Happy Thought for 21 July 2023

Have a Happy Thought:

 

Scientists just keep discovering and naming species of ancient animals, as we find fossils. Here are just a few of the ones that have been announced recently:

 

In June, scientists announced the discovery of a dolphin (Nihohae matakoi) that swam in the seas above modern-day New Zealand, about 25 million years ago. It had sticky-outy-teeth at the front of its mouth:


Fossilised skull of extinct dolphin Nihohae matakoi with tusk-like teeth that stuck out horizontally.

Image from https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300904040/scientists-discover-fossil-dolphin-species-with-tusklike-teeth

 

Also in New Zealand waters, just earlier this month scientists announced they had found another little penguin, just a little bit smaller than the Kororā / Little Blue Penguins we can see today:


Artist's rendering of two cute little penguins with blue backs and white fronts in a grassy background

Artist’s interpretation of Wilson’s little penguin (Eudyptula wilsonae), by Simone Giovanardi. From https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-extinct-species-of-ridiculously-cute-tiny-penguins-discovered-in-new-zealand-180982504/

 

 

Across the ditch in Australia, scientists have found a massive skink. Check out the modern-day skink in the artist’s interpretation below, for scale:


Artist's drawing of two very large, very scaled skink-like creatures in a rocky desert landscape. A comparatively tiny (1/100th the size) modern skink is crawling across the rocks in the foreground.

Image: Artist’s interpretation of Tiliqua frangens, by Kailah Thorn, Western Australian Museum. From https://www.newscientist.com/article/2378036-extinct-lizard-was-a-bizarrely-supersized-version-of-modern-skinks/

 

And finally, vengeance for Jurassic Park: fossil evidence that (probably) shows a very ancient mammal eating a dinosaur, sometime around 125 million years ago! (For those of you that remember your geologic time charts, that’s in the Cretaceous. Way earlier than the Jurassic period. So, not exactly Jurassic Park. But then again, most of the dinosaurs shown in the movie were actually from the Cretaceous period.) The fossils were found in China and just published a few days ago.


Photo of fossilised skeletons of a dinosaur being eaten by a mammal.

Fossil of an herbivorous dinosaur, Psittacosaurus, being bitten by a mammal, Repenomamus. Image: Gang Han

 

Artist's impression in pencil/line drawings of the same dinosaur being eaten by a weasel-like mammal. 

This artistic rendering based on the 125-million-year-old fossil shows the mammal, Repenomamus, biting the horned dinosaur Psittacosaurus. Artist: Michael W. Skrepnick / Courtesy of Canadian Museum of Nature. This and the image of the fossil from https://www.npr.org/2023/07/18/1188275701/this-fossil-of-a-mammal-biting-a-dinosaur-captures-a-death-battles-final-moments

 

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