Paleontologists have described the earliest known animal adapted for life in the treetops, according to a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, released online today. Jörg Fröbisch, of the Field Museum, and Robert Reisz, from the University of Toronto, found several adaptations for arboreality when they examined fossil skeletons of Suminia getmanovi , a small (20 inches/50 cm) herbivore from the Late Permian of Russia.

The most striking features of the skeleton of Suminia are the relatively large hands and feet. Most of their length is taken up by long, slender fingers and toes tipped with strongly curved, laterally (side-to-side) compressed claws, which are similar in proportion and shape to some modern tree-clinging animals, including dermopterans, megabats, and lizards. The first digits on the hands and feet diverge from the remaining four digits as well, and may have been used as opposable ‘thumbs’ as the animal clung to the branches.

Skeleton of Suminia getmanovi, Paleontological Institute (Moscow) specimen number 2212/116 (spec. 1) Photo by Diane Scott.

More subtle features also point toward arboreal habits. The tail of Suminia is relatively long, and the vertebrae show strong processes halfway down its length. These processes could have supported muscles that allowed Suminia to use its tail for balance or, possibly, as a prehensile grasping organ.

Suminia, at 260,000,000 years old, is the first known vertebrate with this degree of arboreal specialization. Fröbisch and Reisz note that the Late Permian Period, and the Kotel’nich locality where Suminia was found, provides some of the earliest evidence for “modern terrestrial ecosystems with large numbers of plant-eaters supporting few top predators.” While large megaherbivores fed on the greenery below, Suminia found a new way to exploit the foliage in the treetops, taking the first known step into a niche that vertebrates would return to several times over the next 260 million years.

Life restoration of Suminia getmanovi by Christina Stoppa.

Lawless teeth

In part because of some very poorly-written articles and headlines, and in part because talking about vertebrate relationships is just plain enjoyable, it seems like a good place to put in a little bit of context regarding exactly what Suminia is related to.

Suminia is a synapsid, a group of vertebrate animals that would eventually (some 50-100 million years after Suminia) give rise to the ancestors of today’s mammals. Although some synapsids have been called “mammal-like reptiles,” (because they certainly laid eggs and might have looked something like lizards) there are no true reptiles in the synapsid group. All true reptiles—turtles, lizards, snakes, crocodiles—even dinosaurs and birds—belong to a completely separate group.

Among the synapsids, Suminia is considered a therapsid, a phrase commonly used to indicate a grade of synapsid development in between the earlier pelycosaur-grade (think Dimetrodon) and the later mammal-grade. (Although, since mammals evolved from therapsids, we’re technically therapsids too, and since therapsids evolved from pelycosaurs, we can all claim that title as well.)

Among the therapsids, Suminia is an early member of the anomodont (“lawless tooth”) lineage. Sometime during the Early/Middle Permian period, the anomodont line split off from the line of therapsids that would, by way of a whole bestiary of gorgonopsians and therocephalians and countless cynodonts, eventually lead to mammals. The closest relatives we (and all other mammals) share with Suminia would have lived before the Late Permian, around 275,000,000 years ago (give or take several million years) .

The anomodonts have no living descendants, but their roster includes the great radiation of dicynodonts that survived the end-Permian extinction, became some of the largest terrestrial herbivores of the Triassic, and might possibly have survived into the Cretaceous if the identification of an Australian fossil is correct.

Placerias hesternus, a Late Triassic anomodont from Arizona. (Illustration by me, for the day job)

Contrary to what you might have read regarding this discovery, dinosaurs did not evolve from synapsids, and while Suminia is a human relative, this potential predator of Suminia is a much closer relation.

• Reference: Fröbisch, J. and Reisz, R. R. 2009. The Late Permian herbivore Suminia and the early evolution of arboreality in terrestrial vertebrate ecosystems. Proc. Royal Soc. B Published online before print July 29, 2009, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2009.0911.
• Web Coverage:
  • Press Release [ZIP file]
  • BBC News: Fossil is the earliest tree-dweller
  • Laelaps: Suminia: Life in the trees 260 million years ago
  • The Dragon’s Tales: Oldest Known Arboreal Herbivore Found…IN THE PERMIAN!

