It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Bad enough international deep sea trawlers have destroyed coastal fishing reserves, like our cod stocks now they threaten the last of the living dinosaurs. The same situation occurs domestically as more and more recreational uses of Canada's fresh water lakes threaten our dinosaur fish, the Sturgeon. See my LiveJournal blog for more on this.
These ships are basically the result of the industrialization of fishing. Like agribusiness, larger is better. What agribusiness has done is destroy the family farm as it industrializes agricutural production. Industrialized fishing has done the same.
These ships are floating factories, that scoop up the bottom of the ocean and then process the fish on board. They are not selective, they scoop up everything taking what they need and tossing the rest, as the old saying goes letting God sort them out. Of course that mythical higher being is invoked cause the fish that are not needed are injured, tortured in fact, if not killed out right from crashing from nets to the depths of trawlers belly.
'There is a real danger that slow -growing, deepwater species will take centuries to recover from current fishing, if they can at all'
Deep-sea fish are being taken to the brink of extinction because the dramatic collapse of shallow-water stocks is sending fishing trawlers further out to exploit deeper waters.
Scientists believe the overfishing that has caused the demise of the traditional catch of fish, such as cod and plaice, is now causing an equally severe, long-term decline of more exotic, deep-water species.
Since the first Coelacanth was discovered in 1938 by local fishermen, village based sustainable fishing has been threatened just like this dinosaur fish. Around the world these large industrial fleets of the G8 countries threaten domestic fishing villages and peoples.
If this is not a damned good reason to ban deep sea trawler fleets, then it should at least give one pause. A ban on deep sea trawlers is something environmentalists have been demanding for sometime now. It is an issue that brings together environmentalists and fisher folk who often are on opposite sides.
Notice the difference between the find of a rare Coelacanth in 1998 and the current story of how they have now become endagered. In just eight years.
Save Our Dinosaurs! I say.
Dinosaur fish pushed to the brink by deep-sea trawlers
After surviving for millions of years, the coelacanth is threatened by commercial fishing fleets
Inigo Gilmore in Tanzania Sunday January 8, 2006 The Observer
It is not every day that you come face to face with a dinosaur dating back 400 million years, but for the fishermen in Kigombe on Tanzania's northern coast it has become almost routine.
In the middle of Kigombe, a village of simple huts on this breathtaking edge of the Indian Ocean, a young fisherman stood proudly before a large green plastic container. Ceremoniously he reached inside and hauled out a monster of a fish, slapping its 60kg (132lb) of flesh on a table, where three children gawped at its almost human-like 'feet'. This is a living fossil, a fish with limbs, a creature once believed extinct: a coelacanth.
Now it seems that man may have discovered the fish just to eradicate it, as ever deeper trawling throws up serious fears for the already dwindling populations of the fish, which lives at depths of between 100 and 300 metres (328ft to 984ft).
The appearance of these creatures off the Tanzanian coast is a dramatic and as yet unfinished chapter in the extraordinary story of the coelacanth, an ancient fish that was 'rediscovered'. The coelacanth evolved 400 million years ago - by contrast Homo sapiens has been around for less than 200,000 years - and was believed to have gone the way of the dinosaurs until one was caught off the coast of South Africa in 1938.
New sighting of 'living fossil' intrigues scientists
A coelacanth
RELATED VIDEO
CNN's Don Knapp reports on the exploits of this ancient aquatic dweller
September 23, 1998 Web posted at: 11:40 p.m. EDT (2340 GMT)
From Correspondent Don Knapp
SAN FRANCISCO (CNN) -- An ugly fish known as the "living fossil" has made another appearance in the ocean, surprising scientists.
A coelacanth has been found in Indonesia -- 7,000 miles (11,200 kilometers) from its only previously known location near Madagascar.
The ancestors of the coelacanth (pronounced SEE-la-kanth) date back 400 million years. Until 1938, scientists knew the coelacanth only as a fossilized relic from the dinosaur era.
"So in 1938, it was almost a shock when one showed up, that you get this, what's called a living fossil basically, this fish that's known only from the fossil record and here it is, some 80 million years later, you get a live one," said Douglas Long of the California Academy of Science.
The second coelacanth known is exhibited in 1952
A fisherman pulled the first-known modern coelacanth from the waters near the Comoros Islands near Madagascar. South African biologist Marjorie Courtenay Latimer came across it in a fish market.
History repeated itself in the latest discovery. University of California-Berkeley biologist Mark Erdmann was in Indonesia on his honeymoon when he visited a fish market in Manada, Sulawesi, to look for manta shrimp, the animal he studies.
"His wife pointed out a large, ugly fish going by on a hand cart, which he looked at and immediately recognized as a coelacanth," said Roy Caldwell, a biologist at UC-Berkeley.
The fleshy fins of the coelacanth earned it the nickname of 'fourlegs'
Caldwell said the coelacanths recently found in Indonesia apparently live in the same type of environment as those found in the Comoros, caves about 600 feet (18 meters) deep along the steep sides of underwater volcanoes.
One reason for the coelacanth's ancient popularity was its fleshy fins that reminded people of human limbs, Caldwell said. Those fins led to speculation that the fish were direct ancestors of land vertebrates.
The fish did not turn out to be the ancestor of humans, but did manage to outlive the dinosaurs.
In a bizarre but yet exciting incident, a scientist discovered a dinosaur fossil while running along the shore of Hebridean island in Scotland. The dinosaur fossil was discovered by Dr. Elsa Panciroli, who was with her team members looking for remains of other animals. Panciroli, while talking to the press, said that she stumbled upon the bone of the dinosaur while running and trying to catch up with other members of her team. The dinosaur fossil is reportedly 166 million-year-old, dated to the Middle Jurassic period.
A 166 million-year-old dinosaur bone has been found on the isle of Eigg!
Dr Panciroli (@gsciencelady) made the discovery on the Hebridean island. The find has since been identified as belonging to a stegosaurian dinosaur – like Stegosaurus pic.twitter.com/ri5nnLyqAb— National Museums Scotland (@NtlMuseumsScot) August 26, 2020
The bone has been kept in the National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh, where it has been displayed for visitors. According to reports, scientists in Scotland have been searching dinosaur bones for more than 200 hundred years. Until now the only dinosaur fossil discovered in Scotland was on the Isle of Skye. This is the first time that a dinosaur bone has been found os isle of Eigg, where previously only marine reptile and fish fossils were discovered. The dinosaur fossil found on the small island is a limb bone, which is about 50 centimetres long in size.
