Welcome to the new "Creature of the Week" post! We took a little bit of extra time to decide on the prehistoric animal we were going to review and after some careful consideration, we have our rhinoceros. Let's pump our fists in welcome of Paraceratherium.
Paraceratherium (sp.) Otherwise known as Indricotherium, this rhinoceros ancestor is one of the largest land mammals known to science. Praceratherium was approximately 5.5 meters (18 ft) tall at the shoulder, 10 meters (33 ft) in length from nose to rear. When the head was raised it would reach a height of about 8 meters (26 ft). Weight estimates are about 20 metric tons (30 short tons). Paraceratherium was by all accounts an herbivore. It lived during the Eocene to the Oligocene from about 37.2 to 23 million years. Paraceratherium was essentially a large hornless over-sized rhinoceros. It had tusk-like upper teeth and forward-pointing lower teeth. The upper incisors pointed down, while the lower incisors jutted outward from their position. Paraceratherium's lips were extremely mobile and probably aided the herbivore with stripping leaves from trees. What can be inferred from Paracertherium is that the animal was a browser that enjoyed leaves, twigs, and possibly shrubbery. Named in 1911 by Forster Cooper, Paraceratherium has a complex taxonomic history with names like Balucatherium and Indricotherium being in reference to this magnificent beast. Paraceratherium lived in Eurasia and Asia and its remains were found originally in Pakistan in 1911.
Paraceratherium credit Christopher DiPiazza 2012 (c)
That does it for this week. Stayed tuned for next week as we take another look at another prehistoric critter from long ago! If you have a suggestion, e-mail me at: tyrannosaur*at*jplegacy.org.
References Lucas, S. G. & Sobus, J. C. (1989), The Systematics of Indricotheres. 358-378 in Prothero, D. R. & Schoch, R. M., (eds.) 1989: The Evolution of Perissodactyls, Oxford University Press, New York, New York & Oxford, England, ix-537 - argues that Indricotherium should be included under Paraceratherium
Antoine P.-O., Shah, S.M.I., Cheema, I.U., Crochet, J.-Y., de Franceschi, D., Marivaux, L., Métais, G., Welcomme, J.-L. (2004). New remains of the baluchithere Paraceratherium bugtiense(Pilgrim, 1910) from the Late/latest Oligocene of the Bugti Hills, Balochistan, Pakistan. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 24: 71–77.
As someone with a degree in Animal Science, I find it gets a bit irritating when people ask what my involvement in paleontology has to do with my background. I don't understand why some people think dinosaurs always need to be separated from the rest of the animal kingdom! Being extinct (for the most part *cough* birds *cough*) doesn't stop them from being animals still.
I find many people tend to view dinosaurs with a different eye than they do for living animals. Maybe its because no human has ever seen something like a Tyrannosaurus or a Triceratops alive and therefore its much more difficult to imagine them than it is to just go to a zoo and look at rhinos and lions. Even so, I get the impression that dinosaurs are treated more like mythical monsters. Granted, many fictional monsters are indeed based off of dinosaurs like Godzilla, for instance. Its more than likely that many ancient mythical creatures that appear in folklore were inspired by the discovery of dinosaur bones by those civilizations. Think about it. Almost every culture including the ancient Egyptians, Aztecs, Mesopotamians, the Aborigines,the Chinese, ancient Greeks, Norse and even Native Americans all have their own sort of large reptilian monster such as a dragon in their stories. These cultures were separated by great distances and thousands of years yet they all have these monsters in common.
Norse
Chinese
Mesopotamia
I'm not saying these people had no imagination. But the imagination still needs to be inspired by something. They were probably finding dinosaur bones. They just weren't calling them dinosaurs is all. It is believed that one mythical creature, the griffin (part eagle and part lion), was inspired by Protoceratops bones being discovered by ancient nomads thousands of years ago in central Asia.
"Do we know each other? You look eerily familiar..."
Regardless if they were the inspiration for mythical monsters or not, dinosaurs were still just animals like any critters alive today. Yes sure, they probably fought and killed each other from time to time, which makes for great television, but they also probably spent a lot of their time sleeping, eating and having babies. I say it all the time on my various blog posts but its so important to me that I can't help but continue to bring it up; The best way to understand long extinct animals is to look at animals that are alive today.
