* Astronomy

Early Terrestrial Amphibian Described by Carnegie Museum of Natural History Scientists

A team of researchers from Carnegie Museum of Natural History has described a new genus and species of carnivorous amphibian from western Pennsylvania. The fossil skull, found in 2004 near Pittsburgh International Airport, was recovered from rocks deposited approximately 300 million years ago during the Late Pennsylvanian Period. Named Fedexia striegeli, it is one of only a very few relatively large amphibian fossils to display evidence of a predominantly terrestrial (land-based) life history so early in geologic time. The rocks where Fedexia  was found are nearly 20 million years older than the localities of its fossil relatives, suggesting that the expansion and diversification of this group occurred much earlier than had been recognised previously. The full paper will be released today in Annals of Carnegie Museum, Volume 78, Number 4, 15 March 2010.

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Early marine ancestors of today's animals may have been more complex than their fossils suggest, scientists believe.
The evidence comes from forensic studies of rotting fish, which indicate that many key features of creatures living hundreds of millions of years ago may have vanished before fossilisation.
As a result, scientists may have assumed the animals were more simple than was really the case.
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In the caves of a hilly Oklahoma ghost town, researchers have found what may be the first evidence of preserved insect remains in the mouths of fossilised vertebrates. The find is compelling evidence that early reptiles, the equivalent of modern-day lizards, fed on insects.
Sean Modesto, a biologist at Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia, Canada, and his colleagues found pieces of arthropod skeleton on the teeth inside two 280-million-year-old skulls of a species of reptile they have yet to fully describe. They report the discovery in the journal Biology Letters.
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Piecing Together 425-Million-Year-Old Jigsaw
Reconstructing ancient fossils from hundreds of thousands of jumbled up pieces can prove challenging
A new study pitting academic expertise against a computer in recreating a 425 million-year old jigsaw puzzle has discovered that there is no substitute for wisdom born out of experience.
The research tested the reliability of expert identification versus computer analysis in reconstructing fossils. The investigation, based on fossil teeth from extinct vertebrates, found that the most specialised experts provided the most reliable identifications.

"Being a palaeontologist can be fun, but sometimes it isn't easy. Take vertebrates, the group to which we belong. When a vertebrate animal dies, whether it's a fish, a sabre-tooth cat or a dinosaur, the flesh rots away and the bones of the skeleton are usually scattered before being fossilised. In order to interpret them correctly, the palaeontologist must piece them back together, or at least work out which bits are which" - Researcher Dr Mark Purnell, University of Leicester.

Traditionally, experts would wrestle with this puzzle based on their previous experience and comparison with more complete skeletons, but researchers investigated whether there is another way?
For the new study, published in the latest issue of the journal Palaeontology, David Jones and Mark Purnell, from the University of Leicester, teamed-up with Peter von Bitter from the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada, to bring sophisticated statistical techniques to bear on solving this skeletal jigsaw. They used material from a 425 million year old rock deposit in Ontario, Canada which, unlike almost all other deposits in the world, preserves both scattered teeth and complete skeletons of conodonts. This material allowed them to compare the success rate of experts in placing the teeth in the correct positions within the skeleton, with the success rate of computer-based methods.

Source University of Leicester

-- Edited by Blobrana on Tuesday 17th of November 2009 05:59:29 PM