* Astronomy

Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Home -> Astronomy News -> Off Topic -> Ancient reptiles
Post Info TOPIC: Ancient reptiles
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Euparkeria
Permalink  
 

Unknown ancient reptile roamed the Pyrenees mountains

The fossilised footprints of a mysterious reptile that lived about 250 million years ago has been identified in fossils from the Pyrenees mountains.
Scientists say the new species is a member of the group that gave rise to crocodiles and dinosaurs.
The reptile lived at a time when the Earth was recovering from a mass extinction that wiped out most animals.
The makers of the footprints could belong to the Euparkeria, a group of dinosaur relatives known from the same time period in Poland, Russia, China and South Africa.
Read more



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Drepanosaurus
Permalink  
 

Strange reptile fossil puzzles scientists

 A 200-million-year-old reptile is rewriting the rulebooks on how four-legged animals conquered the world.
Newly discovered fossils suggest Drepanosaurus had huge hooked claws to dig insects from bark, much like today's anteaters in the forests of Central and South America.
Read more



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: Ancient reptiles
Permalink  
 

Four-legged snake ancestor 'dug burrows'

A 113-million-year-old fossil from Brazil is the first four-legged snake that scientists have ever seen.
Several other fossil snakes have have been found with hind limbs, but the new find is estimated to be a direct ancestor of modern snakes.
Read more

Spoiler



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

Researchers say the giant extinction event that saw the end of the dinosaurs also killed off most snakes and lizards - among them a newly discovered species named after US President Barack Obama.
The effect of the event on dinosaurs is well known, but the fates of smaller creatures have been less certain.
Read more



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

Flexible snake armour

Snakes are highly specialised legless animals, which have evolved around 150 Million years ago. Although without extremities their body is exposed to constant friction forces. The PhD-Student Marie-Christin Klein and Professor Stanislav Gorb of Kiel University found out how snake skin is adapted to legless locomotion. The skin is stiff and hard on the outside and becomes soft and flexible towards the inside, independent of habitat. Klein and Gorb are publishing their current results in today's issue, 15th August, of the "Journal of the Royal Society Interface".
Read more



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Coniophis precedens
Permalink  
 

'Land not sea' origin for snakes

One of the most primitive snake fossils ever found hints that the slithery reptiles might have originated on land, not in the sea as has been proposed.
The animal, which lived at the same time as the dinosaurs, probably emerged from a line of burrowing reptiles that lost their legs.
Where and how snakes diverged from their legged cousins the lizards has been a mystery.
Read more



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
RE: Ancient reptiles
Permalink  
 

How Early Reptiles Moved

Modern scientists would have loved the sight of early reptiles running across the Bromacker near Tambach-Dietharz (Germany) 300 million years ago. Unfortunately this journey through time is impossible. But due to Dr. Thomas Martens and his team from the Foundation Schloss Friedenstein Gotha numerous skeletons and footprints of early dinosaurs have been found and conserved there during the last forty years.
The evolutionary biologist and his team together with the Gotha scientists and other partners are now starting a research project not only to analyse the locomotion of these primeval saurians. They also want to set them back into motion - at least in animation.
Read more



__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

Prehistoric reptile skin secrets revealed in new image

A unique image, for the first time, has mapped organic compounds that are still surviving in a 50-million-year-old sample of reptile skin.
The infra-red picture reveals the chemical profile of the skin, offering an insight into how it was preserved.
A team of UK scientists say the sample was so well preserved that it was hard to tell the difference between the fossil and the fresh samples.
Read more

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

Title: Infra-Red Mapping Resolves Soft-Tissue Preservation in 50 Million Year Old Reptile Skin
Authors: Edwards, N. P., Barden, H., Larson, P. L., Manning. P. L., Palmer, K., Wogelius, R. A.


First image of protein residue in 50 million year old reptile skin

Published in the journal Royal Society Proceedings B: Biology, the brightly-coloured image shows the presence of amides - the organic compounds, or building blocks of life - in the ancient skin of a reptile, found in the 50 million year-old rocks of the Green River Formation in Utah, USA.
This image had never been seen by the human eye, until a team led by Dr Roy Wogelius and Dr Phil Manning used state-of-the-art infra-red technology at The University of Manchester to reveal and map the fossilized soft tissue of a beautifully-preserved reptile.
These infra-red maps are backed up by the first ever element-specific maps of organic material in fossil skin generated using X-rays at the Stanford synchrotron in the USA, also by the Manchester researchers.
Chemical details are clear enough that the scientists, from the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, are even able to propose how this exceptional preservation occurs.
When the original compounds in the skin begin to break down they can form chemical bonds with trace metals, and under exceptional conditions these trace metals act like a 'bridge' to minerals in the sediments. This protects the skin material from being washed away or decomposing further.

University of Manchester

__________________
Blobrana


L

Posts: 131433
Date:
Permalink  
 

HMNS Paleo Field Team Unearths Extremely Rare Dimetrodon

The Houston Museum of Natural Science Paleontology team has discovered an articulated specimen of a Dimetrodon on the Craddock Ranch in Baylor County!
The team named the fossil "Wet Willi" - "Wet" because it was found while excavating a drainage trench for the quarry, and "Willi" for Samuel Williston, a palaeontologist and educator who was active at the site one hundred years ago. Dimetrodon bones are common in the Craddock quarry, but articulated fossil skeletons, like "Wet Willi," are extremely rare. Most of the Dimetrodon fossils on display in museums across the country, and even globally, have come from this area of north central Texas.
Read more

__________________
1 2  >  Last»  | Page of 2  sorted by
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.
Home -> Astronomy News -> Off Topic -> Ancient reptiles


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse 		Powered by ActiveBoard