#fossil relative

[respect-the-locals]

Daily Ray Fact:

The Fiddler Ray and their relatives are thought to be the oldest ray group, which explains why they are somewhere between a shark and a ray. It is understood that rays evolved from sharks and so really the Fiddler Ray is a visual demonstration of that change in biology, The earliest known fossil rays are only 150 million years ago and whilst there are very few well preserved fossils available there are whole bodies of ancient guitarfishes which very closely resemble that of modern day Fiddler Rays.

[fromthedust]

reconstruction of Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx fossil - Berlin specimen

Paleontologists have long thought that Archaeopteryx ('ancient feather' or 'ancient wing') fossils placed the dinosaur at the base of the bird evolutionary tree. Recent evidence suggests the beast may be best described as a birdlike dinosaur rather than an early bird, though it probably could fly after a fashion. Archaeopteryx is about 150 million years of age, while the ancestor of all living birds lived sometime in the Late Cretaceous — 50 to 65 million years ago.

In 1861, the first Archaeopteryx skeleton, which was missing most of its head and neck, was unearthed near Langenaltheim, Germany. However, the most complete skeleton, the Berlin Specimen, was discovered in 1874 or 1875 near Eichstatt, Germany by farmer Jakob Niemeyer, who sold it in 1876 to innkeeper Johann Dörr. Through various transactions, the fossil, which is the first found to have an intact head, eventually wound up being in the Humboldt Museum fur Naturkunde, where it still resides. To date there have been 11 other Archaeopteryx fossils found, the latest discovered in 2010 (described in 2014). All of the fossils come from the limestone deposits near Solnhofen. Recent tests performed on the specimens indicate that the primary coloring of the feathers of Archaeopteryx were black, possibly with lighter colored tips.

Jurassic deposits of Solnhofen limestone in southern Germany are marked by rare but exceptionally well preserved fossils of many species. It was first quarried nearly 2,000 years ago by the Romans who used the stone for paving roads and building walls. In later Roman times the mosaic floor of the church of Hagia Sofia in Istanbul was made of this limestone. In the Middle Ages, the stone was also used as floor and roofing material, and artisans used the material in the making of bas-relief sculptures and headstones. A decisive turning point in the history of the stone was the determination in 1673 by Alois Senefelder that the dense, fine-grained material was ideally-suited for use in the newly discovered printing process of lithography, a use that caused quarrying to increase dramatically.

[bisamrottan]

our long lost family

tile, stoneware, painted with slip and oxide, 2023

[the-golden-ghost]

Me: Hey wikipedia what's the closest living relative to bats?

Wikipedia: *sniffling* idk... kity... ouppy maybe....

Me: Wikipedia work with me here

Wikipedia: *tearing up, lip quivering* P-pangolin...

Me: Wikipedia you can do this :(

Wikipedia: *breaking down in tears* Horsey?!

[fatehbaz]

Vidal [...] emphasizes the close relationship that existed between the Louisiana settlement [at New Orleans] and the Caribbean island [Haiti, the colony of Saint-Domingue] during the former’s French colonial period (1718-69). It has become a bit of a popular adage to describe New Orleans as the northernmost port of the Caribbean, but Vidal’s Caribbean New Orleans: Empire, Race, and the Making of a Slave Society demonstrates the substance behind these claims. [...] New Orleans is the missing link, a late-forming city that largely inherited its founding ideas, practices, peoples, plants, and laws from its longer-established imperial neighbors [Spain, France, Britain, the United States]. It thus offers the ideal case study in which to consider how colonies around the Americas developed in conversation with one another [...].

Vidal convincingly argues that New Orleans was a “slave society,” or a settlement in which racialized slavery informed every part of everyday life from its inception, whose physical construction was done alongside the “construction of racial categories” (p. 1).

This is an important shift within Louisiana historiography, which has long stood by [...] [the] argument that early New Orleans offered the semi-unique example of a “slave society” devolving into a “society with slaves.” Abandoned by the French following the spectacular failure of the Compagnie des Indes, the standard story goes, New Orleans became an isolated backwater until the 1770s, struggling to survive and permitting, out of sheer need, less disciplined contact between residents of European, Indigenous, and African birth and descent. [But] Vidal, in contrast, shows that, while Louisiana struggled to create a full-fledged plantation economy during the French era, this did not prevent its capital from organizing itself along the highly stratified lines of the Caribbean islands.

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Furthermore, she argues, because New Orleans did not see many new residents after 1731, free or enslaved, and because it was a smaller settlement, white inhabitants were able to build upon these ideas in a relatively stable environment - focusing much of their energies on surveilling, containing, and disciplining the enslaved and free persons of color (p. 26). [...]

