Four-Winged Dinosaurs from China
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Northwestwildlife.Com Species Reports
A publication by: NORTHWEST WILDLIFE PRESERVATION SOCIETY Northern Flying Squirrel Glaucomys sabrinus Photo credit: US Fish and Wildlife By Renee Picard There are two species of flying squirrels that live in North America. The northern flying squirrel (with 25 sub-species) may be found in forests throughout most of Canada, except for the central prairies and the extreme North; also in the U.S. in Alaska and northern areas of the Rockies and Appalachians. The southern flying squirrel (with 10 sub-species) inhabits a broad range in the eastern and midwestern United States, but in Canada is only found in very small, scattered pockets of southeastern Ontario. The southern species is considered ‘vulnerable’ but the northern species is not at risk. It is the northern squirrel that you would be likely to encounter in the Pacific Northwest, so it is the focus of this article. Characteristics The scientific name for the northern flying squirrel is Glaucomys sabrinus. Glaucos means for silver or grey, mys means mouse, and sabrinus come from the Latin word for river-nymph. So you will notice them often in riparian areas, near streams and rivers. Their colours range from tan to cinnamon and they have greyish-white belly fur. They are about 30 cm (12 in.) long and weigh about 139 g (46 oz.) Flying squirrels have big black eyes and this characteristic helps their night vision for they are nocturnal animals. You might be surprised to find that, despite their name, flying squirrels do not really fly—they glide down from branch to branch. The front and back legs are connected with a thin fold of furry skin or membrane called a patagium. -
A New Microvertebrate Assemblage from the Mussentuchit
A new microvertebrate assemblage from the Mussentuchit Member, Cedar Mountain Formation: insights into the paleobiodiversity and paleobiogeography of early Late Cretaceous ecosystems in western North America Haviv M. Avrahami1,2,3, Terry A. Gates1, Andrew B. Heckert3, Peter J. Makovicky4 and Lindsay E. Zanno1,2 1 Department of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA 2 North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC, USA 3 Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, USA 4 Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL, USA ABSTRACT The vertebrate fauna of the Late Cretaceous Mussentuchit Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation has been studied for nearly three decades, yet the fossil-rich unit continues to produce new information about life in western North America approximately 97 million years ago. Here we report on the composition of the Cliffs of Insanity (COI) microvertebrate locality, a newly sampled site containing perhaps one of the densest concentrations of microvertebrate fossils yet discovered in the Mussentuchit Member. The COI locality preserves osteichthyan, lissamphibian, testudinatan, mesoeucrocodylian, dinosaurian, metatherian, and trace fossil remains and is among the most taxonomically rich microvertebrate localities in the Mussentuchit Submitted 30 May 2018 fi fi Accepted 8 October 2018 Member. To better re ne taxonomic identi cations of isolated theropod dinosaur Published 16 November 2018 teeth, we used quantitative analyses of taxonomically comprehensive databases of Corresponding authors theropod tooth measurements, adding new data on theropod tooth morphodiversity in Haviv M. Avrahami, this poorly understood interval. We further provide the first descriptions of [email protected] tyrannosauroid premaxillary teeth and document the earliest North American record of Lindsay E. -
A New Caenagnathid Dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous Wangshi
