New Year Special: Year of the Pig

Happy New Year! In China, it’s the Year of the Pig. Pigs have long been a mainstay of Eurasian societies since they were domesticated, proving critical protein for relatively low cost, and allowed for the Polynesians to conquer the Pacific and the Europeans to thrive in the New World.   The Egyptians considered them evil and diseased, and the Jewish and Muslim examples followed their example.   But it says something the Romans loved them so much they refused to adopt that dietary law. 

Pigs have been a success story in history.  It’s time to talk about their evolutionary story.

Pigs are basal artiodactyls-their closest relatives are the similarly Suine Peccaries, more basal camels, and more derived ungulates such as hippos, whales and extinct entelodonts, followed by camels, then by ruminants. 

 

So where do Suines come from? 

Happy 30th: The discoveries of 1988

This weekend, I turned 30 years old. It’s a milestone for me, of course, but it reminded me about how much can change in 30 years.  30 years ago the dinosaur film was Land Before Time, when dinosaurs were inspired by the works of Charles Knight and William Stout before the Jurassic Park paradigm took over.  30 years ago,  the Berlin Wall still stood dividing Germany, the first Bush became president coasting in on Reagan’s popularity, and computer graphics in film were limited to a short by Pixar. 

There were many milestone in paleontology as well-new species were described, that would become iconic many years later.  So, I’ve decided to showcase all the fossil tetrapods described in 1988.  I can’t go into any depth about each, but there will be quite a few of them, so hold on your butts.

Species that don't get enough publicity #13: Bison

Today’s overlooked species is rather paradoxical; it’s not really overlooked as the genus has become a symbol of an entire continent. People of that continent can recognize one instantly. Empires have risen and fell because of them. Their meat is expensive but delicious. Their herds range over thousands of miles, and only centuries before covered the entire continent in a thick swath. They are the last American megafauna, and they escaped the fate of their neighbors by the skin of their teeth. That’s right, we’re talking about American bison. Yesterday was Bison Day, and I’m going to celebrate our last great mammal before it too is lost to human hunger and short-sightedness.

Paleofest Report 2017

It’s time for my annual report of Paleofest in the Burpee Museum in Rockford. Last year I skipped the report considering the high amount of unreleased data as part of it, which is a shame since it was quite good. This year there are fewer spoilers, but I did wait a month after the event. For more on Paleofest itself, please check out my first report here: http://davidsamateurpalaeo.blogspot.com/2015/04/paleofest-2015-report.html

An overview of Dinosaur Exhibits part 6: Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Colorado is what you can consider a rich state for fossils.  Marine reptiles, prehistoric mammals, ice age megafauna, Jurassic dinosaurs and Cretaceous dinosaurs can all be found on both sides of the Rockies.  On the west side are the Museum of Western Colorado in Grand Junction and the Royal Gorge Regional Museum and History Center in Canyon City.  On the other are  the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park and the subject of today’s article, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

An overview of Dinosaur Exhibits part 5: The Royal Ontario Museum

I have held off talking about this museum for a while now, as it has been nearly 15 years since I’ve been there last, and not only have I forgotten a great deal of it but also it has undergone extensive renovation in 2008.  Canada, like the USA, is rich in dinosaur fossil material, and sort of acts like Mongolia to China in terms of fossils-the hotbed of Cretaceous rock. British Colombia brought us the Cambrian explosion in the Burgess Shale, but for dinosaurs, Alberta and Saskatchewan are the real treasure trove. There’s really nothing like them outside of Montana and Wyoming to the south and Mongolia across the Pacific. Lambe, Brown, and the Sternbergs found a gold mine of Cretaceous fossils, one that is still being excavated today. 

