Month: September 2021

Paleontology News for September 2021: A new large arthropod species discovered in the famous Burgess Shale. Plus a little pre-paleontology caused by Climate Change.

The main pursuit of paleontology is to learn the pathways by which Earth’s first creatures evolved into the species we see today, to study evolution in the field. In this month’s post I’ll be discussing stories that illustrate evolution from both the beginnings of multi-cellular life to observations of evolution in action today.

Of course the most familiar illustration of evolution is all about us! (Credit: History.com)

For most of life’s time here on Earth it consisted of nothing but single celled organisms. Then, about 600 million years ago the first simple multi-celled creatures came into being, creatures that have become known as the Ediacaran fauna. Because these first plants and animals had nothing in the way of hard parts however fossils of them are exceptionally rare and don’t reveal much about their anatomy.

The first multi-cellular living creatures had no hard parts so the fossil remains are very rare and don’t tell us a whole lot about the creatures. (Credit: Laidlaw Scholarships University of St. Andrews)

Animals with hard parts first appeared about 550 million years ago during the early Cambrian period and some of the best fossils from the Cambrian period are found in British Columbia in the world famous Burgess Shale and nearby fossil sites. The remarkable preservation of the fossils from the Burgess Shale is due to both the fine grained particles making up the shale as well as the fact that the animals that were fossilized seemed to have been buried intact in mudslides before their remains could be eaten by scavengers.

The most common fossil species found in the Burgess Shale is Marella splendens also known as the ‘Lace Crab’. This specimen is simply a beautiful fossil. (Credit: Smithsonian Institute)

As might be expected the creatures found in the Burgess Shale were mainly small, the size of a finger being rather common. After all multi-cellular life was brand new and it takes a while to go from being microscopic to the size of a human being let alone that of a whale.

Trilobites were amoung the largest and most advanced creatures during the Cambrian period. Today they would be considered small and primitive. (Credit: West Coast Traveler)

Size has its advantages however, particularly if you want to catch and eat other creatures. So it’s no surprise that the biggest animal yet discovered in the Burgess Shale, a creature known as Anomalocaris, was a predator about one meter in length. Despite its strangeness, the size of Anomalocaris made it the Tyrannosaurus rex of its day.

Considered the largest and fiercest predatory during the Cambrian, Anomalocaris was still only about a meter in length. (Credit: Wikipedia)

Now another large and equally strange creature has been discovered by paleontologists associated with the Royal Ontario Museum in an outcrop of shale near the Burgess Shale site in British Columbia and of the same age. Given the name Titanokorys gainesi the fossil belongs to a group of arthropods characterized by having a large, three part carapace covering most of their bodies that made them look almost like living heads.

With a head shield the covers more than half its body Titanokorys gainesi is related to Anomalocaris and appears to have lived by using it broad head as a plow to dig out food from the sand at the bottom of the ocean. (Credit: Sci-news.com)

T gainesi in particular had a broad, flat carapace about a half-meter in length along with multifaceted eyes and two spiny claws to grab food and bring it to a mouth shaped like a slice of pineapple. The paleontologists who described T gainesi speculate that the creature may have used its large carapace like a plow to stir up the muddy ocean bottom so that its claws could capture worms and other small animals.

As you might guess most of the fossil specimens of T gainesi discovered so far are of the creatures large head shield. (Credit: The Times of Israel)

T gainesi is yet another example of how, half a billion years ago evolution was experimenting to find solutions to the problems of how to survive in a hostile world. That same problem is still being faced by the life forms of today’s world but modern animals have the additional difficulty of having to adapt to a rapidly warming planet due to human induced climate change. In order to survive in this new environment Earth’s creatures must do what they have always done, adapt and evolve.

As usual Darwin got it right. It’s all about adapting! (Credit: Gihan Perera)

Now a new study by ornithologist Sara Ryding of Deakin University in Australia has described some of the changes that are already taking place in warm-blooded animals. Published in the journal ‘Trends in Ecology and Evolution’ the research details the anatomical changes, ‘shapeshifting’ that have been measured in a large number of bird and mammalian species.

The ancient myths about shapeshifters was all about adapting in order to survive. Maybe those ancient peoples weren’t as dumb as we think they were. (Credit: Deep Trance Now)

For example several species of Australian parrot have been found to be growing beaks that are 10% larger when compared to preserved specimens from 100 years ago. The same increase in beak size has also been found in North American dark-eyed juncos, a variety of songbird. In both cases the increase in bill size correlates positively with a measured increase in average temperature in the areas populated by the birds.

In order to better regulate their body temperature in a warming world Australian Parrots are growing bigger beaks! (Credit: ABC News)

In mammals such as wood mice and masked shrews a similar 10% increase has been measured in tail length and leg size. All of these adaptations have one thing in common, they provide the animal with a larger surface area to radiate heat and cool their body temperature. Again there is a clear connection for the larger body parts to rising temperatures in the animal’s habitat.

Several species of small mammals have also been discovered to be increasing the size of their tails and legs in order to increase surface area to aid in cooling their bodies in a warmer climate. (Credit: Wikipedia)

The fact that some species are evolving in response to global warming shouldn’t be taking as a sign that those animals are solving the problem of climate change however. As Doctor Ryding puts it, “shapeshifting does not mean that animals are coping with climate change and that all is ‘fine’. It just means that they are evolving to survive it. But we’re not sure what the other ecological consequences are, or indeed that all species are capable of changing and surviving.”

Those who cannot adapt become extinct, it’s as simple as that. The question then becomes, will we humans adapt to save our world or perish as a part of a new mass extinction? (Credit: National Geographic Society)

  Paleontologists have recognized at least six separate ‘mass extinctions’ in the fossil record. Some of these extinctions appear to have been caused by asteroid or comets impacting the Earth while others may have been due to massive volcanic eruptions. Right now our planet is experiencing another extinction event and there’s little doubt as to its cause, human beings!

Book Review: ‘The Genesis Quest’ by Michael Marshall.

One of the most fundamental questions waiting to be answered by science is “How did Life on Earth Begin?” For most of human history this question was answered by a story from myth or legend rather than by science. Our local chief god created the universe and all living things in some way. The first chapter of Genesis is not only a typical example of this but even gave us the word that we use to describe the whole process, genesis.

