Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist
Combining Science and Joyful Creativity
What’s it about?
This paper is a listing, with descriptions, of most of the Paleocene mammals of Brazil at the time of its writing (1952). Several new species, genera, families, and even orders are named, in many cases by the author, Carlos de Paula Couto.Continue reading “Paleocene Mammals from Brazil – #365papers – 2018 – 67”
What’s it about?
This paper is the description of a new species (and Genus and Family) of dinosaur, grouped with the tetanuran theropods, a subgroup of carnivorous dinosaurs along the lineage leading to modern birds.
The type specimen was collected from the Santana Formation in Brazil, the same unit that gave us Santanaraptor.Continue reading “Why is Irritator so Irritating? – #365papers – 2018 – 66”
What’s it about?
This paper is a detailed description of Gondwanatitan foustoi, a new species of titanosaur (a sauropod) from Brazil. This new species is based upon specimen number MN 4111-V at the Museu Nacional. The material includes several vertebrae, part of a shoulder blade, parts of the hips, upper arm and lower leg bones, and some ribs.Continue reading “A Lost Titan – #365papers – 2018 – 65”
What’s it about?
The Santana Formation of the Araripe Basin of northeastern Brazil has yielded many important fossils, including some dinosaurs. Notably, Santanaraptor, described in an earlier post, is one of many dinosaurs known from the Santana Formation. It is interesting, however, that almost all the dinosaurs known from the Santana Formation are predatory dinosaurs.Continue reading “The Dinosaurs of the Santana Formation, Brazil – #365papers – 2018 – 64”
What’s it about?
Most people think of bones or shells as the most important mineralized remains of fossil animals. Vertebrates, particularly land-dwelling vertebrates, produce a third important (though often overlooked) mineralized remnant: Egg shells.Continue reading “On Fossil Eggshells – #365papers – 2018 – 63”
What’s it about?
One of the challenges of studying the chemistry of fossil bones and teeth is being confident that the chemistry of the fossils is unaltered from its original state (that is, the bones and teeth still faithfully record the chemistry of the living animal they came from). During the process of fossilization, the mineral and chemical structure of bones and teeth are altered from what they were in life, a process called diagenesis.Continue reading “Infrared Light and the Quality of Fossil Preservation – #365papers – 2018 – 62”
What’s it about?
The authors demonstrate the utility of satellite imagery combined with surface observations and GIS software to make predictions about where fossil localities may be located. Continue reading “Long Distance Prospecting – #365papers – 2018 – 61”
What’s it about?
The authors describe how what were once two distinct lineages of ravens (the Californian and the holarctic) have merged into what we now refer to as the common raven in the western United States. Using evidence from mitochondrial DNA, the authors show that not only is the common raven the result of the fusion of two lineages, but that the Chihuahuan raven, that lives alongside the common raven, is a descendant of the Californian raven.Continue reading “When Two Species Merge into One – #365papers – 2018 – 60”
What’s it about?
This paper is a wonderful, yet highly technical, summary of the tectonic events leading to the Rocky Mountains as we know them today.Continue reading “Bringing Up Baby (Mountains) in Western North America – #365papers – 2018 – 59”
What’s it about?
This paper presents a detailed discussion of tooth development in fishes. In particular, the authors review the state of knowledge of tooth development in placoderms, among the first of the jawed fishes and now extinct. They also make observations about denticles, tooth-like bumps, on the gill arches of many fishes, including jawless forms, and how the development of these relate the development of teeth and external scales in early fishes. With these details, the authors propose a hypothesis for the origins and development of teeth in placoderms and in modern fishes.Continue reading “Pharyngeal Denticles and the Placoderms – #365papers – 2018 – 58”
Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist