tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44459464795828956322024-03-13T02:25:19.616-05:00Life Before the DinosaursArthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.comBlogger159125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-69490041545543416712014-07-17T12:47:00.001-05:002014-07-22T09:22:01.096-05:00Lyrarapax.<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Lyrarapax is a new anomalocarid described on July 16, 2014. It’s the first known fossil of an anomalocarid that preserved the brain. The muscles of the swimming lobes are also preserved in the fossils. The study was published in the journal Nature, but I didn’t have access to the full article, only the abstract.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The fossils are from the Chengjiang biota of China and preserve the neural system and brain. The brain of Lyrarapax is very similar to a velvet worm’s brain. There have been some papers published speculating that anomolacarids might have been related to priapulids or certain other groups of worms. However, it was generally accepted that they were either arthropods or onychophorans (velvet worms), and these Lyrarapax fossils give really strong evidence for that.</span></div>
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My illustration of the head of Lyrarapax showing the brain and neural system.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Lyrarapax was only about 8cm long and did not have the fantail seen in some anomalocarids. Its claws were positioned horizontally, similar to Anomalocaris saron’s claws. In my opinion, Lyrarapax is similar to <span style="color: #252525; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/amplectobelua.html">Amplectobelua</a></span>, because the first pair of swimming lobes are very large, and the spine closest to the base of the claw is long and skinny. </span></div>
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<a href="http://io9.com/these-creepy-500-million-year-old-predators-are-ancesto-1604543020"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mysterious 500 Million-Year-Old Predators Are the Ancestors of Spiders</span></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13486.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Brain structure resolves the segmental affinity of anomalocaridid appendages</span></a></div>
Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-79838641575627210962013-11-29T11:25:00.000-06:002013-11-29T11:25:36.740-06:00Inspecting Mazon Creek plant fossils.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-21897232770417294672013-11-27T15:38:00.000-06:002013-11-27T15:38:39.134-06:00Spartobranchus tenuis.Spartobranchus tenuis was an endobenthic (burrowing) enteropneust (or acorn worm) from the Burgess Shale. It is the earliest known enteropneust worm, predating the previous example by 200 Ma. Although common in the Walcott quarry, with a few thousand specimens known, it was nicknamed "Ottoia" tenuis until scientifically described in March 2013.<br />
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Unlike living enteropneusts, Spartobranchus made fibrous tubes in the sediment. It looked much like its modern counterparts, except for the fact that it had a posterior bulb that could probably expand to anchor the worm in its burrow so that it would not be extracted by predators such as Opabinia.<br />
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Spartobranchus was a hemicordate, and the third hemicordate from the Burgess Shale (one is Chaunograptus, a benthic graptolite, the other was Oesia, a vermiform animal that appears to belong somewhere in hemicordata). Spartobranchus was a deposit feeder and may have played a role similar to modern earthworms.<br />
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Although previously thought to have evolved from the colonial pterobranch hemicordates, fossils of Spartobranchus tell us that enteropneusts were present in the Cambrian Period and common in at least one place, the Burgess Shale community. The fact that S. tenuis built tubes suggests pterobranchs evolved from enteropneusts that built similar tubes.<br />
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Here are some cool images of the fossils:<br />
<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v495/n7442/images/nature12017-f2.2.jpg">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v495/n7442/images/nature12017-f2.2.jpg</a><br />
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<i>Note from The Mom: New blog post?! Art didn't dictate this to me, but wrote it out himself. </i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqdBWfqZzsKnGRdXT3CnnzlCIGABASGVQqIvLJuHv0Fgsfm_MW4fs89eVMUW67pm-7LiVsMBR3pwFirkcZx3yfT9zMxgXP8wgm0jVEQwMrzmarjPLWrzS1Lt0lBE4uyNqsDMEIABApoEY/s1600/pagetwoblog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;">References:</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v495/n7442/full/nature12017.html">Tubicolous enteropneusts from the Cambrian period</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v495/n7442/fig_tab/nature12017_F2.html">Figure 2: Spartobranchus tenuis (Walcott, 1911) individuals associated with tubular structures, from the Burgess Shale.</a><br />
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<a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/burgess-shale-worm-provides-crucial-missing-link">Burgess Shale worm provides crucial missing link</a>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-72709307615665412252013-09-14T17:56:00.001-05:002013-10-10T14:50:50.356-05:00Finished For Now.<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I haven't added to the blog in a long time and I've decided that it's finished for now. I think I did the best I could to write about the subject and it was really fun. I hope people will continue to read it even though I'm no longer making posts. Thank you for reading my blog and thank you to all the people who helped me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm currently studying mycology, astronomy, minerals, marine biology, and immunology. I'll still sometimes put interesting things on twitter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Art</span><br />
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<br />Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-64739979619952985582013-02-05T19:21:00.000-06:002013-02-05T19:21:02.870-06:00On Sabbatical.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A huge thank you to everybody following Life Before the Dinosaurs and wondering why Art hasn't posted in a while. You guys are the best!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Art is in the middle of a particularly busy school year (third grade is <i>insane</i>) and the blog had to be back-burnered. He's on sabbatical! Art is still studying and studying and studying--it's his favorite thing to do. I'm confident he will be back with a new post soon. Thanks again to everybody!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The Mom</span></div>
Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-40635209453596308152012-08-17T07:55:00.000-05:002012-08-17T11:18:29.704-05:00Ctenoimbricata.<span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Ctenoimbricata (ten-oh-im-bri-kah-tuh) was an early echinoderm that looked a lot like a trilobite. It lived in the Cambrian, and the only two known specimens were found in Spain. It was described by researchers at the Natural History Museum of London and the University of Birmingham in 2012.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Ctenoimbricata</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> was teardrop shaped, with many flat, triangular feeding appendages in the front. Like modern marine detritivores, it may have used its feeding appendages to put sand into its mouth, sort out the food from the sand, and spit out the excess sand. I think it probably would have eaten a small marine worm if it happened to catch one, like today's deep sea sea cucumbers do. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Ctenoimbricata crawling on the sea floor</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 22px; text-align: justify;">Ctenoimbricata was only 20 millimeters long, so it needed to have defenses. These were in the form of spines all over its body, similar to modern sea urchins. It was also probably slow, like modern echinoderms, and used tube feet to move around. It had hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of these tube feet, which are tiny, clear, gooey sticks, often with a suction cup-like device on the bottom used for moving around. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 22px; text-align: justify;">Ctenoimbricata is a very important discovery because it is the oldest fossil that is definitely an echinoderm. The fossil was scanned and reconstructed, and the scientists found out it was bilaterally symmetrical, unlike other echinoderms, which have radial symmetry. This adds to the evidence that echinoderms and chordates may be related. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBteJsTlAPGxbmhj_mxOJDRx1xWRlz0Y4tKsT8Dz0Zl0pgbX1J_wm3TWa7gMq6vPxqJyD443ganvcgyBops52Wko2pu-3gCLb0oEZu3KpK1E80ZzWSsLJkX1Y5T5S7f-CJgXTmYh5S6Oo/s1600/three.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBteJsTlAPGxbmhj_mxOJDRx1xWRlz0Y4tKsT8Dz0Zl0pgbX1J_wm3TWa7gMq6vPxqJyD443ganvcgyBops52Wko2pu-3gCLb0oEZu3KpK1E80ZzWSsLJkX1Y5T5S7f-CJgXTmYh5S6Oo/s400/three.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">©lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Fossil of Ctenoimbricata</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 21.66666603088379px;">Thanks to Dr. Alien for first telling me about Ctenoimbricata!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="line-height: 21.66666603088379px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">References:</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0038296">http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0038296</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; line-height: 22px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://infaunalepiphany.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/from-worm-to-star-primitive-bilateral-echinoderms-from-the-cambrian-of-southern-europe/">http://infaunalepiphany.wordpress.com/2012/06/09/from-worm-to-star-primitive-bilateral-echinoderms-from-the-cambrian-of-southern-europe/</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://emilyd47.blogspot.com/2012/06/ctenoimbricata.html">http://emilyd47.blogspot.com/2012/06/ctenoimbricata.html</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.thisviewoflife.com/index.php/magazine/articles/bilateral-echinoderm-confirms-ancestry"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">http://www.thisviewoflife.com/index.php/magazine/articles/bilateral-echinoderm-confirms-ancestry</span></a>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-1156459686268513762012-07-18T07:26:00.001-05:002012-07-18T07:33:30.414-05:00Opabinia (Part 2)<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia was a Cambrian invertebrate probably related to today's velvet worms. It was also related to <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/11/anomalocaris-part-2.html">Anomalocaris</a>, which probably sometimes ate Opabinia. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia's main food source was presumably worms, which were pulled out of their burrows by </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia's long proboscis, then torn up and eaten in its "pineapple ring"-shaped mouth located in a scoop on the underside of the creature's head. Another presumed food source of </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia was carcasses, especially of large animals such as Anomalocaris and <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/hurdia.html">Hurdia</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">One striking feature about Opabinia is that it possessed five huge eyes. Because of where </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia's eyes are positioned, it</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> might have had 360 degree vision. It is thought that the eyes probably only detected motion. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia swam by undulating the lobes on its sides. Each side possessed eleven lobes. For a burst of speed, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia would have flicked its fins very quickly, similar to how a modern fish does a burst of speed. But </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> had a different fin arrangement than a modern fish. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia was two to three inches long and probably swam along the bottom of the ocean. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">©lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span><br />
Opabinia searching for food.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia's closest relative was the Australian Myoscolex. Unlike </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia, it had no tail fan, and the eyes closest to the back had long stalks that curved backwards. So Myoscolex basically had eyes on the back of its head. And it needed to have eyes on the back of its head, because Anomalocaris, a top predator, was also present in Australia in the Cambrian, and it would have eaten Myoscolex. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia was found on the other side of the world from Myoscolex, in British Columbia. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAlrqWevIANzKZlwu_UNP5qyz_fyeu9cgmMA4y935EyXhm6yhHYplBVuF90E9kRrM2wqpN6g7bX20SlG8CdWrqzFtan9Tp2a0VOVpqz997P3fkFl13XQ8o83NrMur5jwlbZuBn2A5Ws8k/s1600/opabinia1a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAlrqWevIANzKZlwu_UNP5qyz_fyeu9cgmMA4y935EyXhm6yhHYplBVuF90E9kRrM2wqpN6g7bX20SlG8CdWrqzFtan9Tp2a0VOVpqz997P3fkFl13XQ8o83NrMur5jwlbZuBn2A5Ws8k/s400/opabinia1a.jpg" width="371" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">©lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span><br />
Opabinia (top) compared with Myoscolex (below)</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia also has modern relatives called Onychophora, or velvet worms. They live on land, mostly in Australia, and inhabit wet forests. They normally live in families inside logs in the day, but at night they come out to find food. There are usually up to fifteen velvet worms in a family. Velvet worms usually grow up to about 1-1/2 inches. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia is actually quite similar to velvet worms if you look at it the right way. Because </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia is now thought to have had legs, if you take away all the fins and the proboscis, leave only two tiny eyes and add antennae, you get a velvet worm. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Another modern relative to </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Opabinia is the tardigrade, which looks like a very short, stubby, microscopic velvet worm. One striking feature about the tardigrade is that it is nearly impossible to naturally kill, although it is probably very easy to intentionally kill by smushing it. It can be frozen, heated, and even put into space. Scientists put tardigrades into space without a spacesuit or a jar of air...and they survived!!!</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">©lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span><br />
