Friday Headlines, March 1, 2013
THE LATEST IN THE GEOSCIENCES
FIRST FOSSIL EVIDENCE SHOWS SMALL CROCS FED ON BABY DINOSAURS
It is most commonly depicted that where dinosaurs and other vertebrates co-existed, dinosaurs dominated everything.
Dinosaur bones with crocodyliform bite marks, and an embedded tooth!
Based upon bite marks on the tiny bones of a young dinosaur (plus one example where a croc tooth was still embedded in a dinosaur femur), researchers now understand that crocodyliform reptiles once fed upon dinosaurs. This means that, at least for these dinosaurs, crocodyliforms ruled the roost.
Read the technical article here.
ANCIENT FISH SPORTED CIRCULAR-SAW JAW
Helicoprion is a fossil fish that for years has been thought to be a fossil shark. New evidence shows otherwise. Art by Ray Troll
Yes folks, this is a real organism. Paleontologists have, until now, categorized this curious beast as a shark. Paleontologists have have yet to sort out the use of the strange whorl of teeth.
New CT scans of a particularly beautiful specimen from Idaho show that the tooth whorl was actually encased in the lower jaw. The scans also show that Helicoprion is not a true shark, but a member of the closely related fishes, the chimeras (that include the ratfish).
Spotted ratfish. (Florida Museum of Natural History)
Wow – We do Science Night every Thursday. Since my boys are only 5 and 8, we have barely begun to scratch the surface of all the various sciences out there to explore. So far, we’re having fun blowing things up. But – Bones – and Fossils – and Dinosaurs. What a wonderful idea. They love to dig up things in our back yard, and always wonder if the things they are finding might be rare treasures. This would be a fun next step for us!
Thursday Science Night is a fabulous idea! I should implement something like that with my boy. Keep it up! That’s wonderful.