A FOSSIL, BUT OF WHAT?

John and Dawn from the Haunted Skies project were down last weekend working on Volume Two. On Saturday morning they went for a walk along Bucks Mills beach and found this.



They (and Jon) presume that it is a fossil, but of what?



Ideas please....

DALE DRINNON: On "Discosaurus" and the possibility of Plesiosaurian Survival

Joseph Leidy had written several articles about the earliest finds of Plesiosaurs in North America, and one of them was the disputed 'Discosaurus' in Alabama, possibly originating from the same beds as 'Zueglodons' (Basilosaurus). He was writing in the 1850s and one of the comparable early finds was from the Greensands of New Jersey, thought to have been of Late Cretaceous age. The specimens in this case were named 'Cimoliasaurus'; however, some of them turned out to be cetacean vertebrae of probably Pliocene age, probably some sort of a dolphin.

However, this was some of the vertebrae and not all: Leidy did think the other vertebrae were legitimate and were of that genus, and probably related to that

'Discosaurus' http://www.oceansofkansas.com/Leidy1865.html

However, it seems that both genus names are invalid. 'Cimoliasaurus' has been described as a 'garbage taxon' and several nondescript fossils from Europe and Australia have also been ascribed to this genus, much in the same way as the early tendency to call all early canivorous dinosaur finds.

'Megalosaurus' http://www.palaeos.com/Vertebrates/Units/220Lepidosauromorpha/220.820.html
In this case the really interesting thing is that the New Jersey fragmentary Plesiosaur is found in association with Pliocene dolphin fossils, mixed up together and only separated out later, and the Alabama fossils Leidy considered probably the same genus are labelled as coming from the Eocene zueglodon beds. In the case of the New Jersey Greensands, there is independant evidence that they are not only Cretaceous but also Tertiary: another site gives a paper in which several genera of O. C. Marsh's 'Cretaceous' birds from the New Jersey Greensands are actually of Eocene date or later. http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v084n02/p0260-p0262.html

The characteristics of these fossils has placed them tenatively in the same family as Cryptocleidus and Muraenosaurus, and they were thought to have been like the Elasmosaurs but with shorter necks. This is also along the lines of what the surviving Plesiosaurs would have to have been to give rise to our Long-necked Sea-serpents: long-necked, but not excessively long-necked, not so specialised as the extreme Elasmosaurs, and generalised enough to be versatile, possibly enough so that they could pursue other avenues of evolution that became open to them.

That makes a good deal of sense and I am willing to arrange the theory of Plesiosaurian survival on those terms alone.

NEW PAPER ON FOSSILS OF `UNKNOWN APE` IN ASIA, HAS SERIOUS IMPLICATIONS FOR CRYPTOZOOLOGY...

Nature 459, 910-911 (18 June 2009) doi:10.1038/459910a; Published online 17 June 2009


The mystery ape of Pleistocene Asia
Russell L. Ciochon

Russell L. Ciochon is chair of anthropology at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242, USA. This Essay is based on a contribution to the book Out of Africa I: Who, When and Where? (eds., Fleagle, J. G. et al. Springer, 2009).
Email: russell-ciochon@uiowa.edu

Abstract: Fossil finds of early humans in south-east Asia may actually be the remains of an unknown ape. Russell Ciochon says that many palaeoanthropologists — including himself — have been mistaken.

Fourteen years ago, a Nature paper by my colleagues and I described a 1.9-million-year-old human jaw fragment from Longgupo in Sichuan province, China. The ancient date in itself was spectacular. Previous evidence had suggested that human ancestors arrived in east Asia from Africa about 1 million years ago, in the form of Homo erectus. Longgupo nearly doubled that estimate. But even more exciting — and contentious — was our claim that the jaw was related to H. habilis, a species of distinctly African origin. If this descendant of H. habilis had arrived so early into south-east Asia, then it probably gave rise to H. erectus in the Far East, rather than H. erectus itself sweeping west to east.

Read On

IN BRIEF: WORLD'S OLDEST HUMAN HAIR FOUND IN HYENA DUNG

A new study has suggested that strands discovered in fossil hyena poop found in a South African cave, could be the oldest known human hairs. Researchers discovered the rock-hard hyena dung near the Sterkfontein caves, where many early human ancestor fossils have been found.

Each coprolite, is roughly 0.8 inch (2 centimeters) across. They were found embedded in sediments 195,000 to 257,000 years old. The sizes and shapes of the coprolites and their location suggest they came from brown hyenas, which still live in the region's caves today.

Until now, the oldest known human hair was from a 9,000-year-old Chilean mummy.

It's not clear which species the newfound human hairs are from, since the human fossil record for this time span is exceedingly limited, the researchers say. But, the hairs' age covers just before when we think modern humans emerged, and overlaps with the existence and end of Homo heidelbergensis.

"The hairs could belong to either of them, or of course to a species not yet recognized," Said Lucinda Backwell, a paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Backwell and her colleagues used tweezers to extract 40 fossilized hairs resembling glass needles from one of the hyena coprolites.

Scanning-electron-microscope images revealed wavy bands of scales on the hairs-a pattern typical of modern primates, with human hair being the closest match. Modern brown hyenas are known to hunt baboons and other large mammals when they are rearing cubs, according to the researchers. According to Backwell, the hairs in this particular coprolite did not yield any DNA. But, she noted that there seem to be hundreds of fossil droppings in the one South African cave alone and plenty more in sites across the region. "The contents of such dung could shed light on the ancient environments where early humans and their ancestors once lived," she said.

"It would be extremely interesting if this work kicked off some concerted effort to go back to sites where fossil dung has been found before," said Pat Shipman, a paleoanthropologist at Pennsylvania State University. "This could give us more evidence to answer questions being debated these days on how and when and where and why modern humans arose".

BREAKING NEWS: A CROCODILE WITH HORNS AND TUSKS!

It sounds like a creation of J.R.R Tolkien, but a crocodile with horns and savage tusks has been uncovered by Paleontologist Paul Sereno who unveiled his find on Friday. Sereno calls it boar-croc and is yet to furnish it with a scientific name.

The University of Chicago researcher found the skull in the Sahara Desert, which many thousands of years ago was moist and supported all sorts of animals,including crocodiles. The age of the creature has not yet been revealed. There are also no details on size.

Boar-croc doesn't fit in any known order. It has a crocodile-like snout, but with horns and three sets of canine teeth like those of a wild pig adapted for eating meat, he explained.