Mushroom Growing Out of 50-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Ant Reveals New Fungal Parasite

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiA6QCWn_XWpd9PGWcbZqL4IsuEaRyIDZ3X5BFX0MPUF0-Kbcs5ybF1gStywZajdcq_0dlmcnTYrUCKJTSqIJT_4SP5I9iaw-PK3jp7SQanCX2_fbSz-mubW9ps6fpdrFwk7VH29P4q-K62bE1cm9G67gg8C6fLuIsEDHzKj_I-SkM8VLFRFyGrXymZ=s1296" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="926" data-original-width="1296" height="458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiA6QCWn_XWpd9PGWcbZqL4IsuEaRyIDZ3X5BFX0MPUF0-Kbcs5ybF1gStywZajdcq_0dlmcnTYrUCKJTSqIJT_4SP5I9iaw-PK3jp7SQanCX2_fbSz-mubW9ps6fpdrFwk7VH29P4q-K62bE1cm9G67gg8C6fLuIsEDHzKj_I-SkM8VLFRFyGrXymZ=w640-h458" title="Mushroom Growing Out of 50-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Ant Reveals New Species of Fungal Parasite" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oregon State University research has identified the oldest known specimen of a fungus parasitizing an ant, and the fossil also represents a new fungal genus and species. Credit: George Poinar Jr., OSU<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br /><p></p><p>Mushroom Growing Out of 50-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Ant Reveals New Species of Fungal Parasite</p><p>Scientists identified a new species of extinct parasitic fungus growing out of the rectum of a 50 million-year-old ant that it killed. The entire ordeal had been fortuitously encased in amber and was perfectly preserved. <br /></p><p>Oregon State University research has identified the oldest known specimen of a fungus parasitizing an ant, and the fossil also represents a new fungal genus and species.<br /><br />"It's a mushroom growing out of a carpenter ant," said OSU's George Poinar Jr., an international expert in using plant and animal life forms preserved in amber to learn about the biology and ecology of the distant past.<br /><br />A mushroom is the reproductive structure of many fungi, including the ones you find growing in your yard, and Poinar and a collaborator in France named their discovery Allocordyceps baltica. They found the new type of Ascomycota fungi in an ant preserved in 50-million-year-old amber from Europe's Baltic region.<br /></p><div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script> </div><br />"Ants are hosts to a number of intriguing parasites, some of which modify the insects' behavior to benefit the parasites' development and dispersion," said Poinar, who has a courtesy appointment in the OSU College of Science. "Ants of the tribe Camponotini, commonly known as carpenter ants, seem especially susceptible to fungal pathogens of the genus Ophiocordyceps, including one species that compels infected ants to bite into various erect plant parts just before they die."<br /><br />Doing so, he explains, puts the ants in a favorable position for allowing fungal spores to be released from cup-shaped ascomata -- the fungi's fruiting body -protruding from the ants' head and neck. Carpenter ants usually make their nests in trees, rotting logs and stumps.<br /><br />The new fungal genus and species shares certain features with Ophiocordyceps but also displays several developmental stages not previously reported, Poinar said. To name the genus, placed in the order Hypocreales, Poinar and fellow researcher Yves-Marie Maltier combined the Greek word for new -- alloios -- with the name of known genus Cordyceps.<br /><br />"We can see a large, orange, cup-shaped ascoma with developing perithecia -- flask-shaped structures that let the spores out -- emerging from rectum of the ant," Poinar said. "The vegetative part of the fungus is coming out of the abdomen and the base of the neck. We see freestanding fungal bodies also bearing what look like perithecia, and in addition we see what look like the sacs where spores develop. All of the stages, those attached to the ant and the freestanding ones, are of the same species."<br /><br />The fungus could not be placed in the known ant-infecting genus Ophiocordyceps because ascomata in those species usually come out the neck or head of an ant, Poinar said, and not the rectum.<br /><br />"There is no doubt that Allocordyceps represents a fungal infection of a Camponotus ant," he said. "This is the first fossil record of a member of the Hypocreales order emerging from the body of an ant. And as the earliest fossil record of fungal parasitism of ants, it can be used in future studies as a reference point regarding the origin of the fungus-ant association." <p></p><p><br /></p><p><i><u><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The above story is based on <a href="https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/mushroom-growing-out-fossilized-ant-reveals-new-genus-and-species-fungal-parasite" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Materials</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span> </span>provided by<span> </span></span><a href="http://oregonstate.edu/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank"><b style="border-radius: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;">Oregon State University</b></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">. Original written by Steve Lundeberg.</span></span></u></i></p>

Mushroom Growing Out of 50-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Ant Reveals New Fungal Parasite

Oregon State University research has identified the oldest known specimen of a fungus parasitizing an ant, and the fossil also represents a ...