Why is it that all of the legends and myths about the beginnings of life always make our creation the climax of the story? (Credit: Wikipedia)

Basically our ancestors thought that ‘who’, created life was more important than ‘how’ it was done. After all we poor humans could never understand the mystery of how life was created. That was god’s greatest secret and it was enough for us to know that he did it. It’s only been since the start of the scientific revolution and Darwin’s demonstration that all modern living creatures have evolved from earlier forms of life that scientists first began to wonder how the first living thing, the ancestor of all life on Earth ever became alive.

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is really about what happened after the first living thing came into being. Darwin was very cautious about how that first living thing originated. (Credit: AZ Quotes)

The search for a answer to that question is the thesis behind Michael Marshall’s new book ‘The Genesis Quest’. Starting at the very beginning Marshall discusses not only the mythology but also several reasoned although not scientific hypothesis such as the èlan vital and spontaneous generation. It’s once the actual chemists and biologists begin working on the problem however that ‘Genesis Quest’ really gets good.

Cover of ‘The Genesis Quest’ by Michael Marshall. (Credit: Amazon)
Author Michael Marshall is a Science Writer for several magazines who has published several books on science. (Credit: Goodreads)

Reviewing the early advances on just what life is and where living things come from Marshall has certainly done his homework. From Robert Hooke’s discovery of cells, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s descriptions of microscopic ‘animalcules’ and Friedrich Wőhler’s first synthesis of an organic chemical to Darwin himself we see how science was forced, almost against itself to consider the question of how the first living thing came into existence.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek using his microscope to observe the ‘animalcules’ in a drop of pond water. (Credit: Vox)

By the way I just illustrated one of the key elements of ‘Genesis Quest’, you will be reading about a lot of discoveries made by a lot of different scientists. Some of the scientists will be famous, like Louie Pasteur but there will also be some not so famous ones like botanist Matthias Schleiden who was the first to definitely assert that all living things were made of cells. In Marshall’s telling each of these discoveries becomes a tale in itself and the whole becomes woven together for a grand story, the ‘Genesis Quest’.

Louis Pasteur is generally given credit with finally putting an end to ideas about ‘Spontaneous Generation’ of living things. But it must have happened once billions of years ago. (Credit: ThoughtCo)

In fact the cast of characters in ‘Genesis Quest’ is so large that it’s difficult to keep track of everyone without a scorecard. For example the physicist George Gamow, best know as an early proponent of the Big Bang theory is given a brief mention because he was the first to suggest that a group of three DNA bases could provide the code for the 20 amino acids used in the proteins of living cells. Gamow’s steady-state rival, astronomer Fred Hoyle is also mentioned because late in life he became an adherent of life on Earth originally coming from outer space, a theory known as Panspermia. (I mention Gamow and Hoyle because I just ordered a new book “Flashes of Creation” about the beginnings of the Big Bang theory in which Gamow and Hoyle are the two main characters. I can’t wait to read it!)

Physicist George Gamow (l) and Astronomer Fred Hoyle (r) fought for decades over not just the origin of life but the origin of the Universe itself. (Credit: Hacker News)

Much progress was made during the 20th century as Alexander Oparin and J. B. S. Haldane first developed the ‘primordial soup’ model of the beginning of life. This model saw its greatest success with the Miller-Urey experiment in 1953, which even today is still touted as evidence that simple chemical reactions on the early Earth could produce complex organic compounds.

British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane helped popularize the ‘Primordial Soup’ model of life’s origin. (Credit: The Economist)
The Miller Urey experiment was so simple yet the results so profound that it made the ‘Primordial Soup’ model dominate for decades. (Credit: Research Gate)

But 1953 was also the year that Watson and Crick first described the shape of the DNA molecule and in the years thereafter the very intricate and complex mechanism by which DNA builds proteins, DNA to Messenger RNA to Transfer RNA to Ribosome to Protein was discovered bit by bit. Such a complex chain of very delicate chemical reactions could never have arisen spontaneously in a primordial soup. So a new model of RNA first for the beginnings of life arose to challenge the protein based primordial soup model.

It’s actually a lot more complicated than this. How the Primordial Soup could generate such complex chemical reactions was difficult to understand so new models for life’s origins had to be developed. (Credit: Expii)

However both proteins and nuclides don’t last long in nature, so another model; a cell wall first model was also developed. From the 1970s throughout the 1990s these three models fought fiercely over who was right with none of them able to gain the upper hand.

All of the structures inside a cell are rather delicate needing a ‘Cell Wall’ for protection. How did the pre-biotic chemicals protect them selves. (Credit: Science Facts)

Finally, in the last chapters Marshall discusses the modern synthesis that has developed since about 2000. A self-replicating molecule contained inside a lipid shell, something that has already been achieved by the chemist Jack Szostak. Marshall also asks the question, just how complex do ‘protocells’ like Szostak’s have to be in order to be considered ‘alive’. Have we in fact already created life in the labouratory?

Current leader in the race to develop synthetic life is Nobel laureate Jack Szostak at Harvard. (Credit: Ciencia del Sur)
Doctor Szostak has already developed a ‘species’ of protocell that meets several of the criteria of life, including replication! (Credit: Church and State)

Throughout ‘Genesis Quest’ Marshall manages to keep his descriptions of the, sometimes very sophisticated experiments and theories both simple and understandable. At the same time however he also includes footnotes with more technical information as well as sources for further reading. A well regarded science writer whose has worked for both New Scientist and the BBC Marshall knows just how much detail is needed in order to tell the story he wants to tell. ‘Genesis Quest’ is in fact a fast paced, very enjoyable overview of one of the most important scientific endeavors of all time. I cannot recommend it enough to anyone who is interested in how science and scientists work.   

A Citizen Scientist discovers what could be the first of a new class of Brown Dwarfs. And what are Brown Dwarfs anyway?

Most people know that our Sun is pretty much a middle of the road star. Any star that is much more than 20 times the mass of our Sun is so big and unstable that it doesn’t last for very long. And any astronomic body that has much less than 1/20th our Sun’s mass won’t have enough pressure and temperature in its core to ignite hydrogen fusion, so they never shine as a star. Jupiter for example is the most massive of the planets, but since it only has 1/1000th the Sun’s mass it is a planet, not a star.

Our Sun, which is a middle sized star is about 1,000 times as massive as the large planet Jupiter. We now known that there are objects in between that we have christened ‘Brown Dwarfs’. (Credit: NASA)

Beginning in the 1960s astronomers began to wonder if there could be objects out in the galaxy that were too small to be stars yet too big to be planets, a class that was eventually given the name Brown Dwarfs. Such objects would have masses in the range of 10-80 times Jupiter’s mass and are often described to be ‘failed stars’.

