Latest news with #Paleontologists
Globe and Mail
20 hours ago
- Science
- Globe and Mail
Ancient whale with Pokémon-like face, killer bite discovered by scientists
Long before whales were majestic, gentle giants, some of their prehistoric ancestors were tiny, weird and feral. A chance discovery of a 25-million-year-old fossil on an Australian beach has allowed paleontologists to identify a rare, entirely new species that could unlock mysteries of whale evolution. Researchers this week officially named Janjucetus dullardi, a cartoonish creature with bulging eyes the size of tennis balls, in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Unlike today's whales, the juvenile specimen was small enough to fit in a single bed. Boasting fiendish teeth and a shark-like snout, however, this oddball of the ocean was nasty, mean and built to hunt. 'It was, let's say, deceptively cute,' said Erich Fitzgerald, senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at Museums Victoria Research Institute, and one of the paper's authors. 'It might have looked for all the world like some weird kind of mash-up between a whale, a seal and a Pokémon, but they were very much their own thing.' The rare discovery of the partial skull, including ear bones and teeth, was made in 2019 on a fossil-rich stretch of coast along Australia's Victoria state. Jan Juc Beach, a cradle for some of the weirdest whales in history, is becoming a hotspot for understanding early whale evolution, Mr. Fitzgerald said. Few family trees seem stranger than that of Janjucetus dullardi, only the fourth species ever identified from a group known as mammalodontids, early whales that lived only during the Oligocene Epoch, about 34 to 23 million years ago. That marked the point about halfway through the known history of whales. The Decibel podcast: Fossil feud: Paleontologists have a bone to pick with new find The tiny predators, thought to have grown to three metres in length, were an early branch on the line that led to today's great baleen whales, such as humpbacks, blues and minkes. But the toothy ancestors with powerful jaws would have looked radically different to any modern species. 'They may have had tiny little nubbins of legs just projecting as stumps from the wall of the body,' Mr. Fitzgerald said. That mystery will remain tantalizingly unsolved unless a specimen is uncovered with more of its skeleton intact, which would be something of a miracle. Even the partial skull that allowed the initial identification this week was an astonishing discovery. Janjucetus dullardi was named by researchers after an amateur fossil hunter who doesn't mind its looks in the slightest. 'It's literally been the greatest 24 hours of my life,' said Ross Dullard, who discovered the skull while fossil hunting at Jan Juc Beach. After Wednesday's confirmation of the new species, the school principal walked like a rock star onto campus with 'high fives coming left, right and centre,' he said. His friends and family are probably just relieved it's over. 'That's all they've heard from me for about the last six years,' he said. Mr. Dullard was on a regular low-tide hunt at Jan Juc the day he spotted something black protruding from a cliff. Poking it dislodged a tooth. A mysterious illness has killed billions of sea stars. Now scientists say they've solved the case He knew enough to recognize it was unlikely to belong to a dog or a seal. 'I thought, geez, we've got something special here,' he said. Mr. Dullard sent photos to Museums Victoria, where Mr. Fitzgerald saw them and immediately suspected a new species. Confirming the find was another matter. This was the first mammalodontid to be identified in Australia since 2006 and only the third on record in the country. Fossils of sufficient quality, with enough of the right details preserved to confirm uniqueness, aren't common. 'Cetaceans represent a fairly miniscule population of all life,' Mr. Fitzgerald said. Millions of years of erosion, scavengers and ocean currents take their toll on whale skeletons, too. 'It's only the chosen few, the vast minority of all whales that have ever lived and died in the oceans over millions of years, that actually get preserved as fossils,' he added. Finds such as Janjucetus dullardi can unlock insights into how prehistoric whales ate, moved, behaved – and evolved. Researchers said the discoveries also helped to understand how ancient cetacean species adapted to warmer oceans, as they study how today's marine life might respond to climate change. Meanwhile, Mr. Dullard planned to host a fossil party this weekend, featuring cetacean-themed games and whale-shaped treats in Jell-O, to celebrate his nightmare Muppet find, finally confirmed. 'That's taken my concentration for six years,' he said. 'I've had sleepless nights. I've dreamt about this whale.'