Vidal especially points to the 1729 Natchez attack and ensuing Natchez Wars [against Indigenous peoples] as pivotal moments in the militarization of white New Orleanians [...]. Subsequently, a scrupulous supervision of racial boundaries became the norm for the rest of the French era and fostered “a sense of community among white urbanites” (p. 141).

Chapter 3 takes readers to the streets, levees, and other public spaces of New Orleans, where whites sought to sculpt the privileges of “whiteness” against both residents of African birth and descent as well as one another. Elite men and their wives scuffled over the best seating at church in an effort to recreate France’s ancien régime culture; socially lower soldiers and nonslaveholders, meanwhile, carefully guarded their weaker claims at mastery through street violence that frequently targeted the enslaved and free individuals of color. [...] Beginning with a careful reading of census categories, Vidal traces how distinctions between European settlers [...] were increasingly replaced with those centered exclusively on race by 1763. These efforts were paralleled by segregating practices in other domestic spaces. Close interactions, then, as Vidal forcefully shows, effectively strengthened, rather than weakened, urban racial hierarchies. [...] [Vidal then] follows the ways in which the demographically diverse workforce of the early colony made up of white indentured servants, convicts, and soldiers in addition to enslaved Africans - gave way to associations of difficult and degrading labor limitedly with the enslaved. [...]

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French Louisiana inherited racial categories from the Caribbean but adjusted them to fit local needs, experiencing “not so much a loosening, but a more complex transformation” of its racial regime, largely through violence (p. 371).

Vidal documents how the Superior Council utilized targeted prosecutions and punishments to increasingly “imprint terror and instill obedience” on the enslaved (p. 390). [...] [The book] thus details a society in which racial hierarchies were asserted and supported through both top-down and bottom-up policies and practices, as “no social institution or relationship was left untouched by race” (p. 504).

To this end, Vidal speaks to important conversations by historians of enslaved women in the British Caribbean, including Jennifer Morgan and Marissa Fuentes. These authors have used a similarly wide range of sources [...] [and] archives to underscore the invasive nature of colonial racism. [...] [I]n part [...] Vidal’s [chapters work] to decouple lower Louisiana history from the fur traders of New France [Ontario/Quebec, and the watersheds of the Mississippi/Missouri rivers] and to reattach it to the planters of Saint-Domingue [in Haiti and the Caribbean]. [...] Combing through administrative papers, censuses, laws, parish registers, correspondence, and judicial records from both sides of the Atlantic, readers will get a sense that there is little Cécile Vidal has not seen or considered. [...] Her book will prove essential reading [...] and it hopefully will convince an even wider audience [...] [to engage with] comparative, cis-Atlantic, and transatlantic studies of imperialism, race, and slavery.

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All text above by: Kristin C. Lee. "Review of Vidal, Cécile, Caribbean New Orleans: Empire, Race, and the Making of a Slave Society". H-Atlantic, H-Net Reviews. January 2022. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[reginaldubel]

idk if I asked you yet but favorite prehistoric animal?

AHEM

so for dinosaurs tyrannosaurus rex was always the favorite dinosaur ever even when i was a child and still is . it just looks awesome i dont mean its cus it was a powerful predator (that too) but it just looks so cute. its face makes me think of a dog kind of but i just love them <3 then other favorite dinosaurs are pachyrhinosaurus, specifically lakustai cause of the horns on its frill (walking with dinosaurs 3D/the movie made me love them more *atleast the version with no talking*), carnotaurus cus their little horns are so unique but theyre also absolutely SOSIG, may i say baryonyx too. i dont know why it just is

other prehistoric animals i may wanna mention (counts as a dinosaur too anyways) are dodos..... i remember reading a shitton of articles about them..... it kinda breaks my heart they got hunted to extinction. anyways, most most favorite one is also mammoth (because i already love elephants theyre my favorite animals) because IF YOU ALREADY LOVE ELEPHANTS WHY WOULD YOU NOT LOVE. THE FLUFFY ONES. then honorable mention to dimetrodons because they look funky. and also fool you because they ''look like dinosaurs'' to most people but theyre not

i may be forgetting some if not alot but those are the ones i can name on the top of my head...

[identityquest]

Finally figured out the full line for my hellbender fakemon, plus an ancient crinoid the line relies on. The final evolutions are supposed to play on fool’s gold, looking and acting regal despite the evolution items coming from a jester-themed fakemon. Though the final evolutions are alternately water and fire, both learn moves of the other’s type.