Brown Dwarfs are too big to be planets but still aren’t massive enough to ignite nuclear fusion in their cores making them ‘failed stars’. (Credit: EarthSky)

Since they don’t shine in visible wavelengths like real stars, and the closest could be light years away Astronomers knew that Brown Dwarfs were going to be very difficult to find. Brown Dwarfs wouldn’t be totally dark however, even the smallest would have some heat left over from their formation while the heaviest could even have a small amount of heavy hydrogen, that is deuterium fusion going on inside them. Because of this Brown Dwarfs would be visible in infrared (IR) light.

There’s no reason why a Brown Dwarf couldn’t have a planet orbiting them but at the moment we’re having enough difficulty just finding Brown Dwarfs. (Credit: Owlcation)

Infrared astronomy is difficult here on Earth’s surface however, because even a tiny amount of water vapour in the air blocks IR light. In the 1960s there simply weren’t any IR telescopes and it wasn’t until the 1990s that a few IR space telescopes were launched into orbit and the first IR telescopes were built on the tops of the highest Andes Mountains, the driest place on Earth.

The high Atacama desert in the Andes mountains of Chile is the best place on Earth to do infra-red astronomy. (Credit: Aura Astronomy)

In 1988 a star designated as GD 165 was discovered to have a very small companion star, designated as GD 165B, during a search for white dwarf stars. The light of GD 165B was barely in the visible red portion of the visible spectra and astronomers wondered if it might be the first known Brown Dwarf. The debate over GD 165B’s status continued for almost a decade until new telescopes conducting the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) discovered over a hundred similar objects, and so Brown Dwarfs became a new class of celestial object.

What the Universe looks like at a wavelength of 2 Microns courtesy of the 2 Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) (Credit: Infrared Processing and Analysis Center – Caltech)

Today Brown Dwarfs have been classified into two spectral types, both below the familiar O, B, A, F, G, K, M classes of normal stars. The larger Brown Dwarfs, which have a strong lithium line in their spectra, are classified as “L” type. Since true stars burn their lithium very quickly the presence of lithium in a spectra is indicative of a brown dwarf.

Normal stars are classified by their surface temperature as O, B, A, F, G, K, or M types with O being the hottest and M the coolest. Brown Dwarfs add two new classes L and T to the right. (Credit: SDSS SkyServer)

In time some brown dwarfs were discovered whose surface temperatures were cooler than the L type, so cool that methane was discovered in their spectra, even L type dwarfs are too hot for chemicals to exist. So a new class of Brown Dwarf, the “T” class was created. Presently astronomers have identified nearly a thousand L type and about 350 T type Brown Dwarfs.

Two classes of Brown Dwarfs are recognized by all astronomers while a new classification “Y” is still being debated. (Credit: Backyard Worlds)

Since Brown Dwarfs generate little if any energy by fusion they really have no stable “Main Sequence” period in their lives but instead just continue to get cooler and cooler, eventually becoming so cool that they no longer even radiate in IR wavelengths. For that reason it was thought that it would be very difficult if not impossible to detect a Brown Dwarf that was more than a few billion years old.

But they may just have found one by ‘Accident’, or at least citizen scientist Dan Caselden seems to have found one and his finding it really was an accident. Caselden had written a computer program to search for Brown Dwarfs in the data collected by the Near Earth Object – Wide field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEO-WISE) satellite. In particular Caselden was looking for objects so close to our solar system that they would appear to move slightly against the background of more distant starts over the course of six months or a year. (NEO-WISE conducts a complete survey of the entire sky every six months)

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite has been given a new mission to search for Near Earth Objects (NEOs) making it now the NEO-WISE mission. (Credit: Wikipedia)

Caselden was checking out one candidate for a close Brown Dwarf when he noticed another object nearby that was moving even faster. Its spectra didn’t look like that of a Brown Dwarf but Caselden decided he’d check it out.

By day a Security Engineer in his spare time Dan Caselden is a new breed of computer astronomers. Seriously all of the satellites we’ve put into space are sending back so much data that even ordinary people, with a computer, can make important discoveries. (Credit: NASA Solar System Exploration)

Caselden’s discovery has now been given the official designation of WISEA J153429.75-104303.03 but it’s also known by its nickname of Accident. When examined more closely by powerful ground based telescopes Accident was found to be as cool as a T type Brown Dwarf but there was no trace of methane in its spectra. In fact there was no trace of carbon or any of the more massive elements like oxygen or sodium or iron. WISEA J153429.75-104303.03 appears to be made entirely of the elements hydrogen and helium.

If you’re interested in being a citizen scientist try checking it out on YouTube. (Credit: Twitter)

That would indicate that Accident is old, very old, ten billion years old or older. You see, shortly after the big bang, when the first galaxies began to form the matter in the Universe was almost entirely hydrogen and helium. The heavier elements, like those that make up planets and even our our bodies were created inside the nuclear furnaces of the first generation of stars some 10 to 13 billion years ago.

The first stars began to form only 100 million years after the Big Bang. At that time only the elements Hydrogen and Helium existed in any amount so the elements that formed the planets, and our bodies were forged in the cores of those first stars. (Credit: Futurism)

So Accident may be a Brown Dwarf that was formed at the same time as the very first stars. If that is so then WISEA J153429.75-104303.03 may hold secrets within it that relate to how the first stars and galaxies came into being. WISEA J153429.75-104303.03 could even be the first in an entirely new class of Brown Dwarfs. So I guess it will be no accident if astronomers pay a great deal of attention to it in the years to come.

Accident brings another question to mind. Just how many Brown Dwarfs are there out there in our galaxy? So far we have only found around two thousand but they are all rather close, within 100 light years. We are still only beginning to get a feel for how common they are.

Many of the Brown Dwarfs we know about are companions of more normal stars such as this one. (Credit: Universe Today)

We do know that there are a lot more middle sized stars like our Sun than big, bright ones like Vega, and there are a lot more small, dim stars like Barnard’s star or Proxima Centauri than middling stars like our Sun. If you extrapolate from those facts then there could be a lot more Brown Dwarfs in the Milky Way than all of the real stars put together.

On a clear night you can see thousands of nearby stars but how many Brown Dwarfs are out there that we can’t see? (Credit: Space Tourism Guide)

Think about that the next time you go out on a nice clear night to gaze up at the heavens.

The 80th National Folk Festival in Salisbury, Maryland.