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Huge Fossilised Prints on Welsh Beach 'Were Made by Dinosaurs 200m Years Ago'

<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6l_N_tjSELmWA2Zy3Sc35X2Da8C7V3ekrenpbbQn6LTr23kKe45kseqfU7Bd8aNB4djXA-1HG7InVSLRgQytfr3TTge3GuR6pAOp8IEbzuDZMkgiVGQ4f4yzX06krrnx4D3LciTqZohjMOK0ZkduLnICWczn_1sQIzTkzdMkV3erNRUFY2PwuKXAe=s1200" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6l_N_tjSELmWA2Zy3Sc35X2Da8C7V3ekrenpbbQn6LTr23kKe45kseqfU7Bd8aNB4djXA-1HG7InVSLRgQytfr3TTge3GuR6pAOp8IEbzuDZMkgiVGQ4f4yzX06krrnx4D3LciTqZohjMOK0ZkduLnICWczn_1sQIzTkzdMkV3erNRUFY2PwuKXAe=w640-h426" title="Triassic Dinosaur Footprints Discovered in Wales" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An individual footprint of a sauropodomorph dinosaur on the foreshore near Penarth, south Wales, the United Kingdom. Credit: Peter Falkingham, Natural History Museum, London.</td></tr></tbody></table> <br /></p><p> </p><p>Paleontologists have discovered the footprints of large sauropodomorph dinosaurs on the shoreline near Penarth in south Wales, the United Kingdom.<br /><br />The Penarth footprints are part of the Blue Anchor Formation and date from the Late Triassic epoch, over 200 million years ago.<br /><br />The total exposed surface is about 50 m long and 2 m wide, and is split into northern and southern sections by a small fault.<br /><br />The tracks occur on a single surface at the top of a 15-cm-thick gray, dolomitic siltstone. Small gypsum nodules occur near the top of the bed.<br /><br />The tracks are deeply impressed into the top surface and are partially infilled with a green siltstone with orange stringers.<br /><br />The impressions are highly variable in shape and size. They are all highly weathered, exhibiting both broken and smoothed surfaces, breakage being facilitated by numerous diaclases in the bedding plane.<br /><br />They are roughly circular to elliptical in outline, and almost entirely lack clear impressions of either individual digits, claws or footpads.<br /><br />The footprint outlines are highly irregular, but some impressions do reveal possible anatomical information. They range over 20-60 cm in maximum diameter. Depth is likewise variable, but ranges mainly over 5-10 cm.<br /><br />“We believed the impressions we saw at Penarth were consistently spaced to suggest an animal walking,” said Professor Paul Barrett, a paleontologist in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum, London.<br /><br />“We also saw displacement rims where mud had been pushed up. These structures are characteristic of active movement through the soft ground.”<br /><br />Professor Barrett and his colleagues from the United Kingdom and France think that the Penarth footprints are an example of the ichnogenus Eosauropus, which is a name not of a dinosaur but a type of track thought to have been made by a sauropodomorph dinosaur.<br /><br />“We know early sauropods were living in Britain at the time, as bones of Camelotia, a very early sauropod, have been found in Somerset in rocks dated to the same period,” said Dr. Susannah Maidment, a paleontologist in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum, London.<br /><br />“We don’t know if this species was the track maker, but it is another clue which suggests something like it could have made these tracks.”<br /><br />“These types of tracks are not particularly common worldwide, so we believe this is an interesting addition to our knowledge of Triassic life in the UK,” Professor Barrett said.<br /><br />“The record of Triassic dinosaurs in this country is fairly small, so anything we can find from the period adds to our picture of what was going on at that time.”<br /><br /> </p><p> <br /><i><u>The above story is based on <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/geological-magazine/article/late-triassic-dinosaur-tracks-from-penarth-south-wales/24C0F9A7BA50C4CD7049EB030CF79B73" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cambridge University.</a></u></i></p>

Huge Fossilised Prints on Welsh Beach 'Were Made by Dinosaurs 200m Years Ago'

An individual footprint of a sauropodomorph dinosaur on the foreshore near Penarth, south Wales, the United Kingdom. Credit: Peter Falkingha...

