PhysOrg.com [USA], February 2, 2011
Terrain thought to be ruled by only the largest dinosaurs to inhabit the
earth could have in fact been home to dozens of other creatures,
ground-breaking research from The University of Manchester has found.
Writing in the journal of the Royal Society Interface, Dr Peter
Falkingham has discovered that dinosaurs only created lasting footprints
if the soil conditions were perfect to do so – and entirely depending
on the animal's weight. Dubbed the "Goldilocks Effect" – as all
conditions have to be "just right" for a print to be created – this
work could help to bring ancient environments to life, by showing how a
great number of animals can walk over an area, but only a few leave
behind tracks. The findings mean that hugely-significant prehistoric
dinosaur track sites, such as Paluxy River in Texas, USA, or Fumanya,
Spain could have been host to a much larger number of dinosaurs and
other animals than the tracks themselves show.
http://tinyurl.com/63m8v8q
<http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-secrets-dinosaur-footprints-revealed-goldilocks.html>
Other Paleo news:
Fossilized rabbit skull on display in Beijing, possibly oldest ever
Xinhua News Agency [China], 2011-02-05
A fossil, the complete skull of an ancient rabbit believed to be about
54 million years old, was put on display in Beijing on Saturday, the
third day of the Chinese Lunar Rabbit New Year. Visitors could view the
miniature skull through a magnifying glass. The rabbit is part of a
special Chinese Lunar Rabbit Year Exhibition at the Paleozoological
Museum of China in Beijing. In 2007, Chinese archaeologists discovered
the complete fossilized rabbit skull in the Eren Basin in northwest
China' s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. They named it the
"Dawsonlagus antiquus" rabbit.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/culture/2011-02/05/c_13720234.htm
Biggest Bear Ever Found: "It Blew My Mind," Expert Says [I love when
that happens]
National Geographic News, February 3, 2011
There's a new titleholder for the biggest, baddest bear ever found. A
prehistoric South American giant short-faced bear tipped the scales at
up to 3,500 pounds (1,600 kilograms) and towered at least 11 feet (3.4
meters) standing up, according to a new study. The previous heavyweight
was a North American giant short-faced bearâ€"a related extinct
speciesâ€"that weighed up to 2,500 pounds (1,134 kilograms). The
largest bear on record in modern times was a 2,200-pound (998-kilogram)
polar bear shot in Alaska in the 19th century.
http://tinyurl.com/5snm4mw
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/02/110203-biggest-bear-largest-giant-short-faced-animals-science/
Rare insect fossil reveals 100 million years of evolutionary stasis
EurekAlert [USA], 3-Feb-2011
Researchers have discovered the 100 million-year-old ancestor of a group
of large, carnivorous, cricket-like insects that still live today in
southern Asia, northern Indochina and Africa. The new find, in a
limestone fossil bed in northeastern Brazil, corrects the mistaken
classification of another fossil of this type and reveals that the genus
has undergone very little evolutionary change since the Early Cretaceous
Period, a time of dinosaurs just before the breakup of the
supercontinent Gondwana. The findings are described in a paper in the
open access journal ZooKeys.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/uoia-rif020311.php
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