Today’s post is going to be a bit out of the ordinary since it really doesn’t have anything to do with either science or science fiction. Over the last weekend, September 10-12, I attended the 80th National Folk Festival that was held in the city of Salisbury, Maryland. I just thought this might be a nice chance to discuss, not just the National Folk Festival itself but small, independent entertainment venues in general.

Logo for the 80th National Folk Festival. (Credit: NationalFolkFestival.com)

Founded in 1934 in St. Louis by the folklorist Sarah Gertrude Knott The National Folk Festival is the oldest traditional arts festival in the United States. Over the years the festival has played an important role in preserving and promoting such local folk musical styles as the Blues, Cajun music, Tex-Mex Conjunto, Sacred Harp and even Blue Grass. So popular has the National Folk Festival become that it has even spun off several similar venues such as the American Folk Festival, the Lowell Folk Festival, the Richmond Folk Festival and Montana Folk Festival.

Salisbury’s just a nice little slice of small town America. (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

Over the years the National Folk Festival has appeared in 26 different communities across the US and as I mentioned this year’s Festival was held in Salisbury, Maryland, a city with a population of about 35,000 people situated in the middle of the Delmarva Peninsula on the east side of Chesapeake Bay. This is the third time in the last four years that the Festival has taken place in Salisbury and it would have been four years straight except that last year the Festival had to be canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact even at this year’s festival most of the people attending were wearing masks, vaccinated or not.

Salisbury’s Mayor, Jake Day put in several appearances at the festival. Here he is introducing the Irish Band. (Credit: R. A. Lawler)
Drone shot of one of the stages at the National Folk Festival in Salisbury, the city’s downtown is seen to the right. (Credit: National Council for the Traditional Arts)

A city like Salisbury is just the right size for the Folk Festival, the city and surrounding area are big enough to guarantee good crowd but small enough so that the Festival is a important event that deserves and receives both community and government support. In preparation for the festival Salisbury closed off a significant portion of its downtown area to traffic in order to provide space for the three stages where the musical acts performed while the area between the stages was filled with both food and folk art vendors. And while the downtown area may have been closed to cars many of the shops and restaurants remained open to service the crowd attending the festival.

Just a sample of the food vendors at the festival. (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

The festival began on the evening of Friday September 10th and ran all day Saturday the 11th and most of Sunday the 12th. My family and I went on Saturday, arriving early in order to have lunch before the music started and staying for dinner. The weather on Saturday was perfect, bright sunshine with a temperature around 25ºC and low humidity just right for an afternoon outdoors.

First up was a Tejano Conjunto trio from Texas. The fiddle player was quite talkative telling us all about how the music passed down through her family, that’s her husband on the bass. (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

The first act we saw was a Tejano conjunto fiddle trio from southern Texas who performed music traditional to both sides of the Rio Grande in northern Mexico and southern Texas. Up next was a band playing Cajun music called the Savoy Family. The highlight of the show was of course the Irish American All-Stars who had the biggest audience of any of the acts we saw. After all the Irish are such fun people that everybody loves them, except the English.

The Savoy Family played Cajun music. (Credit: R. A. Lawler)
Then came the Irish. (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

The Irish musicians were followed by an interesting group called the Sri Lankan Dance Academy of New York who performed traditional dances from their country. The final act we saw was actually a musical workshop that included members from several of the bands. Although the music was good I have to admit that I had some difficulty in following the discussion parts.

Colourful costumes highlighted the Sir Lankan Dance Academy’s performance. (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

All in all the festival was a great way to spend a beautiful fall day. Good music, good food and just getting out and about after months of trying to avoid crowds because of the pandemic. And the best news is that Salisbury has already been selected to host next year’s festival.

In addition to the music there were demonstrations of traditional crafts such as those provided by the local Pocomoke tribe. (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

Now, without getting too political, a lot has been said in recent years about how too much of the entertainment in this country is controlled by too few big corporations like Disney, Comcast, Fox or Viacom. If you’re one of the people who think that way then maybe you need to look a little harder for some entertainment venues like the National Folk Festival.

After nearly a century of giving the America public what it wants some people how hate Disney and other entertainment corporations for doing such a good job! (Credit: Disney)

Think about it, there are thousands of nightclubs and restaurants that have small musical groups performing. Wineries often have tasting evenings that feature live music. Here in Philadelphia our Museum of Art even has Friday night music events featuring local groups ranging from a Jazz trio to a string quartet. Of course you could also attend a bigger, better produced show like a Broadway Musical or even the Philadelphia Orchestra.

If you’re tired of the low brow entertainment provided on TV why not try something a little more Sophisticated? (Credit: The Philadelphia Orchestra)

Of course live entertainment does have one drawback when compared to canned TV shows, you have to sit through the setup or between act parts where nothing happens. On TV the producers edit out all those boring parts so you never see them, that way you’re entertained all the time. And for most of us, when we settle down at night after work we don’t want to have to look for entertainment, we just want to press a button and be entertained.

They don’t call it the Boob Tube for nothin’. (Credit: SoundCloud)

Still. we all know that there are plenty of live entertainment events out there just begging for us to come and join in the fun. So let’s be honest, if Disney and Comcast control too much of what you watch it’s because you want them too!

The Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) consortium centered in Belgium is working to construct a Radio Telescope that is effectively as large as all of Western Europe.

Ever since the telescope was first used by Galileo to study the heavens astronomers have built bigger and bigger telescopes to aid them in their work. To an astronomer the bigger the telescope the better for two basic reasons, the first reason is simply that the bigger the telescope the more light it can collect. This extra light allows objects that are too dim to be seen with the unaided eye to become visible. Point even a small telescope at a portion of the sky where you see only one or two stars and suddenly you’ll see dozens of stars because the telescope has a larger area to gather more light from those dimmer stars.

All of the galaxies seen in this image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope are far to dim to be seen with our eyes. But because the light gathering area of Hubble is so much larger it can gather much more light making these dim objects visible. (Credit: Science News)

The second reason is that a telescope, because of its ability to magnify what it sees, can separate two objects that appear to the naked eye to be a single object. Soon after a child receives their first telescope, and after a few nights looking at the Moon and a few planets they will turn to look at a star like Rigel or Spica in order to see how a single star becomes two or even more stars in their new ‘scope.