The find has since been identified as belonging to a stegosaurian dinosaur, like Stegosaurus. Panciroli discovered the bone on a National Geographic funded fieldwork in 2017. The bone was badly eroded, but paleontologist and Panciroli's colleague Nigel Larkin carefully prepared it for the team to study. It was probably a juvenile, and bite marks show it was scavenged after death, said Panciroli.
Dinosaur bone discovered on Scottish island the 1st of its kind in the country
Paleontologist Elsa Panciroli was running to catch up with her colleagues when she spotted the rare fossil
CBC Radio · Posted: Aug 28, 2020 5:57 PM ET | Last Updated: August 28
Researchers believe the discovery is a lower back leg bone of a stegosaurian dinosaur, a species not seen in Scotland before. (N. Larkin)
A rare dinosaur bone from the Middle Jurassic was discovered in Scotland, thanks to the keen eye of a local paleontologist.
Elsa Panciroli got separated from her colleagues while searching for fossils on the Scottish Isle of Eigg. She was hopping from boulder to boulder on the shoreline to catch up with the rest of the team when something caught her eye.
"I suddenly realized the boulder I had just hopped onto and run past, it had something in it. But I wasn't sure quite what," Panciroli, who is a paleontologist at National Museums Scotland, told As It Happens guest host Helen Mann.
"So I turned around, went back to look, and it was a dinosaur bone sticking out of the boulder on the shoreline I'd just literally stepped on."
Her discovery turned out to be a 48-centimetre dinosaur bone, belonging to a species that has never been seen in Scotland before.
Scottish paleontologist Elsa Panciroli discovered a fossil that turned out to be a leg bone from a Jurassic-era stegosaurus. (S. Brusatte)
1st dinosaur on Eigg
Panciroli was so surprised to find the dinosaur bone, she says she downplayed her discovery to her colleagues at first.
"I was a bit reluctant to say the d-word, so I just kept saying I found something," she said. "And eventually they teased [it] out of me, and of course the moment I said 'dinosaur' everyone ... wanted to come and have a look."
Hundreds of people have likely walked over the boulder without noticing anything, she said, and finding the fossil was a matter of luck as much as training.
"I think a lot of the time for people who search for fossils, it's about pattern recognition. You're looking to recognize something. And it was almost unconscious, because I wasn't looking anymore; I was running."
Panciroli said Eigg has been extensively studied, and the purpose of the trip was to look for fossils seen on the island before, like those of marine reptiles and fish.
The researchers never expected to find signs of something as big as a dinosaur — and it turns out that Panciroli's discovery is even rarer than that. Rare fossil from the Middle Jurassic
After months of extensive tests on the bone, its owner was established to be a young stegosaurian dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic period. This is the first time this type of dinosaur and a fossil this old have been found in Scotland.
"It's 166 million years old, and this is a time when fossils — globally speaking, not just in Scotland — are very, very rare," Panciroli said.
"So just finding it in the first place is really quite significant."
Panciroli imagined the last moments of the young stegosaurus, whose fossilized bone she discovered, in her painting. (Elsa Panciroli )
It's also the first time a dinosaur fossil has been found on Eigg; all other dino fossils in Scotland were discovered on the Isle of Skye.
The newfound bone was likely a back lower leg bone of a stegosaurian dinosaur, a large quadruped species with distinctive plates on the back.
Previously, only fossils from two different types of dinosaurs — "the big, long-necked, very heavy dinosaurs" and "the meat-eating dinosaurs that walk on two legs" — have been found in Scotland, Panciroli said.
Researchers will now continue looking for fossils on Eigg and Skye in hopes of building a more complete picture of the ecosystem of that time period.
"We already know that there were also mammals at this time, the very earliest ones, but also things like salamanders, crocodiles, turtles — so we can even look at food chains. It really is only the beginning of research," Panciroli said.
The researcher also said she was happy to find something so close to home. "It's always lovely to find something in your home country. I think I expected that I would probably have to travel abroad to look for something like this, so it's a big surprise."
Written by Olsy Sorokina. Interview produced by Jeanne Armstrong.
Wednesday, December 07, 2022
SOS SAVE OUR STURGEON Angler Catches Super-Rare 'Dinosaur' Fish in Kansas River, Throws It Back
Story by Pandora Dewan • Yesterday An extremely rare species of fish was recently caught in the Kansas River by an angler. This was only the 16th reported catch of the endangered lake sturgeon in Kansas in over 25 years, the state's Department of Wildlife and Parks said.
The department shared the news of the catch in a post on Facebook. "I knew I had a special fish once I landed this fish," fisherman Kevin Zirjacks said in response to the post. "Never thought I would ever see one of these dinosaurs, let alone be able to actually hold one. Definitely a catch I will remember for the rest of my life."
After taking photos with the fish, Kirjacks released it back into the water.
Lake sturgeon can be found throughout North America, from Hudson Bay to the Mississippi River. They are the oldest and largest species native to the Great Lakes, first appearing in the fossil record about 135 million years ago, 70 years before the dinosaurs went extinct.
Lake sturgeon themselves can live very long lives, with females reportedly living for as long as 150 years, the National Wildlife Federation said. They are also massive, growing up to 6.5 feet long and weighing up to 200 pounds.
Before the 19th century, lake sturgeon were abundant throughout the Great Lakes. However, overfishing in the 1800s and 1900s dramatically reduced their populations. Today, the species is dwindling in its northern territories, and it is considered endangered in the southern parts of its range.
Efforts to reintroduce this freshwater fish have been slow because of their long life cycle. Females usually do not start producing eggs until they are at least 20 years old.
Zirjacks detailed how he used special equipment to avoid injuring the endangered fish. "The green thing is an unhooking cradle," he said, referring to the green tarpaulin seen in his photograph. "It's a great tool when catch and release fishing. Gives you a padded place to put your fish after landing them.
"It's raised off the ground to keep them nice and clean.... Makes handling the fish way easier and lets you get them back in the water quicker. Really comes in handy when handling bigger fish," he said.
While efforts continue to attempt to revive this population, the lake sturgeon is facing other environmental threats. Water pollution and invasive aquatic species have made their habitats less hospitable, and climate change is expected to decrease the quality and quantity of nursery and spawning sites and exacerbate existing problems.
A random game of chance brought about last week’s first encounter with an alligator gar.