www.nature.com/scientificreports OPEN A new caenagnathid dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous Wangshi Group of Shandong, China, with Received: 12 October 2017 Accepted: 7 March 2018 comments on size variation among Published: xx xx xxxx oviraptorosaurs Yilun Yu1, Kebai Wang2, Shuqing Chen2, Corwin Sullivan3,4, Shuo Wang 5,6, Peiye Wang2 & Xing Xu7 The bone-beds of the Upper Cretaceous Wangshi Group in Zhucheng, Shandong, China are rich in fossil remains of the gigantic hadrosaurid Shantungosaurus. Here we report a new oviraptorosaur, Anomalipes zhaoi gen. et sp. nov., based on a recently collected specimen comprising a partial left hindlimb from the Kugou Locality in Zhucheng. This specimen’s systematic position was assessed by three numerical cladistic analyses based on recently published theropod phylogenetic datasets, with the inclusion of several new characters. Anomalipes zhaoi difers from other known caenagnathids in having a unique combination of features: femoral head anteroposteriorly narrow and with signifcant posterior orientation; accessory trochanter low and confuent with lesser trochanter; lateral ridge present on femoral lateral surface; weak fourth trochanter present; metatarsal III with triangular proximal articular surface, prominent anterior fange near proximal end, highly asymmetrical hemicondyles, and longitudinal groove on distal articular surface; and ungual of pedal digit II with lateral collateral groove deeper and more dorsally located than medial groove. The holotype of Anomalipes zhaoi is smaller than is typical for Caenagnathidae but larger than is typical for the other major oviraptorosaurian subclade, Oviraptoridae. Size comparisons among oviraptorisaurians show that the Caenagnathidae vary much more widely in size than the Oviraptoridae. Oviraptorosauria is a clade of maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs characterized by a short, high skull, long neck and short tail. -
New Oviraptorid Dinosaur (Dinosauria: Oviraptorosauria) from the Nemegt Formation of Southwestern Mongolia
Bull. Natn. Sci. Mus., Tokyo, Ser. C, 30, pp. 95–130, December 22, 2004 New Oviraptorid Dinosaur (Dinosauria: Oviraptorosauria) from the Nemegt Formation of Southwestern Mongolia Junchang Lü1, Yukimitsu Tomida2, Yoichi Azuma3, Zhiming Dong4 and Yuong-Nam Lee5 1 Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, China 2 National Science Museum, 3–23–1 Hyakunincho, Shinjukuku, Tokyo 169–0073, Japan 3 Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum, 51–11 Terao, Muroko, Katsuyama 911–8601, Japan 4 Institute of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China 5 Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, Geology & Geoinformation Division, 30 Gajeong-dong, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305–350, South Korea Abstract Nemegtia barsboldi gen. et sp. nov. here described is a new oviraptorid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (mid-Maastrichtian) Nemegt Formation of southwestern Mongolia. It differs from other oviraptorids in the skull having a well-developed crest, the anterior margin of which is nearly vertical, and the dorsal margin of the skull and the anterior margin of the crest form nearly 90°; the nasal process of the premaxilla being less exposed on the dorsal surface of the skull than those in other known oviraptorids; the length of the frontal being approximately one fourth that of the parietal along the midline of the skull. Phylogenetic analysis shows that Nemegtia barsboldi is more closely related to Citipati osmolskae than to any other oviraptorosaurs. Key words : Nemegt Basin, Mongolia, Nemegt Formation, Late Cretaceous, Oviraptorosauria, Nemegtia. dae, and Caudipterygidae (Barsbold, 1976; Stern- Introduction berg, 1940; Currie, 2000; Clark et al., 2001; Ji et Oviraptorosaurs are generally regarded as non- al., 1998; Zhou and Wang, 2000; Zhou et al., avian theropod dinosaurs (Osborn, 1924; Bars- 2000). -
Upper Cretaceous), Brazil
Rev. Mus. Argentino Cienc. Nat., n.s. 7(1): 31-36, 2005 Buenos Aires, ISSN 1514-5158 Maniraptoran theropod ungual from the Marília Formation (Upper Cretaceous), Brazil Fernando E. NOVAS1, Luiz Carlos BORGES RIBEIRO2,3 & Ismar de SOUZA CARVALHO4 1CONICET - Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales «Bernardino Rivadavia», Av. Angel Gallardo 470, Buenos Aires (1405), Argentina, E-mail: [email protected]. 2Fundação Municipal de Ensino Superior de Uberaba- FUMESU/Centro de Pesquisas Paleontológicas L. I. Price. Av. Randolfo Borges Jr., n° 1.250. Universidade, 38.066-005, Uberaba- MG, Brazil, E-mail: [email protected]. 3Universidade de Uberaba-UNIUBE/Instituto de Formação de Educadores-Departamento de Biologia, Av. Nenê Sabino, n° 1.801. Universitário, Uberaba-MG, 38.055-500, Brazil, E-mail: [email protected]. 4Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Departamento de Geologia, CCMN/IGEO. 21.949-900 Cidade Universitária-Ilha do Fundão, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil, E-mail: [email protected] Abstract: A new theropod record from the Marília Formation (Late Cretaceous, Minas Gerais, Brazil) is here described. It consists of an isolated manual ungual which exhibits derived maniraptoran features (e.g., presence of proximodorsal lip). The ungual distinguishes by a set of unique features (e.g., dorsoventrally low and proximodistally elongate profile in side view; block-like flexor tuberosity; proximal articular surface more dorsally oriented than in other theropods; cutting «keel» located distally on ventral surface) suggesting that the animal that produced it was a member of an unknown group of derived maniraptoran theropods, other than alvarezsaurids, deinonychosaurians and oviraptorosaurians already recorded in South America. -
A Bird's Eye View of the Evolution of Avialan Flight
Chapter 12 Navigating Functional Landscapes: A Bird’s Eye View of the Evolution of Avialan Flight HANS C.E. LARSSON,1 T. ALEXANDER DECECCHI,2 MICHAEL B. HABIB3 ABSTRACT One of the major challenges in attempting to parse the ecological setting for the origin of flight in Pennaraptora is determining the minimal fluid and solid biomechanical limits of gliding and powered flight present in extant forms and how these minima can be inferred from the fossil record. This is most evident when we consider the fact that the flight apparatus in extant birds is a highly integrated system with redundancies and safety factors to permit robust performance even if one or more components of their flight system are outside their optimal range. These subsystem outliers may be due to other adaptive roles, ontogenetic trajectories, or injuries that are accommodated by a robust flight system. This means that many metrics commonly used to evaluate flight ability in extant birds are likely not going to be precise in delineating flight style, ability, and usage when applied to transitional taxa. Here we build upon existing work to create a functional landscape for flight behavior based on extant observations. The functional landscape is like an evolutionary adap- tive landscape in predicting where estimated biomechanically relevant values produce functional repertoires on the landscape. The landscape provides a quantitative evaluation of biomechanical optima, thus facilitating the testing of hypotheses for the origins of complex biomechanical func- tions. Here we develop this model to explore the functional capabilities of the earliest known avialans and their sister taxa. -
A Comparison of Flight Potential Among Small-Bodied Paravians
Chapter 11 High Flyer or High Fashion? A Comparison of Flight Potential among Small-Bodied Paravians T. ALEXANDER DECECCHI,1 HANS C.E. LARSSON,2 MICHAEL PITTMAN,3 AND MICHAEL B. HABIB4 ABSTRACT The origin of flight in birds and its relationship to bird origins itself has achieved something of a renaissance in recent years, driven by the discovery of a suite of small-bodied taxa with large pen- naceous feathers. As some of these specimens date back to the Middle Jurassic and predate the earli- est known birds, understanding how these potential aerofoil surfaces were used is of great importance to answering the question: which came first, the bird or the wing? Here we seek to address this question by directly comparing key members of three of the major clades of paravians: anchiorni- thines, Microraptor and Archaeopteryx across their known size classes to see how they differ in terms of major flight-related parameters (wing loading; disc loading; specific lift; glide speed; takeoff poten- tial). Using specimens with snout to vent length (SVL) ranging from around 150 mm to 400 mm and mass ranging from approximately 130 g to 2 kg, we investigated patterns of inter- and intraspe- cific changes in flight potential. We find that anchiornithines show much higher wing- and disc- loading values and correspondingly high required minimum glide and takeoff speeds, along with lower specific lift and flapping running outputs suggesting little to no flight capability in this clade. In contrast, we see good support for flight potential, either gliding or powered flight, for all size classes of both Microraptor and Archaeopteryx, though there are differing patterns of how this shifts ontogenetically. -