Some images and info for this post came from this press release.

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).

More of Viktor’s excellent reconstructions, in a variety of media, can be seen at his website: www.anatomicalorigins.com.

Credit: John Klausmeyer,
University of Michigan
Museums of Natural History.
From the U. of Mich. press release.

• New Mammal: Maiacetus inuus
• Name Means: Fecund Mother whale
• Relations: Protocetid whale
• 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.
• Reference: Gingerich, P. D., Haq, M-u., von Koenigswald, W., Sanders, W. J., Smith, B. H., and Zalmout, I. S., 2009. New Protocetid Whale from the Middle Eocene of Pakistan: Birth on Land, Precocial Development, and Sexual Dimorphism. PLoS One 4(2): e4366. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004366.
• Further Reading:
  • University of Michigan Press Release
  • Greg Laden’s Blog: Amazing Fossil Finding: Proto Whales Gave Birth on Land, not at sea
  • Laelaps: Maiacetus, the good mother whale
  • The Loom: The Backward Whale
  • Not Exactly Rocket Science: Fossil foetus shows that early whales gave birth on land
  • The Questionable Authority: A Fossil Fetus and what it can tell us about the life history of early whales.

Apparently this is the first video footage of a live Hispaniolan Solenodon (Solenodon paradoxus), a secretive Caribbean mammal known primarily for being:

• Endangered
• Venomous
• Along with the Cuban Solenodon (S. cubanus), the last remnant of a distinct lineage of mammals going back 76 million years

More information about this footage (and higher quality video) can be found at this press release from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, or the related BBC story.

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.

From this story in the San Diego Union-Tribune, I learned of the life-sized (or larger) sculptures of Ricardo Breceda, who is in the process of installing an entire zoo of sheet metal megafauna on the Galleta Meadows Estate in Borrego Springs, California. The project appears to be a collaboration between sculptor Breceda, who was inspired to start sculpting prehistoric animals after watching Jurassic Park, and landowner Dennis Avery, who came up with the idea of “of adding ‘free standing art’ to his property” to recreate the area’s prehistoric inhabitants.

It’s hard not to be impressed with ambitious scope of this project, and Breceda’s sculptures seem to be a perfect fit for the arid landscape around Borrego Springs. I’m particularly fond of the character and detailing seen in the Gomphotherium (shown above) and the smaller ground sloths, like this little fella.

The NM Friends of Paleontology are meeting Monday, Nov. 17 at 7:00pm at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. This month’s meeting includes a talk by Larry Rinehart on some of the recent work he’s done on the allometry, growth, dimorphism and population structure of Coelophysis bauri from Ghost Ranch. The NMFOP meetings are free and open to the public.

On Thursday the 20th, geologist David Love and paleontologist Gary Morgan will be giving a talk on a 10 million year old oreodont recently unearthed at the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge. The talk will begin at 3:30pm in the Macey Center auditorium at New Mexico Tech in Socorro (admission $5). More info about this find is online here.

• Several prime pelycosaur posts from recent field work in the Permian beds of Seymour, including Dimetrodon-as-chondrichthivore and new material that may be from the narrow-snouted finback Secodontosaurus .
• And a step-by-step look at how Julius T. Csotonyi recreated the world of Leonardo, the fantastically well-preserved Brachylophosaurus, for the museum’s Dinosaur Mummy CSI: Cretaceous Science Investigation exhibit. Csotonyi’s digital paintings are about the best I’ve seen, and this post gives valuable insight into his process.

• Albertonykus and the Myrmecophagous Alvarezsaurs at When Pigs Fly Returns
• I, Priodontes, the tatuasu at Tetrapod Zoology