Full Dromaeosaur raptor skeleton

Just arrived and expertly-prepped by Mike Holmes of Triassica fame, this beautifully- preserved Dromaeosaur raptor fossil skeleton is perfectly articulated and complete (not a chimera). Only the two ischia and two coracoids are not visible, and believed to be still within the matrix beneath the pelvic assembly and immediately anterior of the head of the scapulae respectively.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It measures 57cm long and comes from an old collection in the UK. Mike has performed secondary preparation in the UK on the skull, internal bones, teeth, ribs, pelvic assembly including ilium, uncovering previously hidden bones (3 hidden vertebrae, centra of several thoracic vertebrae, missing tip of one hind foot claw previously beneath matrix, right shoulder blade, end of right humerus, and right ulna/radius) from the original matrix.

There is absolutely no restoration performed, no paste, resin, or filler. The skeleton is preserved in a complex ‘sleeping’ posture (rather than the more common death pose; curled backwards likely due to the neck ligaments drying out and pulling back the vertebrae), with the pelvic assembly upside down, and the stomach twisted. Its ribs overlap one another and the pelvic bones.

Both hind feet have all digits and all four claws present. Both hind limbs are preserved and intact; femurs being in situ with the pelvic assembly.

The left forelimb is evident and complete. The right forelimb is still encased within the matrix.

At the right side of the matrix, the scapula and part of the forelimb (most likely the humerus) is exposed.

Some of the internal structure of the skull is revealed and preserved. Dendition has excellent occlusion.

Rock matrix has natural fault lines, with dendrite growth on either side of the faults as well as mineral deposits.

On 20 May 2012 a comparable Jinfengopteryx elegans raptor – which was only 65-70% complete and without a real fossil skull – sold on Heritage Auctions for $32,000 (Natural History auction, lot 49318).

Fossils evidence alien life

On 29 December 2012, a meteorite landed in the early evening at the Sri Lankan province of Polonnaruwa, with Hot, witnesses to the fireball reporting the strong odour of tar or asphalt.

Local police gathered samples of the meteorite and dispatched them to the Sri Lankan Medical Research Institute of the Ministry of Health in Colombo, whose officials forwarded onto a team of astrobiologists at Cardiff University in the UK due to certain uncommon features found on the rocks.

The Cardiff team conducted numerous tests, which revealed that three of the possible meteorites contain fossilised biological structures fused into the rock matrix – possibly the first evidence of extra-terrestrial life. Their research has just been published in the peer reviewed Journal of Cosmology.

Their tests rule out the possibility of terrestrial contamination by microbial contaminants after the meteorite’s arrival:
1. One stone had a density of less than 1 gram per cubic centimetre, less than all known carbonaceous meteorites. It had a partially fused crust, good evidence of atmospheric heating, a carbon content of up to 4 per cent and contained an abundance of organic compounds with a high molecular weight, which is not unknown in meteorites.
2. Electron microscope images of structures within the stones show a complex, thick-walled, carbon-rich microfossil about 100 micrometres across, which resemble a group of largely extinct marine dinoflagellate algae.
3. Another image shows well-preserved flagella that are 2 micrometres in diameter and 100 micrometres long, which is considered extremely long and thin by terrestrial standards and may indicate evidence of formation in a low-gravity, low-pressure environment.
4. The fact that organic samples are also buried within the rock matrix, together with low levels of nitrogen measured, eliminated the possibility of contamination by modern organisms which would have much higher nitrogen content.
5. The stones do not bear the usual characteristics of a lightning strike, which in any case would have destroyed any biological content.

Such fossils could finally be the smoking gun supporting the theory of cometary panspermia as the source of the first life on Earth. An alternative explanation might be that this was Earth rock (with biological material) that was ejected into space as the result of an ancient asteroid impact, that somehow found its way back.

What do you think?

What do fossils teach us?

“The fossil hunter does not kill, he resurrects. And the results of this sport is to add to the sum of human pleasure and to the treasures of human knowledge.”

George Gaylord Simpson
(1902 – 1984)

The study of the fossil record is known as Paleontology. Understanding ancient organisms may not seem useful in pragmatic Singapore at first sight, yet on closer inspection educators will find Paleontology to be an immensely useful field to help make numerous fields come alive.