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New Mineral Described From Uranium Mine In Utah

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgeHQBnFNJog7MXqYsaA4eTA7Mj7yn_1e4ga_7SK_plJIdA6cX7odQTTVFYIJ1pL9eV54VZfIJdlL10BN6OKZ8XM_8Q8ZNpyU9-TtqzkWPJuM97TpJdUV3Kda2cF7R800rihmUFLotsaMGx8hu0Tj8B4VATTQcxi9NVOr2rAJneb1xRuZyrN_N-bbK-=s1024" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgeHQBnFNJog7MXqYsaA4eTA7Mj7yn_1e4ga_7SK_plJIdA6cX7odQTTVFYIJ1pL9eV54VZfIJdlL10BN6OKZ8XM_8Q8ZNpyU9-TtqzkWPJuM97TpJdUV3Kda2cF7R800rihmUFLotsaMGx8hu0Tj8B4VATTQcxi9NVOr2rAJneb1xRuZyrN_N-bbK-=w640-h480" title="Yellow oldsite blades with blue stanleyite and white szomolnokite on asphaltum. Horizontal field of view is 0.7 millimeters. Photo by Dr. Anthony Kampf." width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yellow oldsite blades with blue stanleyite and white szomolnokite on asphaltum. Horizontal field of view is 0.7 millimeters. Photo by Dr. Anthony Kampf.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p>A new mineral named oldsite has been verified and accepted by the International Mineralogical Association.</p><p>Carnegie Museum of Natural History announces the naming of the new mineral Oldsite after Dr. Travis Olds, the museum’s Assistant Curator of Minerals. The International Mineralogical Association (IMA) verified the mineral, which was accepted in October 2021 by an international team of scientists. Oldsite is named in recognition of Olds’ contributions to uranium minerology. <br /><br />Collected at Utah’s North Mesa mines near Temple Mountain, Oldsite forms from the interaction of air and water with uranium and iron-sulfide ores in the humid underground environment, leading to crystalline deposits on the surfaces of mine walls. Oldsite occurs as tiny yellow, rectangular blades measuring up to 0.3 millimeters in length. The crystals are thin and brittle and dissolve in water. <br /><br />The holotype specimen of Oldsite, or original specimen to be named, is held in the collections of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Its chemical formula is <span style="font-family: times;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">K</span><sub style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; bottom: -0.25em; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-size: 12.75px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 0; position: relative; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">2</sub><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Fe</span><sup style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-size: 12.75px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 0; position: relative; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">2+</sup><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">[(UO</span><sub style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; bottom: -0.25em; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-size: 12.75px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 0; position: relative; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">2</sub><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">)(SO</span><sub style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; bottom: -0.25em; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-size: 12.75px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 0; position: relative; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">4</sub><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">)</span><sub style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; bottom: -0.25em; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-size: 12.75px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 0; position: relative; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">2</sub><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">]</span><sub style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; bottom: -0.25em; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-size: 12.75px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 0; position: relative; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">2</sub><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">(H</span><sub style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; bottom: -0.25em; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-size: 12.75px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 0; position: relative; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">2</sub><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">O)</span><sub style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; bottom: -0.25em; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-size: 12.75px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 0; position: relative; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">8</sub><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 17px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">.</span></span><br /><br />“I’m honored to be the namesake of such a fascinating mineral,” said Olds. “My research focuses on descriptive minerology, particularly minerals containing uranium, which has been my passion since I knew I wanted to become a mineralogist. Oldsite is unique because it helps us fill in some puzzle pieces about how uranium behaves in the environment. The way its atoms connect to each other in the crystal structure tells us about the conditions that led to its formation. This information can be useful to help keep uranium out of drinking water, or to clean up nuclear waste.”<br /><br />The research team that discovered and described Oldsite includes Dr. Jakub Plášil from the Czech Republic’s Institute of Physics ASCR, Dr. Anthony R. Kampf of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Dr. Chi Ma of California Institute of Technology, and German mineralogist Joy Desor. <br /></p><p></p><p><br /></p><p><i><u>The above story is based on <span style="color: black;"><a href="https://carnegiemnh.org/press/mineral-oldsite-named-for-carnegie-museum-of-natural-history-scientist/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided b<span style="font-family: trebuchet;">y <a href="https://carnegiemnh.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 17px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: 0.2px; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Carnegie Museum of Natural History</i></a>.</span></span></u></i><br /></p>

