[Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni] would have been the largest predator in its environment, and the early humans found in the same deposits were presumably part of its prey base.”
Read more on Wired.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3sxjoUR4w1qbn6nco1_400.jpg)
What a Croc!
Photo: Specimen KNM-ER 1683 of Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni. A-C is the skull seen from the top, bottom, and left side. D and E show the lower jaw from the top and the right side. Modified from Brochu and Storrs, 2012.
Article Content via Wired.
“Paleontologists Christopher Brochu and Glenn Storrs have just named a new croc that hid in the rivers and lakes of prehistoric Kenya between 2 and 4 million years ago.”
“Brochu and Storrs named the predator Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni. The animal was an older cousin of Africa’s modern Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus). But the fossil crocodile was larger. While the biggest Nile crocodile ever recorded was a little short of 21 feet, Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni may have been over 27 feet long. If the estimates of Brochu and Storrs are correct, the newly-named fossil form was the largest species of Crocodylus ever.”
“Granted, that’s not as gargantuan as Deinosuchus, but a 27-foot crocodile would have surely been scary enough for the prehistoric humans of the Turkana Basin. As Brochu and Storrs lay out in the abstract of the paper describing the crocodile, “[Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni] would have been the largest predator in its environment, and the early humans found in the same deposits were presumably part of its prey base.”
Read more on Wired.
Friendly dolphins help Brazilian fishermen to catch fish.
~ Top image: Tolomea/Flickr. Article content from io9.com
“We think of dolphins as playful — but they may also be more cunning than we ever realized. A subset of the dolphin population in Laguna, Brazil has started cooperating with human fishing expeditions. The dolphins will help people get better catches, in return for whatever the fisherman discard. They’ll drive schools of mullet towards the fisherman, and they even signal when and where to cast the nets.”
“Newly published research has looked at the dolphins who are helping out in this unique way. What the scientists discovered is that the sea mammals that cooperated with the humans were more social than the ones that didn’t, both within their own species, and with ours. The researchers believe this is to do with social learning practices, where these skills can be passed between the more connected dolphins.”
“What’s intriguing to me is how close this skirts to the origins of domestication. By cooperating with these select dolphins, we’re feeding them more, and giving them potentially a better chance at survival, and passing on the cooperative skills. Tell me that doesn’t sound like the first stages of what happened with dogs? Now we just need a few thousand years to breed them into the dolphin equivalent of a lapdog.”