1. Beginnings of Life. Apart from the sheer wonder of beholding the morphology of giant creatures from millions of years ago from studying their fossil remains, fossils teach us about the beginnings and transformations of life itself. For instance, the fossil record shows us traces of the first bacterial life on Earth among the stromatolites in Western Australia, vividly illustrate the first ‘explosion’ of numerous forms of fauna in the Cambrian period, show us how lifeforms grew without limits from the Jurassic to the Cretaceous and even in the Pleistocene period (among megafauna), and bring to life the journey of our tiny mammalian ancestors.

2. Ecosytems. Fossils help us understand the environment where extinct lifeforms once existed. For example, the coral, brachiopod, cephalopod or echinoderm fossils found with a particular species indicate that they could only have lived in shallow brackish waters where sunlight can reach the corals, as do the presence of small fish fossils that indicate that they were juveniles and just as likely to have thrived near the shore. Similarly, mass mortality plates of fish fossils that show no signs of rotting may indicate that they might have been inhabiting a lake that was frozen over. Likewise, the presence of fleas indicate that mammals had been in the vicinity.

Fossil taxonomy or classifications help us to understand how closely various lifeforms were interrelated, the sheer diversity of various ecosystems, the climate their hunting, feeding, nesting, locomotion speed, and travelling habits, means of digestion, energy requirements and metabolisms, their respiration, locomotion, timing and causes of extinction. For instance, we can tell that the dinosaurs were a particularly well-designed species simply from the hundreds of millions of years that they ruled the planet, compared to the thousands of years that Man has been the dominant species.

3. Human origins. Paleo-anthropologists study hominid fossils to understand the beginnings of human life, from the tools our ancestors used, the food they ate, their physical adaptations, to their social behavior and migration patterns.

4. Geology. Fossils are used to illustrate earth processes. For instance, fossils of the freshwater reptile Mesosaurus and land reptile Cynognathus are both found in South America and Africa strata of the same age, and indicate to geologists that these two continents used to be one and evidence plate tectonic shifts. The presence of trilobite fossils in the Highlands of Scotland are also proof of how plate tectonics involved uplifts of land masses that pushed up the ocean floor to become mountainous ranges.

5. Climate studies. Fossils allow paleontologists to reconstruct ancient environments by studying features preserved in the rocks – such as roots, soil horizons, or stream deposits – and by comparing them with features known in modern sediments and modern environments. For instance, the presence of marine fossils has taught us that warm shallow seas once covered much of the inland United States, just as the presence of fossilized swamp plants in polar rocks indicate that the North and South Poles once featured tropical climates!

6. Earth’s age. All living organisms inhabited the Earth only during certain time intervals and are reflected in the fossil record in sequence according to each layer of rock sediment. Index fossils such as trilobites and ammonites, which are readily-preserved, widespread, easily-recognized, and rapidly-evolving – and thus discernable – are used as markers of relative geological age. Biostratigraphy, or the study of relative time periods of fossils, is of vital economic relevance as they aid geologists in dating rock and are useful indicators that organic fuel deposits are present in exploratory oil drilling.

7. Our past and future. The study of fossils also leads to discoveries and understanding of Earth’s processes which can benefit mankind. Study of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event led to the hypothesis that a large asteroid hit the Earth, and astronomers resultantly searching for and seeking ways to avoid possible impact asteroids that could destroy humanity in our future.

8. The rigor of science. Paleontology allows us to trace the root causes of how ancient perceptions shaped cultural beliefs, ranging from how numerous civilizations believed in dragons, devils, giants, to how ancient sailors reported sea monsters and giant fish. Paleontology provides us with hard tools, frameworks, and specimens to physically test our conjectures and perceptions, confirm or disprove hypotheses put up by other scholars, provide a ‘time machine’ into the past to discover lifeforms and behaviors that have never been observed before, and push the boundaries of our understanding of the world.

Oldest fossils on Earth

Strelly Pool Stromatolite (Proterozoic) Strelly Pool Formation, Pilbara, Western Australia

 

Happy 2013 fellow fossil collectors! We’re so happy to be entering our 3rd year of collecting together, and we have built up a wonderful Facebook and offline friends. All readers and collectors are welcome to join in our regular gatherings, and we look forward to growing this lively community even more this year.

Our resolution this year is to really expand the interest in fossil collecting and paleontology in Singapore, and we plan to launch a program introducing fossils and paleontology to youth here over the next few months. Let us know if you have ideas or like to volunteer with us!

Speaking of life, did you catch the recent breakthrough study on the earliest fossil life ever found on Earth? At 3.5 billion years old, this bacteria was found just 3 hours away from Singapore in Western Australia. This was a time when the Earth lacked oxygen, and indeed, the bacteria likely even helped to create oxygen.