New Mineral Described From Uranium Mine In Utah

Yellow oldsite blades with blue stanleyite and white szomolnokite on asphaltum. Horizontal field of view is 0.7 millimeters. Photo by Dr. An...

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Fossil of a Giant Millipede Reveals 'The Biggest Bug That Ever Lived'

<p></p> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_vIxvzirYTIF6gX-EMOu8nKo-NbcvKkHzmgtsXEJAvi32ea4ly5ujRTNoFpPLPWinG9k0NfokC8Vn3JNVZTbX54pQOKL_dp_aq_y4juaNsxtDV39TwLgxfk0GaAD90QuAAjOo5oB8y8eU5Nwy9bkoKKzhANEgejPnzhUi1z7YSJlp0ru9L8lP0HOI=s1200" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_vIxvzirYTIF6gX-EMOu8nKo-NbcvKkHzmgtsXEJAvi32ea4ly5ujRTNoFpPLPWinG9k0NfokC8Vn3JNVZTbX54pQOKL_dp_aq_y4juaNsxtDV39TwLgxfk0GaAD90QuAAjOo5oB8y8eU5Nwy9bkoKKzhANEgejPnzhUi1z7YSJlp0ru9L8lP0HOI=w640-h640" title="One half of the fossil discovered in Northern England. Neil Davies, Author provided (no reuse)" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One half of the fossil discovered in Northern England. Neil Davies, Author provided (no reuse)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p>The fossil – the remains of a creature called <i>Arthropleura </i>– dates from the Carboniferous Period, about 326 million years ago, over 100 million years before the Age of Dinosaurs. The fossil reveals that <i>Arthropleura </i>was the largest-known invertebrate animal of all time, larger than the ancient sea scorpions that were the previous record holders.<br /><br />The specimen, found on a Northumberland beach about 40 miles north of Newcastle, is made up of multiple articulated exoskeleton segments, broadly similar in form to modern millipedes. It is just the third such fossil ever found. It is also the oldest and largest: the segment is about 75 centimetres long, while the original creature is estimated to have measured around 2.7 metres long and weighed around 50 kilograms. The results are reported in the Journal of the Geological Society.<br /><br />The fossil was discovered in January 2018 in a large block of sandstone that had fallen from a cliff to the beach at Howick Bay in Northumberland. “It was a complete fluke of a discovery,” said Dr Neil Davies from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, the paper’s lead author. “The way the boulder had fallen, it had cracked open and perfectly exposed the fossil, which one of our former PhD students happened to spot when walking by.”<br /></p><div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script> </div><br />Unlike the cool and wet weather associated with the region today, Northumberland had a more tropical climate in the Carboniferous Period, when Great Britain lay near the Equator. Invertebrates and early amphibians lived off the scattered vegetation around a series of creeks and rivers. The specimen identified by the researchers was found in a fossilised river channel: it was likely a moulted segment of the Arthropleura’s exoskeleton that filled with sand, preserving it for hundreds of millions of years.<br /><br />The fossil was extracted in May 2018 with permission from Natural England and the landowners, the Howick Estate. “It was an incredibly exciting find, but the fossil is so large it took four of us to carry it up the cliff face,” said Davies.<br /><br />The fossil was brought back to Cambridge so that it could be examined in detail. It was compared with all previous records and revealed new information about the animal’s habitat and evolution. The animal can be seen to have only existed in places that were once located at the Equator, such as Great Britain during the Carboniferous. Previous reconstructions have suggested that the animal lived in coal swamps, but this specimen showed <i>Arthropleura </i>preferred open woodland habitats near the coast.<br /><br />There are only two other known <i>Arthropleura </i>fossils, both from Germany, and both much smaller than the new specimen. Although this is the largest <i>Arthropleura </i>fossil skeleton ever found, there is still much to learn about these creatures. “Finding these giant millipede fossils is rare, because once they died, their bodies tend to disarticulate, so it’s likely that the fossil is a moulted carapace that the animal shed as it grew,” said Davies. “We have not yet found a fossilised head, so it’s difficult to know everything about them.”<br /><br />The great size of <i>Arthropleura </i>has previously been attributed to a peak in atmospheric oxygen during the late Carboniferous and Permian periods, but because the new fossil comes from rocks deposited before this peak, it shows that oxygen cannot be the only explanation.<br /><br />The researchers believe that to get to such a large size, <i>Arthropleura </i>must have had a high-nutrient diet. “While we can’t know for sure what they ate, there were plenty of nutritious nuts and seeds available in the leaf litter at the time, and they may even have been predators that fed off other invertebrates and even small vertebrates such as amphibians,” said Davies.<br /><br /><i>Arthropleura </i>animals crawled around Earth’s equatorial region for around 45 million years, before going extinct during the Permian period. The cause of their extinction is uncertain, but could be due to global warming that made the climate too dry for them to survive, or to the rise of reptiles, who out-competed them for food and soon dominated the same habitats. <p></p><p>The fossil will go on public display at Cambridge’s Sedgwick Museum in the New Year.<br /></p><p><br /><u><i>The above story is based on <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/giantmillipede" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by  <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of Cambridge.</a></i></u><br /></p>

