A bit of time has passed since the pinto and navy bean plants moved away from their humble beginnings in the seed starter kit. I didn’t document it thoroughly, but the beans’ transition out of the starters involved some amount of trial and error. Keep in mind that I have no yard and am now…
Gigantopithecus
… an extinct genus of ape that existed from roughly nine million years to as recently as one hundred thousand years ago, in what is now China, India, and Vietnam, placing Gigantopithecus in the same time frame and geographical location as several hominin species. The fossil record suggests that individuals of the species Gigantopithecus blacki were the largest apes that ever lived, standing up to 3 m (9.8 ft), and weighing up to 540 kg (1,200 lb).
Gigantopithecus’s method of locomotion is uncertain, as no pelvic or leg bones have been found. The dominant view is that it walked on all fours like modern gorillas and chimpanzees. he jaws of Gigantopithecus are deep and very thick. The molars are low crowned and flat and exhibit heavy enamel suitable for tough grinding. The features of teeth and jaws suggested that the animal was adapted to chewing tough, fibrous food by cutting, crushing and grinding it. Gigantopithecus teeth also have a large number of cavities, similar to those found in giant pandas, whose diet, which includes a large amount of bamboo…
(read more: Wikipedia) (images via: NovaTaxa)
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read more: Giant Asian Ape and Humans Coexisted, Might Have Interacted
GIGANTOPITHECUS, EXTINCT ASIAN APE:
1. Did Bigfoot Really Exist? How Gigantopithecus Became Extinct
Bigfoot. Sasquatch. Yeti. The Abominable Snowman. Whatever you want to call it, such a giant, mythical ape is not real—at least, not anymore. But more than a million years ago, an ape as big as a polar bear lived in South Asia, until going extinct 300,000 years ago.
Scientists first learned of Gigantopithecus in 1935, when Ralph von Koenigswald, a German paleoanthropologist, walked into a pharmacy in Hong Kong and found an unusually large primate molar for sale.
Read more: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/hominids/2012/01/did-bigfoot-really-exist-how-gigantopithecus-became-extinct/#ixzz2EV4uJw4J
2. The Ape That Was:
For thousands of years, Chinese pharmacists have used fossils - which they call dragon teeth and dragon bones - as ingredients in potions intended to cure ailments ranging from backache to sexual impotence. The fossil-rich caves of southern China have been, and still are, sedulously mined by farmers, who sell these medicinal treasures to apothecaries in the cities. In just such a pharmacy, in Hong Kong in 1935, the German paleoanthropologist Ralph von Koenigswald came across a large fossil primate molar that did not belong to any known species…
read more: http://www.uiowa.edu/~bioanth/giganto.html
SHARK ANATOMY
Sharks, along with rays and chimeras, are distinguished from other fish primarily by their body composition. Most other fish have skeletons made of bone, just like mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds. Sharks and rays, on the other hand, have skeletons made entirely of cartilage, the same flexible material in your nose and ears. Cartilage is sturdy like bone, but it has a much lower density. This material keeps sharks relatively lightweight, so they don’t sink in the ocean and they don’t need an air bladder like other fish.
Sharks also have a very unique skin texture. They don’t have the large, prominent scales found in bony fish. Instead they’re covered with smaller, tooth-like scales called denticles. These tough, protective denticles are aligned so that they channel water over the shark’s body, minimizing drag due to friction.
Like bony fish, sharks breathe by extracting dissolved oxygen from water. The water enters the mouth, passes through the gills and is expelled through gill slits behind the head. In bony fish, these slits are covered, but in most sharks you can see them clearly. As the water flows through the gill opening, it passes tiny gill filaments. These filaments are covered with microscopic blood vessel capillaries, which have a lower oxygen content than the water around them. This imbalance causes oxygen in the water to diffuse into the shark’s bloodstream, where it is distributed throughout the body.
Some sharks have a gill pump, a set of muscles that suck in water and push it past the gills. This works something like our lungs — the shark can continuously gather oxygen while it is in a still position. Most sharks also extract oxygen using ram ventilation, passing water over the gills by moving forward. Some highly-active sharks depend on ram ventilation almost entirely, which means they stay in motion most of the time!
Info via: How Stuff Works
(via rhamphotheca)
How the Global Pet Trade is Impacting the Survival of Many Exotic Species
by Ken Howell,
Curator of Upland Tropical Rainforest, National Aquarium
When it comes to pets, most people are content keeping traditional cats and dogs while others desire animals with a more exotic flair. Pet stores and online vendors offer the potential exotic pet owner an abundance of wildlife, ranging from parrots and marmosets to cobras and scorpions. Sadly, many recipients of exotic wildlife are unaware that their purchases may support a trade that is often illegal, inhumane, or detrimental to wild populations.
It may come as a surprise to many that the United States is one of the largest importers of live animals in the world with over one billion live animals imported since the year 2000. Various regulatory agencies strive to control this trade. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is responsible for enforcing not only its own internal regulations but also those regulations that fall under the auspices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)…
(read more: National Aquarium)
New study following Atlantic seabirds to help siting of wind turbines
by Jim Woehr and Marjorie Weisskohl,Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
In making decisions on where to permit construction of offshore Atlantic wind turbines, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is engaged with offshore wind energy permitting as well) will need information on the movements of priority bird species such as common terns and American oystercatchers up and down the east coast, from Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound south throughout the mid-Atlantic region.
The movement patterns of these two species are not well documented and, although they are not protected under the Endangered Species Act, they are species of high concern.
To help fill the information gap, BOEM recently awarded a $292,000 study to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to research the movements of these birds over the next 12 to 18 months using VHF (very high frequency) backpack transmitters…
(read more: USFWS - NE) (photos: Pamela Loring/USFWS.)
There is growing evidence that a gene variant that reduces the plasticity of the nervous system also modulates responses to treatments for mood and anxiety disorders. In this case, patients with posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, with a less functional variant of the gene coding for…
(Source: alphagalileo.org)
Lost World Locked in Stone at Fossil Lake
by Megan Gannon
With just two inhabited buildings and a population of five, Fossil, Wyo., is all but a ghost town today. But as far as ghosts go, the ones at Fossil are pretty remarkable — 50-million-year-old monitor lizards, stingrays and freakishly long-tailed turtles among them.
Fossil showed promise of becoming a train-stop city during America’s westward expansion. The town’s real golden age, however, may have been the early Eocene, when it was covered in a subtropical lake with an incredible diversity of aquatic life, surrounded by lush mountains and active volcanoes…
(read more: Live Science)
Images (Photos by Lance Grande from The Lost World of Fossil Lake: Snapshots from Deep Time, © 2013, published by the University of Chicago Press):
T - This is the most complete skeleton of a so-called dawn horse ever discovered. This specimen of Protorohippus venticolus was much more diminutive than today’s horses, standing less than two feet high at the shoulder, but its long back legs suggest it was a good jumper. Perhaps it was less skilled as a swimmer; researchers aren’t sure how the horse ended up at the bottom of the middle of Fossil Lake but they suspect it drowned, possibly trying to escape a predator.
B - This fossil immortalizes stingray sex of the Eocene. The male and female fat-tailed stingrays (Asterotrygon maloneyi) shown here were likely mating or just about to mate when they were killed, researchers believe.
(via unterrible)