Presented at a meeting of the Geological Society of America in November 2012 by biogeochemist Nora Noffke of the Old Dominion University in Norfolk, she details the microbial communities observed from the ridges that crisscross the rocks like strands in a spider web hint that primitive bacteria linked up in sprawling networks that may have facilitated communication via chemical signals.

The Pilbara area of Western Australia where the Strelly Pool Formation is found has some of the oldest rocks in the world, and the stromatolites found there are the oldest fossils in Earth history preserved in the oldest sedimentary rock.

The stromatolites are formed by microbial mats that trap minerals and sand particles in their matrix, which fossilize into sandstone that shows discrete layered patterns of textural variation in line with the fossilized organic remnants, which ”contour the stromatolites from edge to edge, following steep slopes and continuing along low areas without thickening.” Spectroscopy confirms that the organics had been ‘cooked’ to the same burial temperature as the host rock, again indicating the organics are not young contaminants.”

I’ve just received the Strelly Pool cross-sectioned stromatolite specimen above that nicely illustrates this.

The discovery of the fossils in shallow waters also puts to rest the idea that life might have started near the deep hydrothermal vents. Interestingly, the techniques used in analysing the microbe activity are also being used to determine if microbial life once existed among similar geological forms on Mars.

Just as our ancestors the microbes could have evolved in the richness of life today, let’s work to grow our collector community into a large and diverse body we can all be proud of!

~Calvin

Champosaur vertebrae column

The Champsosaur was a freshwater, crocodile-like diapsid reptile that lived in North America and Europe 60 to 55 million years ago, from the Upper Cretaceous, through the Paleocene, finally becoming extinct only at the end of the Eocene.

Champsosaur fossils are found mostly in carbonaceous claystones and mudstones, indicating that their habitats were mostly sub-tropical lakes, ponds, and swamps.Champsosaurus belong to the order Choristodera, and with their long, narrow snouts, resemble India’s modern day Gharial. However, Champosaurs were not actually crocodilians, with their resemblance as a classic case of convergent evolution in a similar ecological niche. Judging from modern gharials however, Champsosaurs are likely to also have be nimble: Gharials are the quickest crocodilians in the world, reaching swimming speeds of 40 km/h while pursuing fish.

Unlike the dinosaurs that perished in the Cretaceous extinction event, the Champsosaur – together with aquatic reptiles such as turtles and crocodilians – persisted into the Paleocene probably by finding protection in the water.

Champosaurs were typically about 1.5m long, although the largest Champosaurus species was the Champsosaurus gigas, which grew to 3.5m. Reptiles generally decreased in size after the K-T event, and C. gigas was interesting because it instead became larger than its ancestors. C. gigas are found in North Dakota’s Paleocene stratum, including Sentinel; Butte; Bullion; Creek; Slope; Cannonball; and Ludlow.

The Champsosaur probably swam with lateral body movements, pinning its limbs against its body to increase its streamline, just like crocodiles. Its tail was also laterally compressed to aid in swimming. Powerful jaw muscles were attached to the wide skull space behind the Champsosaur eyes. Because of its hydrodynamic body, powerful back legs, and long snout studded with small, sharp, needle-like teeth, it is believed that the Champsosaurus was an aggressive underwater predator that would lie on the bottom of ponds waiting for prey. As a fish swam by, it was believed to spring off the bottom with its powerful back legs to attack the fish. Fish species found with Champsosaur bones include bowfin, gar, and pike.

This original underground find, measuring about 14 inches long, was found in one piece with no restoration done. It was legally collected on private deeded land in Powder River County, Montana with the land owner’s permission. Looking closely, we can identify the cervical neck, dorsal back, sacrum, and caudal tail. Collectors can identify Champosaur vertebrae by their hourglass shape, in contrast for instance with crocodile vertebrae which feature convex ends.

