One of the biggest stories in paleontology this past month was the announcement of a beautifully complete fossil of an Eocene primate scientifically christened Darwinius messilae, and given the popular moniker “Ida.” A massive publicity campaign, including a book release and a documentary hosted by Sir Richard Attenborough, was launched in tandem with the fossil’s description in the online journal PLoS ONE. A backlash erupted throughout the science-minded blogosphere/twitterverse, deriding the more breathless claims that this one specimen was the “missing link” that will “change everything.”
Some of the earliest and most insightful comments came from Brian Switek at Laelaps. Earlier today, Brian compiled a collection of his and others’ Darwinius-related posts into a blog carnival called Uncovering “Ida”—an excellent resource for anyone interested in the interaction between science, publicity, and media (new and old).
I’m a bit of a sucker for “paleo-artist makes good” stories, and today’s New York Times has a great example in this profile of Viktor Deak, whose reconstructions of extinct hominids are on display at the American Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Human Origins. The story includes some nice multimedia details, including a video interview with Mr. Deak, a bit about him on today’s Science Podcast, and a panoramic tour of his studio that’s enough to give any paleophile serious workspace envy.
More of Viktor’s excellent reconstructions, in a variety of media, can be seen at his website: www.anatomicalorigins.com.
Holotype: GSP-UM 3475a, partial skeleton of an adult female, containing the partially ossified skeleton of a near-term fetus (GSP-UM 3475b)
Location: Balochistan Province, Pakistan
Age: Middle Eocene, ~47,500,000 years old
Length: ~2.5 meters (about 8 feet)
Info: Artist’s conception of male Maiacetus inuus as it would have appeared in life. Credit: John Klausmeyer, University of Michigan Museums of Natural History.
A team of paleontologists led by Philip Gingerich have described a new species of early whale. Buried along the shrinking shores of the Tethys Sea (and collected well above sea level in present-day Pakistan), the holotype of Maiacetus is the partial skeleton of a pregnant mother, preserved with the remains of its near-term fetus still in its womb. A more complete skeleton found one kilometer away is thought to be male, due to differences in size and pelvic proportion, and shows that this early whale retained the ancestral ability to stroll the shores on four fully-functional limbs (including an artiodactyl-style “double-pulley” ankle). The position of the fetus in the female indicates that Maiacetus gave birth head-first and most certainly on land, unlike modern whales that give birth tail-first into the water, which reduces the risk of drowning and helps orient the newborns parallel to their mothers. There are several excellent articles around the blogosphere for those who want to learn more, and the description is freely accessible through PLoS ONE at the link below. Fossils of female Maiacetus inuus with near-term fetus in utero, as found in the field. The female’s skull is shaded white (teeth brown), and other parts of her skeleton are shaded red. The single fetus, in birth position inside the mother whale, is shaded blue (teeth orange). The specimen was collected in three plaster jackets (blue dashed lines), and additional bones were picked up separately. The red dashed line indicates the edge exposed by erosion. Copyright: University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology.
Apparently this is the first video footage of a live Hispaniolan Solenodon (Solenodon paradoxus), a secretive Caribbean mammal known primarily for being:
Take a virtual stroll through the collections at Hominin.net, an in-process, open-access database of hominin fossils. Assembled by Kambiz Kamrani, Hominin.net can organize fossil speciemens by locality map, timeline, or taxonomy, and an extensive list of literature is available, listed by title or author.
Although the project is still in its early stages (only about 45 specimens are listed as of this posting), it is already showing signs of becoming an amazingly useful resource. It is great to see someone using the open-source Simile widgets to organize natural history specimens—the Timeline component definitely has a lot of potential for paleonotological content. I’m particularly excited about the following planned feature:
• Embeddable snippets of fossils to be used in blogs, websites, etc.
I’m eager to see how this will be implemented—not only would it be handy to have a collection of ‘stock’ images and info for hominin specimens at one’s disposal, it might also be a great guide for researchers and institutions interested in creating embeddable content for specimens and objects in all kinds of collections.
Tip of the Hairy Museum toupee to Afarensis for bringing this to my attention.
