Geobulletin alpha

SACRED CEPHALOPODS: OCTOPUS / TAK'WA 

This lovely with her colourful body is an octopus. Like ninety-seven percent of the world's animals, she lacks a backbone. To support their bodies, these spineless animals — invertebrates — have skeletons made of protein fibres. This flexibility can be a real advantage when slipping into nooks and crannies for protection and making a home in seemingly impossible places.On the east

BUMBLEBEES: HAMDSALAT'SI 

This fuzzy yellow and black striped fellow is a bumblebee in the genus Bombus sp., family Apidae. We know him from our gardens where we see them busily lapping up nectar and pollen from flowers with their long hairy tongues.My Norwegian cousins on my mother's side call them humle. Norway is a wonderful place to be something wild as the wild places have not been disturbed by our hands. There

CRINOIDS — UNDERWATER FLOWERS OR LIVING ANIMALS? 

Agaricocrinus splendensThis lovely is Agaricocrinus splendens, an aptly named and wonderfully preserved fossil crinoid. , an aptly named and wonderfully preserved fossil crinoid. Crinoids are one of my favourite echinoderms. It is magical when all the elements come together to preserve a particularly lovely specimen in such glorious detail. Crinoids are unusually beautiful and graceful members

AWKWARD AND AWESOME: DIMORPHODON 

This remarkable fellow is Dimorphodon — a genus of medium-sized pterosaur from the Early Jurassic. He is another favourite of mine for his charming awkwardness.You can see this fellow's interesting teeth within his big, bulky skull. Dimorphodon had two distinct types of teeth in their jaws — an oddity amongst reptiles — and also proportionally short wings for their overall size. Just look at

SHORT-BEAKED ECHIDNA 

This chunky monkey is a Short-beaked Echidna, Tachyclossus aculeatus, which grows to about the size of an overweight cat. They are native to Australia and New Guinea. Echidnas are sometimes called spiny anteaters and belong in the family Tachyglossidae (Gill, 1872). They are monotremes, an order of egg-laying mammals. There are four species of echidnas living today. They, along with the

Moderna Vaccine is Vegan 

Moderna FDA advisory committee meeting is scheduled for 12/17 and meeting documents are available online. Below is an extract of the executive summary of the Moderna briefing document. I have emphasized in bold text the key phrase for those of us who care about animals. Note the Pfizer briefing document for the 12/10 FDA meeting is silent on animal content of their vaccine.  The Moderna briefing says in part:  ‘[…] The proposed mRNA-1273 vaccine regimen consists of two 100-μg [...]

Lichenalia torta? bryozoan from the Moscow formation of New York 

Within the rocks of Fall Brook, near Geneseo, NY, sometimes you'll find odd dark colored fossils that look as though someone poured chocolate on the rock. I knew it was a fossil of some kind but getting a piece to reveal itself face up was not an easy task. So I kept a few pieces in the hopes that one day I would figure out what it could be. Now I may have an answer. While I was looking through the plates within the Paleontology of New York, volume  VI, I came across an illustration that [...]

Horniman bonus dinosaurs 

As an addendum to my previous post, it's worth mentioning that there's some dinosaur material on permanent display at the Horniman...just not very much. Perhaps the most noteworthy dinosaur display consists of a series of very dated scale models. They're most definitely of the pre-Renaissance, cold-blooded old school, but very charming with it. Here's a selection.Stegosaurus: lovingly detailed and boasting a rather lifelike skin texture, alongside a too-short tail and semi-sprawling forelimbs. [...]

