Happy Paleo New Year!

There is an eerie silence in the basement of the Burke museum. While it may be a new year for you and me, it’s just another day in eternity for the Burke Ichthyosaurus swimming on her limestone slab as she has been for the past 120M years. The Allosaurus in the dinosaur exhibit has been frozen in time since the ultimate New Year’s Eve ball came flaming down from the cosmos some 85M years ago. But it’s time to look forward towards an exciting new year for the Northwest Paleontology Association!

Congratulations to new and renewing officers at the NPA. At our previous meeting in November, members re-elected Maureen Carlisle as President. Maureen has done an outstanding job for the past 2 years and will continue through 2008. Lawrence Friedman was elected Vice-President and will continue to publish the Aturian newsletter as well. Sandra Biggerstaff will be the new NPA secretary, Megan Richards will continue on as Treasurer and Gregg Wilson will be our archivist and librarian. There are two new positions that were added due to expanding interest and activity in the NPA. Betty Robertson will be our NPA Webmaster and Paul Kester will be our “field trip” guide and planner.

Our membership has emphasized the desire to increase activities by participating in more field trips, sharing information on paleontology and having reference materials available for education and learning. Now that we have individuals responsible for providing these services, we expect to see more activity in these areas. We look forward to regular updates and will be sharing ideas with our membership in upcoming meetings and events.

Don’t miss our featured speaker at the January 12^th meeting. Dr. Julie Stein, Director of the Burke Museum will be sharing insights on exhibits at the Burke.      

Northwest Paleontological Association Mission           

To advance the science of paleontology.  To explore, understand and preserve the paleontological heritage of Washington State and the Pacific Northwest. To support the collaborative efforts of amateur and professional paleontologists. To provide education for the community.

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                                                      Officers 

President – Maureen Carlisle                                        Vice-President – Larry Friedman

Secretary – Sandra Biggerstaff                          Treasurer – Megan Richards

 

                   Standing Committee Chairpersons

 

Programs – Bruce Crowley                                           Membership – Susan Gardner

Field Trips – Paul Kester                                              Publication – Lawrence Friedman

                                                Board Members

Maureen Carlisle, Jeff Grieff, Ron Eng, Elizabeth Nesbitt (Burke Museum)

Regular meetings are normally held at 1:00 PM on the second Saturday of every other month (January, March, May, July, September, November) in the Burke Room of the Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum.  The articles in this newsletter do not necessarily represent the views of the Burke Museum, or its staff or volunteers. The Burke Museum, the NPA’s sponsor, adheres to the American Association of Museum’s code of ethics.  The code states: “Collections related activities promote the public good rather than individual financial gain”. In order for the NPA to remain in concert with this guidance and our by-laws, there should be no solicitations at NPA functions of members for participation in commercial ventures which might lead to personal financial gains.

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                Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture

                    Box 353010  University of Washington

                             Seattle, WA   98195 - 3010

Future Additions to the Burke Collection

           

Dinctis squalidens, a saber-toothed cat from the Oligocene of the South Dakota Badlands. The middle skull is the larger cousin to Dincitis, Hoplophoneus primaveus, also of the Badland’s White River Formation. The larger skull is Machairodus giganteus from the Miocene, China.

 Icthyosaur – Stenopterygius quadriseissus,  Jurrasic Germany

     

Mosasaur – Cretaceous, Kansas Niobrara Formation

Triassic marine reptile from the Nothosaur family, China

Trionychidae, soft-shell turtle, Diplomystus and Priscacara, Green River Formation - Eocene                

 

Primitive shark – Xenacanthus,   Permian, China

Paleonews Jan. 2008

Ben Creisler

Dinosaur Mummy Preserves New Anatomical Details

Duck-billed dinosaurs thrived in North American during the Late Cretaceous and are known from hundreds of fossils specimens. In a few exceptional cases, skin and other soft tissue are found preserved. A new fossil named Dakota represents that most spectacular specimen yet found with skin and soft tissue intact, and is even better preserved than a specimen found in Montana in 2000 and dubbed Leonardo. Dated to 67 million years ago and discovered by a teenager in North Dakota in 1999, Dakota preserves the skin and un-collapsed body shape of a living animal, rather than a shriveled mummy of the skin over a skeleton. Study of the specimen continues and scientists have announced their first findings. Because of the dinosaur's size and the hard matrix that preserves the fossil, attempts to examine the specimen using powerful high-tech X-rays have had limited success.

The only portion studied in any detail at present is the tail. The skin shows a striped pattern of scales that likely represents striped colors in the living animal. The muscles attached from the leg to the tail also indicate that the hind limbs were much stronger than previously assumed and could have made the animal a powerful runner. The vertebrae in the tail were also separated by relatively wide cartilage, meaning the tail was somewhat flexible. The wider cartilage between vertebrae probably occurred for the whole length of the spine, making the animals about a meter longer than older reconstructions of duckbilled dinosaurs indicate.