A modern velvet worm on a forest floor. </td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">References:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/271/910/1.short">http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/271/910/1.short</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=93&ref=i&">http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=93&ref=i&</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/cambrian_06">http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/cambrian_06</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://paleobiology.si.edu/burgess/opabinia.html">http://paleobiology.si.edu/burgess/opabinia.html</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/09/09/tardigrade-space.html">http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/09/09/tardigrade-space.html</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Space-Visual-Encyclopedia-DK-Publishing/dp/075666277X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1342545454&sr=8-3&keywords=the+visual+encyclopedia+of+space"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">http://www.amazon.com/Space-Visual-Encyclopedia-DK-Publishing/dp/075666277X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1342545454&sr=8-3&keywords=the+visual+encyclopedia+of+space</span></a>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-33386974236483923622012-06-14T11:32:00.001-05:002012-06-14T11:32:40.436-05:00Sacabambaspis.<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis is an Ordovician arandaspid, a kind of primitive armored jawless fish, that has been found in Bolivia in the Andes Mountains. It was about one foot long. Like all fish of its time, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis had no jaws, so its mouth was always open. It had no jaws and it didn't have any teeth either. If it did have teeth, it wouldn't have been able to use them, because it didn't have jaws. All </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis ate must have been algae, plankton, and tiny pieces of carcass left behind by large predators such as <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2012/03/cameroceras-part-2.html">Cameroceras</a>, Endoceras, and <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/10/megalograptus.html">Megalograptus</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The only fin </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis had on its body was the caudal fin, or tail fin. Its relative Astraspis didn't even have that. Scientists used to think that </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis had a shark-like tail, but now they know that it had a tail similar to modern jawless fish, a sort of eel-like tail. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The most striking feature about </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis was the shell that covered its head. The armor that covered placoderm heads was more like a suit of armor. But </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis had armor that was more like a clamshell. Placoderms had different plates of armor all over their head, which allowed different parts of their heads to move. Ostracoderms, armored agnathans, or jawless fish, had shell-like armor, which was usually two plates, one of the top of the head and one on the bottom. The shell on <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/07/drepanaspis.html">Drepanaspis</a>, from the Devonian, gradually got smaller as Drepanaspis evolved, to form individual plates on the head, more like a placoderm, except it still had no jaws. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis had both of its eyes facing forward, which meant that it had 3D vision. Most other jawless fish did not have this feature. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span><br />Sacabambaspis on a reef with a trilobite, an orthocone, a crinoid, <br />and rugose corals encrusted with bryozoans.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis lived on reefs that were home to creatures such as trilobites, crinoids, orthocones, rugose coral, eurypterids, and bryozoans. At the time, any fish on a Bolivian reef almost had to be </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis. There are no other known fish from the same place and time, in Bolivia 460 million years ago, when </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis was found. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span><br /><br />Sacabambaspis, accompanied by rugose corals and bryozoan-encrusted rocks, <br />viewed from above.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The arandaspid family includes Astraspis, Arandaspis, and </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis. They were all from the Ordovician. Astraspis was from North America, Arandaspis was from Australia, and </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Sacabambaspis was from South America. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCiY3Zn4kxn7EYpsZxiiQ4sc5em1wEG3z1VBG8L8dLBwdV7gtWQZ0HR2mvV-fFrq4CPV8yRV1VXGsyRU-o8X-WHLJQGOAm3UYmJL3s2wZpAEaRRffPL9J-H5It647XzbT4qzgOA5quE3o/s1600/6-13-3.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCiY3Zn4kxn7EYpsZxiiQ4sc5em1wEG3z1VBG8L8dLBwdV7gtWQZ0HR2mvV-fFrq4CPV8yRV1VXGsyRU-o8X-WHLJQGOAm3UYmJL3s2wZpAEaRRffPL9J-H5It647XzbT4qzgOA5quE3o/s400/6-13-3.tiff" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com<br /><br />The arandaspid family: (from top) Astraspis, Arandaspis, Sacabambaspis</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Arandaspis was more flattened on the sides than other arandaspids, and it was probably unstable and tilty. It had a rigid shell and was about four or five inches long. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Astraspis was also about four or five inches long. It had no fins, not even a caudal fin, and a very bumpy shell. I hypothesize that with no caudal fin, it probably mostly slithered across the bottom, and from time to time it could have squirmed around and swam up into midwater to feed on plankton. It could then drift down again to feed on algae and scraps of leftover carcass, which is what it mostly ate. Astraspis is the oldest known North American vertebrate. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">References:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2373808/">The tail of the Ordovician fish Sacabambaspis</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Super-Little-Giant-Prehistoric-Creatures/dp/1402725930/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339524854&sr=8-1&keywords=super+little+giant+book+of+prehistoric"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Super Little Giant Book of Prehistoric Creatures</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacabambaspis">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacabambaspis</a></span><br />
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<br />Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-82514397432463951742012-05-29T08:15:00.000-05:002012-05-29T08:15:21.399-05:00Dinocaridida.<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Dinocaridida is the group which contains anomalacarids such as <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/opabinia.html">Opabinia</a> and <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/11/anomalocaris-part-2.html">Anomalocaris</a>. There has been much debate over what kind of animal members of Dinocaridida actually were. They possess jumbled-up features of two groups of modern animals, the arthropods and the onychophorans. They lived on every continent except Antarctica. Only one species has been found in Africa so far, an unnamed Ordovician anomalocarid very similar to <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/08/laggania.html">Peytoia</a> (formerly Laggania). Very few have been found in Europe. Most are found in North America and Greenland, with notable specimens from Asia too. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">From top to bottom: Jianshanopodia, Kerygmachela, Pambdelurion. Arrows represent method of capture.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The first Dinocaridids, from the early Cambrian, looked more like </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">onychophorans</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> than arthropods. Some had no eyes, like <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/kerygmachela.html">Kerygmachela</a> and <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/pambdelurion.html">Pambdelurion</a>. Kerygmachela had a tiny mouth, which would have meant it needed to chop up its prey before it ate it. It did that by means of its knife-like claws, which shredded prey. The inward-pointing hooks on the spines would have prevented escape. Although it sounds ferocious, Kerygmachela was only about the size of a human hand. Its relative Pambdelurion, which was the same size as Kerygmachela, was a peaceful filter feeder which captured millions of tiny plankton with its hairy claws, which it then "licked" off with its tiny mouth. On the other hand, Jianshanopodia had a unique method of capture. With a motion of its claws and the opening of the mouth, it sucked small creatures into its stomach. Jianshanopodia was also about the size of a human hand. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">From top to bottom: Anomalmocaris, Opabinia, Petoyia</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Typical anomalocarids from the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale were much more complex, looking like a cross between arthropods and </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">onychophorans</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">. Among these, Opabinia was unique. It had a long proboscis with a claw at the end. The mouth was not on the proboscis, but was actually under the head, as in all Dinocaridids. The proboscis was long and flexible, which helped it reach down worm burrows to grab hapless worms, which it ate. Opabinia was also a scavenger of dead arthropods and other animals, which it was very fit for, because of the flexibility of its proboscis, which enabled it to reach into cracks in the armor of a carcass and rip out chunks of internal organs and flesh from beneath the exoskeleton. It also had five huge eyes, which is not unusual in modern arthropods. Many insects have five eyes, except three of those eyes are tiny. In Opabinia they were all large. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Anomalocaris was a top predator. It could grow to three, possibly even six feet long. It shattered exoskeletons of trilobites and other arthropods with its two seven-inch claws. Like all Dinocaridids (except Jianshanopodia), Anomalocaris had eleven lateral lobes, which it used for swimming. It would have been very stable, and also able to swim backwards. It could hover motionless in mid-water for a long time watching for prey. When it saw something promising, Anomalocaris would lunge forward with its claws flared out, and then grab the food item. It would then rip it to pieces and eat it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Peytoia was a filter feeder. I hypothesize that it rammed predators with its huge head, partially because the eyes and claws were set far back, which could have meant the head was doing something that its eyes and appendages should not be involved in, such as head-butting predators. I also think it could have been a mating display, where the males head-butted each other for the right to mate with the females. This could have been possible because only a few specimens showing the head have been found, and it's possible that all of them were males. I'm not really sure what that huge head was for, I just realize that Peytoia had a bigger head than any other Dinocaridid (except for Hurdia, which had strange headgear that made it look like an arrow). Peytoia also had no tail fin, and when wandering around it probably moved very slowly, although it could have been quite capable of bursts of speed. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">From top to bottom: unnamed Ordovician anomalocarid from Morocco, Schinderhannes bartelsi, Caryosyntrips</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Recently, Ordovician fossils of a Peytoia-like anomalocarid have been found in Morocco. My drawing of this unnamed animal above is based on the </span><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7348/images_article/nature09920-f1.2.jpg" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">pictures</a><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> of the fossils that I saw. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/schinderhannes-bartelsi.html">Schinderhannes bartelsi</a> is the most recent anomalocarid (in geological time). It had two huge flaps right behind its head which propelled it through the water. It had a stingless spine at the rear and </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">no lateral lobes along its sides. The only fossil was found in Germany. It was only about four inches long and it preyed on animals such as small shrimp and worms. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Caryosyntrips is a new discovery from the Burgess Shale of the middle Cambrian. The feature that stands out about Caryosyntrips is its claws. Instead of grabbing down, as in Anomalocaris, they pinched together like crab claws. They have been compared to nutcrackers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">References:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_1878155530"></span><span id="goog_1878155531"></span>Arthropod origins: <a href="http://mzp.cz/ris/ekodisk-new.nsf/1a76d1df1a0e29f0c1256e2800520b9d/9a21746463a798e9c125708f002d7766/$FILE/str.%20323-334.pdf">http://mzp.cz/ris/ekodisk-new.nsf/1a76d1df1a0e29f0c1256e2800520b9d/9a21746463a798e9c125708f002d7766/$FILE/str.%20323-334.pdf</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">A giant Ordovician anomalocarid: <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7348/full/nature09920.html">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v473/n7348/full/nature09920.html</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinocaridid">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinocaridid</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychophora"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onychophora</span></a>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-68897659919263665712012-05-14T08:42:00.001-05:002012-06-02T15:59:01.424-05:00I've been doing my blog for one whole year!<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">My very first post was on May 15, 2011, when my mom took pictures of my <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/05/cephalaspis-and-lanarkia.html">Lego jawless fish</a> and asked me if I wanted to start a blog. And I did! I've been doing this for a whole year. To celebrate the anniversary, I picked five of my favorite creatures that I've written about in the last year, and here they are:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">1. <b><a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/11/anomalocaris-part-2.html">Anomalocaris</a></b> (<a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/anomalocaris.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/11/anomalocaris-part-2.html">here</a>). Anomalocaris was a giant Cambrian predator related to today's velvet worms. It crushed hard-shelled animals with its two seven-inch claws and its "pineapple ring" mouth. It had eleven lobes along the side of its body which helped it hover and swim in mid-water. It also had no legs. It was at least three feet long, but it was almost definitely no more than six feet. Most of the complete fossils are of juveniles. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Coprolites containing bits of trilobites have been found in Australia. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I hypothesized that Anomalocaris may have given live birth just like today's velvet worms. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Jrb7tfUVUhjzaWAMom7cfB3UVr75jxjWULnyAs69hqi4VodCM1fMF3QE0Fj-7P2EQQZh8pD1nG0W4DNNiGpOOmMyq_3oFi1VfjD0KK7NkTWho_fUG3wFAc_gRMQo-pHc9RB90ks4dGo/s400/anomalocaris.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">2. <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/opabinia.html"><b>Opabinia</b></a>. A four-inch-long Cambrian predator, including its proboscis (three inches long without this appendage). Opabinia used its proboscis to poke around in worm holes and rip chunks of flesh off of carcass. Strangely, Opabinia had five mushroom-like eyes on top of its head, each one as large as the other. It was related to Anomalocaris and velvet worms, and I think it could have given live birth too. Opabinia also had eleven lobes along its sides and, like Anomalocaris, no legs. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_24540672"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwIICTq8AoLXcTXOwUxSImcc-ShgNRcbqXpzOZOAeL8RPZ13D55g2ReRxzmWo57TI5SjFrdU1fGh4YYdWe0UrXpOyfqQi51xs9nCkeYyPftVwlF9-_8hnuhG8gzBR0oyIlfwZECcBAh3U/s400/opabinia.