Today
Back in the Jurassic
Think of the natural world as a sort of major league sports team like baseball. Professional baseball has been played for generations. If you were to go back in time and watch a baseball game thirty years ago you would see two teams, a pitcher, a batter, outfielders...you get the idea. Now flash forward to today and watch a game on television. You will see the same game being played with the same rules but the individual people in each role will of course be different. Nature works the same way. Any ecosystem today has animals that each fill a certain niche. A niche is sort of like a job description for an organism. All organisms have their own niches in their natural habitats. Go back in time and you will see dinosaurs had niches very similar, if not identical to those that animals occupy today.
Today
Same scene back in the Jurassic
There are a few academic paths a person can choose when they want to go on to study paleontology. Many people choose to study geology. But paleontology is a field of many elements. Backgrounds like ecology, anatomy and just all around general biology are just as important.
Works Cited
Mayor, A. (2000). The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. ISBN0-691-05863-6.
When doing events for museums and such one of the common questions I get from the adults is “Why do you study dinosaurs?” The simple answer to that question plain and simple is because I think dinosaurs are cool. If you ask a paleontologist I wouldn’t be surprised if he or she would give a similar answer to mine. It is a valid question though. After all what do dinosaurs have to do with us anyway? They all died out millions of years ago and have no effect on how we live our lives today right? Well not exactly. I can think of two big ways dinosaurs affect us almost every day off the top of my head. I’m not just talking about scientists who study them either. I’m talking about most people all over the world.
Who likes fruit? Go ahead let me see a show of hands. Let’s be honest, fruit is awesome. It tastes great and its 0 points on weightwatchers! (Sorry. My parents are going nuts with this weightwatchers thing. They aren’t even overweight either.). Seriously though, you can pretty much gorge yourself on berries, apples and bananas all day if you wanted and it’s totally healthy! (I think? I’m not a nutritionist.) Well either way we have dinosaurs to thank for fruit. “What the heck do dinosaurs have to do with fruit?” you may be asking yourself. Well I’ll tell you. Way back in the Cretaceous period when dinosaurs were still around, the first flowering plants evolved. Previous to this there were only plants like evergreens and ferns to name some…but no flowers. Only flowering plants produce fruit. What is fruit exactly besides delicious? Well fruit is a flowering plant’s way of spreading its seeds around. You see, many fruits are actually meant to be eaten. The tree wants an animal to come along and eat its fruit in order to produce more of its kind. This is because all naturally occurring fruit bears seeds. The animal eats the fruit (and the seeds along with it) walks away and then later on the seeds come out. How do they come out you ask? Well how do you think they come out? The animal poops them out. Teehee! Poop. The seed is then in its own little pile of fertilizer and may grow into a brand new plant itself! It’s a nice little symbiotic relationship that fruit-bearing plants have with certain animals. (For those of you who don’t know, a symbiotic relationship is where two different plants, animals or other organisms help each other out). The animal gets a meal and the plant gets a chance to spread its seeds around.
I put a lot of love and detail into this sketch right down to the tiniest "plop".
Today, the animals that carry out this duty (Teehee! Poop.) can be anything that eats fruit like monkeys, birds, bats and even some lizards. But the first animals to do it were probably dinosaurs. Think about it, who else were the only animals big enough back in the Cretaceous when fruit first appeared to do this? Thank you, dinosaurs!
I am aware Titanosaurs didn't coexist with monkeys and apples. Just go with it for now.
The Second way dinosaurs all affect us today is simply because many dinosaurs never went extinct in the first place. In fact, one of the most important animals alive today that people rely heavily on for food is actually a dinosaur. Birds are dinosaurs, no ifs, ands or buts about it. There is so much information to prove this fact I could easily spend several blog posts writing about it. Instead I’m just going to show you pictuers of of two dinosaur skeletons (one modern and one prehistoric) and you can check out the family resemblance for yourself.
Modern Dinosaur
Prehistoric Dinosaur
That being said, animals that we use for food like turkeys, ducks and most importantly, chickens, are all actually kinds of dinosaurs. Who likes to eat eggs? How about chicken nuggets? Any fans of Thanksgiving out there? Thank you dinosaurs!
Mr. Turkey decided to invite HIS family for Thanksgiving that year.
Howdy folks! For today's post I decided to stray away a bit from the dinosaur scene but still remain within the paleontology field. That's right I'm going to be talking about prehistoric mammals. Did you know that in addition to our beloved dinosaurs, New Jersey was also home to a bunch of other prehistoric animals as well? Many famous mammal fossils have been discovered in the garden state including the well known Mastodon, Giant Ground Sloth, ancient beavers and even a prehistoric walrus! At the State Museum in Trenton, there is the skeleton of another prehistoric NJ native commonly dubbed the "elk-moose". Is it an elk or a moose? It seems to have features of both.