Fossil of a Giant Millipede Reveals 'The Biggest Bug That Ever Lived'

  One half of the fossil discovered in Northern England. Neil Davies, Author provided (no reuse) The fossil – the remains of a creature call...

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99 Million-year-old Spider Mummies Reveal Moms Cared for Teeny Spiderlings

<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3Vo4YrD5jCpVgOkVYkl0mMktqwrwJR4x3oR0WoPL6hw73QdNaDYDBydCnRw84NtD4OT49o4H3aaXemSn89FPZ_9nDxKAbLjeWQ7F_n9zeFsVSwXOipWJPJNKY27cDtMjmVEHA8yjruGOzP0xA5Owdz4mTE5guVvHz7HCQWkVR4vNDbUlu0HAnT-e5=s1344" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="756" data-original-width="1344" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi3Vo4YrD5jCpVgOkVYkl0mMktqwrwJR4x3oR0WoPL6hw73QdNaDYDBydCnRw84NtD4OT49o4H3aaXemSn89FPZ_9nDxKAbLjeWQ7F_n9zeFsVSwXOipWJPJNKY27cDtMjmVEHA8yjruGOzP0xA5Owdz4mTE5guVvHz7HCQWkVR4vNDbUlu0HAnT-e5=w640-h360" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A mother spider positioned over her egg sac was caught in tree resin about 99 million years ago. (Image credit: Xiangbo Guo, Paul Selden and Dong Ren; Proceedings of the Royal Society B </td></tr></tbody></table> <br />Big-eyed spiders were likely guarding their egg sacs and possibly caring for already hatched spiderlings when they were trapped in sticky tree resin some 99 million years ago. That resin hardened, locking up those arachnid mamas in four chunks of amber recently mined in Myanmar, and now considered the oldest evidence of maternal care in spiders, researchers say. <p></p><p><br />A trio of researchers with Capital Normal University in China has found evidence of a mother spider protecting her young in an amber sample dated back to 99 million years ago. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Xiangbo Guo, Paul Selden and Dong Rend describe where the sample was found and what they learned about the spider it contains.<br /><br />Many modern spider species have been found to take measures to ensure the survival of their offspring—females have been seen crouching to cover hatchlings, for example, and producing silk to tie and hold eggs closely together. In this new effort, the researchers have found evidence of a mother spider from the mid-Cretaceous exhibiting the same behavior.<br /></p><div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;"> <script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script> <ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-slot="6157425841" style="display: block; text-align: center;"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script> </div><br />The researchers found four chunks of amber that had been extracted from a mine in Myanmar that contained entombed spiders. In one of the chunks, they found an adult female with a bit of her egg sac still intact underneath her body. <p></p><p>Study of the facial features showed that the spider was a member of the extinct Lagonomegopidae family. The researchers also noted that the female was in a stance very similar to that of modern female spiders who are engaged in protecting their eggs from predators. <br /><br />A closer look showed the female had also used her own silk to tie the eggs together. Notably, some scientists have suggested that silk production in spiders began with attempts to tie eggs together, and once it was established, they began using it for other purposes, such as building webs.<br /><br />The three other chunks of amber contained baby spiders and spider thread. One also had what appeared to be an arthropod leg and a wasp. The researchers suggest it is likely that each chunk of amber holds related spiderlings—all of which have been identified as members of the Lagonomegopidae family. <br /><br />The researchers note that both the adult female and the groups of spiderlings all had large eyes, which suggests they were free-range hunters rather than web builders. They also note that one of the chunks contains bits of material suggesting the spiderlings had recently exited a nest.<br /></p><p></p><p><br /><i><u>The above story is based on <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2021.1279" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by the <a href="https://ku.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of Kansas</a>.</u></i><br /></p>