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">3. <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/10/scyphocrinites.html"><b>Scyphocrinites</b></a>. Scyphocrinites was a strange Silurian-to-Devonian crinoid that floated upside down at the surface of the water by means of a balloon-like organ called a lobolith in place of the gripping root-like organs that most crinoids possess. Unlike most crinoids, Scyphocrinites could not purposely move (bottom-dwelling crinoids can un-anchor themselves and drag their bodies across the sea floor with their arms to find a better attachment place). Scyphocritinies could only move with the current. Fortunately, this meant that it was always in the same place as its microscopic food, plankton, which was also being swept around by the current. Scyphocritinies was large, but I can't say how large, because I've never found a source that talks about its size other than that its large. The calyx (body) has never been found attached to the lobolith, but we know the calyx and the loboliths found belong to the same species. The same exact stem has been found attached to the lobolith, and that kind of stem has also been found attached to the calyx. All the pieces of Scyphocrinites were found in Morocco.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_hFT53FgWYguK8pIZ5s5yYjNNbRhsfLpsFNJAY4CzzFY8hYLV3b445YjOYELzRwzQ9-NKBWNMuPSol345p5_hBAVkf_hX5ZzHZUTQeHhvSqpwOO2oaM6loy9dXucpbFG7fbHE8YV_qxM/s1600/scyphocrinites.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_hFT53FgWYguK8pIZ5s5yYjNNbRhsfLpsFNJAY4CzzFY8hYLV3b445YjOYELzRwzQ9-NKBWNMuPSol345p5_hBAVkf_hX5ZzHZUTQeHhvSqpwOO2oaM6loy9dXucpbFG7fbHE8YV_qxM/s320/scyphocrinites.jpg" width="244" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">4. <b><a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2012/01/helicoprion-part-2.html">Helicoprion</a></b> (<a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/05/helicoprion.html">here</a> and <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2012/01/helicoprion-part-2.html">here</a>). Helicoprion was a bizarre shark from the Carboniferous to the Triassic. The only fossils that have ever been found of it are its mysterious "buzz saw" lower jaws, which helped it slice prey such as fish and squid. It is unlikely that Helicoprion ate hard-shelled animals such as ammonites, because if it ate mostly ammonites there would be a lot of broken teeth found in the tooth whorls. Broken teeth are nearly absent in the tooth whorls. And sharks tend to eat a lot. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The biggest tooth whorls that have ever been found are about two feet across, which meant that Helicoprion would have been 30 to 50 feet long. A very long shark, which would have meant it needed </span><i style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">a lot</i><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> of food and would have had a monstrous appetite. It must have been a top predator. Helicoprion was related to other eugeneodontids such as Edestus and Ornithoprion. It is not known where exactly in the lower jaw the tooth whorl went, but the most modern idea is that it was embedded in cartilage to make a circular extension of teeth on the lower jaw. This idea also includes that the lower jaw was as long as the upper jaw, and that they were both quite long. Most reconstructions of Helicoprion show that it had little or no teeth in the upper jaw. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFYuFJCIvA63VVKPGDWhWH7DwzaUs1nFdNwNn2yzK8oMyZEgP4rtwNGZbUmgXwo-mPeX-bVtX9cpTIaELtkphCgoYbAvAScMINlsQA7M2-IqBtW6uQbCgSE8Ne8LccELDnkcTBa4MbWE/s1600/helicoprion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="121" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYFYuFJCIvA63VVKPGDWhWH7DwzaUs1nFdNwNn2yzK8oMyZEgP4rtwNGZbUmgXwo-mPeX-bVtX9cpTIaELtkphCgoYbAvAScMINlsQA7M2-IqBtW6uQbCgSE8Ne8LccELDnkcTBa4MbWE/s400/helicoprion.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">5. <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2012/01/siphusauctum.html"><b>Siphusauctum</b></a>. Siphusauctum is a weird, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029233">newly-discovered</a> Cambrian stalked animal. It looked reminiscent of a ctenophore on a stalk and was a filter feeder that fed on plankton. The body was roughly four inches tall. There is a very small amount of information on this animal because it is so newly discovered. It was found many years ago in the Burgess Shale, but was discovered in the collection at the <a href="http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/introduction/">Royal Ontario Museum</a> in 2012. It was described by Jean-Bernard Caron and Lorna J. O'Brien. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz9-YWUcM6KCo_UPmHF8rAcuJVZh9x4r66YZDryM5xsWEZ35JrR26huys_wsIhL4i8J9Rb4Uppe06w3jrI-U8baGP2fy7PsRNMAmjZpngUNUs7wBFd94J5arGqtMNOujVvEiSCUNnr5go/s1600/siphusauctum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz9-YWUcM6KCo_UPmHF8rAcuJVZh9x4r66YZDryM5xsWEZ35JrR26huys_wsIhL4i8J9Rb4Uppe06w3jrI-U8baGP2fy7PsRNMAmjZpngUNUs7wBFd94J5arGqtMNOujVvEiSCUNnr5go/s400/siphusauctum.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span></td></tr>
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<br />Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-1443778062418919342012-04-30T08:10:00.000-05:002012-04-30T10:30:30.380-05:00Fossil Fish Found Alive: Discovering the Coelacanth.<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">I read the book<i> <a href="http://www.sallymwalker.com/FossilFishFoundAlive.html">Fossil Fish Found Alive: Discovering the Coelacanth</a> </i>by Sally M. Walker, and it was very informative about </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths. It didn't take long to read and it was great.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">The book talks about how the earliest modern day </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanth to be found was caught in 1938 off the Camoros Islands, which are a French colony off the coast of Africa. This </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanth was named Latimeria chalumnae, after the person who discovered it, who had the last name Latimer. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Latimer had no idea what the fish in her net was, so she took it to several places and asked what it was. They all said that they did not know. The last place she took it to said it looked like a </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanth, which at the time was thought to be extinct. The </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanth was believed to have gone extinct 65 million years ago, and at the time, the last </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanth fossils were 70 million years ago. No Cenozoic fossils of </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths have ever been found, so to date the prehistory of </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths stops in the Cretaceous. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Prehistoric </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Coelacanths, from top to bottom: Allenypterus, Hoplophegis, Mawsonia, Axelrodicthys, and Miguashaia</span><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Somebody named Smith came to see the </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanth and proved its identity. </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Smith wanted to find another </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanth. He caught an unusual fish in his net in the Camoros Islands. He thought it was a new species and named it </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Malania anjouanae. </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">But then he realized his mistake. It was a </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanth. </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">The dorsal fins and epicaudal fins were missing from this fish, so he thought it was a new species. The fins were probably just bitten off by another fish when the </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanth was young, or another such accident. It was not a different species. </span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The modern day </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Coelacanth Latimeria</span><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">A new species of </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Coelacanth was described around 1998 and it was named Latimeria menadoensis. It was found in Indonesia, which is in <i>Asia</i>. That's unusual because so far </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Coelacanths had only been found in Africa and Madagascar, never in Asia. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white;">Scientists were desperate to find a live </span><span style="background-color: white;">Coelacanth in its natural habitat. They started diving down in submersibles to habitats of </span><span style="background-color: white;">Coelacanths. On October 29, 2000, they were finally successful and found live </span><span style="background-color: white;">Coelacanths in South Africa. At first they found one, but then, on the next dive, they found many. </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">They noticed that when the submersible got close, the </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths did bizarre headstands. It was later found out that these were probably because the </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths use the earth's electrical field to navigate, and in the disturbance of the electrical field they automatically did the headstands because of disorientation. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">It was found out that in the daytime </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths rest in caves and only come out at night. When scientists started tagging </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths, they found that they drifted around in the current, and when prey such as small fish got near, the </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths sucked them in. This is another adaptation that conserves energy.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: 15px; text-align: -webkit-center;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Latimeria resting in a cave in the daytime</span><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; text-align: -webkit-center;">The largest Latimeria chalumnae ever found was 6-1/2 feet long. This population of </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths was</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; text-align: -webkit-center;"> also the shallowest-living </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; text-align: -webkit-center;">ever found, with depths of 344 feet. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; text-align: -webkit-center;">They were filmed by divers, but diving at that depth can be dangerous. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths usually live at about 700 feet down, so normally they would never be filmed by scuba divers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Coelacanths are one of the two groups of lobe-finned fish, or sarcopterygians, alive today. The other group are the famous lungfishes, which have the ability to breath air and can live under dried-up lakes for years. Unlike lungfish, Coelacanths, or at least modern day Coelacanths, live in salt water. There were a few prehistoric Coelacanths, like Undina from the Jurassic, that spent their lives in fresh water. The largest Coelacanth ever was Mawsonia gigas, from the Cretaceous from Egypt and Niger. Mawsonia was also found in South America, but this makes sense if you know that Africa and South America were joined together in the Cretaceous (which also explains the distribution of lungfishes in South America and Africa).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">I learned that </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths are full of oil, which helps them maintain balance just above the sea floor without having to actually move. The oil also makes the </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanth very disgusting to eat, which is why fisherman don't usually fish for </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths as food. The reason why </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: -webkit-center;">Coelacanths are fished is normally for maintaining specimens. </span></span>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-39425262267943077452012-04-20T08:40:00.001-05:002012-04-20T08:46:20.543-05:00Gonioceras.Gonioceras was a benthic actinocerid orthocone of the Ordovician. Its distribution included the eastern half of North America, including Canada and the North Pole area next to Greenland. This would not have meant that it was a polar animal, it just means that the continents have shifted a lot, and that the climate has also changed quite a bit. In the Ordovician, the whole world was tropical, even the poles.<br />
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Gonioceras had a convex top of the shell and the bottom was flat. This was ideal for living on the sea floor, because that meant Gonioceras would not sink into the muck. This is the same principle as the spines of many trilobite, which helped the trilobites keep themselves from sinking into soft mud. Trace fossils show that tubular-shelled nautiloids did sometimes rest on the bottom, but they did not live their whole life there as Gonioceras did. Tubular-shelled nautiloids such as <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2012/03/cameroceras-part-2.html">Cameroceras</a> also probably sometimes dragged across the bottom to catch trilobites and other benthic prey.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gonioceras chasing a trilobite<br />
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Gonioceras was a unique nautiloid because it was flat. Unlike other nautiloids, it had a triangular form. The name Gonioceras, meaning "angle horn," well suits this animal, because few other nautiloids, except for other actinocerids, were flat and triangular like this.<br />
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Gonioceras grew up to about one foot long. I hypothesize that it probably had little or no need for a complex balancing system because it almost always stayed touching the bottom, and it probably never ventured into midwater. For a creature this shape, hatched on the bottom of the ocean, it would take quite a long time for it to get its flat shape into the water. The shell could be compared to a one-foot-long flat rock, and it would have been very hard for such a small animal to lift such a heavy object up into the water. The shell would have been heavy in the first place, and considering the weights Gonioceras would have needed to keep the gas in its shell from slowing making it float up to the surface, it would have been very heavy. So it would have been hard for Gonioceras to lift itself up more than a few inches off the sea floor.<br />
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Gonioceras was actually smaller than its shell, because only a small part of the shell houses the live animal, which would have been a couple of inches long. Its bottom-dwelling habits must have meant that it preyed on bottom-dwelling animals like trilobites or worms. Rays and flounders may have a similar place in the food chain today as Gonioceras did in the Ordovician.<br />
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The only living relatives of Gonioceras are of the genera nautilus or allonautilus. Actinocerids like Gonioceras only lived in the Ordovician, but other orthocones lived to the Triassic, and orthocone-like ammonites such as Baculites lived in the Cretaceous.<br />
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Gonioceras was probably preyed on by eurypterids and larger nautiloids. Like all cephalopods, they had many tentacles surrounding a beak-like mouth, a syphon propelling them through the water, and a mantle behind their head. Nautiloids and aminoids are the only shelled cephalopods, besides the modern genus argonauta, a shelled octopus. Members of this genus can leave their shells at any time, and only the females have shells. The shells of Gonioceras were probably more delicate than those of other orthocones, because they were flatter and thinner. The whole shell is very rarely preserved in a <a href="http://www.threedee.com/jmosn/fossils/gonio/images/gonio.jpg">fossil</a>.<br />