Insight Into the Evolution of Avian Flight from a New Clade of Early
J. Anat. (2006) 208, pp287–308 IBlackwnell Publishing sLtd ight into the evolution of avian flight from a new clade of Early Cretaceous ornithurines from China and the morphology of Yixianornis grabaui Julia A. Clarke,1 Zhonghe Zhou2 and Fucheng Zhang2 1Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA 2Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China Abstract In studies of the evolution of avian flight there has been a singular preoccupation with unravelling its origin. By con- trast, the complex changes in morphology that occurred between the earliest form of avian flapping flight and the emergence of the flight capabilities of extant birds remain comparatively little explored. Any such work has been limited by a comparative paucity of fossils illuminating bird evolution near the origin of the clade of extant (i.e. ‘modern’) birds (Aves). Here we recognize three species from the Early Cretaceous of China as comprising a new lineage of basal ornithurine birds. Ornithurae is a clade that includes, approximately, comparatively close relatives of crown clade Aves (extant birds) and that crown clade. The morphology of the best-preserved specimen from this newly recognized Asian diversity, the holotype specimen of Yixianornis grabaui Zhou and Zhang 2001, complete with finely preserved wing and tail feather impressions, is used to illustrate the new insights offered by recognition of this lineage. Hypotheses of avian morphological evolution and specifically proposed patterns of change in different avian locomotor modules after the origin of flight are impacted by recognition of the new lineage. -
ID Lecture 7 Fossils 2014
Intelligent Design vs. Evolution Defending God’s Creation Genesis 1:1, 21, 25 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ! 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ! 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Intelligent Design Critics “The argument for intelligent design basically depends on saying, ‘You haven’t answered every question with evolution.’ Well, guess what? Science can’t answer every question.” ! Kenneth Miller Brown University biologist Houston Chronicle, 10-22-05 Fossilization • Animal or plant must be buried quickly – Catastrophic event – Before decay or consumed • Buried with right mixture of minerals – Everything is replaced slowly with minerals and becomes hard as rock ! • Study of fossils is paleontology Nested Hierarchy • Biology classification developed by Carolus Linnaeus (pre-Darwin) • Organisms grouped by similarities and differences Humans Kingdom Animals Phylum Chordates Class Mammals Order Primates Family Hominids Genus Homo Species sapiens Fossil Record • Cambrian Explosion – “Biology’s Big Bang” • Transitional Fossils – Archaeopteryx • Reptile to mammal evolution • Whale evolution • Fish to Amphibian evolution Characteristics of Fossil Record ! • Sudden Appearance (Saltation) ! • Stasis ! • -
Archaeoraptor Liaoningensis
Luke 19 39 And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. 40 And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out. ©2000 Timothy G. Standish The Fossil Record Timothy G. Standish, Ph. D. ©2000 Timothy G. Standish Missing Links and the Fossil Record "But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.” Darwin C.R. 1872. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. “Ancient rocks clearly preserve less information, on average, than more recent rocks. However, if scaled to the stratigraphic level of the stage and the taxonomic level of the family, the past 540 million years of the fossil record provide uniformly good documentation of the life of the past.” ©2000 Timothy G. Standish M J Benton M A Wills & R Hitchin 2000 Quality of the fossil record through time What is a Fossil? Six major types: z Preserved organisms - The most uncommon fossils, including insects in amber, frozen mammoths, organisms preserved in peat bogs and tar pits z Preserved hard parts - Teeth, bones, shells or other hard parts that have been preserved over time z Impressions - Flattened outlines of the surface of an organism, frequently carbonized z Molds - After an organism has been surrounded by mud which turns to rock, the remains leech out of the rock, leaving only the mold z Casts - Molds that have been filled with another material after the remains have been removed produce casts z Trace fossils - Tracks burrows and other evidence of life left in the rock ©2000 Timothy G. -