Equation for calculating the resolution, the ability of a telescope to separate two very close objects. For a visible telescope the wavelengths of light are so small even a small ‘scope does a good job but at radio frequencies the wavelengths are so large that a huge telescope is needed. (Credit: Telescope Nerd)

This ability to resolve the details of distant objects is a function of the size of the telescope divided by the size of the wavelength of the Electromagnetic waves it is designed to collect. For an optical telescope the wavelength of visible light is very small so they tend to have a lot of resolution. For radio telescopes however the waves they collect can have wavelengths that are centimeters or even meters long. In fact at a low frequency like 3 Mega-Hertz (MHz) the wavelength is actually a full 100m.

Radio waves have wavelengths ranging from centimetres to kilometres in length. (Credit: YateBTS)

This has always made the ‘images’ produced by radio telescopes much ‘fuzzier’ than those from optical telescopes. Over the last couple of decades however radio astronomers have developed a workaround thanks to the enormous progress in computer and communications technology. What they have done is link as many as a dozen radio telescopes in different parts of the world together electronically so that the signals they collect are added together by a supercomputer, effectively making the separate telescopes into a single one with a size of nearly the entire planet.

Combining the energy received by twelve radio telescopes spread across the world astronomers succeeded in obtaining the first image of a black hole. (Credit: BBC)

As mentioned in a previous post 17 April 2019, this technique is being used to provide the most detailed images ever obtained of the supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies along with other objects of interest. The telescopes used in these projects however were not originally designed to be used in conjunction with other scopes.

First image taken of a Black Hole obtained by an array of radio telescopes spread across the entire Earth and added together in a computer. (Credit: NASA)

Now a large array of radio receivers that are designed to act as a single radio telescope has been constructed at sites spread out over a sizeable portion of the Earth’s surface. Known as the LOw Frequency ARray or LOFAR project and originally funded as a national program by the government of the Netherlands LOFAR has now grown to include most of the countries of Western Europe.

Originally started as a project by the government of the Netherlands LOFAR has grown to cover western Europe. (Credit: Earth Observation Portal)

Currently LOFAR consists of 38 stations in the Netherlands, 24 core stations in the province of Exloo and 14 remote station spread around the rest of the country. There are also 14 international stations, 6 in Germany, 3 in Poland and one each in Ireland, the UK, France, Sweden and Latvia with a fifteenth station under construction in Italy. Each station is composed of 96 Low Band Antennas (LBAs) that receive signals between 10 and 90 MHz, along with 48 High Band Antennas (HBAs) that receive in the 120 to 240 MHz band. All together this makes for a total of more than 70,000 antennas in the LOFAR array. Each station also has the computer facilities to completely digitize all of the signals received by its antennas so that the data can be combined with those from all the other stations making LOFAR the highest resolution radio telescope ever built.

One of the LOFAR remote antenna stations in Holland. The high band antennas are to the left and the low band antennas are to the right.
Design for the layout of a LOFAR remote antenna station. (Credit: LOFAR)
Ground level view of some LOFAR antennas. Because they are simple, and cheap to build a very large number can be built increasing the amount of signal the entire array can receive. (Credit: BDFRMA)

The initial results published by the LOFAR consortium have dealt with detailed studied of the radio emissions from the supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies. When combined with optical images of the galaxy containing the black holes, see image below, astronomers can get a much more complete picture of the influence of supermassive black holes on their host galaxies.

This image of the galaxy Hercules A was made by combining a Hubble image in visible light with a LOFAR image at radio frequencies. The LOFAR data consists of the two jets streaming out from the galaxy itself, which is a tiny object in the center. The jets are generated by a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy which is feeding and generating huge amounts of energy. (Credit: R. Timmerman, LOFAR and Hubble)

Other studies planned for LOFAR include a full scale investigation into the early period of the Universe known as the ‘Period of Re-Ionization’ when the first stars and galaxies heated the gas and dust created by the big bang. LOFAR will also be employed to study transient sources like pulsars and fast radio bursts (FRBs). Closer to home LOFAR will study our Sun and in particular the solar wind of high energy particles emitted by the Sun.

The LOFAR array will also be used to study the solar wind and solar flares giving scientists a beeter idea of conditions on the Sun. (Credit: Astronimy and Astrophysics Group)

Best of all the LOFAR partnership has already submitted its plan to the EU for LOFAR2.0, a major upgrade to the system that is planned to commence in 2022. One can only guess at what wonders that system will reveal.

There’s some good news on the Environmental Front. Spotted Lanternfly Populations in areas that have been infested for several years are Declining Rapidly.

I have already mentioned the invasive species Spotted Lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula to give them their scientific name, several times in these posts, see post of 8 July 2020. A native of Southeast Asia L delicatula feeds by sucking the sap of fruit trees and vines and is considered a minor agricultural pest in its home region.

The Spotted Lanternfly, Lycorma delicatula, may be a rather pretty bug but it’s causing a great deal of damage to agriculture in the Mid-Atlantic states. (Credit: Scientific American)

The spotted lanternfly was first discovered in Berks county Pennsylvania in 2014 and in just a few years has spread across Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware and into portions of New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia and Ohio. Wherever they have appeared the pests have caused considerable damage to vineyards and orchards. So great has been the economic damage that State Departments of Agriculture in infested areas have been issuing advisories to kill the lanternflies in any way necessary.

A large number of nymphs and winged adult Lanternflies feeding on a branch. So great have the numbers of these creatures become that it’s easy to see how destructive they can be. (Credit: Fruit Growers News)

I first saw a few spotted lanternflies in my backyard and neighborhood back in 2019 and at that time was more curious than concerned. Last year in 2020 however there were thousands of them in all over my yard and in various places on every block within walking distance of my home. I killed as many as I could last year but all my efforts hardly made a dent in their numbers. At the time I was convinced that this year could only be worse.

Although the various state departments of agriculture may be having a bit of fun getting the spotted lanternfly under control is a very serious business. (Credit: UCNJ.org)

2020 certainly started out bad. The wild grapevines and other bushes in my backyard were heavily infested by early May and all of the spots in my area of Philadelphia where I had seen them last year were also teeming with nymphs. The population explosion didn’t last however, by the middle of June the numbers of spotted lanternflies had definitely declined and now, at the beginning of September the pests have become very difficult to find at all.

Not only that but their behavior has changed as well. Last year, and early this spring in the morning you could see a large number of spotted lanternflies sitting out on leaves in the bright sunshine to warm themselves in the Sun before going back to the branches to feed. Now however, if you want to find any at all you have to look deep in the foliage, several layers of leaves down. L delicatula seems to have become shy as their numbers have declined. 