Velociraptor claw

“Try to imagine yourself in the Cretaceous Period. You get your first look at this “six foot turkey” as you enter a clearing. He moves like a bird, lightly, bobbing his head. And you keep still because you think that maybe his visual acuity is based on movement like T-Rex – he’ll lose you if you don’t move. But no, not Velociraptor. You stare at him, and he just stares right back. And that’s when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the side, from the other two ‘raptors you didn’t even know were there. Because Velociraptor’s a pack hunter, you see, he uses coordinated attack patterns and he is out in force today. And he slashes at you with this… a six-inch retractable claw, like a razor, on the the middle toe. He doesn’t bother to bite your jugular like a lion, say… no no. He slashes at you here… or here… or maybe across the belly, spilling your intestines. The point is… you are alive when they start to eat you. So you know… try to show a little respect.”                                                                                      Dr. Alan Grant, Jurassic Park

It’s been almost 20 years since Spielberg stoked our imaginations with fossils of 2 meter-tall, hyperintelligent, scaly-skinned Velociraptors in Montana that disemboweled their prey. Many fossil collectors would of course know that while these swift therapods did have sickle-shaped claws, large brain cavities, likely featured an excellent sense of smell, hearing, and binocular vision, and were 6 – 7 feet long, velociraptors were in fact just about 3 feet tall. Most of its length was its tail! Spielberg had actually dramatised the movie by portraying what appeared more like the Velociraptor’s relatives (likely the Deinonychus, rather than the larger Utahraptor)!

Still, one of the most dynamic stories that dinosaur fossils have ever told, is the death grip pose of a  Protoceratops with a Velociraptor, discovered by a Polish-Mongolian expedition in the Late triassic sandstones of the Djadokhta Formation in the Tugrugeen Shireh locality in Mongolian province of ‘ Ömnögovi in 1971. This is one of the most classic fossils, and features the injured ceratopsian biting onto a Velociraptor leg in defence as both of them were probably soon buried postmortem by either a sandstorm or mudslide.

First discovered in 1923, Velociraptors lived in the Late Cretaceous. Only about a dozen Velociraptor fossils have ever been found, but because they have been found close to each other, they are believed to have lived and hunted in packs. They were small creatures, with fully-grown adults weighing about 15kg. The forearm of one Velociraptor (specimen number IGM 100/981) discovered in 2007 featured quill knobs, which indicated that they almost certainly had some feathers. Despite their hollow bones, their weight – forelimb proportions meant that they were probably flightless and that the feathers served other purposes such as for displays, temperature control, or to add speed. Their speed meant that they were likely warm-blooded, and the ‘cute features’ of baby Velociraptor fossils  - bigger eyes and shorter snouts – indicated that they were likely looked after by their parents. Interestingly, their ulna and radius forearm bones could not rotate, and tests performed with an anatomically-accurate robot Velociraptor arm indicated that it more likely used its sickle claw to puncture the jugular or windpipe of its prey, rather than for disembowelment.

So here’s the legend, an actual Velociraptor claw!

Plesiosaur aplenty

Like many, I first came to know about plesiosaurs through stories of Nessie, the famous Lock Ness Monster of Scotland’s Highlands first mentioned in the 6th Century.

Gosh, I thought, this is one ancient creature that may not have gone extinct! I even paid homage on-site once, with little luck of course.

Plesiosauria – including Plesiosaurs and their shorter-necked cousins the Pliosaurs – were cold-blooded, lung breathing marine reptiles (technically not dinosaurs as they lacked antorbital fenestrae, did not share the erect limb postures that gave dinosaurs greater mobility and stamina, and of course did not live on land as dinosaurs did) which lived from the early Jurassic to the Cretaceous periods, and were particularly populous during the Jurassic. Ranging in size from 2m to 20m, they replaced the Ichthyosaurs as the top aquatic predators, and were themselves replaced by the Mosasaurs in the last 20 million years of the Cretaceous era.

Behaviorally, Plesiosaurs had a unique swimming style involving up-down flapping of their flippers. Their still, long necks possibly helped them bottom-feed. They ate ammonites, belemites, and fish, had gastroliths to help in their digestion, and gave birth to live young.

It was mildly sobering to see that (i) recent expeditions to Loch Ness did not turn up anything; (ii) that a famous rotting carcass found by Japanese trawler near New Zealand really belonged to a basking shark; (iii) to learn in 1994 that the famous Nessie photo above taken by respected gynaecologist Colonel Robert Wilson was really a hoax; (iv) that a Plesiosaur fossil found at Loch Ness was in fact brought there from elsewhere; and that (v) Loch Ness itself is only 12,000 years old.

Still, Plesiosaur fossils are spectacular to marvel at. The largest collection I’ve seen lies in Britain’s Natural History Museum (below). By the way, it was also in Britain’s Lyme Regis area that the very first Plesiosaur was discovered.

 

 

 

 

 

Plesiosaurs were found in many countries, ranging from Argentina, Australia, Canada, , China, Colombia, and Cuba, to Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Morocco, Pakistan, the US, and the UK. Here’s my own humble collection of Plesiosaur-related fossils. Enjoy!