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Gonioceras could probably partially bury itself in sand with backward shovel-like motions of its shell being propelled by the syphon,and its tentacles throwing sand on top of its body, similar to living rays and flounders, who do this with their fins. Some living cephalopods sometimes bury themselves by throwing sand on top of their body with their tentacles.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhQoFbmbI5YACZC90uXwiRD-7R8J2tqP9B3MNfHldBui4ZhYU0yMu6rnUA4y5IUsZvttmEfcXwfpeQ5-wRee1fQ-oxiYAZsHlCSxFfXgQxxeeBZm8ZiYL3D6r_-5uNLN2TmmolD7_gEHo/s1600/gonio3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhQoFbmbI5YACZC90uXwiRD-7R8J2tqP9B3MNfHldBui4ZhYU0yMu6rnUA4y5IUsZvttmEfcXwfpeQ5-wRee1fQ-oxiYAZsHlCSxFfXgQxxeeBZm8ZiYL3D6r_-5uNLN2TmmolD7_gEHo/s400/gonio3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gonioceras resting on the sea floor<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</span></td></tr>
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Although nautiloids like Gonioceras and the modern nautilus do not have suckers on their tentacles, they have a very strong grip. Modern nautiloids can hardly ever be pulled off of their prey without ripping off their tentacles because the grip is so strong. Nautiloids also have more tentacles than other cephalopods.<br />
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Because of its flat shape, Gonioceras probably would have been very hydrodynamic on the sea floor, jetting itself quickly just above the bottom. Since the ventral side of its shell was flat, it would have been much easier for Gonioceras to rest on a flat surface such as sand or mud than on rocks, which meant it probably lived closer to sandy shores. Orthocones could not have lived in the deep sea because their shells would have cracked due to the pressure. Coiled nautiloids could have easily gone into deep water because their tightly-packed shells would have offered more protection.<br />
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References:<br />
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<a href="http://www.threedee.com/jmosn/fossils/gonio/index.html">http://www.threedee.com/jmosn/fossils/gonio/index.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonioceras">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonioceras</a><br />
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<a href="http://paleodb.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?a=basicTaxonInfo&taxon_no=12674">http://paleodb.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?a=basicTaxonInfo&taxon_no=12674</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ypsidixit/2228092890/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/ypsidixit/2228092890/</a>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-7135847414482120822012-04-05T08:29:00.005-05:002012-04-05T08:39:15.092-05:00Lepidodendron.<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Lepidodendron was a giant lycopod tree that flourished in Carboniferous wetlands. It was up to 130 feet tall. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">For half of its life </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Lepidodendron</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> lived as a telephone pole-like plant sticking out of the forest floor. Then it began branching. Finally, the branching growth stopped and spore cones formed at the end of the branches. Growth stopped. The tree was putting all its energy into making and releasing spores. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">In some species of </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Lepidodendron</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> the tree died after it was finished releasing its spores, probably because they spent all their energy on doing just that, shedding and making spores. This is like salmon who die right after laying eggs because they use up all their energy swimming up rivers and jumping up waterfalls, and spend the last bit of energy laying eggs and transferring sperm to the female. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJdfyxzOnt3VwtXtTxNbxXbQ6flaBbxxxgRstOa9wntM1YHX2VoClODQaB5inio5jmSSb81zRmWM9BBmK_G6f2Ti127rmD2JNh1aiDE2HDB6oQ8SzhVv2H7733ONT9nJor2TZ3yLFjPLg/s1600/Lepidodendron1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJdfyxzOnt3VwtXtTxNbxXbQ6flaBbxxxgRstOa9wntM1YHX2VoClODQaB5inio5jmSSb81zRmWM9BBmK_G6f2Ti127rmD2JNh1aiDE2HDB6oQ8SzhVv2H7733ONT9nJor2TZ3yLFjPLg/s400/Lepidodendron1.jpg" width="276" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Lepidodendron and other lycopod trees had the shallowest roots I've ever heard of. The roots barely went a couple feet into the ground for an enormous 100 foot tree. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">One of the reasons </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Lepidodendron</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> didn't fall down was probably that, despite its enormous size, the trunk was probably pretty light. Inside the thick bark there was a cotton-like substance, which was the vascular system. Another reason </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Lepidodendron</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> didn't fall down is probably that the roots were fat and also surprisingly long. But they barely went into the ground and were nearly unbranched. The bark of </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Lepidodendron was a couple of inches thick, which held the tree in an upright position. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9AhQRMrcviTr_FvE3BDRkxR6WrHwG1e2qejP6nGIJc4ig1c9-9hwlSnrTYh7wtlQHmRYAg0pbTwaOWNT7cWCaj5uMBN0BHzJhKsm4_1_IGxn6Eg70UYRHdDgZebi1Kv5OP7fsGZoZAw/s1600/Lepidodendron2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP9AhQRMrcviTr_FvE3BDRkxR6WrHwG1e2qejP6nGIJc4ig1c9-9hwlSnrTYh7wtlQHmRYAg0pbTwaOWNT7cWCaj5uMBN0BHzJhKsm4_1_IGxn6Eg70UYRHdDgZebi1Kv5OP7fsGZoZAw/s400/Lepidodendron2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Lepidodendron had bark covered in scaly leaf scars. In the "telephone pole" stage, the leaves were gradually moving up the trunk. As the tree got larger, and older leaves fell off. Finally this process stopped as </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Lepidodendron started to grow its first branches. The first branches it grew were forked, and then off of those forks it grew branches that looked somewhat like those of conifers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Some people used to think that the bark was the remains of a giant snake or lizard, which turned out to be totally wrong. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQB2aG8XeBWwnzHzklLCTFbm9FE293ktyA6Kpfv0mNjtzwQTzMX4p6-ge3mf0M9OjjYljngazRSDEFBbQQc30uvePicPwSCcZqF_aiwMCHxdvuQ__GWKvwVCngX1zAvt0fJlWlPCvVSIk/s1600/Lepidodendron3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQB2aG8XeBWwnzHzklLCTFbm9FE293ktyA6Kpfv0mNjtzwQTzMX4p6-ge3mf0M9OjjYljngazRSDEFBbQQc30uvePicPwSCcZqF_aiwMCHxdvuQ__GWKvwVCngX1zAvt0fJlWlPCvVSIk/s400/Lepidodendron3.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">References:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Prehistoric-Life-Definitive-Visual-History/dp/0756655730/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333581233&sr=1-1">Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth</a>, pg. 145</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://steurh.home.xs4all.nl/eng/lepido.html">http://steurh.home.xs4all.nl/eng/lepido.html</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidodendron"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidodendron</span></a>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-60433767397867549582012-03-23T08:40:00.002-05:002012-03-23T08:43:01.381-05:00Cameroceras (Part 2).<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I've written about Cameroceras <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/cameroceras.html">before</a>, but there is more about this relative of the modern nautilus that I would like to explain. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Cameroceras is a species of Ordovician nautiloid that had a straight shell right behind its head. It belongs to a group of nautiloids called orthocones, along with <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/07/orthoceras.html">Orthoceras</a>, Endoceras, and Gonioceras. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiikl_HLDwXSdpDeqqdMT1Efq9lhQVKJzlR-uJvgFp0rrPdmaE-t0rcgDojZ_2LWznt67uCJidn4FhRRBYkhiYc9dwKXCVRNDKYpU4ppHnYk8GWrTSfvLV5IL3Rr3SaGqB6sSIP-a9YEsw/s1600/camero2.1.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="81" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiikl_HLDwXSdpDeqqdMT1Efq9lhQVKJzlR-uJvgFp0rrPdmaE-t0rcgDojZ_2LWznt67uCJidn4FhRRBYkhiYc9dwKXCVRNDKYpU4ppHnYk8GWrTSfvLV5IL3Rr3SaGqB6sSIP-a9YEsw/s400/camero2.1.tiff" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Although the widely accepted size estimate of Cameroceras's length is 20 feet, there is some debate. Paleontologists often find partial shells of Cameroceras, very rarely the whole thing. When they do find a complete specimen of the shell, it is usually of a small individual. Unless we have the living chamber or the tip of the shell in the specimen, we cannot accurately determine the length of the animal. Based on partial specimens of large individuals, we can only know that it could have grown very big, but not the exact length. In the future we may find a way to determine which part of the shell the fossil belonged to. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">In the image below, I drew </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Cameroceras hunting near the seabed. This individual has successfully caught the eurypterid <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/10/megalograptus.html">Megalograptus</a>. Another Megalograptus is swimming away, and <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/08/isotelus.html">Isotelus</a> is crawling on the sea floor directly below the Megalograptus. On the left side, near the head of Cameroceras, there are two rugose corals and one crinoid. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizL1twPTX1l7elyuEY6SFiwtNR4xW91GXQENIBsIAHQRrAUjjoV2kjXYf7tr4wsPloZtWfsRO9aPkeCEXuADgO1UzsXCeJp0o6JXSMYaZn4DFMn2vXK8xmBUaHC_zkNUJyb6xpSapKvdk/s1600/camero1_2.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizL1twPTX1l7elyuEY6SFiwtNR4xW91GXQENIBsIAHQRrAUjjoV2kjXYf7tr4wsPloZtWfsRO9aPkeCEXuADgO1UzsXCeJp0o6JXSMYaZn4DFMn2vXK8xmBUaHC_zkNUJyb6xpSapKvdk/s400/camero1_2.tiff" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Like the modern nautilus, </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Cameroceras probably had an extremely strong grip with its tentacles. Once something was caught, it would be very hard for the prey to escape. The tentacles were probably stronger than those of the nautilus, because </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Cameroceras was </span><i style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">much</i><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> bigger (the modern nautilus only has a shell diameter of 8 inches). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Cameroceras had an amazing way of keeping its head from facing towards the bottom of the ocean and the tip of its shell from facing towards the surface. Cameroceras had a long siphuncle, a kind of tube, running down from its siphon. The siphuncle had traffic cone-shaped blocks of calcium in it, which counter-weighted the body and kept it horizontal. Like all nautiloids, it had upward-facing rings called septa. They were filled with gas and kept Cameroceras afloat. It was a very efficient strategy of locomotion. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcb2soz9pl40qX4oGpBZWmZYNabVXBtWf34EG1fPmF7WwyajpRML4jUhx6J1J8QynRvQMwqrb2sJz7D99TZ_DlsVKaGn3G2-q1oS2Dt6k3BmSJoo0a-fRA3MB7j_YzfcGrAvJnzIGAmpc/s1600/camero3.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcb2soz9pl40qX4oGpBZWmZYNabVXBtWf34EG1fPmF7WwyajpRML4jUhx6J1J8QynRvQMwqrb2sJz7D99TZ_DlsVKaGn3G2-q1oS2Dt6k3BmSJoo0a-fRA3MB7j_YzfcGrAvJnzIGAmpc/s400/camero3.tiff" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© lifebeforethedinosaurs.com</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">The siphon, which was connected to the siphuncle, sucked in water and then shot it out again to propel Cameroceras in the opposite direction of whatever way the extremely flexible siphon was pointing. Modern cephalopods can swim backwards and forwards and also steer very well, because of the flexibility of their siphon. Cameroceras probably had a very flexible siphon too, and this</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> extreme maneuverability would have made it</span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> an efficient hunter. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">References: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sea-without-Fish-Ordovician-Cincinnati/dp/0253351987/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332450648&sr=1-1">A Sea Without Fish</a></i> by David L. Meyer and Richard Arnold Davis, pg. 132-134.</span><br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Thanks to Paul Mayer at the Field Museum for discussing how paleontologists find out the size of orthocones when they don't have the complete shell. </span><br />
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</span>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-41240969857878907582012-03-06T16:34:00.001-06:002012-03-06T17:45:03.784-06:00New research on Pikaia from Simon Conway Morris and Jean-Bernard Caron.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik53ydQ1axUoflcZ5zJE9Wqu9ybYy7RRMF1w7QOIe-ePUVTMVKpmh6tcyxTk1aVPdGJW5AvN5N_yYpigEMQPaHR4z8vcOl9PQMA6ar9s7o1t-eP8jVXHer7ARtgnrerjiufmiX8eQAbxU/s1600/pikaia.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik53ydQ1axUoflcZ5zJE9Wqu9ybYy7RRMF1w7QOIe-ePUVTMVKpmh6tcyxTk1aVPdGJW5AvN5N_yYpigEMQPaHR4z8vcOl9PQMA6ar9s7o1t-eP8jVXHer7ARtgnrerjiufmiX8eQAbxU/s1600/pikaia.tiff" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">In <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; line-height: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1631218773">Pikaia gracilens</a></i></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 14px;"><i><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-185X.2012.00220.x/abstract"> Walcott, a stem-group chordate from the Middle Cambrian of British Columbia</a></i>,</span> published online March 4, 2012, Simon Conway Morris and Jean-Bernard Caron </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">confirmed that Pikaia was a chordate after all. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">They looked at the anatomy of 114 specimens of Pikaia (I thought there were only 16 known Pikaias!)and found myomeres, v-shaped blocks of skeletal tissue that are only found in chordates. The scientists also found evidence of a vascular system, and found that at least part of the alimentary canal was preserved in almost every specimen. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Externally, Pikaia was mostly just a flattened, tie-shaped body tapering from a tiny head. It had tentacles on its head, two antennae, and a thin dorsal fin. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">What was first thought to be the notochord in Pikaia is now interpreted as a "dorsal organ," which was possibly hollow. This doesn't mean there's no notochord. Under this dorsal organ there is a thread of tissue that is now interpreted as the notochord and nerve chord. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I've only read the abstract, but when I read the actual article I'll learn more information. </span>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-29620818566675752582012-03-02T07:59:00.002-06:002012-03-02T11:39:49.867-06:00Chicago After The Field Museum (Part 4 of 4): Shedd Aquarium.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I went to Shedd Aquarium and it was so cool. They had an exhibit on jellyfish, which I was excited about. They had really weird jellyfish. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">They had a really big tank full of moon jellies and it was packed. There were jellyfish in a huge swarm and each had a bell that was about one foot across. I could even see the orange food that they had eaten because they were so transparent. It was all up inside their stomach, which is in the center of the jellyfish.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZO1-GvrkK2RVfJ6VpqhlT4qE73_3aROxQwWs51GhyphenhyphenE8N5Cert6H5M10A0eW4ivKHMz9FQrAFL7_4n6GGvKF1RlJ0ZODbV4DRWQF-VJh-eQwpW0ppTgm_FLWc1kXPi4JnUOjvH7FyospA/s1600/IMG_0502.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZO1-GvrkK2RVfJ6VpqhlT4qE73_3aROxQwWs51GhyphenhyphenE8N5Cert6H5M10A0eW4ivKHMz9FQrAFL7_4n6GGvKF1RlJ0ZODbV4DRWQF-VJh-eQwpW0ppTgm_FLWc1kXPi4JnUOjvH7FyospA/s1600/IMG_0502.jpg" width="340" /></a></div><br />