My quick life restoration Cervalces americanus
My friend and former Rutgers classmate, Amanda Giesler, is now a graduate student of paleontology focusing on deer and their relatives (called cervids). She asked me if I knew anything about the mysterious elk-moose skeleton's whereabouts and luckily for her I did! It wasn't long before I met her at the museum to help her obtain some data for her studies. I have to admit I'm not much of an expert myself on cervids...but she is! Take it away, Amanda!
"About me: I am currently completing my M.S. degree in geosciences at East Tennessee State University. I am a NJ native, and completed my B.S. degree in Ecology and Natural Resources at Rutgers University in 2010. In the future, I would like to continue research in the field of Pleistocene paleoecology, work on a PhD, and eventually become a professor. I am getting married in June and have an awesome dachshund named Roo Roo.
On March 5th, 2011, I had the pleasure of visiting the NJ State Museum for the first time. New Jersey is well known for Dryptosaurus and Hadrosaurus fossils, but I was interested in the state’s mammalian claim to fame: Cervalces americanus, the extinct elk moose. Only two skeletons in the entire world of this Pleistocene giant are known, both derived from bogs in our home state. The specimen at the NJSM was actually the first Cervalcesmaterial ever found, formally described by W.B. Scott in 1885. Only a few bones are missing, and the antlers are exquisitely preserved, which are the best element for identification of Cervalcesmaterial.
Amanda and the very handsome Cervalces americanus. (Amanda is the shorter bipedal one one on the right.)
The elk moose is aptly named; some features of its skeleton are like that of the moose (Alces alces), while some features are more elk-like (Cervus elaphus). This becomes a problem with identification of Pleistocene fossil material because Ice Age faunas were extremely rich, and many times contained multiple cervid (deer) taxa. It is currently believed that the elk moose did not exist contemporaneously with the living moose or elk, but that is not known with certainty. Radiocarbon dates could help determine when the living and fossil taxa occurred, but these dates cannot be obtained when identification the material is difficult or impossible. Of course, paleontologists want to know whether they have discovered an extinct taxon or a living form, but the unique features of Cervalces could cause it to be easily confused with moose or elk fossil material.
Amanda measures the teeth. Being a paltontologist can be tedious at times. I was holding the camera like a boss.
All this being said, I am studying the cervids (deer) from a late Pleistocene aged cave in northeast Tennessee for my M.S. thesis work. Based on dental remains, multiple taxa are present, so I needed to study white-tailed deer, caribou, elk, moose, and elk-moose because all of these taxa could have been present at that time. This is what brought me to the New Jersey State Museum; other known fossils ofCervalces teeth may or may not belong to the extinct elk-moose. At this point in time, antlers are needed to truly distinguish Cervalces from other large deer. The NJSM specimen is special because the skull is complete with antlers and mildly worn adult dentition, so I could be certain that those teeth did in fact belong to Cervalces. I am currently working on morphological characters of the teeth which may help separate Cervalcesfrom other large deer, and using photos of the NJSM specimen to help me identify fossils from my cave."
I made Amanda promise me she would keep me posted on her project. I am also looking forward to attending her wedding in June. Maybe I'll wear my sweet Tyrannosaurus necktie...
Works Cited
Churcher, C.S., and J.D. Pinsof. 1987. Variation in the antlers of North American Cervalces (Mammalia: Cervidae): Review of new and previously recorded specimens. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 7(4):373-397.
Geist, V. 1998. Deer of the world: Their Evolution, Behavior, and Ecology. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburgh, PA, 432 pp.
Graham, R.W., and E.L. Lundelius, Jr. 2010. FAUNMAP II: New data for North America with a temporal extension for the Blancan, Irvingtonian and early Rancholabrean. FAUNMAP II Database, version 1.0 <http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/faunmap>
Guthrie, 1990. New dates on Alaskan Quaternary moose, Cervalces-Alces: archaeological, evolutionary, and ecological implications. Current Research in the Pleistocene 7:111-112.
Kurtén, B. and E. Anderson (eds.). 1980. Pleistocene mammals of North America. Columbia Univeristy Press, New York, 442 pp.
Wow what a weekend! Gary and I (Chris) had the pleasure of working not one but two separate dinosaur events over the past few days at the Morrison Museum and then the Newark Museum in New Jersey. I love doing these events because it gives me a chance to check out exhibits from different museums as well as meet and connect with loads of people with the same interests as myself.