National Geographic News Dec. 3, 2007

Glacialisaurus, Large Dinosaur from Antarctica

During the Jurassic, Antarctica was part of Gondwana, the southern super-continent that included Africa, Australia, and South America. Fossils un-earthed in the Hanson Formation 4,000 meters (13,000 ft) up the face of Mount Kirkpatrick in the Central Trans-Antarctic Mountains in western Antarctica reveal that a range of dinosaurs roamed the continent during the Early Jurassic. Scientists have now described a large plant-eating prosauropod named Glacialisaurus, a primitive long-necked relative of the giant sauropods. Although the type material is incomplete, it indicates Glacialisaurus was about 7.6 m (25 ft) long. During the Early Jurassic, Antarctica was still attached to Africa and lay further north, not over the South Pole. The environment was relatively warm and moist, with large forests and coal-forming deposits. Other material that has not yet been described may belong to a true sauropod, showing that prosauropods and sauropods existed together. Prosauropods died out by the Middle Jurassic while sauropods grew to be the largest land animals to ever live on Earth, and survived to the end of the Cretaceous. Other fossils found at the Mt. Kirkpatrick site include a large meat-eating dinosaur Cryolophosaurus, a humerus from a pterosaur, and the tooth of a large tritylodont, an advanced mammal-like reptile.

Acta Palaeontologia Polonica 52 (4):657 -674

Feathers and Avian-breathing in Velociraptor

The theory that birds evolved from meat-eating dinosaurs has been strengthened by many recent fossil discoveries.  A newly studied specimen from Mongolia of the Upper Cretaceous meat-eating dinosaur Velociraptor, made famous in the Jurassic Park movies, shows a line of knobs along its ulna (lower arm bone), similar to quill knobs found in some modern birds to attach flight feathers. This is the first direct evidence for feathers in a large maniraptoran dinosaur. Fossils that preserve true feathers on the arms and tails of smaller relatives of Velociraptor have been found in the Liaoning region of China. However, Velociraptor was too large and heavy to fly. Its arm feathers may have been for display or for protecting eggs during incubation. Some researchers think arm feathers on large maniraptorans could have provided lift and stability when such dinosaurs ran or leapt.

Another recent study of the rib cage of maniraptoran dinosaurs supports the idea that such dinosaurs had an avian-type breathing system that used air sacs. Velociraptor and related meat-eating dinosaurs had extra bony growths along the back edge of their ribs called uncinate processes, apparently attached to the ribs by cartilage. Similar uncinate processes are also found in Archaeopteryx and oviraptorosaurs as well as in the majority of living birds. In birds the processes are more often ossified to the ribs. Recent research indicates that uncinate processes assist birds in breathing in and out, as well as in supporting muscles and strenghening the rib cage. Unlike modern birds, maniraptoran dinosaurs also had gastralia or belly ribs. The exact function of such ribs is debated, but recent work suggests the bony structures also helped ventilate the lungs, along with the sternum and pelvic bones. Like birds, maniraptoran dinosaurs had hollow bones and air sacs that permitted highly efficient breathing. Since the larger maniraptoran dinosaurs did not fly, their advanced respiration likely allowed them to be highly active.

A track-way found in an Early Cretaceous deposit in China provides evidence that large dromaeosaurid maniraptoran dinosaurs may have lived and traveled in packs. Dromeaosaurid dinosaurs such as Velociraptor had a large slashing claw on the second toe of each foot. The Chinese footprints record only the two outer toes on each foot, with the second toe held off the ground and a large round pad at the base of the second toe. The track-way was made a type of dromaeosaur that grew more than twice as large as Velociraptor, probably about 5 m (18 ft) long. Six individuals of different sizes are recorded moving together.

Science 317 (21):1721 ( SEPTEMBER 2007); Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biology (advance online publication); Naturwissenschaften (online publication)

New Horned Dinosaurs: Cerasinops and Eotriceratops

A new primitive horned dinosaur from Montana is closely related to small horned dinosaurs found in Asia. Called Cerasinops and about the size of a turkey, the 80-million-year-old dinosaur's limb structure indicates it likely was bipedal and had short forelimbs, unlike most quadrupedal horned dinosaurs. Cerasinops also lacked horns on its face and had extra teeth in its both, both primitive features seen in early Asian forms. Although the specimen was found in 1984, it was not studied until recently and provides an important missing link in dinosaur evolution.

A new horned dinosaur found in Alberta dates to 68 million years ago and helps fill in another gap in the evolution of horned dinosaurs. Called Eotriceratops, it is one of the largest known horned dinosaurs and would have been about 9 meters (30 ft) long. It appears to be closely related to the later 3-horned Triceratops that lived around 65 million years ago. Like Triceratops, it had a long pointed horn above each eye and a horn over its nose.

Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 27 (3):  625-641(September 2007); Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 44 1243-1265.