While I get outdoors as much as possible, there still was a rut forming through the familiarity of time spent homebound during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. I started getting the itch to travel a couple months ago, and I dared to dream about a destination fishing trip.
Alligator gar came to my mind, and I spent idle time googling the giant fish and following Texas gar fishing guides on social media. Whether it was browser cookies or social media algorithms, I came across a lot of alligator gar content that got the angling juices flowing.
One night, I saw a post from one of the Texas gar guides that his outfit would raffle a guided fishing trip. Entries were $10 with 20 spots available.
I figured that the entry fee was a ticket to daydream, just like a lot of people buy a Powerball ticket when the jackpot runs large. If I didn’t win, and the odds were against me, it hadn’t cost me much and it permitted me to imagine a getaway trip.
A week went by and I forgot about the raffle. One night, I took my brother-in-law fishing on the Mississippi River and was flipping through my phone when I came across the raffle being conducted live. I turned it on just in time to see my number and name get called. I’d won the trip!
Carlos Guerrero of Trinity River Gar Fishing got me on the schedule for a mid-August date, and I booked my airfare. I managed to schedule some other fishing and exploring while in Dallas.
On the eve of the big trip, I waited out a torrential downpour inside the Texas Parks and Wildlife Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. Guerrero messaged me that the rain had hit Dallas hard, ending with just under two inches. The Trinity River rose four or five feet.
Being a river angler, I knew what it meant — the river would run high and dirty, throwing off the fish and fishing until things settled down.
The day started with a 25% chance of storms and ended in a deluge. Had my luck turned? Would my trip be cancelled or a bust? Guerrero had an idea — there was a spot he could take me, not in his boat but walking in, where we’d have a chance at some gar on a part of the river that may have missed much of the rain.
Not one to be afraid of a little hike, I was ready to give it a try and, at the very least, go down swinging.
Alligator gar have had a persecuted existence in the post-settlement United States. Long misunderstood as a nuisance or trash fish, they were wiped out of a large part of their native range by indiscriminate killing recommended by state or federal natural resource authorities, as well as habitat loss.
In the early 20th century, anglers would catch alligator gar via hook and line while another in the boat would shoot the fish with a bow or rifle when it jumped.
Today, a segment of the angling public targets the giant fish for catch-and-release fishing, and management agencies have taken steps to protect and preserve the predator, recognizing it as a valuable member of the native ecosystem.
A number of states value the alligator gar for its potential role in helping control invasive carp. Alligator gar are euryhaline, meaning they can adapt to various levels of salinity in marshes, swamps, brackish estuaries and bays in the Gulf of Mexico.
Alligator gar have ganoid scales, a specialized scale that is nearly impenetrable and tough like a covering of hard armor. These gar are living dinosaurs, an earned title since the fish is relatively unchanged in the fossil record dating back over 100 million years.
As with other primitive fishes, they have retained many ancient characteristics, like the ability to breathe atmospheric air through their swim bladder. Alligator gar is the largest species in the gar family, can grow up to 10 feet long and are estimated to live up to 100 years.
Guerrero came to north Dallas from Mexico at the age of 3. He learned English, holds a work visa for residency and has plans to pursue full citizenship.
Fishing was always in his blood. Once he became smitten with alligator gar, he didn’t want to fish for anything else.
Alligator gar anglers run in small circles, and he kept bumping into a friend that wanted to learn more. Over time, he came to trust Walter Murga, and together, the pair guides anglers through Trinity River Gar Fishing in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Murga came to Irving, Texas, from El Salvador at the age of 6. Like Guerrero, he learned English as a second language and plans to turned his visa into citizenship.
The sun has just risen as Guerrero and Murga met me on a nondescript road beyond the outlying southern suburbs of Dallas. It was steamy and hot, a product of the rain the evening before.
A half-mile walk took us along an isolated stretch of the Trinity River. There was just enough light to make out dark shapes just below the river’s lazily flowing, olive-drab surface — the black outlines of schools of buffalo fish.
Rebar mounted rod holders were pushed into the viscous Texas mud on the stream’s banks at openings in the treeline that gave us a good view upstream and down. Long, heavy action rods with 100-pound braided line cast huge chunks of cut up carp on small treble hooks on wire leaders, loosely equivalent to northerners using quick strike rigs for northern pike on tip-ups.
“Now we wait,” Carlos said as the last rod is cast.
Texas has no limits on fishing rods used, but to keep things from getting tangled, we launched six baits into the river at equally spaced intervals. Guerrero and Murga watched line and rod tips carefully, the mark of good live and dead bait anglers.
The baits were bumped frequently, but it’s often being played with by softshell turtles. The turtles have telltale behavioral signs, like constant pecking or swimming off short distances with the bait.
After an hour and a half, we moved to a clearing further downstream, hoping to be rid of the pesky turtles.
Throughout the morning, alligator gar are rising to the surface, rolling around or gulping air before descending into the river’s murkiness. One large individual takes away Guerrero’s and my breath.
“That was a seven-footer for sure,” Carlos said.
After seven years of guiding, he’s still in awe of these fish. The river is teeming with gar, but we can’t seem to convince any to take our bait.
Another hour passed when suddenly one of the lines shot out. We scrambled to the rod and pull line of the spinning reel arbor, hoping the fish didn’t detect any resistance and drop the bait.
Alligator gar must be given time to carry the bait off in their mouth. For four or five minutes, we gave the fish line as it started to cut upstream.
We neared the end of the spool, when Carlos announced that even though the fish hadn’t stopped running with the bait, we had no choice but to set the hook.
I reeled up the slack, felt the weight, then swung the rod tip backward while reeling in an attempt to drive the hook into the fish’s bony mouth.
The line tightened and began running out. I added a couple more hard pulls to ensure a set hook.
The fish kept moving upriver, unabated. Eventually, I stopped the fish and began gaining line, but it came close to the nearshore bank.
I worried that it will find some unseen snag. I worked to guide the fish toward deeper water and suddenly, she jumped out of the water and gnashed her teeth.
Fearful she’d thrown the hook, I was relieved to find her still attached.
The fish pushed out to the main current and the fight continued, with Guerrero and Murga reminding me to keep the rod tip down so I don’t encourage another jump.
Because alligator gar have such incredibly sharp teeth, guides don’t carry landing nets as the fish would simply tear holes through them.
Instead, everyone relies on the most Texas thing you can think of — a rope is used to “lasso” the fish around it’s hard, bony head and haul it to shore.