99 Million-year-old Spider Mummies Reveal Moms Cared for Teeny Spiderlings

A mother spider positioned over her egg sac was caught in tree resin about 99 million years ago. (Image credit: Xiangbo Guo, Paul Selden and...

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Mind-Blowing New Fossil Site Found in The 'Dead' Heart of Australia

<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3I_T1KFi1UGDmnRU2HY9dKEOL0Tru_2NSD31--Wt7ZOgjd4kerz_8HVMo-DI54k4rBCT3vI5-579ZLGh1yFfxnu1wBLwQ3H5OhWjD7IV7CVfDh246ImGLRqJOFKPyBx22qe04wGRoU_A8yoXg6zaX3VJkEWCJZ3ou1MFsvNte3AmA34nulpN3-IVO=s1254" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="836" data-original-width="1254" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg3I_T1KFi1UGDmnRU2HY9dKEOL0Tru_2NSD31--Wt7ZOgjd4kerz_8HVMo-DI54k4rBCT3vI5-579ZLGh1yFfxnu1wBLwQ3H5OhWjD7IV7CVfDh246ImGLRqJOFKPyBx22qe04wGRoU_A8yoXg6zaX3VJkEWCJZ3ou1MFsvNte3AmA34nulpN3-IVO=w640-h426" title="Spider fossil found in new fossil site. Credit: (c) Michael Frese" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spider fossil found in new fossil site. Credit: (c) Michael Frese<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br />The new fossil site (named McGraths Flat), located in the Central Tablelands, NSW near the town of Gulgong, represents one of only a handful of fossil sites in Australia that can be classified as a ‘Lagerstätte’– a site that contains fossils of exceptional quality.<br /><br />Over the last three years a team of researchers has been secretly excavating the site, discovering thousands of specimens including rainforest plants, insects, spiders, fish and a bird feather.<br /><br />Dr McCurry said the fossils formed between 11 and 16 million years ago and are important for understanding the history of the Australian continent.<br /><br />“The fossils we have found prove that the area was once a temperate, mesic rainforest and that life was rich and abundant here in the Central Tablelands, NSW,” McCurry said.<br /><br />"Many of the fossils that we are finding are new to science and include trapdoor spiders, giant cicadas, wasps and a variety of fish,’ McCurry said.<br /><br />“Until now it has been difficult to tell what these ancient ecosystems were like, but the level of preservation at this new fossil site means that even small fragile organisms like insects turned into well-preserved fossils,” McCurry said.<br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto"> <script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block; text-align:center;" data-ad-format="fluid" data-ad-layout="in-article" data-ad-client="ca-pub-1021498709184325" data-ad-slot="6157425841"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script> </div><br />Associate Professor Michael Frese, who imaged the fossils using stacking microphotography and a scanning electron microscope (SEM), said that the fossils from McGraths Flat show an incredibly detailed preservation.<br /><br />“Using electron microscopy, I can image individual cells of plants and animals and sometimes even very small subcellular structures,” Frese said.<br /><br />“The fossils also preserve evidence of interactions between species. For instance, we have fish stomach contents preserved in the fish, meaning that we can figure out what they were eating. We have also found examples of pollen preserved on the bodies of insects so we can tell which species were pollinating which plants,” Frese added.<br /><br />In one of these grasslands, in the Central Tablelands of NSW, paleontologists have found new evidence of this abundance of life. A new fossil site that can most aptly be described as "exceptional" has turned up fossils of spiders, insects, fish, plants and even a bird feather, dating to the Miocene 11 to 16 million years ago.<br /><br />"The fossils we have found prove that the area was once a temperate, mesic rainforest and that life was rich and abundant here in the Central Tablelands, NSW," said paleontologist Matthew McCurry from the Australian Museum Research Institute.