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver 

Here’s a great book about one family’s efforts to eat as locally as possible for a year, sort of. Whether or not they’re evangelical enough in their southwest Virginia locavory (I would have made the same call with regard to olive oil and coffee!), Barbara Kingsolver and her family definitely are certainly inspiring. Their efforts to produce their own food or buy it from their farming neighbors are simultaneously enlightening,

Published This Day (1868): Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication by Darwin 

From Today In Science History: In 1868, Charles Darwin's book - Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - was published. He was 58. It is probably the second in importance of all his works. This was a follow-up work, written in response to criticisms that his theory of evolution was unsubstantiated. Darwin here supports his views via analysis of various aspects of plant and

Deinosuchus: the Dalek-backed alligatoroid that (sometimes) made chew toys of dinosaurs 

Deinosuchus rugosus swallows the remains of a large Cretaceous sea turtle. Other archosaurs notice, decide to interrupt.Any palaeontological geek worth their salt knows that several gigantic crocodyliform species - colloquially called 'supercrocs' - have appeared in the last 100 million years. They include the Moroccan, Cretaceous pholidosaurid Sarcosuchus imperator, several species of the South American Miocene caimanine Purussasaurus, and the grandfather of them all, Deinosuchus, from the [...]

Born This Day: George Ledyard Stebbins 

From the U Calif., Berkeley: Along with Dobzhansky (1900 - 1975), animal systematist Ernst Mayr, and paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson (1902 - 1984), Stebbins (Jan. 6, 1906 - Jan. 19 2000) is considered one of the "architects" of the modern evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s, an intellectual watershed and historic turning point that brought together research in cytology,

Bringing a fossil 'back to life' 

An activity that is great fun for the end of term:- 'Running the fossilisation film backwards; bringing a fossil ‘back to life’' Your pupils will have great fun pretending to be fossils which gradually come back to life. Ask the pupils to imagine a film being taken of an animal as it dies and sinks to the ground before being fossilised. They then ‘run the film backwards', imagining in

Was the neck of Tanystropheus too heavy for use on land? 

Two Tanystropheus longobardicus tussle in Triassic Europe. There's a distinct lack of water supporting their necks in this scene, and some might suggest this makes such behaviour impossible for these animals. But does it? Read on...One of the most famous non-dinosaurian denizens of the Mesozoic is Tanystropheus, a spectacularly long-necked reptile which lived across Europe and Asia in Middle-Late Triassic times. We've known about this 5-6 m long animal for since fragmentary fossils were pulled [...]

An Iridescent Looking Limnoscelis 

I have mentioned this animal before in a previous posting and about the computer game it is featured in. It is now at its maximum level and appears quite iridescent. It is from the mobile phone game Jurassic World. This Permian Period reptile like amphibian is a Limnoscelis. It is thought to be a carnivore and grew to a length of about 1.5 meters. The game is available for free for

Fossilized Poop is Rare, Fossilized Poop Inside a Fossilized Dinosaur is Even Rarer 

smithsonianmag.com Paleontologists get really excited when they find poop — or at least, fossilized feces, called coprolites. They are not alone in the research world in this regard. Finding coprolites still within the animal that created it is rare indeed, but that may be exactly what a newly discovered specimen of Rhamphorhynchus, a winged reptile,

Paleo Profile: Ganguroo robustiter 

Name: Ganguroo robustiter Meaning: The species name denotes that this animal was about 20% larger than other known

Streptelasma (Enterolasma) strictum coral from the Kalkberg formation of New York 

The horn coral Streptelasma (Enterolasma) strictum is very commonly found in the Kalkberg formation of New York. It's rugose, or horn, coral that is generally found as small, straight cone shaped fossils often with linear striations along the sides. Most are either crushed or have the calice (the cup like area where the animal lived) infilled with matrix and so the septa are not readily visible. Here are three specimens that I collected from the same road cut that show a variety of sizes. The [...]

Altered Bones Yield Clues to How Maiasaura Grew Up 

Every bone has stories to tell. Some, such as size or the animal’s place in the evolutionary tree,

What Kind of Animal Are You? 

Happy Earth Day, everybody! Have you paused for a moment and considered what a nifty planet we live on? It’s got all kinds of great stuff! I’ve shared a few of my favorite places for an... -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com