Plesiosaur tooth

Plesiosaurus mauritanicus vertebrae (Cretaceous Turonian 93.5 – 89.3 myo), Morocco

Ichthyosaur vertebrae for comparison, Lyme Regis, England

Opalised Plesiosaur digit, White Cliffs Opal Field, NSW (former collection of Tony Frazier, 1995)

Opalised bone, Duck Creek Opal field, Queensland (former collection of Hans Deboar)

Triceratops fix

UPDATE – Our new member to the Trike team: 15″ by 15″ Triceratops horridus frill, with clear detailing of vascular structure that supplied blood to keratinous sheath covering:

Triceratops need no introduction, for their tank-like morphology and similarity with the rhinoceros makes it a favourite of many of us since our childhoods.

Earlier this year I just acquired a Triceratops frill fragment from the Australian Natural History Museum in Sydney, and fellow fossil collector Rick Lim (check out his fossil blog shop!) had kindly helped me pick up a Triceratops tooth from FossilsHK when he dropped by Hong Kong. Just got my Trike fix with an 8″ juvenile Triceratops horridus skull horn, left pure and unrestored straight from the ground.

Recent studies have found blood vessels in the facial horns of the Triceratops (now speculated to be more for displays than defence), which show up nicely due to the weathering of this horn specimen. Triceratops were abundant in Hell’s Creek Montana, where all three fossils were originally found; almost 50 skulls were discovered there from 2000 – 2010!

Maybe next this Triceratops vertebrae, with evidence of a battle with his age old nemesis?

Grallator footprint

Trace fossils (also known as “ichnites” or “ichnofossils”) are records of prehistoric activity apart from the actual body remains of the organisms, and may include corprolites (dino dung), bite marks, burrowings, root cavities, sedimentary remains, and footprints.

Dinosaur tracks in particular have been invaluable to paleontology ‘CSIs’ to almost observe their behavior. Paleontology forensics using corporolites inform on dinosaur diets. Fossils of dinosaur tracks tell us when a particular species might have lived, if it were bipedal or quadrupedal, its weight (by the depth of the print), posture (by pronation of its foot), the flexibility of its foot anatomy, the use of its tail (if it was held upright or left an imprint) locomotion speed (by the paces between the prints), if it moved or ate alone or in groups, travelled along common ‘dinosaur highways’ or off the beaten track, the distances it travelled to, if it was hunted, if predators hunted in packs, and even carnivore-herbivore ratios in the ecology of an area.

This specimen that just arrived contains the track of a Grallator, a common group of three-toed bipedal therapod dinosaurs from the early Jurassic (200 million years ago). It are found in Australia, Canada, China, Europe, and the US. This specimen, with a 5-inch track, was from the Hettangian layer in Lazere, France.

Incidentally, the largest ever dinosaur tracks were also found in France. They are sauropod footprints measuring 2 metres in diameter!

Psittacosaurus

It was a clear spring day in 2004 when i visited the Old Goods market in Beijing just before my flight home, and i was on the hunt for fossils. A local old lady vendor brought me to a corner and unwrapped a newspaper, revealing the first baby Psittacosaur i ever laid my eyes on. Despite the disassembly of the specimen, its tiny hands, skull, and vertebrae were exquisite, and i was in love. Unfortunately, I also did not have the (only!) SGD300 in cash that she was looking for.

Since that day, I’ve always been on the lookout for fossils of these early ceratopsians from a 130 – 100 million years ago. Linked to Triceratops and Protoceratops, their parrot beaks are as adorable but studies have shown that they were likely bipedal. Psittacosaurus are reasonably widespread from Northern and Central Asia – all the way down to even Thailand – leading to their use as index fossils.

Over time, I found that a world authority specialising in preparing psittacosaurid was Triassica. Mike Holmes has worked on hundreds of specimens, and i was fortunate to finally secure this specimen as my first complete fossil dinosaur skeleton. This Cretaceous beauty was originally from the Jiufotang Formation in Liaoning Province, China.

I asked Mike about the provenance of this specimen, especially with regards to China’s restrictions on exports of vertebrae fossils. He assured me that none of their fossils are sourced directly from China, but from existing supplies in the US and UK from before the ban. He says that prior to the ban, Chinese museums frequently sold off fossils which they had duplicates of (and thus not of scientific importance) to make way for more material, and interpreting export restrictions was up to provincial governments to interpret. Psittacosaurs were abundant and well-studied and thus not considered to be of scientific importance.

Enjoy!