Serious Educators
My absolute favorite part about doing these events, however, has to be talking to the countless kids that come over to our table eager to learn more about dinosaurs. Its funny because they all remind me of myself when I was that age and their parents remind me of my parents. Even though my mother and father are not dinosaur obsessed like I was, they ended up being well versed in the subject simply by reading me my favorite dinosaur books and playing dinosaur games with me when I was a little whipper-snapper myself.
Me at three years old. People used to mistake me for an Asian girl.
Its amazing how much kids can learn if they are actually interested in a subject. When I was little I couldn't read very well nor could I do math for my life but you better believe I could identify the differences between a Triceratops and a Chasmosaurus no problem! This past weekend I met dozens of Children who could rattle off names like Quetzalcoatlus and Stygimoloch right off the tops of their heads.
I think a big part of kids knowing so much is thanks to great educational television shows that are popular now like Dinosaur Train and Dino Dan. Many kids looked at my picture of Troodon and excitedly referred to it as "Mr. Conductor" for instance (If you have ever seen these shows you'll know what that means haha).
Within just the past few years leaps and bounds have been made with regards to learning new information about dinosaurs. Most groundbreaking is probably the discovery of tiny structures preserved in some dinosaur fossil's feathers. These structures are called melanosomes. The shape of a melanosome determines what color the tissue it belongs to is. By looking at the shapes of these melanosomes found on certain well preserved dinosaur fossils and then comparing them to those on a variety of modern bird feathers, scientists can actually determine what color the long extinct animals were!
Since dinosaurs were first discovered by humans color has always been the one thing that we always thought we would never know for sure. Its almost mind-blowing to think anything otherwise. Keep in mind this can only pertain to dinosaurs which had feathers that preserved enough to retain the melanosome structures. If all we have is bones (which is the case for most dinosaur fossils) the color is still anyone's guess.
If you read my first article already you should know that I enjoy illustrating reconstructions of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. That being said just over a month ago I finished a painting of a strange little dinosaur called Microraptor. Microraptor lived in China about 120 million years ago. It was tiny, only about three feet long, and was a dromaeosaur like Velociraptor and Deinonychus. The thing about Microraptor that makes it interesting, however, is the fact that it had long wing-style feathers (called primary feathers) on both its arms AND its legs. In other words it pretty much had four wings. It is believed that Microraptor couldn't fly but rather was more of a glider or parachuter, using its extra wing feathers to make its body more stable in the air much like a bi-plane to move from tree limb to tree limb or the ground. Below is the painting I created of Microraptor gliding in to catch a sleeping cretacious bird called Confuciousornis. This behavior is inspired by modern day owls that frequently ambush other birds at night.
What does this have to do with determining dinosaur color you ask? Well literally the day of THE DAY OF...LITERALLY me posting this painting I put all my time and sweat into on the internet what do I see on my news feed? A new discovery that determined Microraptor (of all dinosaurs) was not earthy brown (like I spent so much time painting it) but iridescent black or blue. If that's not irony for you I don't know what is. Anybody familiar with the popular internet fad, "rage comics"? Well I made one about this incident.
This discovery is bitter-sweet. Of course I'm happy and excited that we are learning new and interesting things about dinosaurs like this. I just wish I had learned it a few days earlier! In all fairness it should be important to remember that there are probably more than one species of Microraptor. I briefly spoke with Jason Brougham, an Exhibition Preparator at the American Museum of Natural History. He did artwork for the museum on this new discovery. This is what he had to say about it having closely worked with the paleontologists who uncovered it in the first place.
"We did different versions of the animal in life poses. I drew from many refs of living birds and set up my skeletal model in different poses to try to get correct perspectival views. There may be more than one species within genus Microraptor, and different patterns are likely." -Brougham
Microraptor is the fourth (and hopefully not the last) dinosaur who's color has been discovered by scientists so far. The others are Sinosauropteryx, Anchiornis and Archaeopteryx. Below is my illustration of all of them together.
Archaeopteryx- Top- at least one primary feather was black. The rest of the body we still don't know. Microraptor- Right- Iridescent black or blue. Sinosauropteryx- Bottom- Ginger colored with darker ginger and white alternating bands down the tail. Anchiornis- Left- Dark gray body, black and white banded primary feathers and red on the head.