Giant  Sea  Scorpion  from Germany Was Biggest Arthropod

A new fossil claw from a giant sea scorpion (eurypterid) is the largest ever found. If the creature was similar in its proportions of related species, the find suggests an animal 2.5 m (8.3 ft) long, making it the largest known arthropod. The part of the prey-catching claw (chelicera) preserved  is 46 cm (18 in) long and was found in an Early Devonian site in Germany. The specimen is identified as Jaekelopterus rhenaniae. Arthropods have exoskeletons and need to molt to grow, a characteristic that limits the size of modern forms. Land-living arthropods need to breathe through a system of tubes that also limits their size. Marine forms such as sea scorpions, however, used gills. It is thought that some sea scorpions may have ventured on land to hunt prey but the giant Jaekelopterus likely stayed in water.

Biology Letters (advanced online publication)

French Hummingbird Fossil

A 30-million-year old fossil from the Oligocene in France confirms that hummingbirds once lived in Europe. Hummingbirds now only live in the Americas. The new specimen of  Eurotrochilus is much better preserved and more complete than a find made in Germany in 2004. The German fossil provoked controversy over whether it represented a true hummingbird The French specimen shows many diagnostic features of hummingbirds, including the distinctive construction of the wing bones that allows the birds to hover and fly backwards, and a tiny v-shaped bone that helps retract their long tongues. The discovery adds to the mystery of why hummingbirds disappeared from other parts of the world but remain highly successful in the Americas. The oldest hummingbird fossil in the Americas is only 1.8 million years old, leaving a 20-million-year gap between it and the European finds. Scientists once assumed that hummingbirds evolved as a group native to the Americas but it is now clear that they migrated into the Americas and became extinct in other regions of the world.

Naturwissenschaften (advance online publication)

Possible Whale Ancestor from India

Since the 1990s, fossil finds from Pakistan have helped document the transition of early whales from four-legged mainly land-living creatures to fully aquatic marine animals during the Eocene. Genetic and other studies have also indicated that whales are descended from artiodactyl even-toed hoofed mammals. However, the exact group of artiodactyls that led to whales is debated. Genetic research indicates that whales are most closely related to hippopotamuses among living mammals. Hippopotamuses are thought to derive from a group called anthracotheres. However, a group of researchers now claims that fossils show another type of early artiodactyl was the more likely ancestor of whales. The raccoon-size Indohyus was a deer-like plant-eater that lived in India 48 million years ago. The animal had dense limb bones to help keep it submerged when it waded into water. It also had a middle ear structure now found only in whales and thought to be adapted for hearing underwater. Indohyus lived too late to be a direct ancestor of whales but whales may share a common ancestor with Indohyus that was a small deer-like animal that waded in water. Some other researchers, however, see the claim as premature and consider that hippos and their relatives provide a better match to find the earliest ancestors of whales.

Nature 450(20): 1190-(December 2007)

Ordovician Burst of Biological Diversity Tied to Asteroid Impacts

Around 470 million years ago during the Ordovician (489 to 443 million years ago), the variety of shelled marine invertebrates on Earth underwent a major increase dubbed the "Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event."  A range of brachiopods and other shelled species took over trilobites as the dominant benthic animals. A new study claims to find a link between the bio-diversification event and asteroids striking the Earth, indicated by increased numbers of meteorites and impact craters recorded during the middle Ordovician. A major event in the asteroid belt around 470 million years ago let to the creation of the Flora family of asteroids from a larger parent body. These smaller asteroids left the asteroid belt on paths that were prone to cross the orbit of Earth, resulting in a flux of meteorite and small asteroid impacts that would have disrupted local ecosystems. Unlike the major impact 65 million years ago that is tied to the extinction of the dinosaurs, these smaller Ordovician impacts may have encouraged the evolution of new species.

Nature Geoscience 1 (January 2008)

Liverwort Fossils Trace Carbon Dioxide Levels During Mesozoic

The connection between the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth's atmosphere and global climate is indicated by a wide range of evidence. Most scientists accept that the higher the level of CO2, the warmer the climate. However, the history of CO2 in the atmosphere becomes more difficult to correlate with climate further back in time. Different chemical, fossil, and geological sources have been used as indicators of CO2 levels. A new study uses carbon 13 isotope levels from fossils of liverworts, a type of primitive nonvascular plants, to trace CO2 levels from 200 to 60 million years ago, encompassing the late Triassic through the early Paleocene. According to the record found in the liverworts, CO2 in the air was about 420 parts per million by volume (ppmv) in the Triassic, and rose to a peak of about 1,130 ppmv around 100 million years ago. By 60 million years ago, levels had declined to about 680 ppmv . (Modern CO2 levels in 2005 were 378 ppmv.) Evidence from fossil soils (paleosols) and climate models suggests a stable warm greenhouse climate during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretacesous. However, other geological evidence suggests more variable climate with cooler episodes. The liverwort record of CO2 correlates fairly closely with evidence of cooler episodes indicated from marine isotopes, and contradicts the higher CO2 levels based on fossil soils (paleosols). In particular, the liverwort record indicates lower levels of CO2 during the Late Jurassic than interpreted from fossil soils.

Nature Geoscience 1 (January 2008)