#prehistori

[typhlonectes]

A chronicle of giant straight-tusked elephants

via: University of Bristol

About 800,000 years ago, the giant straight-tusked elephant Palaeoloxodon migrated out of Africa and became widespread across Europe and Asia.

It divided into many species, with distinct types in Japan, Central Asia and Europe—even some dwarf forms as large as a small donkey on some Mediterranean islands.

In a new study by scientists in Spain, Italy and the UK, including University of Bristol Ph.D. student Hanwen Zhang, published in the journal, Quaternary Science Reviews, some order has been brought into our understanding of all these species...

Read more: https://phys.org/news/2020-01-chronicle-giant-straight-tusked-elephants.html

[typhlonectes]

The Newly Discovered Prehistoric Worm with a Very Strange Face

"The most significant fossil discovery of this group of animals."

by Jacinta Bowler

Around 500 million years ago, during the Cambrian period, Earth was undergoing some massive changes – organisms were becoming more complex, and animals were becoming more abundant.

A new study has just been published identifying this weird creature as a 10 cm (4 inch) worm called a chaetognath – a small, swimming marine carnivore.

Capinatator praetermissus, had about 50 spines on its head, which would push any food that comes near it into its, frankly, anus-looking mouth hole.Although you might think that a 500-million-year-old weird worm isn't that important in the evolutionary scheme of things, that is definitely not the case.

"This is the most significant fossil discovery of this group of animals yet made," says one of the researchers, Derek Briggs from Yale University.

So why is it so important? Well, this new species is thought to be a forerunner of the much smaller chaetognaths swimming around in today's oceans...

Read more: Science Alert!

illustration by Marianne Collins/Royal Ontario Museum

[atlantisdoodle]

12.04.17, prehistoric queen. I’ve write a fanfic about prehistoric wraith some days ago, and i was watching a documentary about our ancestor... and tadaaa!

[typhlonectes]

Ancient oddball invertebrate finds its place on the tree of life

by Cassie Martin

Tentacles protruding from this hyolith’s shell (illustrated) are part of a feeding organ called a lophophore, which is also found in modern horseshoe worms. 

Hyoliths are evolutionary misfits no more.

This class of ancient marine invertebrates has now been firmly pegged as lophophorates, a group whose living members include horseshoe worms and lamp shells, concludes an analysis of more than 1,500 fossils, including preserved soft tissue.  

The soft-bodied creatures, encased in conical shells, concealed U-shaped guts and rings of tentacles called lophophores that surrounded their mouths. Fossil analysis suggests that hyoliths used those tentacles and spines, called helens, to trawl the seafloor more than 500 million years ago, researchers report online January 11 in Nature...

(read more: Science News)

images: Royal Ontario Museum