[unsanctitude]

ough im thinking about my Otter

since i have an interest in making characters from extinct ice-age era species i may make him a fake species of sea otter! whom absurdly larger than extant sea otters! which is why hes so fucking big

[bones-n-bookles]

Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives & Evolutionary History, by Xiaoming Wang and Richard H. Tedford, illustrated by Mauricio Antón, 2008

Bought new at the La Brea Tar Pits museum, another book I cherish and want to reread and catch up on the science since published

[stupot]

I mostly feel sorry for whatever engineers have to keep implementing these dog shit changes because the chucklefucks at WordPress think they're knowledgeable about UX. If you have ever used the commercial version of WordPress to make a website you know this is not true at all

[zestyderg]

Oh also take this redesigned andrarch

[suddenfossilfightersheadcanons]

Most of Dina's playlists are a mix of 2nd-generation kpop and bubblegum girl groups; however, every five tracks or so, an oddly sombre number emerges. 'Hyper-ballad', Björk. 'Ice Age', How to Destroy Angels. 'Love is a Losing Game', Amy Winehouse.

A few months after meeting Joe Wildwest for the first time, Dina and Todd ended up packed together on a road trip through the Blue Mountains. Dina wrested control of the aux cord. For half an hour, Todd complained irreverently. Then Mitski's 'I Want You' broke through the car. In those timid three minutes, he wondered what on earth Dina had been through to draw her to such. Often, angst doesn't necessarily have an identifiable cause, especially at that age, when emotions cast broad strokes like bloodstains over rationality. It's easy enough to feel estranged from oneself in those years, and to feel rage for the peace that was once taken for granted. But he wasn't wrong. Dina never explicitly told him she'd been bullied badly some years prior, but it wasn't overly difficult to piece together. The way she smiled and looked away whenever the last couple of years came up in conversation. The way she laughed, forcing the noise deeper into her torso than it would comfortably descend, at meek-seeming students in the halls. The way she eyed the pavers when Auto Counter came up in conversation. Her inexplicable dislike of thyreophora such as Ankylo, Goyle, and Perso, no matter how he tried to exhort their strength. How she chewed the air when she read about the prodigy on Vivosaur Island. She always brushed these things off as her being somehow weak, and imploded, unveiling an impermeable shell of silence, whenever her past came up. Todd tried to praise her throughout the Caliosteo Cup. When she bristled, and said she didn't really feel her victories were anything but flukes, he felt a whorl of envy. If luck could carry her this far, why, why, why did he keep losing? Both carried a measure of shame. For her, as far as he could tell, it seemed arbitrary. For him, it burned, brighter and brighter for every effort she made to reach out to him. They didn't interact much throughout those final rounds of the Cup. And when Zongazonga gave him impetus to let his months' worth of amorphous fury take shape, it billowed through him.

Todd only saw Dina interact with Hunter Buckland once; he'd come as a spectator to the Battle Royale. He was ganglier than Todd had expected, too tall to be comfortable in his movements, which halted and started like split-ended wood. Dina noticed him in the Ribular fighter station, and lowered her gaze. He said 'hello', and after an eternity, she responded. 'Hello.' They attempted phatic talk, and the conversation withered. Eventually, he asked if they could talk sometime. She smiled, laughed through her teeth. 'I'll think about it.' As Dina watched Hunter walk away, Todd swore he heard her humming 'Ice Age'.

[cockyroaches]

My back snapped in half while hunting for this bitch and god I wish I could've shared her with the world but I didnt save before the raid AUGH. Someday...

[sparrowlucero]

The genus Silurian ("Person of the Silures", in reference to the historical territory of Wales in which they were first found) was initially known only from a single fossil, notable in part for the unusual object fossilized alongside it (1). Though this was generally accepted to simply be a large petrified stick, the "Silurian Artifact" was often a point of discussion in the topic of dinosaur intelligence and the theory of pre-human civilizations. It wasn't until large-scale mining operations began to impede on their extensive networks of stasis chambers that the Silurians themselves finally woke up and were able to meet humankind in person. To the surprise of many (and dismay of a few) the Silurians were not the scaled, humanoid "dinosauroids" so often depicted, but colorful, feathered, and relatively goose-shaped. Most Silurians who were present in the planet's underground represent the gentry and high ranking military, who were given priority in the earth-based shelters. Most others were evacuated on large, extensive spaceships, all of which are yet to return to Earth. Due to this, the varied mindsets and cultures of the Silurians are in shambles at best, largely replaced by the speciesism and real estate concerns of the upper classes. (1) Much later, the original type fossil was identified as Rohlik, a student who fell to his death after attempting to drunkenly pole vault over a ravine with a large petrified stick.