Guerrero worked the rope around my fishing line as we brought in the gar.
The tensest moments of the entire battle was trying to attach the rope. On three occasions, as Guerrero slid the rope over the rostrum, the tired fish found the energy to dart back into the river, pulling drag each time and making our hearts race.
We spotted the treble hook in the bony corner of the mouth and feared it would pull out. Finally, we got the 5 1/2-foot gar ashore and took a few pictures.
Despite the appearance of hanging precariously, we found the treble hook was well-seated. Because gar can breathe atmospheric air, the fish can be kept out of water far longer than other sport fish.
I took a few pictures of the incredible fish’s head and back, then Guerrero picked up the fish to hand it to me.
While Guerrero picked up the fish, the gar opened its mouth and a fold of Guerrero’s T-shirt fell inside just as the fish closed its mouth. After waiting a second, the fish opened its mouth again and the shirt fell out with several fresh holes.
You wouldn’t want your hand in that girl’s mouth!
After a couple quick pictures, the fish was released to fight another day.
Eventually the humidity broke as well as the overcast skies, and the hot Texas sun came out of hiding to warm and dry the muddy ground and usher in the conclusion of the day’s trip.
Two more bait pickups happened, but each time, the gar dropped the bait. Such is life for alligator gar anglers — you battle turtles, you hope the gar keep the bait long enough to get hooked up, and you get snubbed by many fish.
All for a chance to reel in an incredible fish in an incredible place.
Scott Mackenthun is an outdoors enthusiast who has been writing about hunting and fishing since 2005. He resides in New Prague and may be contacted at scott.mackenthun@gmail.com.
A 380-million-year-old fish heart found embedded in a chunk of Australian sediment has scientists' pulses racing. Not only is this organ in remarkable condition, but it could also yield clues about the evolution of jawed vertebrates, which include you and me.
The heart belonged to an extinct class of armored, jawed fish called arthrodires that thrived in the Devonian period between 419.2 million and 358.9 million years ago -- and it's a good 250 million years older than the jawed-fish heart that currently holds the "oldest" title. But despite the fish being so archaic, the positioning of its S-shaped ticker with two chambers led researchers to observe surprising anatomical similarities between the ancient swimmer and modern sharks.
"Evolution is often thought of as a series of small steps, but these ancient fossils suggest there was a larger leap between jawless and jawed vertebrates," said Professor Kate Trinajstic, a vertebrate paleontologist at Australia's Curtin University and co-author of a new study on the findings. "These fish literally have their hearts in their mouths and under their gills -- just like sharks today," Trinajstic said.
The study appeared in the journal Science on Wednesday.
Scientists got an extra good look at the organ's exact location because they were able to observe it in relation to the fish's fossilized stomach, intestine and liver, a rare happening.
"I can't tell you how truly amazed I was to find a 3D and beautifully preserved heart and other organs in this ancient fossil," Trinajstic said.
Paleontologists encountered the fossil during a 2008 expedition at Western Australia's GoGo Formation, and it adds to a trove of information gleaned from the site, including the origins of teeth and insights into the fin-to-limb transition. The GoGo Formation, a sedimentary deposit in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, is known for its rich fossil record preserving reef life from the Devonian period of the Paleozoic era, including relics of tissues as delicate as nerves and embryos with umbilical cords.
"Most cases of soft-tissue preservation are found in flattened fossils, where the soft anatomy is little more than a stain on the rock," said study co-author Professor Per Ahlberg of Sweden's Uppsala University. "We are also very fortunate in that modern scanning techniques allow us to study these fragile soft tissues without destroying them. A couple of decades ago, the project would have been impossible."
Those techniques include neutron beams and X-ray microtomography, which creates cross sections of physical objects that can then be used to re-create virtual 3D models.
And study co-author Ahlberg has a reminder for those who might not consider such finds significant: that life is, at its most fundamental level, an evolving system.
"That we ourselves and all the other living organisms with which we share the planet have developed from a common ancestry through a process of evolution is not an incidental fact," Ahlberg said. "It is the most profound truth of our existence. We are all related, in the most literal sense."
Thursday, February 17, 2022
A new discovery could help save this 10-foot-long 'living fossil' fish The alligator gar is a snaggle-toothed fish longer than a park bench and heavier than a mountain lion. Bony scales covering its body make it look like an armored dinosaur, and for good reason: North America’s second-biggest fish has been thriving since the late Jurassic period, 157 million years ago.
Many don’t realize that the 10-foot-long alligator gar still exists, but when they do, their first thoughts often turn to fear, says Solomon David, a fish ecologist at Nicholls State University in Louisiana.
But “they’re not like alligators, lions or other animals that can tear off pieces of prey,” says David. “They have to swallow their prey whole, so they’re harmless to humans.”
Alligator gar, which can weigh more than 300 pounds, are like their namesake in one way: They’re apex predators, which means they provide critical ecosystem services to their home habitats—which is mostly the middle and lower Mississippi River watershed in the U.S. The freshwater species keep prey populations in check by hunting smaller fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds, David says. (Learn more about freshwater fish.)
But their role as top hunter has earned alligator gar a bad reputation with anglers and even state wildlife managers, who sometimes tried to exterminate the animals, thinking they were competitors to game fish. In the 1930s, the Texas Game and Fish Commission even built a boat that discharged electric volts into the water. They called it the Electrical Gar Destroyer.
Alligator gars have a wide range that includes Central America and Cuba.
Combine those direct threats with habitat loss due to dam construction and floodplain draining, and alligator gar are now extremely rare in the upper river systems of America where they were once common. In some states, such as Ohio and Illinois, the species has disappeared completely and is considered locally extinct or extirpated. Alligator gar, found as far south as Central America, are more common in the southern parts of their range, especially in U.S. states such as Texas and Louisiana—which is why they’re listed as of least concern by IUCN.
The GarLab team—from left, Audrey Baetz, Solomon David, and Derek Sallmann—measures a large alligator gar at the St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi in 2021. All fish are safely released after data collection.
“It’s a matter of scale. What might be of ‘least concern’ globally is definitely not the case on the local scale,” says David.
That’s why David and his colleagues are trying to reverse the fish's decline, for instance by breeding them in captivity and devising ways to learn more about the creatures without harming them. In a January study in the journal Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, David and colleagues showed that instead of cutting into the fish’s flesh to gather samples, taking small clips of fin can provide the same information.