1 JOURNAL of VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY a New
JOURNAL OF VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY A new caenagnathid (Dinosauria: Oviraptorosauria) from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation of Alberta, Canada, and a reevaluation of the relationships of Caenagnathidae GREGORY F. FUNSTON*,,PHILIP J. CURRIE Department of Biological Sciences, CW 405, Biological Sciences Building, University of Alberta,Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E9 [email protected]; [email protected] SUPPLEMENTARY DATA 1 1 CHARACTERS MODIFIED FROM LAMANNA ET AL. (2014) 78. Dentary: (0) elongate; (1) proportionally short and deep, with maximum depth of dentary between 25% and 50% of dentary length (with length measured from the tip of the jaw to the end of the posterodorsal process); (2) extremely short and deep, with maximum depth 50% or more of dentary length. [ORDERED] Modification—Removed [ORDERED] Justification—Mandibular variation through ontogeny in has not been qualified in oviraptorosaurs, nor has the degree of intraspecific variation. This character in particular is correlated with size in caenagnathids, such that larger specimens tend show state 0, and smaller specimens tend to show state 2, with a smooth gradient between. 84. Anterodorsal margin of dentary in lateral view: (0) straight; (1) concave; (2) broadly concave. [ORDERED] Modification—Removed [ORDERED] Justification—As above, though the opposite correlation to size is shown: large specimens tend to show state 2, and small specimens tend to show state 0. 176. Manual phalanx II-2: (0) longer than II-1; (1) subequal to or slightly shorter than II- 1; (2) distinctly shorter than II-1. [ORDERED] Modification—Removed [ORDERED] Justification—Caenagnathid manual proportions are highly variable, with a number of apparent reversals within clades. For example, Hagryphus giganteus, scored as character state 1 for this character, is consistently recovered as a basal caenagnathid, but within more derived caenagnathids, all three character states for this character are present, indicating that the character state can move both directions. -
The Evolution of Flight in Bats: a Novel Hypothesis Sophia C
bs_bs_banner Mammal Review ISSN 0305-1838 REVIEW The evolution of flight in bats: a novel hypothesis Sophia C. ANDERSON* School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Sir Harold Mitchell Building, Greenside Place, St Andrews, KY16 9TH, UK. Email: [email protected] Graeme D. RUXTON School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Sir Harold Mitchell Building, Greenside Place, St Andrews, KY16 9TH, UK. Email: [email protected] Keywords ABSTRACT bats, Chiroptera, echolocation, evolution of flight, interdigital webbing, pterosaurs, 1. Bats (order Chiroptera) are the only mammals capable of powered flight, Scansoriopterygidae and this may be an important factor behind their rapid diversification into *Correspondence author. the over 1400 species that exist today – around a quarter of all mammalian species. Though flight in bats has been extensively studied, the evolutionary Received: 10 October 2019 history of the ability to fly in the chiropterans remains unclear. Accepted: 13 May 2020 2. We provide an updated synthesis of current understanding of the mechanics Editor: DR of flight in bats (from skeleton to metabolism), its relation to echolocation, doi: 10.1111/mam.12211 and where previously articulated evolutionary hypotheses for the development of flight in bats stand following recent empirical advances. We consider the gliding model, and the echolocation-first, flight-first, tandem development, and diurnal frugivore hypotheses. In the light of the recently published de- scription of the web-winged dinosaur Ambopteryx longibrachium, we draw together all the current evidence into a novel hypothesis. 3. We present the interdigital webbing hypothesis: the ancestral bat exhibited interdigital webbing prior to powered flight ability, and the Yangochiroptera, Pteropodidae, and Rhinolophoidea evolved into their current forms along parallel trajectories from this common ancestor.