The moon jellies were so cool that we took a video of them:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzXGubss9Rao0t3weXXY6NNDITi-kFLVmpg1HlyabG3TBZVUVOZhepOH52gq2657JAkoHtnD6vU-_O5htF4TQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
Jellyfish have been around since the Cambrian Period, and I have a couple of fossilized jellyfish from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_1OxowmNJsQBG0PN4zqlRkCTtp9xC6pLx9_kGmMi8Y11zvB-pAQYI5Dh1Ls8GkNjCMxIWK4hqRKVTBn40cHbwC4a2KcLuToSgzHhjexM9Onoa2-au4HeS5P-aUIUU9cwzfTDAMNmfCss/s1600/IMG_0503.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_1OxowmNJsQBG0PN4zqlRkCTtp9xC6pLx9_kGmMi8Y11zvB-pAQYI5Dh1Ls8GkNjCMxIWK4hqRKVTBn40cHbwC4a2KcLuToSgzHhjexM9Onoa2-au4HeS5P-aUIUU9cwzfTDAMNmfCss/s400/IMG_0503.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
These are sea nettle jellyfish. Their pulses looked very strong, and that probably helps them drawn water into their bell with plankton, and then push out all the plankton onto their tentacles, where it is then stung and killed, and then fed to the mouth.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiimm_ER8Hg8sqZcRLjZr-5Qx9uHjc2Vps5GGfSewwxLMFWh3SyaVekptWCAyKRHvAXPF3plQuuR_kg4NA46Dv3MipDLNgKJnbPgdgAuSCYNkCjyjfJHlvZnYHUE1oG2v1qC16uEFcSjag/s1600/IMG_0504.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiimm_ER8Hg8sqZcRLjZr-5Qx9uHjc2Vps5GGfSewwxLMFWh3SyaVekptWCAyKRHvAXPF3plQuuR_kg4NA46Dv3MipDLNgKJnbPgdgAuSCYNkCjyjfJHlvZnYHUE1oG2v1qC16uEFcSjag/s400/IMG_0504.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
These are upside-down jellyfish, a very bizarre kind of jellyfish that spends almost its whole life stuck upside-down to the bottom of the ocean (hence the name upside-down jellyfish). Although this is for a reason. They have algae living inside their bodies which gives them food. In turn, the jellyfish stick upside-down to the bottom and face the light, which helps the algae grow. They have a symbiotic relationship with the algae.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-19yVPIhIt5hgDUO2DWF5cM6WK0rfT2NEijP96LfA3QhbVW4yQ35FefCGQCfJXYBEPHz3wNF3JlMzzmfwk4zWsbN8-wtsqSniqsveFOpUi0F50cYjroC_Zkj3g0XYW9BrX5BE9K1Y7Iw/s1600/IMG_0505.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-19yVPIhIt5hgDUO2DWF5cM6WK0rfT2NEijP96LfA3QhbVW4yQ35FefCGQCfJXYBEPHz3wNF3JlMzzmfwk4zWsbN8-wtsqSniqsveFOpUi0F50cYjroC_Zkj3g0XYW9BrX5BE9K1Y7Iw/s400/IMG_0505.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">These are called hairy jellyfish, which is obvious when you look at their tentacles, which are very thin and hair-like. They also were very slow, and there was a lot of time between each pulse. They look a lot like some deep sea jellyfish, and they also look like box jellyfish a little bit. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr4rEQOwFoSgnsAJkNx1faTjRjk42bOzvPewMaGzhBnIP9D_emZRjla7DmdNmP5fHGSdcvr8gwO_yM8M5gBwbsUty9Qck0Tl8-zVTA98jMItzeilz9rU1zLuzC7tpF4FscajFNb5Nuync/s1600/IMG_0507.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr4rEQOwFoSgnsAJkNx1faTjRjk42bOzvPewMaGzhBnIP9D_emZRjla7DmdNmP5fHGSdcvr8gwO_yM8M5gBwbsUty9Qck0Tl8-zVTA98jMItzeilz9rU1zLuzC7tpF4FscajFNb5Nuync/s400/IMG_0507.jpg" width="298" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;">This is a video of Pacific sea nettle jellyfish, a larger species of sea nettle than the ones in the photograph I previously mentioned. It's a really cool video. The jellyfish seem even stronger than the other sea nettles, and they are certainly formidable predators of copepods and other plankton. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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This photograph is of two arapaimas, a type of fish from the Amazon River that grows to ten feet long, and is also a living fossil that has its origins in the Cretaceous. The related arowana is also a living fossil. They had those at Shedd Aquarium, but I didn't get a picture. They were about one or two feet long.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNO2thqWwQpQiU_69JbC7cqKj5cR3yW99W_bnQuUh2mk33DAiBVJ4axVmesW_8nS-kJATgbZ-X0qqa0DrmYePxkH_zm2ufChJPPTuDCaD7nO5kfq6Q9sqe0VeWobxJ-zqyEJGPlXXvIXk/s1600/IMG_0510.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNO2thqWwQpQiU_69JbC7cqKj5cR3yW99W_bnQuUh2mk33DAiBVJ4axVmesW_8nS-kJATgbZ-X0qqa0DrmYePxkH_zm2ufChJPPTuDCaD7nO5kfq6Q9sqe0VeWobxJ-zqyEJGPlXXvIXk/s400/IMG_0510.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
This is a picture of me posing next to a freshwater stingray from the Amazon River. It is stuck to the glass, and its mouth and gills are clearly visible. I thought the freshwater stingrays were really amazing.<br />
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This was a huge life-sized model of an arapaima, which shows just how big they can get. The scales were huge.<br />
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This is an image of a huge school of cardinal tetras, a fish from the Amazon River which is commonly found at pet stores, probably because of how beautiful the shimmering swarms of them can be. I could see them from a long way away. They were so bright. It's almost like they were glowing.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGipRh1P1BfX79v5TxVcQo9GJOKpHMeOXnff797BN3bM1d-ZTDqA1yXw1BlnZMhrpbrCv8N2FBMEqLLBc6wRYOtGloNY0zqRT7OG8wiPD2fISbD74M8QXJZmE0ocoFxWm5GfYjWExY7c4/s1600/IMG_0515.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGipRh1P1BfX79v5TxVcQo9GJOKpHMeOXnff797BN3bM1d-ZTDqA1yXw1BlnZMhrpbrCv8N2FBMEqLLBc6wRYOtGloNY0zqRT7OG8wiPD2fISbD74M8QXJZmE0ocoFxWm5GfYjWExY7c4/s400/IMG_0515.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
This image shows a moray eel, a beautiful marine eel that grows to ten feet long.<br />
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We also saw some electric eels, a type of knifefish that can grow to eight feet long, which makes it the largest knifefish species. They are also deadly because they can shock up to 650 volts.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFa5_cTmlP4d7g4Gi0x7jW7OUxKXYcxW0_ih_Qyar_esLbWBU_Z4aS9L86BUCjUxyVpr9IcAo_dd7beEEDMYeCZcdGOiEY30-4HT1JTE2EhNPDnqLoHX5dD7HrV6qJDzGj3D9YFQsQ6aU/s1600/IMG_0514.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFa5_cTmlP4d7g4Gi0x7jW7OUxKXYcxW0_ih_Qyar_esLbWBU_Z4aS9L86BUCjUxyVpr9IcAo_dd7beEEDMYeCZcdGOiEY30-4HT1JTE2EhNPDnqLoHX5dD7HrV6qJDzGj3D9YFQsQ6aU/s400/IMG_0514.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
They had a giant spider crab, the biggest species of crab in the world. In the wild they are often found in the deep sea where they have an opportunistic lifestyle, picking up and eating any scrap of edible debris they can find.<br />
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The next day it was time to leave Chicago, and I really didn't want to go. It was so sad to leave.<br />
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We went to the airport and the Kronosaurus had to go through the X-ray two times for some reason.<br />
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I couldn't stop reading my new book.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Art had a ton of new experiences and a fantastic time in Chicago. A million thanks to: Paul Mayer, Jane Hanna, University of Chicago Secular Student Alliance, Stephen & Kayla & Greta, Casey, Mike, Dave Monroe, PZ Myers, and the 72 incredible people who pitched in to help fund our trip to the Field Museum.</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-53266354664888295032012-02-29T08:02:00.005-06:002012-02-29T08:15:59.270-06:00The Field Museum (Part 3 of 4): Birthday and the Burgess Shale Screen.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">When we woke up in the museum after <a href="http://fieldmuseum.org/happening/programs/overnights">Dozin' with the Dinos</a>, I quickly looked around again in Evolving Planet. Then we went back to the hotel to celebrate my birthday.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW2il4FVTw7WP4bHQAcJyTac6Pv-qY5VCioJAwYROZlLKaWw9Zsz4pPr5ENck2wrTmEAQJn3fOiDpCYDnBgW6WxnTihXFBgY9orA68TQltQZ-x1OfFNUa_Qt0fwhE0m7KlsrhMkWjJeIA/s1600/100_3450.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW2il4FVTw7WP4bHQAcJyTac6Pv-qY5VCioJAwYROZlLKaWw9Zsz4pPr5ENck2wrTmEAQJn3fOiDpCYDnBgW6WxnTihXFBgY9orA68TQltQZ-x1OfFNUa_Qt0fwhE0m7KlsrhMkWjJeIA/s1600/100_3450.JPG" width="300" /></a></div></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Stephen brought me a birthday cake with a spotted lagoon jellyfish and a sea nettle jellyfish on it. I got some presents, like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-What-Fossils-Say-Matters/dp/0231139624/ref=sr_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330194209&sr=1-12">this</a> and <a href="http://www.giantmicrobes.com/us/products/copepod.html">this</a> from my parents, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ocean-American-Museum-Natural-History/dp/0756636922/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330194243&sr=1-1">this</a> from Stephen, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Symphonies-Overtures-Birgit-Nilsson/dp/B000002SC8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1330194562&sr=8-3">this</a> from <a href="http://www.funnybookbabylon.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/b545d083671bc181e274f2287b36b935101234461.jpg">Dave</a>. Then we went back to the Field Museum. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBDd49qF5lsMh8LW9cQv5DQkQLJ0p5CAsoQvNB4XQHJrIc-WH21oTAY6_kEUD7xz-4QWQ5BFqyv5n3Xwsox11s82IWdpu0wFZiVmTB1_g9J1lXPIdeIkojOC0fl4lHrGANhM4TLMzIo7Y/s1600/IMG_0543.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBDd49qF5lsMh8LW9cQv5DQkQLJ0p5CAsoQvNB4XQHJrIc-WH21oTAY6_kEUD7xz-4QWQ5BFqyv5n3Xwsox11s82IWdpu0wFZiVmTB1_g9J1lXPIdeIkojOC0fl4lHrGANhM4TLMzIo7Y/s1600/IMG_0543.JPG" width="272" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">There's a Burgess Shale video with three screens in Evolving Planet that makes it seem like the creatures are in a huge aquarium. On our first night at the museum, the screen wasn't on and I was very disappointed. We thought it might be broken because somebody told us that. But when we went back the next day it was on! </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB0COePUJ36Z658tXarHXKDTHFcmgpAapdc3fyO5PeZzv-DZ-mjqeZyPzze7SJaS-rHyIPglGdc5xHpmPaU9pEo__iHe1KWbSNXEfBy0LE4TRgeInEl7SmSMvBq5YNW6BE7v1rBtI44fY/s1600/100_3465.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB0COePUJ36Z658tXarHXKDTHFcmgpAapdc3fyO5PeZzv-DZ-mjqeZyPzze7SJaS-rHyIPglGdc5xHpmPaU9pEo__iHe1KWbSNXEfBy0LE4TRgeInEl7SmSMvBq5YNW6BE7v1rBtI44fY/s1600/100_3465.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"></div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Here is <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/08/pikaia.html">Pikaia</a> swimming past. It happens to be about to swim over some <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/ottoia.html">Ottoia</a> burrows. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzVVphKykzYdZ2ZF4SKK9bP5IdAojiuk0PjER14rm0IWuaOfuMnIfofwsQeXd1hngF5-33GmLf9wFYjvHeB0K8-EAwT-ht9fuDdgKOfP8DNVOvy4CK1uA2EDF4DbqV1pw6L8FA1a9MCQg/s1600/IMG_0492.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzVVphKykzYdZ2ZF4SKK9bP5IdAojiuk0PjER14rm0IWuaOfuMnIfofwsQeXd1hngF5-33GmLf9wFYjvHeB0K8-EAwT-ht9fuDdgKOfP8DNVOvy4CK1uA2EDF4DbqV1pw6L8FA1a9MCQg/s1600/IMG_0492.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">For some reason we didn't take a video of the screen, but it was really cool. Here is <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/opabinia.html">Opabinia</a> (in the lower left corner) and <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/wiwaxia.html">Wiwaxia</a> (in the middle). </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVMeFtZ7mo0CgTeL49W3p1lHkPPIPPx8WmCuiRIXq1Z0jf6G85x6zto1ZtyiWxYqT7d8F-dCRezGME5foWeHRZnzF7qh6qkFX1SnYqUwtl0oK0Ta7BzuragfMXjGHARXaq-rw_ZUwxl3c/s1600/100_3462.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVMeFtZ7mo0CgTeL49W3p1lHkPPIPPx8WmCuiRIXq1Z0jf6G85x6zto1ZtyiWxYqT7d8F-dCRezGME5foWeHRZnzF7qh6qkFX1SnYqUwtl0oK0Ta7BzuragfMXjGHARXaq-rw_ZUwxl3c/s1600/100_3462.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I thought the Burgess Shale screen was really cool, and my two favorite parts where when the </span><a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/11/anomalocaris-part-2.html" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Anomalocaris</a><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> chased all the trilobites and got one, and when the Opabinia tried to catch an Ottoia. It finally caught one, but lost its grip and the worm quickly went back into its burrow. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Here's a picture of an Ottoia coming out of its burrow in the middle of the screen. It's blurred because it was moving so fast. It went back in as fast as it came out.</span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI8vFnwxhqyGBIAxfz3VlfmUPbQPEx254AdZ59I_0GjmRSRFlRxc2x3DGYOFXVmCX7sl8juMl9ki26YSkj2YOUUrBUJ7NkuYNTG8SpYydn_tkCD5ukYhyphenhyphen6GpCnpv-aO8G-OXoEvnkQT30/s1600/100_3467.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI8vFnwxhqyGBIAxfz3VlfmUPbQPEx254AdZ59I_0GjmRSRFlRxc2x3DGYOFXVmCX7sl8juMl9ki26YSkj2YOUUrBUJ7NkuYNTG8SpYydn_tkCD5ukYhyphenhyphen6GpCnpv-aO8G-OXoEvnkQT30/s1600/100_3467.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This picture is really cool, and not to mention the quote from Charles Darwin is amazing. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgifnKJjZOHL9fEkvu_cB7AuT67UdmtSuRNxttBAKlPw9MFXPcNwl6QjC_B4zvYEVKUQEMKtqR009JiMXVqIDOGFJMN7RUW5nWr0XwUPNna43fnEcJtCfg9KiSJLwBg978XLhHfpw0ekI4/s1600/100_3471.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgifnKJjZOHL9fEkvu_cB7AuT67UdmtSuRNxttBAKlPw9MFXPcNwl6QjC_B4zvYEVKUQEMKtqR009JiMXVqIDOGFJMN7RUW5nWr0XwUPNna43fnEcJtCfg9KiSJLwBg978XLhHfpw0ekI4/s1600/100_3471.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Stephen took us to <a href="http://www.sushisamba.com/index.cfm/id/10/id2/28.html">SushiSamba</a> and it was great. I had sushi for the first time. I got octopus and freshwater eel and I loved it. I also had tuna, striped bass, and crab. I wanted to get sea urchin but they didn't have it that day. </span></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBv2K5N2LIS0E7d305ZSU3QaztDiK-AEzjEjKDGLR9EtbK-VZhF0X5w8daQZuZ0yymuIlFCD8lF5GDUzId-4W5pXj65C1_ONUKi1f0_blc3TJ9LFr2K-_IKTKlf6lXQ2lc1y_TuVB77ew/s1600/IMG_0521.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBv2K5N2LIS0E7d305ZSU3QaztDiK-AEzjEjKDGLR9EtbK-VZhF0X5w8daQZuZ0yymuIlFCD8lF5GDUzId-4W5pXj65C1_ONUKi1f0_blc3TJ9LFr2K-_IKTKlf6lXQ2lc1y_TuVB77ew/s1600/IMG_0521.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sushi platter.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi91wyQrrsZmuws9c1VesFxH0VYyHiKYABJpDWSLpoAb6Hj-eGxfTywtsKQMY8aMaiQcPy3MFlTKk-RKD7JyHI1R8FlvfMf7W2K6zU2pmRij4k6RxUC6Adp5ahtu3DUY7rrU8T2dU671SQ/s1600/IMG_0523.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi91wyQrrsZmuws9c1VesFxH0VYyHiKYABJpDWSLpoAb6Hj-eGxfTywtsKQMY8aMaiQcPy3MFlTKk-RKD7JyHI1R8FlvfMf7W2K6zU2pmRij4k6RxUC6Adp5ahtu3DUY7rrU8T2dU671SQ/s1600/IMG_0523.jpg" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Freshwater eel. </td></tr>