“Just the sheer size of these animals blows you away when you're in their presence,” David says. “These are river giants.” Fin clips, for the win
To protect gar, scientists first need to know basic information, such as where the behemoths roam and what they’re eating. To do that, they’d normally need to take a nickel-size sample of the fish’s tissue, which contains traces of elements scientists can use to track the fish’s whereabouts.
However, because gar have scales like medieval chain mail, the time-consuming and traumatic practice of extracting that amount of tissue can cause stress on the animal, says Thea Fredrickson, an aquatic biologist with the Lower Colorado River Authority in Texas.
“It can definitely be lethal. There’s no way around it.”
Fortunately, in their new study, Fredrickson and David have just proven that fin clipping is much easier on the gar.
“It also allows us to sample organisms repeatedly,” says David, who notes the fins grow back quickly. “Let’s say we catch the same fish a month or two later, or maybe a year later. We can see how that fish might be changing with its growth.”
“I found the results [of] the paper very promising,” says Zeb Hogan, a research biologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who was not involved in the study.
“We need to understand their biology and their ecology, but you don’t want to sacrifice a fish that’s that old or that grows so slowly,” says Hogan, who is also a National Geographic Explorer.
Though the fin-clipping technique has been shown to work for other fishes, no one had ever tried it with alligator gar. Now that it’s been proven, the scientists have already started using the technique at St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi.
In February, David and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and their gar biologist, Kayla Kimmel, caught numerous gar at the refuge, including a massive specimen longer than David is tall. They tagged the animals and captured 10 individuals to be used in a captive-breeding program at the wildlife service’s Private John Allen National Fish Hatchery. If all goes well, the offspring of these 10 fish will be reintroduced into U.S. areas where gar have disappeared. Evolutionary wonders
“They found a body plan that worked, and they’ve stuck with it,” says David, explaining that the fish’s long, narrow shape allows them to lunge quickly at their prey.
Alligator gars can also breathe air, allowing them to survive in hot, low-oxygen environments, including brackish estuaries or even salt water.
Another useful adaptation? Poisonous eggs. Interestingly, alligator gar eggs don’t seem to be lethal to other fishes—only mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and especially arthropods, such as crustaceans. This may mean they evolved the poison specifically to protect their eggs from crabs and crayfish, says David.
“But ‘don’t eat gar caviar’ is the take-home message for people,” he laughs
Save the freshwater giants
Freshwater megafauna, loosely defined as species that weigh over 66 pounds on average, are among the most endangered animals on Earth. Global populations have declined by almost 90 percent since 1970—twice as much as the loss of vertebrate populations on land or in the oceans, according to a 2019 study in Global Change Biology.
Large fish, such as sturgeons, salmons, and giant catfishes, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, have experienced even higher declines, because of overfishing, pollution, and dams.
This is why David is trying to change the perception of these animals any way he can. Sometimes it’s making gar puns on social media, and other times it’s testifying before the Minnesota Legislature in favor of a new bill that would provide gar and other so-called “rough fish” with some protections, rather than allowing them to be killed indiscriminately.
“It's a privilege to work alongside the growing number of conservationists garnering more respect for these charismatic megafish,” David says.
Of course, when he says “garnering,” the emphasis is on the gar.
"John Harrington caught this GAR-gantuan alligator gar out of the Trinity River on July 18 with a rod and reel," the TPWD wrote in its Facebook announcement.
"He earned an Outstanding Angler Award for his incredible catch," the post continued. "The gar was released to swim another day."
Exact measurements of Harrington’s alligator gar are not known since the fish was caught and released, a spokesperson for the TPWD told Fox News Digital.
"The angler did not have any weight or length data that we could verify, so he earned an Outstanding Angler Award to commemorate his amazing catch," the TPWD’s spokesperson wrote in an email.
Alligator gars are a ray-finned fish that can tolerate a wide range of salinity, according to multiple wildlife encyclopedias and glossaries.
Fish identification guides published by the TPWD state that alligator gar have "short" and "wide" snouts that have a "distinct" appearance, which many say resembles that of an alligator when viewed from above.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife reports that alligator gar are species that's "as old as the dinosaurs" and lives in rivers, reservoirs and estuaries throughout the state.
"Alligator gar can be huge, reaching lengths of up to 10 feet and weighing over 300 pounds," the TPWD wrote in its "How to Identify Alligator Gar" webpage.
"It is the second-largest freshwater fish in North America, second only to the white sturgeon," the TPWD continued.
In May 2023, the TPWD recognized a Texas angler for breaking the alligator gar record in Lake Corpus Christi with a 90-inch, 207-pound catch.
Paul Hefner of Texas caught a 7.5-foot alligator gar from Lake Corpus Christi, Texas, which broke the local fishing record for alligator gar.
The Texas state record for an alligator gar caught by rod-and-reel is 279 pounds, and it was established on Jan. 1, 1951, by angler Bill Valverde, who caught the fish from the Rio Grande.
The TPWD also has verified records of alligator gar that have been caught with various methods, including fly rods (56.25 inches, 40.7 pounds), bow and arrows (96 inches, 290 pounds), catch-and-release rod-and-reels (89 inches) and other means (302 pounds, 90 inches).
The current world record for the largest alligator gar belongs to Kenny Williams of Vicksburgh, Mississippi, who accidentally caught a 327-pound alligator gar that was over 8 feet in length from Lake Chotard in 2011, according to the TPWD.
The alligator gar got tangled in Williams’ fishing net before he caught it with a rod and reel. Experts estimated the world-record fish was around 95 years old.
The existence of the species has been suggested by the original specimen-based description in a refereed scientific journal in which the type juvenile specimen is represented by 3 different close-up quality photographs (in the B. C. Provincial Archives in Victoria), in which at least three new-born relatively tiny precocial "baby" specimens have been independently held by at least three pairs of human captors during the past 40 years, and by more than 100 documented sightings, photographs, sonar images, and sketches of live animals made independently at predicted times and places, subsequent to the original description in 1995 and continuing to the present
In the Amphipacifica Journal of Systematic Biology Drs. Paul H. LeBlond and Edward L. Bousfield review the large aquatic reptile known as "Caddy" from the Pacific coast of North America. Bousfield and LeBlond believe the historical records about this creature contain sufficient evidence of "specimens in hand" to conclude "the animal is real and merits formal taxonomic description," and propose it be named and diagnosed with vertebrate class Reptilia as Cadborosaurus willsi, new genus, new species.