Recently Lanternflies have become much more difficult to find. Rarely more than one at a time and farther back in the leaves. (Credit: The Sun Newspapers)

 So what’s going on? Something is killing the lanternflies, but what? Is it some disease or fungal infection that is killing them? Or maybe it’s us, is the spraying with insecticide and all the other means we’ve used to control them doing the job?

Nah! The spotted lanternflies I examined lately show no sign of disease, they look as healthy as ever. And some areas that were heavily infested with lanternflies are now virtually clear despite no human doing anything about them.

This baby Bluebird seems to have figured out that lanternflies are worth eating. (Credit: Penn State News – Penn State University)

It looks like what is actually happening is that predators, insect eating birds and other insects have discovered that spotted lanternflies taste good and are worth going after. Scientists at the Academy of Natural Sciences here in Philadelphia think that Preying Mantis’ in particular are feeding on the lanternflies. In fact if you Google images of spotted lanternflies and preying mantis’ you can see a large number of different pictures of a mantis chomping down on a lanternfly. And if predators are the cause of the collapse of lanternfly numbers that would also explain why the remaining flies are now in hiding.

A Praying Mantis chomping down on a lanternfly. (Credit: Drexel University)
Another Mantis making a meal of a lanternfly. (Penn State News – Penn State University)

Even if true this doesn’t mean that the problem is over and spotted lanternflies are now under control however. So far it’s only the counties of Berks, Bucks, Montgomery and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania that have seen a major decline in lanternfly numbers. But these are the very counties that have been infested with lanternflies the longest. Other areas, like south Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and New York where the Lanternflies only arrived a year to two ago are still seeing a population explosion. It seems then that it takes the insect eating predators of an area two or three years to recognize the lanternflies as prey and begin eating them in large enough numbers to control the population.

Current known areas infested with Spotted Lanternflies. The recent decrease in the lanternfly population has only been noticed in five or six counties in southeastern Pennsylvania. Everywhere else they continue to spread, becoming a growing problem. (Credit: The Conversation)

If this theory works out to be true then spotted lanternflies may end up being something like a tsunami, a big wave that causes a lot of damage but eventually recedes. Spotted Lanternflies may show up in small numbers in an area one year, then have a massive population increase for the next 2-3 years only to have predators attack and collapse their numbers afterward.

Gypsy Moth caterpillars were once considered to be as big a problem as Spotted Lanternflies. Even today they can appear in large enough numbers to cause considerable amounts of destruction. (Credit: Adirondack Explorer)

Other invasive, destructive insects have already followed this scenario. Both Gypsy Moths and Japanese Beetles caused a lot of damage here in the Mid-Atlantic States several decades ago but now their populations are so small that it’s rare to see one. Nature it seems, has a way of regulating itself, of fixing the screw-ups we cause.

Mather Nature may have great powers but those powers take time and remember, she works to benefit all of her creatures, not just us! (Credit: Fine Art America)

 There is a limit to even nature’s restorative powers however.

The ‘Remnants’ of Hurricane Ida cause Catastrophic Destruction in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. Once again Climate Change is making once in a thousand years Weather Events ‘The New Normal’.

Just a few weeks ago, 11August 2021, I published a post describing the massive flooding that had hit the cities of Zhengzhou in central China and London in the UK. The rainstorms that caused the flood events in both cities would have been considered to have been once in a thousand years deluges were it not for the way that climate change is making extreme weather much more common. In that post I wondered how the infrastructure in cities, especially older cities like London, were going to cope with ‘The New Normal’.

Aftermath of the flooding in Zhengzhou China only a month ago. (Credit: New York Times)

When I wrote that post I had no idea that I was soon to become a witness to the very predicament I had written about. That’s because, on the first of September 2021 the remnants of Hurricane Ida, the leftovers that is, unleashed its destructive power on my home state of Pennsylvania along with New Jersey and New York.

As Ida, now a tropical depression, passed through the mid-Atlantic states it released one last disaster. (Credit: Bucks County Courier Times)

Now Ida had already caused more than enough damage to the state of Louisiana and southern Mississippi when it came ashore on the 29th of August, the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The storm hit as a strong category 4 with winds over 240 kph causing terrific damage. Whole communities were destroyed with more than a dozen dead while over 1 million people lost their electrical power due to downed power lines and uprooted trees.

Just a bit of the destruction wrought by Ida in Louisiana. (Credit: CNN)

Turning to the northeast over the next several days Ida brought heavy rains to the states of Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky West Virginia and Virginia before entering the Mid-Atlantic States. It was here that the now tropical depression collided with a cold front coming down from Canada. That front squeezed Ida like a sponge releasing its remaining moisture and causing the storm to regain some of her strength.

Even as Ida was coming ashore in the gulf states a front was moving down from Canada. The two would meet over Pennsylvania. (Credit: WDBJ)

If you draw a line from Baltimore through Philadelphia to New York City to the northwest of that line there were historic amounts of rainfall that caused unprecedented flooding. To the southeast a series of supercell storms dropped strong tornadoes that ripped up trees and flattened homes.

One of the Tornadoes generated by Ida in New Jersey. (Credit: Tony Citara / WPVI)
Some of the damage done by Tornadoes in Mullica Hill New Jersey. (Credit: WPVI)

The period of the strongest storms began a little after 4PM EDT when Philadelphia’s three local news stations had begun their evening broadcasts. As the destruction unfolded all other news was forgotten and the meteorologists at those three stations continuously stayed on the air for the next four hours while the National Weather Service issued tornado warning after tornado warning, flash flood warning after flash flood warning.

Last Year’s total of Tornadoes and warnings smashed all previous records for the Delaware Valley region. This year has already smashed last year’s records. (Credit: WPVI)

Several of the weatherpersons who have lived all their lives in the Philadelphia area were simply stunned by the enormity of the storm’s power. “Philadelphia doesn’t get weather like this” they continually stated, “This is historic”. And it was; 20 record rainfall totals were set along with record flooding in many creeks and rivers. And so far this year the Delaware valley has seen 25 tornadoes. I don’t think we had 25 tornadoes in the first sixty years of my life!

The Tornadoes weren’t just confined to New Jersey, here’s a damaged home in Chester County Pa. (Credit: WPVI)

I almost feel guilty to say it but I was safe throughout the entire ordeal, my neighborhood got 10Cm of rain but fortunately nothing worse. Many people were not so lucky. As I write these words 50 people are known to have died and thousands more have lost their homes or automobiles. Indeed the number of cars that were simply abandoned by their drivers because they were stuck on crowded highways while the waters rose around them is simply unbelievable. Many areas of Philadelphia and the surrounding communities that I known very well are currently underwater and will remain so for days, and only then can the cleanup effort begin.

