Hairy Museum of Natural History

While sifting through the links for Wednesday’s Wunderkammern post, I noted that Austin, Texas is the home to both the Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata and this year’s Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. At this point, it seems doubtful that I’ll be attending SVP this October, but I know there are some readers who probably will.

I asked the MNAE if they would be open to the public during the conference. Co-curator Scott Webel replied that they would be officially closed to set up their Ghosts exhibition (opening Nov. 3rd), but they would be happy to organize an exception-al group tour if enough paleontology-types were interested.

So, if any readers headed to SVP this October are interested in a slightly different type of museum experience during their stay in Austin, get in touch with the good folks at the MNAE (mnae@mnae.org) and see if you can convince them to give you the nickel tour.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Museumabilia.

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A list of internet-enabled cabinets of wonder and other museum-type resources I’ve happened across in the not-too-distant past:

• The Museum of Natural and Artificial Ephemerata
• Curious Expeditions
• The Zymoglyphic Museum and its curator’s web log.
• Bioephemera: the art of biology and the biology of art.
• The Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society
• suggested donation
• and an oldie but always worth a visit: The Museum of Jurassic Technology

I’d definitely recommend browsing all of them–if you know of any I’ve missed, please leave a note in the comments.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Museumabilia.

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Congratulations are in order for artist, long-time friend of the HMNH, and our Curator of Ich-theology Ray Troll. Its been 20 years since he drew up a salmon-crossed Jolly Roger bearing the motto “Spawn Til You Die,” and emblazoned it across the chest of a stylin’ black t-shirt. Over the next two decades, that shirt has been sighted on rock-stars and athletes, and popping up in the occasional movie and music video. It has become one of his most recognizable and widespread images.

To mark the anniversary, Ray has re-released the original black-and-white design with a commemorative neck-chop. Check it out via his online store at trollart.com.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Bony Fish, Friends of the HMNH, Ich-Theology.

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Brian Switek, the blogger behind the always worth-reading Laelaps, has organized a new blog carnival called “The Boneyard,” focusing on posts of a paleontological nature.

The first edition of The Boneyard is now online at Laelaps. Check it out for a healthy dose of paleo-themed goodness!

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Miscellany.

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Fossils from a quarry in northern New Mexico are helping paleontologists piece together the early history of dinosaurs and their closest relatives, according to a new report in the journal Science.

A team of researchers has uncovered isolated bones of at least four different types of dinosaur and dinosaur-like reptiles that lived side-by-side during the Late Triassic, between 220 and 210 million years ago. The reported finds include:

• Leg and ankle bones from a new species named Dromomeron romeri, “Romer’s Running-femur.” Dromomeron appears to be related to Lagerpeton, a two-foot-long reptile from the Middle Triassic of South America. Dromomeron and Lagerpeton are classified as basal dinosauromorphs, which means that they are more closely related to dinosaurs than they are to any other well-known group, but not by much.
• Several bones (including a partial jaw) from a reptile related to Silesaurus from Eastern Europe. This critter is a basal dinosauriform, more closely related to dinosaurs than Dromomeron, but not a card-carrying member of the Dinosauria proper.
• A femur referable to Chindesaurus bryansmalli, known from other material from Arizona’s Petrified Forest. Chindesaurus is thought to be a basal dinosaur (or a basal lizard-hipped dinosaur) related to the South American Herrerasaurus.
• And finally, leg elements of a Coelophysis-like theropod, a definite, unambiguous dinosaur in good standing.

This mix of “basal dinosauromorphs, basal dinosauriforms, basal dinosaurs, and basal theropods,” as Doctor Vector put it, has never before been observed in a single site. This suggests the rise of dinosaurs was more complicated than previously thought. Earlier finds seemed to indicate that the first dinosaurs replaced their predecessors within a relatively short amount of time. Now it appears that several groups near the base of the dinosaur family tree co-existed for several million years before the precursors of the dinosaurs were left in the dust.

Further reading:

Irmis, R. B., Nesbitt, S. J., Padian, K., Smith, N. D., Turner, A. H., Woody, D. and Downs, A. 2007. A Late Triassic Dinosauromorph Assemblage from New Mexico and the Rise of Dinosaurs. Science v. 317, no. 5836, pp. 358–361. doi: 10.1126/science.1143325.

Artist Donna Braginetz painted this cast of characters for the cover of this week’s Science, but a much larger version (and skeletal size comparison) is available from the LiveScience news story.

The press release from UC Berkeley.

Randy Irmis’ Field Notes from the Hayden Quarry.

The story at National Geographic and Ask Doctor Vector.

Update 7/21: More on the Hayden Quarry dinosauromorphs at Tetrapod Zoology.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Dinosaurs, Recent Discoveries, Reptiles, Triassic.

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