Hopefully more feathered dinosaur colors will be revealed in the near future. Which ones would you like to know the most? Farewell until next time! Works Cited-
Li, Gao, Meng, Clarke, Shawkey, D’Alba, Pei, Ellison, Norell & Vinther. 2012. Reconstruction of Microraptor and the Evolution of Iridescent Plumage. Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1213780
Zhang, F.; Kearns, S.L.; Orr, P.J.; Benton, M.J.; Zhou, Z.; Johnson, D.; Xu, X.; and Wang, X. (2010). "Fossilized melanosomes and the colour of Cretaceous dinosaurs and birds". Nature463 (7284): 1075–1078. doi:10.1038/nature08740. PMID20107440.
Li, Q.; Gao, K.-Q.; Vinther, J.; Shawkey, M.D.; Clarke, J.A.; D'Alba, L.; Meng, Q.; Briggs, D.E.G. et al (2010). "Plumage color patterns of an extinct dinosaur". Science327 (5971): 1369–1372. Bibcode2010Sci...327.1369L. doi:10.1126/science.1186290. PMID20133521.
Recently the folks from the New Jersey Track and Trace Museum paid a visit to my work to gather some data to help them with their fossil research. John McCauley, the curator of the museum, along with help from Henry Villa and John's girlfriend, Dianne, wanted to get footprints and tracks from some modern day reptiles to compare to trace fossils from Mesazoic animals. A trace fossil is a fossil that clearly shows evidence of an organism without actually being the organism's remains themselves. Examples of trace fossils are things like footprints, trackways and skin impressions. These sorts of fossils are very important because they can give us information on things like how animals behaved, moved, rested, and what their posture would have been like when they were alive. New Jersey in particular is famous for having a lot of trace fossils from the late Triassic and Early Jurassic periods. Most of these fossils take the form of footprints from a dinosaur named Grallator. The name Grallator is given to the maker of the tracks and the tracks alone. No bones from Grallator have ever been discovered. However, looking at the shape and size of the tracks plus the time that they were made it is likely that Grallator was similar in appearance to dinosaurs such as Ceolophysis and Dilophosaurus. For all we know the tracks could have very well been made by either of those two dinosaurs themselves. The only problem is there is no definite way to link the tracks from New Jersey to either of them yet.
Dilophosaurus (above) and Ceolophysis (below): possible makers of the famous Grallator tracks in New Jersey
The animal of focus for this day, however, was not a dinosaur at all but an extinct relative to modern crocodillians called Batrachopus that lived during the late Triassic period, roughly 220 million years ago. Just like with Grallator, Batrachopus is a name given to the maker of the tracks with no actual skeletal remains known to science. Judging by the shape of the tracks its likely that it was similar to many of the crocodillian relatives of that time, however. These animals are called Protosuchians.
John and his team came armed with specially mixed mud that was made of same materials to the Triassic mud from the area. What they intended to do was have a variety of modern reptiles I work with walk through the mud that was set up neatly on slate tiles to make tracks. They would then allow the track to dry and eventually be able to make a cast from it. Looking at the similarities between the tracks from various modern reptiles and Batrachopus, a more clear vision of the Triassic reptile when it was alive can be made.
The first animal to make tracks in the mud was a Dwarf Caiman. Caimans are close relatives of crocodiles and alligators that are native to South America. The individual we used for this is named Elvis. This past summer (2011) a friend of mine had Elvis dumped on her from someone who had him for a pet and (I wonder why) couldn't keep him anymore. She immediately called me up, knowing that my work could give him a better home than anyone's living room ever could and he has been thriving ever since!
The Dwarf Caiman was a successful candidate and made tracks like a pro. The next animal we tried was Rocky, the Cuban Rock Iguana. You may remember him from my first blog post here. Rocky was a little less cooperative but ultimately still gave us some nice results.
The third animal was Bruno, a Black Throat Monitor. Related to Komodo Dragons and the long extinct Mosasaurs, he was one of our bigger subjects but pleasantly enough, is also one of the most docile animals I work with. Because of this Bruno was most likely not going to walk for us. Instead we just took prints of his front and back feet.
Lastly we got prints from our American Alligator. Much like the Caimin I had to have his mouth taped shut because...well...he's an Alligator. Don't worry it was just for this activity. His mouth is free normally. No animals were harmed in the making of any of this.
All in all it was a very successful day! I especially love this kind of work because it really shows how important modern animals can be when studying paleontology. John is putting coats of latex on the prints last I knew and hopefully he will have some nice casts to study very soon. For more information about John and his work you can visit his site right here. Farewell until next time!
Works Cited
Weishampel, D.B. & L. Young. 1996. Dinosaurs of the East Coast. The Johns Hopkins University Press
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