Fossil for Sale

The earliest known and well-preserved bony fish has been found in southern China.  The fossil of a Guiyu oneiros, described in this week’s Nature journal, sheds light on the evolutionary history of jawed vertebrates.

Previously this was documented almost exclusively from fossil fragments. The fossil represents the oldest near-complete gnathostome (jawed vertebrate) and has been described by Min Zhu and colleagues of the Key Laboratory of Evolutionary Systematics of Vertebrates, Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Source

Diminutive humans whose remains were found on the remote Indonesian island of Flores in 2003 truly are a new species, and not pygmies whose brains had shriveled with disease, researchers reported Wednesday. Anthropologists have argued, sometimes bitterly, since the discovery of Homo floresiensis — dubbed “the hobbit” due to its size — as to the identity and origins of these distant cave-dwelling cousins.

Some scientists say the creature, dubbed the “hobbit,” represent a new species called Homo floresiensis. If so, it would mean the hobbit species, which dates to about 18,000 years ago, was marooned on the island as humans were spreading around the world. Other scientists, however, dispute the claim of a new species. Instead, they propose theories about island dwarfing or a range of genetic diseases that might explain why the fossils are actually from modern humans even though they look different.

Many scientists have said H. floresiensis were prehistoric humans descended from Homo erectus, stunted by natural selection over millennia through a process called insular dwarfing.

Source

The 47.5 million-year-old fossils, discovered in Pakistan in 2000 and 2004 and studied at the University of Michigan, are described in a paper published Feb. 4 in the online journal PLoS.

U-M paleontologist Philip Gingerich, who led the team that made the discoveries, was at first perplexed by the assortment of adult female and fetal bones found together. “When I first saw the small teeth in the field, I thought we were dealing with a small adult whale, but then we continued to expose the specimen and found ribs that seemed too large to go with those teeth,” he said. “By the end of the day, I realized we had found a female whale with a fetus.”

The 8.5-foot-long male specimen, collected four years later from the same fossil beds, shares characteristic anatomical features with the female of the species, but its virtually complete skeleton is 12 percent larger overall, and its canine teeth or fangs 20 percent larger. Such size discrepancies are not uncommon among whales and their kin; in some species the females are larger, while in others the males are slightly to considerably bigger. The size difference of male and female Maiacetus is only moderate, hinting that the males didn’t control territories or command harems of females.

The whales’ big teeth, well-suited for catching and eating fish, suggest the animals made their livings in the sea, probably coming onto land only to rest, mate and give birth, said Gingerich, who is the Ermine Cowles Case Collegiate Professor of Paleontology and director of the U-M Museum of Paleontology. Like other primitive archaeocetes, Maiacetus had four legs modified for foot-powered swimming, and although these whales could support their weight on their flipper-like limbs, they probably couldn’t travel far on land.

Source

Sophisticated computer scans of fossils have helped solve a mystery over the nature of a giant, ancient raptor known as the Haast’s eagle which became extinct about 500 years ago, researchers said Friday.

The researchers say they have determined that the eagle – which lived in the mountains of New Zealand and weighed about 40 pounds (18 kilograms) – was a predator and not a mere scavenger as many thought.

Much larger than modern eagles, Haast’s eagle would have swooped to prey on flightless birds – and possibly even the rare unlucky human.

Using computed axial tomography, or CAT, the researchers scanned several skulls, a pelvis and a beak in an effort to reconstruct the size of the bird’s brain, eyes, ears and spinal cord.

They compared their data on the Haast’s eagle to characteristics of modern predator birds and scavenger birds to determine that the bird was a fearsome predator that ate the flightless moa birds and even humans.

Scientists believe the Haast’s eagle became extinct about 500 years ago, most likely due to habitat destruction and the extinction of its prey species at the hands of early Polynesian settlers. Before the humans colonized New Zealand about 750 years ago, the largest inhabitants were birds like the Haast’s eagle and the moa.

Scofield said the findings are similar to what he found in Maori folk tales. “The science supports Maori mythology of the legendary pouakai or hokioi, a huge bird that could swoop down on people in the mountains and was capable of killing a small child,” he said.

New Zealand paleontologist Trevor Worthy said the study did a good job of proving the eagle was a killer.

Source

China says that they have found the world’s largest dinosaur fossil at eastern Shandong province.

Scientists had recovered some 7,600 fossils from a 300 metre (980 ft) long pit near Zhucheng city over the past seven months, Xinhua news agency said.

The discovered also found another 20 metre hadrosaurus fossil that could be another record for hadrosaurus size.

Zhucheng, known locally as China’s “Dinosaur City,” has produced dinosaur fossils in some 30 sites.

About Zhucheng

Zhucheng is a county-level city in Weifang prefecture, Shandong Province, China. It has a population of 1.06 million.

Zhucheng has been an important site for dinosaur excavation since 1960. The local community is known to use calcium rich fossils for traditional village remedies used to treat muscle cramps and other minor ailments.

The world’s largest hadrosaurid fossil was found in Zhucheng in the 1980s and is on display in the local museum.

Scientists have collected more than 50 metric tons (55 short tons) of fossils since 1960. The city has also been a place for smuggling of dinosaur bones; in January 2008, Australia returned hundreds of kilograms of Chinese dinosaur fossils, including dinosaur fossil eggs. These fossils were recovered during a sting operation carried out on warehouses and cargo containers.

Original News

About Zhucheng

Researchers in the Netherlands say they have confirmed a skull fragment dredged from the North Sea was that of a young adult male Neanderthal.

The 60,000-year-old Neanderthal is the first confirmed specimen to be found undersea anywhere in the world, the BBC reported Monday. The fossil was found by Luc Anthonis, a private collector from Belgium, among animal remains and stone artifacts recovered several miles off the coast of the Netherlands in 2001.

A chemical analysis revealed the humanoid probably was carnivorous, linking it to other Neanderthal specimens found, the British network said.

“Even with this rather limited fragment of skull, it is possible to securely identify this as Neanderthal,” said Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Researchers note that sea levels are much higher now than they were during much of the past 500,000 years, meaning large swathes of the North Sea seabed were once dry land inhabited by many species of mammals.

About Neanderthal

The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus that is known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia.

Neanderthals are either classified as a subspecies of humans (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) or as a separate species (Homo neanderthalensis).

The first proto-Neanderthal traits appeared in Europe as early as 600,000–350,000 years ago.

The youngest Neanderthal finds include Hyaena Den (UK), considered older than 30,000 years ago, while the Vindija (Croatia) Neanderthals have been re-dated to between 32,000 and 33,000 years ago.

Original News

About Neanderthal

Scientist has found a primate fossil from ancient time. This fossil calls Ida. This fossil is believed as missing link between our human race and animal kingdom evolution.

The 47m-year-old primate – named Ida – has been hailed as the fossil equivalent of a “Rosetta Stone” for understanding the critical early stages of primate evolution.

Ida will show us connection between human and animals like sheep, elephant, or cows. Above fossil picture will be in the textbooks for the next hundred years.

Ida was originally discovered by an amateur fossil hunter in the summer of 1983 at Messel pit, a world renowned fossil site near Darmstadt in Germany. He kept it under wraps for over 20 years before deciding to sell it via a German fossil dealer called Thomas Perner. It was Perner who approached Hurum two years ago.

Original News

Incoming search terms for the article:

• ancient piranha fossil
• fossil for sale