<br /><br />"Many of the fossils that we are finding are new to science and include trapdoor spiders, giant cicadas, wasps and a variety of fish. Until now it has been difficult to tell what these ancient ecosystems were like, but the level of preservation at this new fossil site means that even small fragile organisms like insects turned into well-preserved fossils."<br /><br />The assemblage, named McGraths Flat, is so exceptional that it has been classified as a Lagerstätte – a sedimentary fossil bed that's so extraordinary that sometimes even soft tissues have been preserved. In McGraths Flat, organisms have been so well preserved that even subcellular structures can be made out in some fossils.<br /><br />Even more amazingly, it's a type of rock in which exceptional fossils are not usually seen, an iron-rich rock called goethite.<br /><br />"We think that the process that turned these organisms into fossils is key to why they are so well preserved," McCurry said. "Our analyses suggest that the fossils formed when iron-rich groundwaters drained into a billabong, and that a precipitation of iron minerals encased organisms that were living in or fell into the water."<br /><br />The fossils in the assemblage bear a resemblance to the ecosystems in modern Australian rainforests, the researchers said, but it's the fine details that really make a difference.<br /><br />For instance, subcellular structures called melanosomes that give tissues their pigment have been preserved in the site's fossilized feather and also in the eyes of a fish and a fly.<br /><br />Although the melanosomes themselves are unpigmented, their structure can be compared to the structure of modern melanosomes to help figure out how the tissues might have been hued. This allows the researchers to figure out what colors the various McGraths flat animals were, including the feather.<br /><br />"The fossils also preserve evidence of interactions between species," said microbiologist Michael Frese of the University of Canberra.<br /><br />"For instance, we have fish stomach contents preserved in the fish, meaning that we can figure out what they were eating. We have also found examples of pollen preserved on the bodies of insects so we can tell which species were pollinating which plants."<br /><br />Soberingly, the fossils also might contain a hint of what's in store for our future.<br /><br />According to an analysis of the pollen grains in the assemblage, the McGraths Flat rainforest was being encroached upon by arid climate areas. This is not unexpected; during the Miocene, global temperatures had started to rise; it was during this period that the Australian continent started to transform from lush to arid.<br /><br />Since global mean temperatures are rising, the ecosystem found in McGraths Flat could show us how life might change in Australia's current rainforests in the years to come.<br /><br />"The McGraths Flat plant fossils give us a window into the vegetation and ecosystems of a warmer world, one that we are likely to experience in the future," said botanist David Cantrill of the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria in Australia.<br /><br />"The preservation of the plant fossils is unique and provides important insights into a time period for which the fossil record in Australia is rather poor."<br /></p><p><br /><i><u>The above story is based on <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abm1406" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://www.unsw.edu.au/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of New South Wales. </a></u></i><br /></p>

Mind-Blowing New Fossil Site Found in The 'Dead' Heart of Australia

Spider fossil found in new fossil site. Credit: (c) Michael Frese   The new fossil site (named McGraths Flat), located in the Central Tablel...