Gizmodo
2 days ago
- Science
- Gizmodo
Here Are the Winners of the 2025 Wildlife Photos of the Year Contest
Nature can be equal parts majestic, heartwarming, and terrifying. The winning entries of the 2025 BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology image competition illustrate that complexity in spades. Biologists, zoologists, and paleontologists from across the world sent in submissions to this year's contest. The photos were sorted into four categories: 'Collective Social Behavior,' 'Life in Motion,' 'Colorful Strategies,' and 'Research in Action.' But the overall winner (seen in the headline image above) was a snapshot taken by Andrey Giljov, showing two male saiga antelopes in a sparring match as part of their preparation for the mating season; this naturally involves butting heads with potential rivals. 'Saiga fights in spring, outside of the tournament season, are quieter and more about training than determining status. However, the males take every opportunity to practice,' said Giljov, a vertebrate zoologist and senior lecturer at Saint Petersburg State University in Russia, in an editorial detailing the contest winners. The annual photo competition, now in its second year, is a joint venture from the journals BMC Ecology and Evolution and BMC Zoology; it's the successor to contests that were separately run by the two journals. The photos are judged by the journals' editors and senior members of the editorial board. This year's winning entries and close seconds featured some of the biggest creatures on Earth as well as its smallest. Case in point, Alwin Hardenbol's incredible photo of a breaching humpback whale that he captured from a rigid inflatable boat in Varanger, Norway. 'Breaching is a fascinating behavior from a scientific perspective, as it is still inconclusive what purpose it serves,' said Hardenbol, a researcher at the Natural Resources Institute Finland whose photo was a runner-up in the Life in Motion category. 'It's unbelievable to imagine how such an animal can even jump out of the water like that.' Sritam Kumar Sethy, a student at Berhampur University in India, won the Collective Social Behavior category for his photograph of newly hatched Acanthocoris scaber (a species of leaf-footed bug) nymphs gathering together on the underside of a leaf—a survival strategy of having strength in numbers. 'By coming together, they enhance their protection against predators, reducing the chances of any individual becoming prey,' said Sethy. The entries also captured the never-ending struggle for resources between animals, such as Delip K. Das's photo of a Haliastur indus (a medium-sized bird of prey also called a Brahminy Kite) having to go the extra mile for its dinner. 'A Brahminy Kite had just caught an eel—a large and still-struggling fish. As the Kite wrestled to secure its catch in flight, another challenger appeared, attempting to hijack the meal,' said Das, whose entry didn't win but was singled out as highly commended. 'The dramatic moment unfolded above the mangrove-fringed waters, reflecting the intensity and agility of raptors in the wild.' Some images didn't highlight the present state of the natural world but its distant past. Digital artist Natalia Jagielsk won the Life in Motion category for her illustration of pterosaurs flying over the Jurassic Hebridean Basin, covering what's now called Scotland. Jagielsk, a postdoctoral fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, based her work on the recent discovery of two pterosaur skeletons belonging to different species in the region. 'Despite their differing cranial anatomies, teeth morphology, and wing shapes, these pterosaurs could interact and compete for food during periods of environmental stress,' said Jagielsk, who was part of a team that described one of these species, Dearc sgiathanach. 'Set 170 million years ago in the Middle Jurassic, this image portrays these flying reptiles as they hunt along the shoreline.' My personal favorite selection is either endearing, gross, or both, depending on your tolerance for bugs and regurgitating. Nick Royle, a runner-up in the Collective and Social Behavior category, took a photo of a mother Nicrophorus vespilloides (a species of burying beetle) feeding her young—by which I mean, spitting back up the remnants of a buried mouse carcass. In addition to this unique feeding strategy, burying beetles are also one of the few insects that often share custody of their offspring, with both parents helping out with the rearing. 'This behavior normally occurs underground, so is not usually visible to us, but is here pictured in the lab, where these burying beetles are used as a model to understand the evolution of social behaviors such as parental care,' said Royle, a behavioral ecologist and conservation biologist at the University of Exeter in the UK. 'These beetles work together to bury carcasses to avoid competition from other users of carrion and, once safely underground, process the carcass, removing the fur, rolling it into a ball, and smearing it with antimicrobial secretions to combat the bacteria and fungi that would otherwise consume this precious resource.' Well, I'm certainly going to appreciate my parents' home-cooked meals more from now on. There are plenty more breathtaking images from this year's contest that can be seen here.
The Independent
3 days ago
- Science
- The Independent
New human ancestor identified after fossil find
Fossil teeth unearthed in Ethiopia suggest two distinct human ancestor species coexisted between 2.6 and 2.8 million years ago, reshaping understanding of human evolution. The 13 teeth, found at the Ledi-Geraru archaeological site, belong to an early Homo species that lived alongside the hominin ancestor Australopithecus. This discovery indicates that human evolution is not a linear progression but a more complex 'bushy tree' with multiple lineages existing simultaneously. Researchers dated the specimens by analysing volcanic ash layers, which also helped reconstruct the ancient landscape as a vegetated area with rivers and shallow lakes. The newly identified Homo species is yet to be named, with further fossil discoveries required for formal classification.
CTV News
09-05-2025
- Science
- CTV News
‘The result is spectacular': Manitoba fossil museum reconstructs massive dinosaur skull
The reconstructed skull of a Tylosaurus Pembinensis is seenin Morden, Man.. (Source: Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre)
