Paleontology news

The study reveals for the first time how Archimylacris eggintoni's physical traits helped it to thrive on the floor of Earth's early forests. The fossils of these creatures are normally between 2cm and 9cm in length and approximately 4cm in width.

The lead author of the study, Mr Russell Garwood, a PhD student from the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, says, "The Carboniferous period is sometimes referred to as the age of the cockroach because fossils of Archimylacris eggintoni and its relatives are amongst the most common insects from this time period. They are found all over the world. People joke about it being impossible to kill cockroaches and our 3D model almost brings this one back to life. Thanks to our 3D modelling process, we can see how Archimylacris eggintoni's limbs were well adapted for all terrains, as it was not only adept in the air but also very agile on the ground."

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Kirk French, an archaeologist, and his colleague Christopher Duffy, a hydrologist, both from Pennsylvania State University, detailed their findings this month in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

According to their studies, the ancient Mayans had the skills and ability not only to pull running water into their villages, but to have created fountains and toilets by controlling water flow.

Scientists have uncovered elaborate subterranean aqueducts built to take advantage of the spring-fed streams at the ancient Mexican city of Palenque

If confirmed, Psittacosaurus gobiensis ("parrot dinosaur of the Gobi") would be the world's first known nut-eating dinosaur.

Knowing what type of food a dinosaur ate is extremely rare, said study leader Paul Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago.

"Basically this solves a bit of a riddle for this dinosaur," said Sereno, who is also a National Geographic explorer-in-residence.

"We've now come closer to why it looks like it does."

Shearing Jaws

The skull, found in the Gobi desert in Mongolia in 2001, once had giant jaw muscles attached to broad sheets of extremely rigid cheekbone, giving the animal a powerful bite, said Sereno, whose study on P. gobiensis appears this week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Like a parrot, the dinosaur was able to move its jaws both vertically and horizontally, allowing it to "shear" tough plants.

Hans-Dieter Sues, a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., said scientists have wondered why such dinosaurs and their relatives, called psittacosaurs, had both robust jaws and so many stomach stones.

Usually animals that use stomach stones tend not to need tough beaks. For instance, chickens have puny beaks, relying on sand and gravel in their gizzards to grind down their unchewed food.

Sereno's "very compelling argument that the [new dinosaurs] were eating unusually hard food makes good sense to me," Sues said.

Odd And Successful

Several species of psittacosaurs roamed Central Asia, where their fossils are now plentiful, scientists say.

The creatures often had odd features, such as elaborate horns and porcupine-like tail bristles.

Study leader Sereno said that the psittacosaurs' specialized diet might explain their success during that time.

That's because animals that take advantage of their environments—in this case, eating what few other animals could—have plentiful resources and are therefore more likely to branch into more species, added Sues of the natural history museum.

The new research, he said, "offers a very nice explanation about why these creatures are so diverse."

credited to news.nationalgeographic.com

The findings at a Northern Kenya site represent the oldest evidence of modern-human foot anatomy. They also help tell an ancestral story of humans who had fully transitioned from tree-dwellers to land walkers.

"In a sense, it's like putting flesh on the bones," said John Harris, an anthropologist with the Koobi Fora Field School of Rutgers University. "The prints are so well preserved ."

Harris and other colleagues report in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal Science on finding several footprint trails within two sedimentary rock layers. An upper sedimentary layer included two trails of two prints each, one group of seven prints, and a variety of isolated prints. The lower layer had a trail of two prints and a single isolated print likely from a smaller, juvenile human.

The researchers identified the footprints as probably belonging to a member of Homo ergaster, an early form of Homo erectus. Such prints include modern foot features such as a rounded heel, a human-like arch and a big toe that sits parallel to other toes.

By contrast, apes have more curved fingers and toes made for grasping tree branches. The earliest human ancestors, such as Australopithecus afarensis, still possessed many ape-like features more than 2 million years ago — the well-known "Lucy" specimen represents one such example.

These latest footprints at Ileret, Kenya, appear intriguingly close by to another early human site. Researchers in 1984 found a nearly complete Homo erectus skeleton, dubbed the "Turkana Boy" specimen, just across the waters of Lake Turkana.

Turkana Boy's delicate foot bones were not well preserved. But the new footprints could represent the shoe that fits the wearer, so to speak.

"Many people have predicted this, but now we have the solid evidence for modern foot anatomy," Harris told LiveScience. "It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle, and those footprints complement the skeleton from the other end of the lake."

Modern feet mark just one of several dramatic shifts in early humans, specifically regarding the appearance of Homo erectus around 2 million years ago. Homo erectus is the first hominid to have the same body proportions as modern Homo sapiens.

"We're seeing a very different hominid at this stage," Harris said, pointing to both an increase in size and change in stride during the relatively short time between Australopithecus (the first in this genus lived about 4 million years ago and the last died out between 3 million and 2 million years ago) and Homo erectus. The latter hominids would have been able to travel more quickly and efficiently over larger areas.

This matches a pattern of more widely-distributed sites containing artifacts such as tools from 1.5 million to 1 million years ago, which may also point to wider-ranging early humans.

Climate changing and shifting physical landscapes would have also forced the likes of Homo erectus to wander farther in search of food, Harris said. But increased walking and running abilities may have allowed them to start seriously hunting big game

"You might even think in terms of dietary quality here, because maybe they're incorporating more meat into their diet," Harris said. "They would have competed with quite a large carnivore guild; lions, leopards, and all the cats that eat meat."

The tracks lead on

The Homo erectus footprints now lead further into the past of human evolution, as researchers may shift their focus to earlier examples of physical changes in human ancestor species.

"It's going to bring up controversy again about the Laetoli prints," Harris noted, referring to footprints preserved in volcanic ash roughly 3.6 million years ago in Tanzania. Anthropologists continue to debate whether these older footprints from an earlier "Lucy" type hominid show that Australopithecus walked about easily or awkwardly on two legs.

Other findings may yet be revealed with the latest footprints at the Ileret site. The prehistoric landscape near various water sources was likely a muddy surface that preserved a whole range of animal tracks, Harris hinted — perhaps fodder for additional studies in the future.

credited to msnbc.msn.com