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</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">We went to see "The Bean," which is really called <a href="http://explorechicago.org/city/en/things_see_do/attractions/dca_tourism/MP_orinigal.html">Cloud Gate</a>. It's a giant stainless steel sculpture that's about as old as me. It was designed by Anish Kapoor and I thought it was really cool. The night we were there there was a light show, and I was jumping on the lights. The lights were reflecting off The Bean and The Bean was reflecting the lights of the city and all the people. You could see Chicago just by looking at The Bean. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7xn5JmX_R6wMaVM9_t5Yt5T5Gnjk9ANkg91AWblSzatcnUNOGAOC4cU0Gr94zuOlMyArhF6AjqOgxXEvz01oc6SZiKYgw6tzjW2ZMAXTSckWWsHljBspAifH2w6Vvg_I_-1adIGqB1Q/s1600/IMG_0534.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7xn5JmX_R6wMaVM9_t5Yt5T5Gnjk9ANkg91AWblSzatcnUNOGAOC4cU0Gr94zuOlMyArhF6AjqOgxXEvz01oc6SZiKYgw6tzjW2ZMAXTSckWWsHljBspAifH2w6Vvg_I_-1adIGqB1Q/s1600/IMG_0534.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Here I'm underneath The Bean and Stephen is holding me up so I can see my reflection at the top of The Bean. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibfyaEdiSwM5j9wTBDIg9795rp-lDrQ9L5iMym0aRjfcW0-AyJj5io7ogGedm0OJoOpvCnf35gxmzGzjuVZzdxhpDlUDzqf3zB8Wrn_FpE4QQJVs9hNkb3vfIUi2_s3P0ZsdJywSmkpQE/s1600/photo+(1).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibfyaEdiSwM5j9wTBDIg9795rp-lDrQ9L5iMym0aRjfcW0-AyJj5io7ogGedm0OJoOpvCnf35gxmzGzjuVZzdxhpDlUDzqf3zB8Wrn_FpE4QQJVs9hNkb3vfIUi2_s3P0ZsdJywSmkpQE/s1600/photo+(1).JPG" width="298" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Behind me and Kayla is a big sculpture made of glass blocks with lights inside. On the sculpture there was a face and it was actually moving. In the summertime, Stephen said the face squirts water out of its mouth, and people can play in it. That's kind of cool, and I think a sculpture with a moving face is kind of weirdly hilarious.</span> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1r5xuX4qIa-0_dKCjUrr0DY0TrlXISZgJt_m_FKoDEB6EApbMOZ11IJGEMJnlE9ohDq3sLJQqKy3oLl0PdUECqLsYP746z9uk-4JNuwTravpF55vH97_CzMwjNini8Pn69blrzKTX9d4/s1600/photo+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1r5xuX4qIa-0_dKCjUrr0DY0TrlXISZgJt_m_FKoDEB6EApbMOZ11IJGEMJnlE9ohDq3sLJQqKy3oLl0PdUECqLsYP746z9uk-4JNuwTravpF55vH97_CzMwjNini8Pn69blrzKTX9d4/s1600/photo+(2).JPG" width="281" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Thanks so much to Stephen, Kayla, and Dave for traveling to meet us in Chicago. I had an awesome birthday. I like Chicago better than where I live!</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Next up:</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br />
</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Part 4 of 4: Bonus day at Shedd Aquarium!</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br />
</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">A million thanks to: Paul Mayer, Jane Hanna, University of Chicago Secular Student Alliance, Stephen & Kayla & Greta, Casey, Mike, Dave Monroe, PZ Myers, and the 72 incredible people who pitched in to help fund our trip to the Field Museum.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"> </span></i><br />
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</div></div></div>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-36028753240115104992012-02-28T08:10:00.002-06:002012-02-28T08:21:02.628-06:00The Field Museum (Part 2 of 4): Behind the Scenes in the Collections Room!<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">My friend <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/RCA_Indian_Head_test_pattern.JPG">Dave Monroe</a> introduced me to <a href="http://fieldmuseum.org/users/paul-mayer">Paul Mayer</a>, the Fossil Invertebrate Collections Manager at the <a href="http://archive.fieldmuseum.org/evolvingplanet/allabout.asp">Field Museum</a>. Paul gave me a tour of the invertebrate fossils behind the scenes. The room was full of cabinets and drawers with around two million fossils in all. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizmtEn_6-m0n__28u9sgH7SXcADP-woiB1h4-h5YVXNAwMoP9xnUJq5L-taqmjg3FPXkk6dKRCYK0KuMHD4onT6KwC-kt8xj58JvY4qJsYc2SvD4uipPP_h3rouM-Kshjkwd3_5ED-fVo/s1600/100_3441.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizmtEn_6-m0n__28u9sgH7SXcADP-woiB1h4-h5YVXNAwMoP9xnUJq5L-taqmjg3FPXkk6dKRCYK0KuMHD4onT6KwC-kt8xj58JvY4qJsYc2SvD4uipPP_h3rouM-Kshjkwd3_5ED-fVo/s1600/100_3441.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><div><br />
<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">These drawers are full of Lecthaylus gregarius, which is a Silurian worm that could be a priapulid.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEHTeKuX4WflJeSDhzpi8iE67n9HDH1K-MgJm6x0beZUbh1L0m8VBOnAMeqjKX-g8h42dNY0yzb2fqwQpI-N7QUvv9Bz28mohgY5sadGxvVJxydGgF2ImKSaabjvEW4p80Q7giGWMu7nc/s1600/100_3434.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEHTeKuX4WflJeSDhzpi8iE67n9HDH1K-MgJm6x0beZUbh1L0m8VBOnAMeqjKX-g8h42dNY0yzb2fqwQpI-N7QUvv9Bz28mohgY5sadGxvVJxydGgF2ImKSaabjvEW4p80Q7giGWMu7nc/s1600/100_3434.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Lecthaylus gregarius</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Paul showed me a huge slab of rock which was covered in <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/07/canadaspis.html">Canadaspis</a> perfecta fossils, some with the tail preserved.</span></div></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Px5ilaEAazFa7ZxxpUWFqcmxsuElv-90yNgxdkpfxSACmZDHZHX_325baA1PE9kzyXEJGnNQDS7iqyR2YYPuCo5V47rrb-dvvVM-x2PxgYbS6nUN9mvBNgxFDuFCLUuyjeDJm84p7Bw/s1600/100_3425.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Px5ilaEAazFa7ZxxpUWFqcmxsuElv-90yNgxdkpfxSACmZDHZHX_325baA1PE9kzyXEJGnNQDS7iqyR2YYPuCo5V47rrb-dvvVM-x2PxgYbS6nUN9mvBNgxFDuFCLUuyjeDJm84p7Bw/s1600/100_3425.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This is a single fossil of Canadaspis perfecta, preserving only the headshield, or carapace.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikI93oTFuolY-XttXuL5FBGdaQ2r_dyUDMdIHxukSIbQeLS_LMqpxKlUW-gPI_BxF5nIBHf_uDtD6JT39HwpCDdKeE4G0Vyc87J9JRD_YeWKp50xa6UH_ClEi4dxaOiQFCOqN9HKF4jN0/s1600/100_3426.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikI93oTFuolY-XttXuL5FBGdaQ2r_dyUDMdIHxukSIbQeLS_LMqpxKlUW-gPI_BxF5nIBHf_uDtD6JT39HwpCDdKeE4G0Vyc87J9JRD_YeWKp50xa6UH_ClEi4dxaOiQFCOqN9HKF4jN0/s1600/100_3426.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This is a huge slab of rock containing fossils of the Burgess Shale enigmatic animal, Pollingeria. The Field Museum had Burgess Shale fossils which I had never actually seen except in pictures or behind glass. Some of these Burgess Shale fossils were found by Charles Doolittle Walcott, who gave them to the Field Museum. I got to touch some of the fossils, which was really cool.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUFxw6yAbx5XsNPggRxJqPbQ3JJYn5rYsxK0Ib4OuOYIecr7oJvHDnQERE8y4u0HeYZQwzJPeDHoVrX2eoTyZdDYsAvc_x5A1wgflUr6JHUzjWqB8SdhbXYfx-qVH5tYlMtNh9loqvKo0/s1600/100_3427.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUFxw6yAbx5XsNPggRxJqPbQ3JJYn5rYsxK0Ib4OuOYIecr7oJvHDnQERE8y4u0HeYZQwzJPeDHoVrX2eoTyZdDYsAvc_x5A1wgflUr6JHUzjWqB8SdhbXYfx-qVH5tYlMtNh9loqvKo0/s1600/100_3427.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This is a very rare fossil of just the eyebar of <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/07/tullimonstrum-tully-monster.html">Tullimonstrum</a> gregarium. Tullimonstrom was found in the Mazon Creek in Illinois, and the Field Museum has the biggest collection of Mazon Creek fossils in the world. The Field Museum has the type specimens of Tullimonstrum in the collections room, and the Holotype was on display. These were so rare that I couldn't touch them. But Paul showed them to me.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1oQZHFCQujRWtoU67v6EkIM8m0mnRGlvXI9F9Xc7F6cZy6I2-vB4Vh768OGmat0SrDDI7bmQGaBCQsPdPU9XxyDwiK1_aDKGiRpyxo9N1rXXsnX8TqV30yWhMpbuLyb8rzvkhpYXkjbA/s1600/100_3429.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1oQZHFCQujRWtoU67v6EkIM8m0mnRGlvXI9F9Xc7F6cZy6I2-vB4Vh768OGmat0SrDDI7bmQGaBCQsPdPU9XxyDwiK1_aDKGiRpyxo9N1rXXsnX8TqV30yWhMpbuLyb8rzvkhpYXkjbA/s1600/100_3429.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This is a very rare example of a Tullimonstrum with the proboscis complete. It also has the eyebar intact, and part of the body. This fossil of Tullimonstrum was amazing.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVG12_qjCU_b_BJvmUZr3At3MTAcUyEA8cGRr8xnr-0csncYv71QPs7Yc0QblySiR8AA_BwDiNiFOSxnmmsaA6MQL81_2YEfB_IWw1ZyF2SrKtNM7Yz4mGY4NqvQtCwrNQwG-D04zR1E/s1600/100_3430.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKVG12_qjCU_b_BJvmUZr3At3MTAcUyEA8cGRr8xnr-0csncYv71QPs7Yc0QblySiR8AA_BwDiNiFOSxnmmsaA6MQL81_2YEfB_IWw1ZyF2SrKtNM7Yz4mGY4NqvQtCwrNQwG-D04zR1E/s1600/100_3430.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Paul said this was his favorite Tullimonstrum. It was curving its long proboscis, and showed that Tullimonstrum was probably very flexible and did not have a shell.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiObN-B1thBr-MaoDyrSrijbLlrnlN3SWT2Lh3AOnGks8qz10iaAyJZTrzxuX-Hq8YNRq7Fp2fY68L0OFoPcs32fjcXdo5qmOwwIoo58enuIDhPmbhPFMMMME69A0wqDF3wNqF4nRDgcUQ/s1600/100_3431.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiObN-B1thBr-MaoDyrSrijbLlrnlN3SWT2Lh3AOnGks8qz10iaAyJZTrzxuX-Hq8YNRq7Fp2fY68L0OFoPcs32fjcXdo5qmOwwIoo58enuIDhPmbhPFMMMME69A0wqDF3wNqF4nRDgcUQ/s1600/100_3431.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3J7XdJwkDYFgPQi9mXQRCKn2IPx24k6mAqzxQ3KiIM86o0K66FXYA6VAuWWZVRJpC_mdBRMOdDvKg36ZLSmlFBHftWuH58IL-TvwQy5EgYGUouRZATSf8NxeOvLKiMDlztiaueGa8COA/s1600/100_3436.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3J7XdJwkDYFgPQi9mXQRCKn2IPx24k6mAqzxQ3KiIM86o0K66FXYA6VAuWWZVRJpC_mdBRMOdDvKg36ZLSmlFBHftWuH58IL-TvwQy5EgYGUouRZATSf8NxeOvLKiMDlztiaueGa8COA/s1600/100_3436.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">My mom thinks the note on this drawer is funny, but I don't.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This slab of rock contains Uintacrinus, a Cretaceous crinoid from Kansas that did not have a stalk. Instead, they floated about in mid-water, usually in huge colonies like this one. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlESlSIQ0ZniWduEHmmSf17t5USUBRoFah76RpEKfeSqvF_i043G4Ur_5f-t46b-W-jiloMCYiAZCdLVsM493S5w-iFnfcuTTlBlm1EjnEzGk01mD5Ffe-RcqJddtrINpLDWs8dZU8w7A/s1600/100_3437.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlESlSIQ0ZniWduEHmmSf17t5USUBRoFah76RpEKfeSqvF_i043G4Ur_5f-t46b-W-jiloMCYiAZCdLVsM493S5w-iFnfcuTTlBlm1EjnEzGk01mD5Ffe-RcqJddtrINpLDWs8dZU8w7A/s1600/100_3437.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">These are multiple fossils of holothurians, or sea cucumbers. They were found in the Mazon Creek and were from the Carboniferous Period. They differ little from the sea cucumbers alive today. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjshQ2D3z-HIZqKxBkr40hU52rQLjD81Mjw_oDBA3ZsIZiH7JxqlLRDf7ffGlDkXk-i0lRovLcCS713LarpS4ITFW6PST_nfuarhVCSpY-dOfurb-AniYQXVva7sCz_bX94TOYiC4VZuUs/s1600/100_3439.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjshQ2D3z-HIZqKxBkr40hU52rQLjD81Mjw_oDBA3ZsIZiH7JxqlLRDf7ffGlDkXk-i0lRovLcCS713LarpS4ITFW6PST_nfuarhVCSpY-dOfurb-AniYQXVva7sCz_bX94TOYiC4VZuUs/s1600/100_3439.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">A whole drawer of <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/05/arthropleura.html">Arthropleura</a> fossils! Some of these are what looks to me like the mandibles, and the others were of the plates on Arthropleura's sides. All the Arthropleura fossils in this drawer were of Arthropleura cristata. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX-8PZbZCnE6LL55cgs4ohftFs4h0A0JPrCJMYjvWb35Y9JjTKsNXagE2A7VAc4Huht1ps7g3f1tm58k_2oTbDv4GOxw6_9DoYr3bjn8sn9aOjc1kpojVAKqgK-F6TuvHRlQfBlrwQOHQ/s1600/100_3443.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX-8PZbZCnE6LL55cgs4ohftFs4h0A0JPrCJMYjvWb35Y9JjTKsNXagE2A7VAc4Huht1ps7g3f1tm58k_2oTbDv4GOxw6_9DoYr3bjn8sn9aOjc1kpojVAKqgK-F6TuvHRlQfBlrwQOHQ/s1600/100_3443.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">In this picture I'm holding a fossil of the side plate of Arthropleura. I thought it was really cool to hold a real Arthropleura fossil. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNPHoaAl8sHxWJeuYZiSgVrBmcxJAaC_5-eKVBntoBL9vbh0l2vu2j0_ad9ZMxmeXelqoey3Iq2ddE_7181cq1MI6IR0omVsvVepvriWS_l1KVU6wK1nxF_dhDbUvK0jZNyuhzKq8vihU/s1600/100_3445_2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNPHoaAl8sHxWJeuYZiSgVrBmcxJAaC_5-eKVBntoBL9vbh0l2vu2j0_ad9ZMxmeXelqoey3Iq2ddE_7181cq1MI6IR0omVsvVepvriWS_l1KVU6wK1nxF_dhDbUvK0jZNyuhzKq8vihU/s1600/100_3445_2.JPG" width="246" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Another view of the Arthropleura fossil. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuKpy-gjpl2Va_9aAdxXu1rBrEftYukEkQtSBaZZ9VKm56zm6vdVgTffQKcegjJe2BQk-9bLzP6R2UzCPNpHocTSX_xRALZJABbBsyUmc80I1TPtZnYYZTXUUqZBuF4g-SPtR8uBeNjY8/s1600/100_3446.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuKpy-gjpl2Va_9aAdxXu1rBrEftYukEkQtSBaZZ9VKm56zm6vdVgTffQKcegjJe2BQk-9bLzP6R2UzCPNpHocTSX_xRALZJABbBsyUmc80I1TPtZnYYZTXUUqZBuF4g-SPtR8uBeNjY8/s1600/100_3446.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Paul was really nice, and he showed me what were probably the weirdest fossils I've ever seen.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I really didn't want to go to sleep because there were so many cool fossils on display. It was cool to go behind the scenes and to see the displays in the Field Museum. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Next up:</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br />
</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Part 3: Celebrating my birthday with...a second day at the Field Museum!</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;" /><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"><br />
</span><br style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;" /><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">A million thanks to: Paul Mayer, Jane Hanna, University of Chicago Secular Student Alliance, Stephen & Kayla & Greta, Casey, Mike, Dave Monroe, PZ Myers, and the 72 incredible people who pitched in to help fund our trip to the Field Museum.</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: -webkit-auto;"> </span></span></div><br />