Many people have spotted a large marine cryptid from coastal areas of the northeast Pacific Ocean and sporadically these sightings have been reported by the news media. Bousfield and LeBlond describe it as "a large serpentine animal (adult body length 15-20 meters), clearly unlike any whale, pinniped, fish, or other existing vertebrate animal that makes only brief appearances at the sea surface, presenting distinctive head, a long neck, and trunk region that often forms into number of vertical humps or loops. Its swimming speed is astonishing to those who try to approach it, invariably unsuccessfully."
Scientists Find a Mammal's Foot Inside a Dinosaur, a Fossil First
Isaac Schultz Wed, December 21, 2022 An illustration of Microraptor chowing down on a mammal foot.
Paleontologists taking a second look at a species of small, four-winged dinosaur have found a fossilized mammalian foot in the predator’s stomach.
It’s the first concrete evidence of dinosaurs eating mammals, the researchers say. Specimens of the dinosaur, Microraptor zhaoinus, have been discovered containing ancient birds, fish, and lizards, so the mammalian find is just the latest known source of protein for this spunky hunter. The team who re-scrutinized the Microraptor fossil published their findings today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. “It really demonstrates the generalist diet in this small feathered dinosaur,” said Hans Larsson, a paleontologist at McGill University and the study’s lead author, in an email to Gizmodo. “Adding mammals to the menu shows just how un-specialized this dinosaur was.”
The tree-dwelling Microraptor lived during the early Cretaceous, and specimens have been found across what is now northeast China. The fossil-rich region is called the Jehol Biota, and its well-preserved treasures are a great resource for understanding nuances of dinosaur anatomy, as well as details about different animals’ ecological niches.
Microraptor is thought to have lived in trees, gliding around the Cretaceous forests looking for morsels on branches as well as on the ground. The recently studied specimen is the holotype, meaning it was first of its species to be found and named. It’s only recently been revisited after its discovery back in 2000. The new analysis revealed the mammalian foot—a seemingly unprecedented find. The mammal foot (center) within the Microraptor fossil.
The researchers couldn’t identify the particular mammal species, but the foot’s preservation within Microraptor allowed them to understand its ecological niche and, obviously, its predators.
“Gut contents are amazing snapshots into the diet of fossil animals, but they are so rare that it can be difficult to figure out whether the preserved ‘last meal’ represents the animal’s normal diet or a weird, one-off event that lucked into getting fossilized,” said Stephanie Drumheller-Horton, a paleontologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who was not affiliated with the recent paper, in an email to Gizmodo.
“Microraptor is shaping up to be a very interesting exception to that rule, with multiple, beautifully fossilized specimens preserving different ‘last meals,’” Drumheller-Horton added. “Taken together, the authors make a compelling case that this little theropod wasn’t a particularly picky eater, eating all sorts of small-bodied animals in its environment.”
Another illustration of Microraptor with its prey.
The mammal foot apparently did not belong to a distant human ancestor; the team said it had similarities to the morphologies of Sinodelphys, Yanoconodon, and Eomaia, all ancient species of early mammals that looked roughly like opossums or rodents.
The foot belonged to an animal about the size of a mouse. The team’s analysis found the critter wouldn’t have been a good climber—an indicator that Microraptor may have occasionally swooped down to the forest floor for feeding.
“The foot seems completely intact, and thus was swallowed whole. How much of the mammal was swallowed is unknown,” Larsson said. “However, there were several other unidentified bones around the foot in the rib cage, so I suspect that more of that mammal was consumed.”
The researchers could not determine whether the animal was hunted and killed or if the feathered dinosaur had scavenged its body.
Given the luck paleontologists have had with the Jehol Biota so far, it may just be a matter of time before another meal-laden specimen offers more insights about the Cretaceous food scene.
The experts said their findings, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, is “the first record of a dinosaur eating a mammal”.
Dr David Hone, from Queen Mary University of London, who is first author on the study, said: “It’s so rare to find examples of food inside dinosaurs, so every example is really important as it gives direct evidence of what they were eating.
Fossil remains showing a mammal foot in the ribcage of a Microraptor - PA
“While this mammal would absolutely not have been a human ancestor, we can look back at some of our ancient relatives being a meal for hungry dinosaurs.
“This study paints a picture of a fascinating moment in time - the first record of a dinosaur eating a mammal - even if it isn’t quite as frightening as anything in Jurassic Park.”
About the size of a crow or a small cat, Microraptors would have been gliding from tree to tree to prey on small animals.
Although the specimen was first described in 2000, the researchers said the previous team had failed to see the remains of another animal inside the dinosaur.
Further analysis suggests the prey was a mammal about the size of a mouse, which likely lived on the ground and was not a good climber. A mammal foot in the ribcage of a Microraptor may be first known incident of a mammal being eaten by a dinosaur - PA
Previous research has shown other Microraptor specimens with preserved food in their stomachs, such as a bird, a lizard and a fish.
However, the team added that it is not certain if these dinosaurs had directly preyed on these animals or found them already dead and had scavenged them.
Dr Alex Dececchi, from Mount Marty College in South Dakota, US, and one of the study authors, said: “The great thing is that - like your housecat, which was about the same size - Microraptor would have been an easy animal to live with but a terror if it got out, as it would hunt everything from the birds at your feeder to the mice in your hedge or the fish in your pond.”
Sunday, June 02, 2024
FOSSILS
Origins of Welsh dragons finally exposed by experts
A large fossil discovery has helped shed light on the history of dinosaurs in Wales.
Until recently, the land of the dragon didn’t have any dinosaurs. However, in the last ten years, several dinosaurs have been reported, but their life conditions were not well known. In a new study by a team from the University of Bristol and published in Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, important details have been revealed for the first time.
They found that early Welsh dinosaurs from over 200 million year ago lived on a tropical lowland beside the sea. Dinosaur trackways are known from Barry and other sites nearby, showing that dinosaurs had walked across the warm lowlands.
The discovery was made at Lavernock Point, close to Cardiff and Penarth, where the cliffs of dark-coloured shales and limestones document ancient shallow seas. At several levels, there are accumulations of bones, including the remains of fish, sharks, marine reptiles and occasionally, dinosaurs.
Former student of the Bristol MSc in Palaeobiology Owain Evans led the study. He explained: “The bone bed paints the picture of a tropical archipelago, which was subjected to frequent storms, that washed material from around the surrounding area, both in land and out at sea, into a tidal zone. This means that from just one fossil horizon, we can reconstruct a complex ecological system, with a diverse array of marine reptiles like ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and placodonts in the water, and dinosaurs on land.