An underpass of the Vine Street Expressway, the major route through center city Philadelphia. Well, it’s certainly under something now! (Credit: WPVI)
Some of the flooding caused by the Brandywine Creek in Chadds Ford Pennsylvania. (Credit: WPVI)

The city of New York suffered similarly with the heaviest rain ever measured falling on Central Park and many of the city’s subway stations closed due to flooding. Of course its not just the big cities that suffered, smaller cities like Wilmington, Delaware and Trenton, New Jersey also saw major flooding along with scores of smaller towns. In all three states there were hundreds of water rescues of people whom the waters had trapped in their cars or homes.

On the left a New York City bus is flooded, on the right a subway car in Zhengzhou. Several times during Ida I was struck by a feeling of deja vu. (Credit: New York Post and Insider)
Play Ball! Not for awhile as the minor league park in Bound Brook in New Jersey is flooded out. (Credit: CNN)
Water rescues underway in Wilmington Delaware. Scenes like this occurred in eight states. (Credit: WPVI)

With such extreme weather of course climate change was bought up and I suppose it’s a sign of some progress that all of the weathercasters and most of the newspersons I watched that night have accepted global warming as a major factor in the strength of these storms. After all global warming is heating our atmosphere and oceans, and since heat is just a form of energy that warming just makes the storms that develop over the oceans much more energetic, that much more deadly. It’s that extra energy that is turning once in a hundred, once in five hundred year weather events into the new normal.

Arial view of the Vine Street Expressway. Compare this image to the first image above from Zhengzhou, again eerily similar. (Credit: WPVI)
The Manayunk section of Philadelphia along the Schuylkill River is known for occasional flooding, but not like this. (Credit: WPVI)

However it still seems that there are plenty of politicians who will do anything and everything in their power to keep on burning fossil fuels. The battle isn’t won yet; let’s be honest, it’s only just started.

Fortunately it looks like Hurricane Larry will stay out in the Atlantic. We won’t always be so lucky! (Credit: WPLG)

   Oh, and Hurricane Larry has formed out in the Atlantic, its expected to grow into a big one! 

The more anthropologists study our closest relatives the more like us they seem to behave, and the more we learn about ourselves.

It was only a little more than fifty years ago that the world was astounded by the discoveries of Jane Goodall as she described the normal, day-to-day behavior of Chimpanzees. By simply monitoring the same group of chimpanzees for such a long period of time that they ceased to pay any attention to her Goodall was able to observe behavior in them that previously was considered to be purely ‘human’. Tool use, hunting in groups for small animal prey and even murder were among the most notable of her discoveries.

Jane Goodall succeeded in learning secrets about the behavior of Chimpanzees be getting up close and personal over a long period of time! (Credit: Pro Well technology)

Since that time other researchers have uncovered further aspects of chimpanzee behavior, even the astounding fact that large populations of chimpanzees in different parts of Africa display different behaviors, the rudimentary beginnings of culture, even ethnicity. All of these studies have one thing in common, the more we learn about our closest relatives the more human they seem.

Anthropologists are recognizing different behaviors and even different material use in six different populations of chimpanzees. Are we seeing the beginnings of ethnic culture? (Credit: Nature)

Now two new studies have added further evidence in support of that thesis. The first concerns social interactions between two chimpanzees or two bonobos, a closely related species often mistaken for chimps.

There is still some debate as to whether Bonobos are a separate species or a subspecies of Chimpanzees. The consensus at present is a separate species but that brings up the whole question of just exactly how to define a species. (Credit: San Diego Zoo Kids)

Whenever two humans meet it is customary for them to exchange greetings, “Hi, how are you doing.” being typical. The strange thing is that the better two individuals know each the shorter the time required for the greeting. Think about it, if you run into a business acquaintance that you haven’t seen in over a year you spend a few minutes getting re-acquainted before getting down to business. On the other hand when you get together for dinner with your best friend who you just saw last week it’s “Hey man, good to see you…where should we eat?” The two of you know each other so well that you don’t have to get re-acquainted, you can get right down to the purpose of the meeting.

Chimpanzees and Bonobos both perform a series of behaviors when starting and closing an interaction with another individual. (Credit: Psychology Today)

The same happens at the end of the get together. When the meeting is over with that business associate you see once or twice a year you make plans to keep in touch, maybe even arrange the next meeting. When you and your best friend say goodbye it can be a short as ‘See ya around.” Anthropologists refer to these greetings and goodbyes as Entry and Exit phases of a social interaction and together represent a Joint Commitment to the social interaction. 

We humans also have our own ritual greetings at the start of any interaction. Turns out our relatives are a lot like us! (Credit: The New York Times)

Now a group of researchers at the Institute of Work and Organizational Psychology at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland and eight other institutes has published a paper in the journal iScience where they present evidence of very similar conduct in both chimps and bonobos. The observed behaviors include such actions as eye contact and non-verbal signals both prior to and at the end of some joint activity such as mutual grooming or play.

Chimps and other great Apes love to groom each other but first they have to mutually agree to the time spent together by means of an entry greeting. (Credit: ZME Science)

Bonobos in particular exhibited the human like behavior; even to the extent that the observed greetings and farewells are shorter for very well acquainted individuals, again just as in humans. One interesting observation made in both species is that the social rank of the individuals involved, such as the alpha male, appeared to play no role in the coordinated joint action phases.

So it seems as if our relatives share much of our behavior when interacting on a one on one basis. A second recent study gives evidence that they also act in very human like ways when in larger groups.

Once again it was Jane Goodall who first observed the chimpanzees of the group she was studying carry out what could only be described as an act of war against a neighboring group. What she described was that the alpha male of her group first gathered together all of the other males. The males then quietly and stealthily entered the territory of a neighboring group where, after a period of time in hiding they ambushed a juvenal male of the neighboring group, killing him without mercy.

Perhaps another similar behavior Chimps have with us is rebelling against authority. The dead Chimp in the middle was the former Alpha Male of the group that just killed him! (Credit: New Scientist)

Now biologists at the Loango National Park in Gabon have witnessed two inter-species battles between groups of chimpanzees and gorillas. In each incident the chimpanzees both outnumbered the gorillas and seemed to have instigated the conflict. Also, in both incidents a young gorilla was killed.