Like the southern American West, while a lot of fossils are stored and studied nearby (in this case, the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller near Edmonton), a great deal have made it to the East. While the US fossils were shipped to Chicago, Pittsburg, Washington, New Haven, Philadelphia and Washington DC,  the Canadian fossils were sent to Toronto and Ottawa. The National Canadian Museum of Nature will be covered next in the series, but today we’re looking at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Top 10 Prehistoric Creatures pictured accidentally

You know, it’s easy to see how we’ve misinterpreted fossils.  It’s difficult for any part of an animal to fossilize, so complete specimens are rare and really special.  So inaccurate palaeoart is inevitable, and really not surprising at all.  Then there are the times when reconstructions accidentally depict a different animal entirely unintentionally. We all know about how Tyrannosaurus was originally reconstructed on Allosaurus and Apatosaurus on Camarosaurus, but they’re not alone. Sometimes it’s because of misidentification, and sometimes it’s simply due to laziness in paleontological reconstructions.  Here are the top 10 Prehistoric Animals people picture when they try to picture a different animal (there has to be a specific word for this phenomenon. I’m sure there’s one in German or something).

Documentary review: Jurassic Fight Club

I have a special connection to this week’s documentary being reviewed. When it first came out in 2008, I was eagerly anticipating it. You see, it reminded me of a series I was really interested in as a teenager. It was on Discovery, a show called Animal Face-Off, which discussed possible battles between coexisting species such as lion vs tiger, elephant vs rhinoceros, bear vs alligator, etc.  While the execution was terribly done, I liked the premise. When I heard what sounded like a dinosaur version of the show was coming to TV, I couldn’t wait.  

This is Jurassic Fight Club. When I did watch it, it wasn’t as good as I hoped, but still a very enjoyable show.  The premise is extrapolating from fossils about prehistoric conflicts. The discovery is first shown, then the species involved, the environment, and then a comparison and finally an action sequence showing the conflict. The host is George Blasing, a paleontology expert and teacher who has a roadshow in Texas, educating at schools on fossils and prehistoric animals. George is a great personality, dynamic and funny on the show, and with a vivid imagination he describes, blow by blow, the incidents implied by the fossil finds.  When my birthday came this past week, I immediately bought myself the DVD set for this review.  

Documentary Review: Walking With Beasts 2001

You know, I reviewed Walking With Dinosaurs for two reasons. One was to prepare for the upcoming movie. The other, however, was because of a very happy holiday. I believe it was 2001 that it happened. Every year, usually two weeks before Christmas, I visit my grandfather so we can put up his Christmas tree and celebrate my father’s birthday with a pizza. That year we went out, and enjoyed a pizza together at a nearby restaurant. There were televisions nearby, and they always take up some attention. I had watched Walking With Dinosaurs in the past year thanks to an uncle with cable. Suddenly, when I looked up, I saw a Basilosaurus. Then brontotheres. A giant predatory mammal ate a turtle. Ancestors of elephants swam by. I was transfixed. Throughout the evening I watched the rest of the episode, and then the next happened. A giant piglike animal snarled. A Baluchitherium marched across a dry plain. A Hyenodon savagely killed another strange-looking mammal.  I stopped paying attention to the pizza or my family. It was just me and the fantastic mammals. I had to be dragged off just as a preview was shown featuring a giant prehistoric relative of the elephant chasing human ancestors.

Belated Halloween post: Top Ten Scariest Prehistoric Environments

Sorry this took so long!  I was hoping to get this done by Halloween, but it took a week to get this one out. Next time I’ll do monster posts like this one in installments. Today we’re going for another lighthearted one-yes, we’re going to do a top ten list today. This one’s been inspired by the documentary series Sea Monsters, where host Nigel Martin took the audience through the “top 7 deadliest seas”. In the same spirit, I’ve chosen the top 10 Deadliest Terrestrial faunas, based on the number of large predators. If I missed any that deserved to be on this list, please let me know. This isn’t based on any particular grade, but based on the number of large predators present in the fauna.

Here's something I made before I started blogging: Top Ten Megafauna That Made Prehistoric Australia Even Scarier

Ah, Australia. It's a running gag for biologists that it's one of the scariest countries. Sure, the climate doesn't sound that bad, the native peoples didn't have the complex military societies that us Yanks had to deal with during our own hostile takeover, there's never been a civil war, and while there's a lot of ethnic groups (and accompanying oppression), there's not enough guns to make it as dangerous as the average US city. I do plan on going there, and it looks a lot nicer than, say, Israel or India (other places on my list, but I'll get to them later)