“I had visited the coast at Penarth all my life, growing up in Cardiff, but never noticed the fossils. Then, the more I read, the more amazing it became. Local geologists had been collecting bones since the 1870s, and most of these are in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.”
Cindy Howells, Curator of Palaeontology at the National Museum of Wales, adds: “The collections from Lavernock go all the way back to the 19th century, with many sections of the bone bed being collected over the years. The presence of dinosaur fossils at the site ensure that it remains one of the most significant localities for palaeontology in Wales.”
Two discoveries made by the team while conducting fieldwork at Lavernock were the fossilized remains of a placodont osteoderm, and a single coelacanth gular bone. Supervisor Dr Chris Duffin said: “The remains of coelacanths and placodonts are relatively rare in the UK, which makes these finds even more remarkable. These two fossils alone help build a broader picture of what the Rhaetian in the UK would have looked like.”
Professor Michael Benton from Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, another project supervisor, adds: “The volume of dinosaur remains found at Lavernock is extremely exciting, and is a chance to study a complex, and often mysterious period in their evolutionary history. We have identified the remains of a large Plateosaurus like animal, along with several bones which likely belonged to a predatory theropod.”
A significant section of the paper is dedicated to the abundant microfossils found at the site, which include fish teeth, scales and bone fragments. By examining thousands of specimens, the team were able to identify the key species in the shallow seas and work out the relative importance of each.
The origins of the Welsh dragons have been pinned down at last.
Fossils found on the shoreline of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe represent a completely new dinosaur species. This remarkable find, named Musankwa sanyatiensis, marks only the fourth dinosaur species named from Zimbabwe. The research detailing this significant discovery is set to be published in the prestigious journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. The study was conducted by an international team of scientists from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, Stony Brook University in New York and was led by Prof Paul Barrett from the Natural History Museum in London.
The discovery of Musankwa sanyatiensis is particularly significant as it is the first dinosaur to be named from the Mid-Zambezi Basin of northern Zimbabwe in over 50 years. Additionally, it is only the fourth dinosaur to be named from Zimbabwe, following the descriptions of “Syntarsus” rhodesiensis in 1969, Vulcanodon karibaensis in 1972, and, most recently, Mbiresaurus raathi in 2022.
The rocks yielding this new specimen date back to the Late Triassic period, approximately 210 million years ago. Musankwa sanyatiensis is represented by the remains of a single hind leg, including its thigh, shin, and ankle bones. “Despite the limited fossil material, these bones possess unique features that distinguish them from those of other dinosaurs living at the same time,” says Dr Kimberley ‘Kimi’ Chapelle, assistant professor at Stony Brook University and an honorary associate at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits.
The discovery was named Musankwa sanyatiensis after the houseboat "Musankwa”. In the Tonga dialect, "Musankwa" means "boy close to marriage". This vessel served as the research team's home and mobile laboratory during two field expeditions to Lake Kariba in 2017 and 2018. The vessel was made available to the research team through the generosity of David and Julie Glynn, and the crew – Coster Katupu, Godfrey Swalika, Simbarashe Mangoroma, and Never Mapira – who provided essential logistic support.
Evolutionary analysis reveals that Musankwa sanyatiensis was a member of the Sauropodomorpha, a group of bipedal, long-necked dinosaurs that were widespread during the Late Triassic. Interestingly, this dinosaur appears to be closely related to contemporaries in South Africa and Argentina. Weighing in at around 390 kg, the plant-eating Musankwa sanyatiensis was one of the larger dinosaurs of its era.
Africa has a long history of dinosaur discovery, with the first dinosaur in the southern hemisphere found in South Africa just three years after the term "dinosaur" was coined by Sir Richard Owen in 1842. However, most known dinosaur fossils have been found in just 10 countries, particularly in the northern hemisphere, leading to a sparse representation of African dinosaur diversity in the global fossil record. “The main reason for the underrepresentation of African dinosaur fossils is ‘undersampling’,” says Barrett. “Put simply, there have been fewer people looking for and unearthing dinosaurs in comparison with other regions of the world,” he notes.
Despite the fewer discoveries in Africa, many of these fossils are historically and scientifically significant. These include some of the oldest dinosaurs like Nyasasaurus parringtoni from Tanzania and Mbiresaurus raathi from Zimbabwe, as well as rich dinosaur faunas from South Africa, Tanzania, Niger, and Morocco.
The Late Triassic-Early Jurassic sediments of Zimbabwe are crucial for understanding the End-Triassic extinction, a catastrophic event that dramatically reshaped Earth's biodiversity around 200 million years ago. These different layers provide insights into how different fossil-bearing sediments around the world correspond in age and help in piecing together the global picture of prehistoric life.
This new dinosaur species also highlights the untapped potential of the region for further paleontological discoveries. Barrett elaborates: “Over the last six years, many new fossil sites have been recorded in Zimbabwe, yielding a diverse array of prehistoric animals, including the first sub-Saharan mainland African phytosaurs (ancient crocodile-like reptiles), metoposaurid amphibians (giant armoured amphibians), lungfish, and other reptile remains”.
As more fossil sites are explored and excavated, there is hope for uncovering further significant finds that will shed light on the early evolution of dinosaurs and the ecosystems they inhabited. “Based on where it sits on the dinosaur family tree, Musanwka sanyantiensis is the first dinosaur of its kind from Zimbabwe,” Dr Kimi Chapelle excitedly explains. “It, therefore, highlights the potential of the region for further palaeontological discoveries,” she says.
Artist reconstruction of Musankwa sanyatiensis, walking in Triassic shallow waters past a metoposaur.
CREDIT
Atashni Moopen
Musankwa sanyatiensis leg bones as they were discovered in the ground on Spurwing Island, Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe
CREDIT
Paul Barrett
The international team composed of scientists from Zimbabwe, South Africa and the UK at the Musankwa sanyatiensis fossil locality on Spurwing Island, Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe.
CREDIT
Lara Sciscio
The house-boat “Musankwa”, the vessel that acted as the home and mobile laboratory during two field expeditions to Lake Kariba in 2017–2018, which was made available through the generosity of David and Julie Glynn, and whose crew, Coster Katupu, Godfrey Swalika, Simbarashe Mangoroma, and Never Mapira, provided essential logistic support.