</div></div>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-20089224726003141592012-02-23T06:14:00.008-06:002012-03-03T11:09:25.360-06:00The Field Museum (Part 1 of 4): Evolving Planet.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Thanks to the readers of my blog, I got to go to the <a href="http://fieldmuseum.org/">Field Museum</a> in Chicago for my birthday. I took an airplane there. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOmoOtXBR-rVMT7pXUS5efNBVzUEoHynWvyCPrSMTrIdWQlBrxPGNiRhTdIUumtKugQpsaYKdwSHOc7tfj-QxNzGSKkciZeusv_rm_rCYB-3Cz21VN3vj2uSv_Xg0gKf2VIajBdyizqNA/s1600/IMG_0483.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOmoOtXBR-rVMT7pXUS5efNBVzUEoHynWvyCPrSMTrIdWQlBrxPGNiRhTdIUumtKugQpsaYKdwSHOc7tfj-QxNzGSKkciZeusv_rm_rCYB-3Cz21VN3vj2uSv_Xg0gKf2VIajBdyizqNA/s1600/IMG_0483.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I stayed at a hotel downtown. In this picture I'm looking out the window at all the huge buildings and people and cars. On the window there was a sticker that said, "Due to a higher than normal insect population, we recommend keeping the windows closed." We kept the windows closed. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuBKbGaOn6d4oyM-HrXoRI1ZMj-fSGsu2EEOdh_RsOsV7I_-nwCsbajfIO5fQXGaUebjb-D57G32DukwePY-WDcYBamXtTS0chFGUckuKCgRthBN7H8BhkKPR6KAkS4pgD8d18wN29BNI/s1600/100_3385.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuBKbGaOn6d4oyM-HrXoRI1ZMj-fSGsu2EEOdh_RsOsV7I_-nwCsbajfIO5fQXGaUebjb-D57G32DukwePY-WDcYBamXtTS0chFGUckuKCgRthBN7H8BhkKPR6KAkS4pgD8d18wN29BNI/s400/100_3385.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I got to the Field Museum at 5:30 pm and waited to check in and stay overnight. </span><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Once we checked in, we put our sleeping bags down in the Cambrian area of the <a href="http://archive.fieldmuseum.org/evolvingplanet/">Evolving Planet</a> exhibit. After that, we looked around in Evolving Planet. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifGH30TAbVJhBrVY4OGuPiWsQEqQn-DzQ0U1-v6uElkTpPgPb_ZEgAFwDfl0kHfQV1xJEmkCD5AMcS9gcya_QEo4oxjKchOs8EDyMYSp1wp4ZkrOOM75XprcnhP40gZ6w9ECMsXt6A8Yg/s1600/IMG_0488.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifGH30TAbVJhBrVY4OGuPiWsQEqQn-DzQ0U1-v6uElkTpPgPb_ZEgAFwDfl0kHfQV1xJEmkCD5AMcS9gcya_QEo4oxjKchOs8EDyMYSp1wp4ZkrOOM75XprcnhP40gZ6w9ECMsXt6A8Yg/s1600/IMG_0488.jpg" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In front of the What is an Animal? exhibit</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I saw some fossils of Ordovician coral and also one fossil of a huge orthocone nautiloid which was probably about three feet long. </span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNvtRtZCmBICnufpl4kaRY4yxCimVKlHM_3Z-mvOBfdQOMxhcXreILIRlZutAGSmDfwx13P2evtkr7SuGWjGF9J_bBme5bwhlvWnHhXjenXNxf5feEhfs2FtBAAlf0G-FGQ-ki8ZqIMdA/s1600/100_3396.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="345" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNvtRtZCmBICnufpl4kaRY4yxCimVKlHM_3Z-mvOBfdQOMxhcXreILIRlZutAGSmDfwx13P2evtkr7SuGWjGF9J_bBme5bwhlvWnHhXjenXNxf5feEhfs2FtBAAlf0G-FGQ-ki8ZqIMdA/s400/100_3396.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Here I'm pointing at an illustration of a Devonian lake with Eusthenopteron, <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/07/bothriolepis.html">Bothriolepis</a>, a tetrapod in the background, and fish that I think are possible acanthodians. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaT1Od50Gnt6bw4YXmGDhQo56V7u2Z4UMW3c-Nf7HFrrBI-Hl0lXfDdUa2Z0APtDyeIWOMcoBDL_xCnldtKRfDcqCweCWpmSN_c-0SRMKkZE3aMfQJblSqSe9EcIZUNGIhqqtenem1JS8/s1600/100_3397.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="353" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaT1Od50Gnt6bw4YXmGDhQo56V7u2Z4UMW3c-Nf7HFrrBI-Hl0lXfDdUa2Z0APtDyeIWOMcoBDL_xCnldtKRfDcqCweCWpmSN_c-0SRMKkZE3aMfQJblSqSe9EcIZUNGIhqqtenem1JS8/s400/100_3397.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9LtOj3y5gU4BmxxBacan3mfi5dp7dDyzRaMhEZh5oUW5kJcQu6zA-jyPDAKDmI986St2rCnNCz3RUYTWR_8aFC1OZpKxK-RYAWVkc5wzabDq9pSdHagRlwciGDUbe9QWToP0xEj4VPM0/s1600/100_3394.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9LtOj3y5gU4BmxxBacan3mfi5dp7dDyzRaMhEZh5oUW5kJcQu6zA-jyPDAKDmI986St2rCnNCz3RUYTWR_8aFC1OZpKxK-RYAWVkc5wzabDq9pSdHagRlwciGDUbe9QWToP0xEj4VPM0/s400/100_3394.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ahhhhhhh!</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This was an exhibit full of all different kinds of trilobites. They had my four favorite trilobites: </span><a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/07/asaphus-kowalewskii.html" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Asaphus kowalewskii</a><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">, </span><a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/walliserops.html" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Walliserops</a><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">, Quadrops, and Psychopyge. It also had tiny agnostid trilobites called Peronopsis. The Peronopsis were fossilized in a group, and this is not uncommon, because I often see photos of gregarious agnostids. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ08kFA3Gb2sTkoOaVPYq5uJWThiXcV64hCpQ1X-eKunkOyYJvL_1LkB2wRJAmOPTcL2TLKOmh4jMnHR8Y5X6iGbZqMcbX2TXSr44N8F1J4Pru7_Jx7eU9c-49dJF6PWRkR-SK1WIdJw4/s1600/100_3400.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ08kFA3Gb2sTkoOaVPYq5uJWThiXcV64hCpQ1X-eKunkOyYJvL_1LkB2wRJAmOPTcL2TLKOmh4jMnHR8Y5X6iGbZqMcbX2TXSr44N8F1J4Pru7_Jx7eU9c-49dJF6PWRkR-SK1WIdJw4/s400/100_3400.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This is the jawless fish exhibit. In the middle is my favorite one, a huge <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/07/drepanaspis.html">Drepanaspis</a> fossil. There are also two tiny Tenaspis headshields, which look kind of like Bothriolepis without the arms or the jaws. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8faJLC-qAMDVkapcdrflGVMdwP23FVtJbhgI3Us21adYwiR6Z-17dD9rlXgFVQvoDtdOxOL_-Lfbe17XdZbzojCloZ2dY4jP9efga6qJeQJQQ2v8ilS6Me7u1Ldfh5ps1Dpz5_jzwlWk/s1600/100_3402.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8faJLC-qAMDVkapcdrflGVMdwP23FVtJbhgI3Us21adYwiR6Z-17dD9rlXgFVQvoDtdOxOL_-Lfbe17XdZbzojCloZ2dY4jP9efga6qJeQJQQ2v8ilS6Me7u1Ldfh5ps1Dpz5_jzwlWk/s400/100_3402.JPG" width="300" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This was a huge <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/05/dunkleosteus.html">Dunkleosteus</a> head shield that was even bigger than the one I saw at the Smithsonian. I slept right next to it because it turned out there was a glowing exit sign in the Cambrian exhibit. But I didn't mind sleeping next to Dunkleosteus! And I was close to a fossil of a huge Orodus shark that was approximately 25 feet long in life. There were also fossils of Stethacanthus, Symorium, <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2012/01/helicoprion-part-2.html">Helicoprion</a>, and Bandringa.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimMXe2XCioD99PzcOOL7sNNE_cTSO5Gefx8giuN8QmvNoylM6NdaaAH_TTbrcbSlT1ktH5rIJnxxQE_wSkEmlgqfMoFOqHU1gKgxOdzG2NzxoTp3ED90IEiONdpp62EKTI3Y9hL8TNMjA/s1600/100_3405.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimMXe2XCioD99PzcOOL7sNNE_cTSO5Gefx8giuN8QmvNoylM6NdaaAH_TTbrcbSlT1ktH5rIJnxxQE_wSkEmlgqfMoFOqHU1gKgxOdzG2NzxoTp3ED90IEiONdpp62EKTI3Y9hL8TNMjA/s400/100_3405.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Here are the fossils of Helicoprion (on the right), Bandringa (in the middle), and Stethacanthus (on the left). Helicoprion lived from the Carboniferous to the Triassic, Bandringa lived in the Carboniferous Mazon Creek, and Stehacanthus lived from the late Devonian to the early Carboniferous. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzVA2cyhNsZMvPq48uw4VvXcMFb0xJieZ_5Y0OjQwZ2mWTGoCD2ic2XKrBxEUKsYnIvo1x1esv5EUXZGFiwnZN7ZBeeRFKGnpVIuKSiscMyjU_xMSVgNGTtwndTFilciIdLu8vDmA1peM/s1600/100_3409.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzVA2cyhNsZMvPq48uw4VvXcMFb0xJieZ_5Y0OjQwZ2mWTGoCD2ic2XKrBxEUKsYnIvo1x1esv5EUXZGFiwnZN7ZBeeRFKGnpVIuKSiscMyjU_xMSVgNGTtwndTFilciIdLu8vDmA1peM/s400/100_3409.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I saw one of the only known fossils of <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/07/tiktaalik.html">Tiktaalik</a>, a bizarre tetrapod-like fish... </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVakZIAyImfek8SqAzoDFYTTXUyvOlLW_IGKOkUIpLFtb8E6PNEfIaY0t7oA0SuoohxEglEu94Fhi6hI7wnI2UQEzecfR-IYo1U0MDpBwgva9WSjMc11WPSlifgf7oJ6eKw3mFwzRcHFs/s1600/100_3411.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVakZIAyImfek8SqAzoDFYTTXUyvOlLW_IGKOkUIpLFtb8E6PNEfIaY0t7oA0SuoohxEglEu94Fhi6hI7wnI2UQEzecfR-IYo1U0MDpBwgva9WSjMc11WPSlifgf7oJ6eKw3mFwzRcHFs/s400/100_3411.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">...and the boomerang-shaped skull of <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/07/diplocaulus.html">Diplocaulus</a>, a strange amphibian from the late Carboniferous and early Permian. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9oZCuAuBeDH8UGF1CsqlK5ni0PjasqrfFrP7qAlhNOiMg6DMpdpy1wW5rw73gLu0zcTs8ak6Sz9H9KbEoiyEWXl3yiS7pXjLG1tFh7454D_VhTzLV5hAsZ1QoVZA5WuqVoh1dLjX_tSY/s1600/100_3423.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9oZCuAuBeDH8UGF1CsqlK5ni0PjasqrfFrP7qAlhNOiMg6DMpdpy1wW5rw73gLu0zcTs8ak6Sz9H9KbEoiyEWXl3yiS7pXjLG1tFh7454D_VhTzLV5hAsZ1QoVZA5WuqVoh1dLjX_tSY/s400/100_3423.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I really liked the Carboniferous Forest section of Evolving Planet. The most obvious thing there besides the plants was the four foot long <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/05/arthropleura.html">Arthropleura</a> on the floor. There were insect noises coming from up in the "trees." There was also a real fossil of Arthropleura cristata. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr7TPZecwjcH5vFHXSDGFItOxwGvbwEslObAPHA9VTf4KJGXvyQQmR-G94bzOf3lxfzL_YTmxX5D1JOwldOiTOYEicXnDWF6RLyhGaqSZjc_XpQISE_JGUxtJrD4HMIRXneqcVLsY2te4/s1600/IMG_0489.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr7TPZecwjcH5vFHXSDGFItOxwGvbwEslObAPHA9VTf4KJGXvyQQmR-G94bzOf3lxfzL_YTmxX5D1JOwldOiTOYEicXnDWF6RLyhGaqSZjc_XpQISE_JGUxtJrD4HMIRXneqcVLsY2te4/s1600/IMG_0489.jpg" width="296" /></a></div><div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">One of my favorite things in the whole museum was a pregnant ray, <strike>Heliobatis</strike> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterotrygon">Asterotrygon</a>. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw0nodWeLZ49e6vAERkAFlB9ejsbl5lstdK2WBZVWQ3oUu7eU8jk5pmHU7U-iZq6RhQjRT28rpa10eABEtSKw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Next up:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Part 2: My amazing behind-the-scenes tour of the collections room!</span><br />
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<i style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">A million thanks to: Paul Mayer, Jane Hanna, University of Chicago Secular Student Alliance, Stephen & Kayla & Greta, Casey, Mike, Dave Monroe, PZ Myers, and the 72 incredible people who pitched in to help fund our trip to the Field Museum.</i><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"> </span></div>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-29728216519162972352012-02-17T06:04:00.002-06:002012-02-29T12:12:13.042-06:00Cephalaspis.<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Cephalaspis (seff-uh-LAS-pis) was a bizarre-looking fish that lived in the early Devonian period in fresh water streams and estuaries. It had a horseshoe-shaped headshield, which it could have used for protection or for digging up prey. It probably dug up worms and other burrowing creatures to eat. There were also sensory organs on this headshield. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Cephalaspis could grow to about one foot long, about the size of a trout. The headshield probably would have slowed Cephalaspis down, because carrying around a heavy shield would be hard to do, even in water, especially for a small fish. Cephalaspis certainly wasn't very fast, so it probably would have relied on the tough head shield for defense. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://petrifiedwoodmuseum.org/SOGallery42.htm" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIubjlZjP4sp5mhcxy2J3c9uvE_yjWyBEAfVUyEMUIGx0CrKjpIrKY8RmtrghTi8AxU59xjV17tiaXEAKiohzZpaFeH-Lh3C26uLgzjmj-IQZLLA3HU3hlGDKT2zYzoKq9Lc7KWzEby2w/s400/CephalaspisLyelliDMNS560.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: xx-small;">©Copyright 2008 by Mike Viney</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Cephalaspis had two fins right behind the headshield, and also a long, powerful tail with what looks to me like muscle bands, similar to those on a lancelet. They were probably bottom dwellers, hiding among rocks and debris like modern catfish, sturgeon, and stingrays. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cephalaspis_2.jpg"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBgBqG-UzeQToUT2HriHFBm2xl5HfK9FNL77KtF68BGT0W67q0b8zbyX5ssW-qSZ5ssgWUgRnNJqN-e0DnkOLjJJU2C_umbxd9E5XsGSm6zV_ANIZyci6Uh_xoELmgRFaCDtFb_QaCJEA/s400/Cephalaspis_2.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Most fossils of armored fish only preserve the bony headshield, but in the case of Cephalaspis many fossils also reveal the tail. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Cephaslaspis was a jawless fish, so it probably had to eat very small prey. But with its bony headshield, it still could have been a formidable hunter of these tiny creatures. It could easily dig up these tiny burrowers with its head and then suck them in quickly, like a modern angel shark. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Cephalaspis probably had a similar lifestyle to <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/07/bothriolepis.html">Bothriolepis</a>, a bizarre placoderm from the late Devonian.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://members.fortunecity.com/reaverdragon/Paleontology/Silurian.html"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUL8wFHwIV7X98eU7sji1ipwcdwLGSRTUY9xZv0uJZIeV7hiy16kL42FXlHKIwgxH3MIpmVBfxDbfsCTzIcmScIoiU-cwgDG7DvsXrOoZVolHQqFbwOx5fFRwdqcqNbSIwuAXohHLtVI0/s1600/Cephalaspis.jpeg" /></a></div><br />
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References:<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalaspis">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalaspis</a><br />
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<a href="http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/tetrapodsandamphibians/p/cephalaspis.htm">http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/tetrapodsandamphibians/p/cephalaspis.htm</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/species/c/cephalaspis.html">http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/species/c/cephalaspis.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://palaeontology.palass-pubs.org/pdf/Vol%201/Pages%2099-105.pdf">http://palaeontology.palass-pubs.org/pdf/Vol%201/Pages%2099-105.pdf</a>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-53738583152867329092012-02-10T06:23:00.000-06:002012-02-10T06:23:07.713-06:00Louisella.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Louisella was a priapulid worm that has been found in the Burgess Shale in British Columbia. It was one foot long, which meant it was the largest priapulid in the Burgess Shale. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Louisella was a slender worm with feathery papillae running down the bottom of its body in two rows. These were possibly gills. It had a long proboscis on its head. Before the proboscis it had a ring of spikes pointing forward, which I think kind of looks like a crown. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Like most Cambrian priapulids, Louisella was a predator, consuming small creatures such as hyoliths and swallowing them whole, front first. If Louisella swallowed hyoliths from the rear end, the spines of the hyolithid would get stuck in the worm's throat, possibly stab it, and prevent Louisella from eating any more hyoliths. Unlike its ferocious relative <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/ottoia.html">Ottoia</a>, Louisella presumably was not as active, but it was almost certainly more active that <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/09/selkirkia.html">Selkirkia</a>, which would have found it hard to move in the first place.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=75&m=1&&ref=i" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggGrSWyNyJXedNnpgoOT5Sg9TfcxGEykL0R4py_XhXA0SC9RorrQTGDhwG9ux1K4No0jbaP8ENoNFgi6A6E_4leXe0_-RIpMx2rdMtrJn4NyUIB9TwMNRZU9cimxMTWC-f7VrhNaSNuJg/s1600/Louisella.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© MARIANNE COLLINS</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">I believe that Louisella's large head spines prevented other priapulids from swallowing it while Louisella was small. The only priapulid that would have been likely to try to eat it would be Ottoia, which swallowed its prey head first. And if for some reason an Ottoia tried to swallow Louisella from the rear end, Louisella could just turn around and stab it. These spines would probably work against any other predator that tried to eat it. Even an arthropod would let Louisella go if it was stabbed in the right place, such as a joint or, as in the case of some arthropods, its softer underbelly. This is similar to the defense of <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/09/fieldia-lanceolata.html">Fieldia</a>, which had a whole head covered in long, needle-like spines. But this is just my hypothesis about the use of the large spines on Louisella's head.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=75&m=1&&ref=i" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1hvej8zmwLEvDyexSc6BBev8MEpvhCchsh7lkSL_HVGFWDyzTCZcmkO0CthuQ_3mPVJ1ToT0qiVIGu-9sWQi8UMiMwxkDDkV8ag_KTVfa-KZvfbbTfhGptHKXpHbm3FpkGUk9PcUeJMM/s400/louisella2.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 14px; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">© SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION – NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. PHOTOS: JEAN-BERNARD CARON</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Some of the fossils of Louisella are very slender, while others are flatter and more sea cucumber-like. The holotype was one of these flattened specimens, which is what probably led Charles Doolittle Walcott to classify it as a holothurian, or sea cucumber. </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.fossilmall.com/EDCOPE_Enterprises/invertebrates/invert12/invfossil-12.htm" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5ifyPvb3W2ezqVCMjz207lpcIMBRApcP9BLVDCwNdx8m9XH-J9GwKCjeBK31GdfIR759BhP2jCM3aftLL2i0tOD7lytoaF1ub4k1Tgh7qOc0SiqNX7YXPSc0FXTkmSc6lkPGuMn0OvoQ/s400/UB135E.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">FOSSIL MALL</span></td></tr>
