Bone on EARTH Magazine

Growing up saber-toothed: Strong from the start

Thu, 15 Feb 2018 14:35:35 -0500

During the Pleistocene, saber-toothed cats were formidable predators, with their massive canines and powerful front legs sporting razor-sharp claws. The bones of saber-toothed cats are thicker and more robust compared to those of other large cats, both modern and extinct. And previous studies of Smilodon have shown that their forelimbs in particular featured several adaptations, including thickened cortical bone, which would have increased strength, presumably useful in subduing ambushed prey.

Did the first humans arrive in North America a lot earlier?

Wed, 19 Apr 2017 14:01:28 -0400

Dating of this horse mandible from the Bluefish Caves in the Yukon suggests humans were at the site as early as 24,000 years ago. Credit: Bourgeon et al., PLOS ONE, January 2017, CC BY 4.0.

New dating of artifacts recovered from a site in the northern Yukon, on the Alaskan border, may push back the hypothesized entry date of the first American colonizers via a northwestern route — long thought to have occurred over the Bering land bridge between 18,000 and 14,000 years ago — by several thousand years.

Benchmarks: December 6, 1916: Dinosaur fossils lost at sea in World War I

Wed, 30 Nov 2016 13:33:12 -0500

The SS Mount Temple in Nova Scotia in 1907, nine years before its fateful journey. Credit: public domain

One hundred years ago this month, a Canadian cargo ship — the SS Mount Temple — departed the port of Montreal on the St. Lawrence River headed for France. On board were 3,000 tons of wheat, more than 700 horses bound for service in World War I, and an unknown number of 75-million-year-old dinosaur skeletons and bones destined for the British Museum of Natural History. But the ship, and the fossils, never made it.

Mammoths may have suffered from bone disease

Mon, 08 Feb 2016 15:30:50 -0500

Some of the more than 23,500 mammoth bones analyzed in a new study that found the animals might have been suffering from various bone ailments prior to going extinct. Credit: Sergey Leshchinskiy.

The demise of mammoths, which went extinct by the end of the Pleistocene about 12,000 years ago, is thought to have been brought about by a combination of climate change and overhunting by early humans. A new study indicates that another culprit might have contributed as well: Mammoth bones retrieved from Northern Eurasia — from sedimentary strata close to the animals’ last known appearance in the fossil record — appear to show evidence for bone diseases associated with nutrient deficiencies.

Sauropod skull mystery

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 13:05:08 -0400

It is rare for sauropod skeletons to be found with the skull also preserved; it was only recently that the first complete North American Cretaceous-aged sauropod skull was described. The skull Douglass discovered, while associated with the Apatosaurus skeletons, was thought at the time to belong to Diplodocus. Douglass realized, though, that no skull identified as belonging to Diplodocus had ever actually been found associated with a Diplodocus skeleton — an observation that moved Holland to proclaim that the skull found in the Carnegie Quarry belonged to Apatosaurus. The skull, however, was not immediately installed on the Apatosaurus on display at the Carnegie Museum. First, the skeleton was affixed with a Camarasaurus skull, and it was not until 1979, after an in-depth study by paleontologists, that the skeleton was fitted with the proper skull.

Gender equity in dino bones

Wed, 02 Sep 2015 11:42:44 -0400

A new study of 29 Protoceratops specimens suggests that males and females cannot be distinguished based on their skulls. Credit: Karen, CC BY 2.0.

Modern birds like cardinals and peacocks offer some of the most dramatic examples of sexual dimorphism on Earth, with males and females varying in size and/or displaying different plumage, among other differences. But whether the two sexes of birds’ dinosaur ancestors also possessed different physical characteristics has long been debated. Now, in a new study, scientists using state-of-the-art measuring techniques to look at Protoceratops — a frilled, horned relative of Triceratops that’s found abundantly in the fossil record — are questioning past notions about whether the sex of specimens can be distinguished based on their fossils.

Earliest primates were tree dwellers

Mon, 20 Apr 2015 09:02:41 -0400

The ankle bones of the 65-million- year-old primate Purgatorius, shown here in an artist's rendition, reveal that the earliest primates likely lived in trees. Credit: Patrick Lynch/Yale University.

The first primates evolved shortly after the mass extinction of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. But whether these small mammals lived on the ground or in trees has puzzled paleontologists, who only had fossil teeth and jaws to examine, which left much of the animals’ appearance and behavior a mystery.

One-of-a-kind dinosaur skull goes digital

Mon, 02 Feb 2015 13:30:32 -0500

A comparison between the originally preserved and digitally restored skulls of the Cretaceous dinosaur Erlikosaurus andrewsi. Credit: Lautenschlager et al., 2014, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 34 (6).

Some dinosaur species are only known from a single skull, and gaining access to study such rare and fragile fossils can be difficult, especially if the skull is stored in a far-flung place like a museum in Mongolia. Now, a new technique using medical CT scans and digital imaging to create a digital model of fossils will allow such rarities to be studied by lots of eyes, all over the world, without damaging or transporting the delicate original.