A new Late Triassic sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Mid-Zambezi Basin, Zimbabwe
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
30-May-2024
Echidnapus identified from an ‘Age of Monotremes’
Australian researchers have found evidence of the oldest known platypus and a new species, dubbed ‘echidnapus’, which has a platypus-like anatomy alongside features that more closely resemble an echidna
SIX MONOTREMES LIVING IN THE SAME PLACE AT THE SAME TIME, 100 MILLION YEARS AGO AT LIGHTNING RIDGE, NSW. CLOCKWISE FROM LOWER LEFT: OPALIOS SPLENDENS, A NEWLY DESCRIBED SPECIES DUBBED AN ‘ECHIDNAPUS’; STIRTODON ELIZABETHAE, THE LARGEST MONOTREME OF THE TIME; KOLLIKODON RITCHIEI, WITH HOT-CROSS-BUN SHAPED MOLARS; STEROPODON GALMANI, NOW KNOWN FROM ADDITIONAL OPALISED FOSSILS; PARVOPALUS CLYTIEI, THE SMALLEST MONOTREME OF THE TIME; AND DHARRAGARRA AURORA, THE EARLIEST KNOWN SPECIES OF PLATYPUS.
Published today in the Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, evidence of an ‘Age of Monotremes’ has been unearthed by a team of Australian scientists at the Australian Museum (AM), Museums Victoria and Australian Opal Centre.
The findings were led by two renowned mammalogists, Honorary Associate of the Australian Museum, Professor Tim Flannery; and Professor Kris Helgen, Chief Scientist and Director of the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI).
Found in the Lightning Ridge opal fields, NSW, the opalised jaws date back to the Cenomanian Age of the Cretaceous Period, between 102 million to 96.6 million years ago.
Professor Flannery said the research reveals that 100 million years ago, Australia was home to a diversity of monotremes, of which the platypus and the echidna are the only surviving descendants.
“Today, Australia is known as a land of marsupials, but discovering these new fossils is the first indication that Australia was previously home to a diversity of monotremes. It’s like discovering a whole new civilisation,” Professor Flannery said.
Chief Scientist and Director of the Australian Museum Research Institute, Professor Kris Helgen, said the three new species demonstrate combinations of features not previously seen before in other living or fossil monotremes. One of the most striking of the new monotremes, Opalios splendens, retains characteristics of the earliest known monotremes, but also some that foreshadow adaptations in the living monotremes, the echidnas and platypus.
“Opalios splendens sits on a place in the evolutionary tree prior to the evolution of the common ancestor of the monotremes we have today. Its overall anatomy is probably quite like the platypus, but with features of the jaw and snout a bit more like an echidna – you might call it an ‘echidnapus’,” Professor Helgen said.
“The story of how our egg-laying mammals evolved is ‘toothy to toothless’ on the oldest monotreme, Teinolophos trusleri, which dates back to Victoria 130 million years ago. What we see at Lightning Ridge is that by 100 million years ago, some of the monotremes still have five molars but some of them are down to three,” Professor Helgen said.
Professor Flannery highlighted that today, echidnas have no teeth, and platypuses too are essentially toothless.
“Adult platypus have no teeth, though juveniles have rudimentary molars. Just when and why adult platypus lost their teeth after nearly 100 million years is a mystery we think we have solved. It may have been competition with the Australian water rat, which arrived in Australia within the last 2 million years, which caused platypus to seek out softer, slipperier food best processed with the leathery pads that adults use today,” Professor Flannery said.
“What is so unusual about this uniquely Australian story is that in one snapshot we see six different egg-laying mammals living together in Lightning Ridge over 100 million years ago. All of them are holding potential evolutionary destinies that can go off in different directions, and all of them are deep distant ancestors and relatives of the current living monotremes.”
Dr Matthew McCurry, Curator of Palaeontology, Australian Museum, said the discovery of three new genera of monotremes helps to piece together their remarkable evolutionary story.
“There are six species of monotremes, including the three newly described here, within the Cenomanian Lightning Ridge fauna of New South Wales making it the most diverse monotreme assemblage on record. Four species are known from a single specimen, suggesting that diversity remains underrepresented. This discovery adds more than 20 per cent to the previously known diversity of monotremes,” Dr McCurry said.
“We have very few monotreme fossils, and so finding new fossils can tell us more about where they lived, what they looked like and how changes in the environment influenced their evolution. Every significant monotreme fossil currently known fits into this evolutionary story, from Teinolophos, the tiny shrew-like creature in Antarctica 130 million years ago to the present day,” Dr McCurry said.
Co-authors from Museums Victoria Research Institute, Dr Thomas Rich, Senior Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology, and Honorary Associate Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich AO said these curious, unique and ancient Australian animals still have the power to interest the scientific world.
“The platypus and echidna are iconic Australian species. The discovery of these several new species in one small area suggest that the family tree of the egg laying monotremes is far more complicated than the living platypus and echidna alone suggest,” Dr Thomas Rich said.
“As the fieldwork continues in the Mesozoic of Australia, we continue to increase our understanding of how life changed over time. This, to me, is what makes science so exciting,” Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich AO said.
The fossils were found by Elizabeth Smith and her daughter Clytie of the Australian Opal Centre in Lightning Ridge, who have spent decades working and searching over the opal fields.
“Opal fossils are rare, but opalised monotreme fossils are infinitely more rare, as there’s one monotreme fragment to a million other pieces. We don’t know when, or exactly where, they’ll turn up,” Elizabeth Smith said.
“These specimens are a revelation. They show the world that long before Australia became the land of pouched mammals, marsupials, this was a land of furry egg-layers – monotremes. It seems that 100 million years ago, there were more monotremes at Lightning Ridge than anywhere else on earth, past or present,” Elizabeth said.
PORTRAIT OF PALEONTOLOGIST PROFESSOR KRIS HELGEN HOLDING A TINY TOOTH FRAGMENT DATED AT ONE HUNDRED MILLION YEARS OLD (AND PROJECTED AT SCALE IN BACKGROUND) ON SITE AT THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM IN SYDNEY WHERE MUCH OF THE ACADEMIC WORK ABOUT THE FINDING WAS MADE. MAY 22, 2024.
CREDIT
Photograph by James Alcock / Australian Museum
USAGE RESTRICTIONS
JOURNAL
Alcheringa An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology
'There is a real danger that slow -growing, deepwater species will take centuries to recover from current fishing, if they can at all'
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