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References:<br />
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<a href="http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=75&ref=i&">http://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/fossil-gallery/view-species.php?id=75&ref=i&</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.paleo.pan.pl/people/Dzik/Publications/PaleobiologyDzik.pdf">http://www.paleo.pan.pl/people/Dzik/Publications/PaleobiologyDzik.pdf</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.fossilmall.com/EDCOPE_Enterprises/invertebrates/invert12/invfossil-12.htm">http://www.fossilmall.com/EDCOPE_Enterprises/invertebrates/invert12/invfossil-12.htm</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crucible-Creation-Burgess-Shale-Animals/dp/0192862022/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328824225&sr=8-1">The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals by Simon Conway Morris</a><br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisella">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisella</a>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-80074448156837552842012-02-03T06:28:00.000-06:002012-02-03T06:28:08.869-06:00Pachytheca.<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Pachytheca was a very primitive sphere-shaped plant that lived from the late Silurian to the early Devonian. Pachytheca is related to <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/08/prototaxites.html">Prototaxites</a>, so my hypothesis is that it is a fungus. It was up to 6mm long. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">This organism had a prominent outer layer. It's possible that in juvenile specimens this layer was thicker, and on the adults it was thinner. The structure of Pachytheca was made up of tubes. Thicker, stronger tubes on the outer layer, and thinner, more brittle ones on the inner layer. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://steurh.home.xs4all.nl/engpach/epachy.html"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAcphUKJWPBJORrc9pSzaxMZMCYQqW2s9ZW54NqNzPCMQBXGF4I3Ey-E3nZ7NDGVQndGslKhrcInWEs8A_7oKnVAN9Mj2jDLCS_DgfRKzTVEGys0HtW5IXHay2r7pEzNGpZ_GYb9fYc1Y/s320/pachreco.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Some of the fossils look like marbles, while others look like tiny geodes. At first the organism was thought to have been a piece of a bigger plant or the tooth of a fish. Then it was incorrectly classified as an alga. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://steurh.home.xs4all.nl/engpach/epachy.html"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhncE3URnRlJnH8rUHOeFMLHx5zmdgjLfP_bS5C7sZo125oYL3VAlQrrUrsztnPQ8BcRCUc33EKf7DCRwY6yhoIXBWc26aI6NVdLJYY6bUctQ3H_x0cSyOZVysUqzEz20ENT3mlZxT4R7c/s1600/pa.jpeg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">Pachytheca and Prototaxites are now classified as Nematophytes, enigmatic organisms that were either plants or fungi. Pachytheca has been found mostly in western Europe, but they also lived in places such as Canada and Australia. </span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.oocities.org/marsfossils/Spherules_MERB.htm"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb3HiFI6po5f9Vkc8-oKp1Zx34rTQ4IZWHg2wRPQIR2WXu3qVH58T6A-0iVB25IaXFMKnavh_33wrcl1fsie6ohoMDa_PSqU1JaJDVAmvFnaYpkW0D4n5HJQvkkOB1rC8QhfojqCrsP8s/s320/pachcarm.jpeg" width="245" /></a></div><br />
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References:<br />
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<a href="http://steurh.home.xs4all.nl/engpach/epachy.html">http://steurh.home.xs4all.nl/engpach/epachy.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.chertnews.de/Pachytheca.html">http://www.chertnews.de/Pachytheca.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachytheca">http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachytheca</a>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-11867299624855929162012-01-27T06:25:00.000-06:002012-01-27T06:25:34.097-06:00Phlegethontia.Phlegethontia is a snake-like amphibian that lived from the Carboniferous to the Permian period. It lived in swamps and probably, unlike most snakes today, spent most of its time swimming in water, like a frog or a newt. Phlegethontia was about one meter long and it ate small animals and insects.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/dinosaurpictures/ig/Prehistoric-Amphibian-Pictures/Phlegethontia.htm"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz9Db-aZEKvKWVkI7BkJG94n-h91h_W45TFnwIk5GplJZWrs8X3D0wztWq37fKeKYVzsw9AH5IVh6NsgLTzbiiLyezhHcgLPxIbtk3v0AmMY99hdTGzezUALl14htsI56GRec9kRnc6yY/s400/phlegethontiaWC.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Phlegethontia was found in the Mazon Creek, in Illinois, among other places. The skull had holes in it, and this made it light. My hypothesis is that Phlegethontia evolved this way because a lighter skull would be easier to lift, and therefore it would be easier for Phlegethontia to snatch a flying insect from the air, much like this adaptation makes it easy for a snake to strike quickly. The skull of Phlegethontia is similar to that of a snake.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://animaliagiantkingdom.tumblr.com/post/14854668777/phlegethontia-linearis-late-carboniferous-early"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfZ8VW8UFgJiPK0vLMBMCVstB09E5EfqD_euplC3Pzrlv8mUcujbpnIw5qSyYUguB-REThjzY7feH9tGSsK6voFQgGNVwcIy39XmQgUrmBs4sIZNaDkSzg1G_GU7c-Nu7WYcXTmsMTE4E/s320/tumblr_lwusasGO2l1r7tlulo1_500.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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Phlegethontia looked very much like a snake, suggesting a similar lifestyle, except more in the water than on land. Amphibians like Phlegethontia cannot permanently live on land without getting wet because they would dry out and die.<br />
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At one time there was something called Dolichosoma longissima. But this was an incorrect description and paleontologists realized that it was actually a member of the genus Phlegethontia. Now it is called Phlegethontia longissima.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.georgesbasement.com/Langford-WilmingtonCoalFauna/Webpage/GL124Phlegethontia01CB.jpg"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-p8gp3tEUf1ILdBMXVjQgKVpGuGeGTxp-Fza9HrLo4rC97rd2M7GRmokgEvZhuGRvrvoxIVY3YPXsTZzI67xYAdPl2J5yz0POw8zFYl9yXNlQkWCiktKM1D7yBOokDQlSALEtvBWWCl4/s400/GL124Phlegethontia01CB.jpeg" width="192" /></a></div><br />
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References:<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlegethontia">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlegethontia</a><br />
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<a href="http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/tetrapodsandamphibians/p/phlegethontia.htm">http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/tetrapodsandamphibians/p/phlegethontia.htm</a>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-76065242988096761932012-01-18T18:14:00.002-06:002012-01-21T12:26:29.261-06:00Siphusauctum.Siphusauctum is a newly discovered animal from the Burgess Shale. It is one of the weirdest animals from the Burgess Shale ever found. Siphusauctum was described by <a href="http://www.rom.on.ca/collections/curators/caron.php">Jean-Bernard Caron</a>, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, and Lorna J. O'Brien from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto, and was <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029233">just announced</a>.<br />
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One of the most obvious things about Siphusauctum is how enigmatic it is. It looked like a ctenophore on a stalk. Some scientists believe that it is related to the mysterious <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/dinomischus.html">Dinomischus</a>. Siphusauctum and Dinomischus both have a stem and a round calyx, but they are actually very different. Dinomischus's calyx is more like a flower than a ctenophore.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029233" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiyl6DJow1rrkEXfMJ6pPRVeJQnS8jCcf6XhwzI1RXlQ5juDnp_yNjyKY198eFG9slEYuieTJCgWaaGfe4vwyIV-IwB06PLcu3Wn72G8efmM_aqgTTC1S0SjcFGzIcv_41GZZzTPTUN18/s320/journal.pone.0029233.png" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© Marianne Collins</td></tr>
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Siphusauctum had a two-layered stem and a holdfast at one end, which was probably used to anchor it to the sea floor. It presumably could draw its holdfast into the stem and move along the sea floor to find a new place to anchor itself.<br />
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Siphusauctum had a very simple gut, which was just a tube with a round part at the end, which was the stomach. It just sucked in water along with tiny creatures and plants, which were its food.<br />
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The size range for Siphusauctum is 19 mm to 223 mm. There are variable sizes for stems, holdfasts, and calyxes on different individuals of the species. One thing that stands out about it are the comb rows on its calyx, which resemble those of ctenophores. Although the two are unrelated, Siphusauctum has noticeable similarities with the ctenophores.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029233"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOvApoEBPyoaFAo7EWOpZC2reGxQ4XvmgBupVPh5sIxlX6a_Ay-EMYBBdAClkg0FEoJPGtalD6s4xdKgM5RlUIefLGxMIs5NlRaKPXUSPleaNgl10siSe47n4OFYZ6aACLhzVXt2f76bo/s320/journal.pone.0029233-1.png" width="306" /></a></div><br />
Siphusauctum are sometimes found in large clusters, suggesting that the animal lived in groups, like the possibly related <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/09/herpetogaster.html">Herpetogaster</a>, also from the Burgess Shale. Its species name is S. gregarium because it was gregarious, meaning it lived in groups. Siphusauctum also resembles some crinoids, except crinoids had tentacles and Siphusauctum did not.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029233"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieB3lJ7gipkybSUewFPt2Apx7CZWpIfOMG8q6P72FSWn8o2S0Edp8_j7-S5zgsWgCsN-OvDwRTKWeOleOvVB6F3kwyifOZhi7c5KRfSiyNaMUoEHQ7K8OP6cWyS6FXzyGUAmOcBxbEfoA/s640/journal.pone.0029233-2.png" width="512" /></a></div><br />
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References:<br />
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<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029233">http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029233</a><br />
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<a href="http://news.utoronto.ca/university-torontoroyal-ontario-museum-scientists-discover-unusual-tulip-creature">http://news.utoronto.ca/university-torontoroyal-ontario-museum-scientists-discover-unusual-tulip-creature</a>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445946479582895632.post-51617828770217813922012-01-17T08:05:00.000-06:002012-01-17T08:05:36.512-06:00Protopriapulites.Protopriapulites (pro-toe-pry-uh-pew-LITE-ees) was a priapulid worm that I think looked more like a peanut than a worm. It was about one centimeter long. Some fossils showing the gut full of mud indicate that Protopriapulites may have fed on detritus from the sea floor in the same way that the spiny Burgess Shale worm <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/09/fieldia-lanceolata.html">Fieldia</a> did.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcALEw4r2KKmLy6m0t6-XIeE_LxhAvjqanXVDWACRRg6Eux17cKCS1N5O7JOauaJD1R9vsuL4PyOixHRKRY63M-kBBn2c9Xx4NY2YL76oSxKgIunYS4GWydS8f7yNDkx981g72t0mA4Uk/s1600/proto2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcALEw4r2KKmLy6m0t6-XIeE_LxhAvjqanXVDWACRRg6Eux17cKCS1N5O7JOauaJD1R9vsuL4PyOixHRKRY63M-kBBn2c9Xx4NY2YL76oSxKgIunYS4GWydS8f7yNDkx981g72t0mA4Uk/s400/proto2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© Life Before the Dinosaurs 2012</td></tr>
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Protopriapulites is known from the Chengjiang in China. It had a ball-shaped posterior, a head similar to that of <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/06/ottoia.html">Ottoia</a>, and a proboscis similar to that of Fieldia. I believe that the ball-shaped posterior of Protopriapulites may have helped anchor it in its burrow, and if a predator tried to grab its head, it would not be able to pull the worm out of its burrow. So the predator would probably be discouraged and look for something else to eat. </div><br />
Protopriapulites was noticeably similar to Paleopriapulites, another peanut-shaped worm from the Chengjiang, except Protopriapulites had a spiral gut and Paleopriapulites did not.<br />
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Protopriapulites is a common species of priapulid worm in the Chengjiang.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9WVxbiKj666SkX57FL4DwEUi5C7TS-Nlj_zZBdEEve8CBVBIEaZS1hOGY7de6nxPKjK0r7k-5805ZIPrtaGac_SPbeDbuX-nsdGGIsv5JTxDTuCmSxASQp5wn78USarQlhnRjZLtOpm8/s1600/CJF876C.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9WVxbiKj666SkX57FL4DwEUi5C7TS-Nlj_zZBdEEve8CBVBIEaZS1hOGY7de6nxPKjK0r7k-5805ZIPrtaGac_SPbeDbuX-nsdGGIsv5JTxDTuCmSxASQp5wn78USarQlhnRjZLtOpm8/s320/CJF876C.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from <a href="http://www.fossilmall.com/EDCOPE_Enterprises/Chengjiang/chengjiangfossils91/chengjiangfossils-91.htm">Fossil Mall</a></td></tr>
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Protopriapulites is mentioned in the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/140516719X/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_g14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=15R5J4XBBFXP07NJQ791&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846"><i>The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China</i></a>, which I received from Kamakanui, one of my readers. It is an amazing book mentioning some of the weirdest animals in the Chenjiang. It also has many obscure creatures which are hard to find on the internet, such as Protopriapulites. There is a whole section full of the enigmas of the Chengjiang, such as <a href="http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/2011/09/facivermis.html">Facivermis</a>. Each section has a certain phylum that the creatures mentioned in it belong to, in this case Protopriapulites would be listed under "priapulida." This book has tons of information on all these mysterious and obscure creatures.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdU5QRNCkT9U5jEeYC36tqcap0Q6d3DaSAP-xdPHn66T7AE_5s-x4Q8GKywfKTeXDQTC71EVnzf9oZ1OYZYRQwVzV8i8aw87OmijsBFQyQWa5x1jUGMdZUQj26ip_FO1Ze9LC1fBIvgdA/s1600/102512960.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdU5QRNCkT9U5jEeYC36tqcap0Q6d3DaSAP-xdPHn66T7AE_5s-x4Q8GKywfKTeXDQTC71EVnzf9oZ1OYZYRQwVzV8i8aw87OmijsBFQyQWa5x1jUGMdZUQj26ip_FO1Ze9LC1fBIvgdA/s320/102512960.jpeg" width="243" /></a></div><br />
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References:<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cambrian-Fossils-Chengjiang-China-Flowering/dp/140516719X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325517911&sr=8-1-fkmr0" style="background-color: white; color: red; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;"><i>The Cambrian Fossils of Chengjiang, China: The Flowering of Early Animal Life</i>, Blackwell Publishing, pg. </a><span style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">66 & 67.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, FreeMono, monospace; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.fossilmall.com/EDCOPE_Enterprises/Chengjiang/chengjiangfossils91/chengjiangfossils-91.htm">http://www.fossilmall.com/EDCOPE_Enterprises/Chengjiang/chengjiangfossils91/chengjiangfossils-91.htm</a></span>Arthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05465158136828482934noreply@blogger.com1