The first war between two groups of Chimpanzees was witnessed back in 1974 and lasted four years. The new evidence of fighting between Chimps and Gorillas just demonstrates how much like us they are. (Credit: Fact Republic)

The first incident occurred in February of 2019 and took place when a group of 18 chimpanzees were returning to their territory from a foraging excursion. The chimps came upon five gorillas, only one of which was a male and immediately became aggressive. In a battle that lasted nearly an hour an infant gorilla was separated from its mother and killed.

The second battle happened in December and was even larger with 27 chimpanzees attacking seven gorillas for well over an hour. Again a baby gorilla was stolen from its mother and killed and this time the murdered infant was actually eaten by the triumphant chimps.

Under threat from humans throughout Africa it appears that Gorillas are even threatened by Chimpanzees. (Credit: Windy City Travel)

It is not known how often such conflicts take place between chimps and gorillas, or what the reasons for the battles were. Both chimpanzees and gorillas are very difficult to keep under observation. The naturalists at Loango Park have noted however that both incidents occurred during the season when supplies of fruit are low so the fights may have been over resources.

Loango National Park in Gabon. (Credit: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)

Nevertheless the episodes do illustrate just how remarkable the resemblance is between the behaviors of ourselves and our closest relatives. Whether that be for good or ill.

Paleontology News for September 2021: Some Exciting new Fossil Discoveries from around the world.

As I have mentioned several times in these posts, 99% of the fossils that paleontologists, and amateurs like me find are the hard parts, the shells or bones of ancient animals. Soft tissue like muscles or internal organs are rarely preserved and even then they usually distorted in shape because of the enormous pressure they were under for millions of years. So it’s not surprising therefore that paleontologists got pretty excited recently by the discovery of a very well preserved 310 million year old brain.

Fossil Horseshoe Crab (L) showing its brain, closeup of the brain (C) and an illustration of how the brain would fit inside a living crab (R). (Credit: Phys.org)

The brain in question belonged to a specimen of a species of horseshoe crab called Euproops danae and was found at the Mazon Creek fossil site in Illinois. The Mazon Creek site is famous for its excellent preservation of fossils from the Pennsylvania period some 310 million years ago. Many completely soft bodied species have been discovered in the iron concretions at Mazon Creek and are known only from that site.

The Mazon Creek fossil location in the state of Illinois. The fossils at Mazon Creek are so well preserved that the locale is considered a ‘mother load’ by paleontologists and amateurs alike. (Credit: Field Museum)
A well preserved specimen of the enigmatic ‘Tully Monster’, the most famous creature found at Mazon Creek. (Credit: UCMP Berkeley)

The specimen of horseshoe crab was discovered and studied by a team of paleontologists from the University of New England in Australia, Harvard University in Massachusetts and Pomona College in California with the results published in the journal Geology. The identification of the preserved organ as the animal’s brain was made certain by comparing it to the brain of modern horseshoe crabs. So close is the resemblance that the fossil brain illustrates how little the horseshoe crabs have evolved in the last 300 million years, making them true ‘living fossils’.

A living fossil. Horseshoe crabs have changed very little over the last 400 million years, a true testament to a body design that fits in perfectly with its environment. (Credit: R. A. Lawler)

So it seems that even some of the softest organs and even whole animals from the past can be preserved and studied, all that’s required to find one is patience and a lot of fossils to examine. But for those of us who associate fossils with big animals like dinosaurs it’s nice that big means big bones, bones that are more easily fossilized.

Let’s be honest, when most people think of fossils they think of bones because they are nice and large and hard. Because of that they fossilize well. (Credit: Wikipedia)

And the biggest of all the dinosaurs were the sauropods; those long necked and long tailed monsters like the Diplodocus and wrongly named Brontosaurus, whose scientifically accepted name is really Apatasaurus. Both Diplodocus and Apatasaurus were discovered more than a century ago in North America but sauropods have now been discovered on every continent. Recently new fossils from the early Cretaceous period, 120-130 million years ago in China are adding two new species of giants to that well-known group.

Rivaling whales as the largest of all living creatures, sauropod dinosaurs lived for more than 100 million years on every continent. (Credit: Amazon.com)

 The fossils were discovered in the Turpan-Hami Basin in the province of Xinjiang China and were described in an article published in the journal Science Reports. One specimen detailed in the study consisted of seven vertebra from the neck of a new species of sauropod that has been christened Silutitan sinensis and is estimated to have been some 20m in length. The second specimen is made up of seven vertebra from the tail of a different individual and is also described as a new species, which they have named Hamititan xinjiangensis. The researchers estimate the length of H xinjiangensis as being more than 17m.

Artists illustration of Hamititan xinjiangensis (L) and Silutitan sinensis (R) the largest dinosaurs known to have inhabited China. (Credit: ABC News)

The third specimen consists of only a few vertebra and rib fragments that the paleontologists have been unable to identify for certain as either a known or new species but are confident that they do come from a sauropod. These new species of sauropod not only add to the ever growing number of known dinosaur species but help to round out our knowledge of the cretaceous period in the far east.

Another part of the world whose Mesozoic past is also being uncovered is Australia where a new species of pterosaur has been described in an article published in the journal Vertebrate Paleontology, and it’s also a monster. The fossil skull of the flying reptile, pterosaurs are not dinosaurs, was discovered by a longtime amateur fossil hunter Len Shaw and has been given the name Thapunngaka shawi, which means ‘Shaw’s Spear Mouth’ in the local indigenous language.

The Skull of Thapunngaka shawi. Pterosaur bones are lighter than those of most animals, necessary for flying creatures, and therefore they don’t fossilize as well as a sauropod’s bones would. (Credit: Everything Dinosaur Blog)

The skull measures a little over a meter in length and would have contained about 40 sharp spiky teeth. By comparing it to related species researchers estimate that T shawi would have had a wingspan of about seven meters. The researchers speculate that T shawi probably flew above the vast inland sea that covered much of Australia back in the early cretaceous catching fish in much the same way as a modern pelican does.

Artists impression of T shawi in flight. With a wingspan of perhaps seven meters T shawi would have been a flying dragon indeed. (Credit: Bif Think)

In order to be able to fly the bones of pterosaurs were mostly hollow and easily broken. This makes fossils finds of pterosaurs rare and valuable, in fact the skull of T shawi is only the 20th pterosaur fossil to be found in Australia over the last 50 years. Nevertheless T shawi, like the sauropod species from China, does help to complete our picture of the living creatures who inhabited these parts of the world more than 100 million years ago.