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Triassic Dinosaur Footprints Discovered in Wales

<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgN8WqQ3uW5VEoDQ1ihivDw3MLCWH0Sk4P21mKTBHFfOhLGh1m_nfdmNQFXZfhKt5meIUJyvH7--eOEZi6TWP_wd_j7Th5s4XI8hDFbbErcAU4tz8Tu3xB2Ovwgdkt_3CqsqpzUY6-PEg4MLZtURt2su8fd0KDb_CVPqJeM2_jGx4XXpuJ6qjgqXTU-=s1500" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="An individual footprint of a sauropodomorph dinosaur on the foreshore near Penarth, south Wales, the United Kingdom. Image credit: Peter Falkingham, Natural History Museum, London." border="0" data-original-height="1131" data-original-width="1500" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgN8WqQ3uW5VEoDQ1ihivDw3MLCWH0Sk4P21mKTBHFfOhLGh1m_nfdmNQFXZfhKt5meIUJyvH7--eOEZi6TWP_wd_j7Th5s4XI8hDFbbErcAU4tz8Tu3xB2Ovwgdkt_3CqsqpzUY6-PEg4MLZtURt2su8fd0KDb_CVPqJeM2_jGx4XXpuJ6qjgqXTU-=w640-h482" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An individual footprint of a sauropodomorph dinosaur on the foreshore near Penarth, south Wales, the United Kingdom. Image credit: Peter Falkingham, Natural History Museum, London.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br /></p><p> Footprints discovered on a beach in Wales are believed to have been made by an early dinosaur more than 200 million years ago, experts say.</p><p>Paleontologists have discovered the footprints of large sauropodomorph dinosaurs on the shoreline near Penarth in south Wales, the United Kingdom.<br /><br />The Penarth footprints are part of the Blue Anchor Formation and date from the Late Triassic epoch, over 200 million years ago.<br /><br />The total exposed surface is about 50 m long and 2 m wide, and is split into northern and southern sections by a small fault.<br /><br />The tracks occur on a single surface at the top of a 15-cm-thick gray, dolomitic siltstone. Small gypsum nodules occur near the top of the bed.<br /><br />The tracks are deeply impressed into the top surface and are partially infilled with a green siltstone with orange stringers.<br /><br />The impressions are highly variable in shape and size. They are all highly weathered, exhibiting both broken and smoothed surfaces, breakage being facilitated by numerous diaclases in the bedding plane.<br /><br />They are roughly circular to elliptical in outline, and almost entirely lack clear impressions of either individual digits, claws or footpads.<br /><br />The footprint outlines are highly irregular, but some impressions do reveal possible anatomical information. They range over 20-60 cm in maximum diameter. Depth is likewise variable, but ranges mainly over 5-10 cm.<br /><br />“We believed the impressions we saw at Penarth were consistently spaced to suggest an animal walking,” said Professor Paul Barrett, a paleontologist in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum, London.<br /><br />“We also saw displacement rims where mud had been pushed up. These structures are characteristic of active movement through the soft ground.”<br /><br />Professor Barrett and his colleagues from the United Kingdom and France think that the Penarth footprints are an example of the ichnogenus Eosauropus, which is a name not of a dinosaur but a type of track thought to have been made by a sauropodomorph dinosaur.<br /><br />“We know early sauropods were living in Britain at the time, as bones of Camelotia, a very early sauropod, have been found in Somerset in rocks dated to the same period,” said Dr. Susannah Maidment, a paleontologist in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum, London.<br /><br />“We don’t know if this species was the track maker, but it is another clue which suggests something like it could have made these tracks.”<br /><br />“These types of tracks are not particularly common worldwide, so we believe this is an interesting addition to our knowledge of Triassic life in the UK,” Professor Barrett said.<br /><br />“The record of Triassic dinosaurs in this country is fairly small, so anything we can find from the period adds to our picture of what was going on at that time.”<br /><br /><br /><i><u>The above story is based on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0016756821001308" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by  <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Natural History Museum.</a></u></i><br /><br /> </p>

Triassic Dinosaur Footprints Discovered in Wales

An individual footprint of a sauropodomorph dinosaur on the foreshore near Penarth, south Wales, the United Kingdom. Image credit: Peter Fal...

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