[amnhnyc]

Behold the dazzling colors of an iridescent ammonite (Placenticeras intercalare)! A relative of today’s squids, this ammonite lived some 80 million years ago near what is now Alberta, Canada. This fossil’s spectacular coloration is the result of millions of years of high temperatures and pressures. As these forces acted on nacre in this ammonite’s shell, it was transformed into a gemstone known as an ammolite. Along with amber and pearl, ammolite is one of only a handful of gems made by living organisms. You can spot this rare specimen in the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Collections Core in the Museum’s Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation!

Photo: © AMNH

[dandelionsresilience]

Good News - July 15-21

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735! (Or check out my new(ly repurposed) Patreon!)

1. Thai tiger numbers swell as prey populations stabilize in western forests

“The tiger population density in a series of protected areas in western Thailand has more than doubled over the past two decades, according to new survey data. […] The most recent year of surveys, which concluded in November 2023, photographed 94 individual tigers, up from 75 individuals in the previous year, and from fewer than 40 in 2007. […] A total of 291 individual tigers older than 1 year were recorded, as well as 67 cubs younger than 1 year.”

2. Work starts to rewild former cattle farm

“Ecologists have started work to turn a former livestock farm into a nature reserve [… which] will become a "mosaic of habitats" for insects, birds and mammals. [… R]ewilding farmland could benefit food security locally by encouraging pollinators, improving soil health and soaking up flood water. [… “N]ature restoration doesn't preclude food production. We want to address [food security] by using nature-based solutions."”

3. Harnessing ‘invisible forests in plain view’ to reforest the world

“[… T]he degraded land contained numerous such stumps with intact root systems capable of regenerating themselves, plus millions of tree seeds hidden in the soil, which farmers could simply encourage to grow and reforest the landscape[….] Today, the technique of letting trees resprout and protecting their growth from livestock and wildlife [… has] massive potential to help tackle biodiversity loss and food insecurity through resilient agroforestry systems. [… The UN’s] reported solution includes investing in land restoration, “nature-positive” food production, and rewilding, which could return between $7 and $30 for every dollar spent.”

4. California bars school districts from outing LGBTQ+ kids to their parents

“Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the SAFETY Act today – a bill that prohibits the forced outing of transgender and gay students, making California the first state to explicitly prohibit school districts from doing so. […] Matt Adams, a head of department at a West London state school, told PinkNews at the time: “Teachers and schools do not have all the information about every child’s home environment and instead of supporting a pupil to be themselves in school, we could be putting them at risk of harm.””

5. 85% of new electricity built in 2023 came from renewables

“Electricity supplied by renewables, like hydropower, solar, and wind, has increased gradually over the past few decades — but rapidly in recent years. [… C]lean energy now makes up around 43 percent of global electricity capacity. In terms of generation — the actual power produced by energy sources — renewables were responsible for 30 percent of electricity production last year. […] Along with the rise of renewable sources has come a slowdown in construction of non-renewable power plants as well as a move to decommission more fossil fuel facilities.”

6. Deadly cobra bites to "drastically reduce" as scientists discover new antivenom

“After successful human trials, the snake venom antidote could be rolled out relatively quickly to become a "cheap, safe and effective drug for treating cobra bites" and saving lives around the globe, say scientists. Scientists have found that a commonly used blood thinner known as heparin can be repurposed as an inexpensive antidote for cobra venom. […] Using CRISPR gene-editing technology […] they successfully repurposed heparin, proving that the common blood thinner can stop the necrosis caused by cobra bites.”

7. FruitFlow: a new citizen science initiative unlocks orchard secrets

“"FruitWatch" has significantly refined phenological models by integrating extensive citizen-sourced data, which spans a wider geographical area than traditional methods. These enhanced models offer growers precise, location-specific predictions, essential for optimizing agricultural planning and interventions. […] By improving the accuracy of phenological models, farmers can better align their operations with natural biological cycles, enhancing both yield and quality.”

8. July 4th Means Freedom for Humpback Whale Near Valdez, Alaska

“The NOAA Fisheries Alaska Marine Mammal Stranding Hotline received numerous reports late afternoon on July 3. A young humpback whale was entangled in the middle of the Port of Valdez[….] “The success of this mission was due to the support of the community, as they were the foundation of the effort,” said Moran. [… Members of the community] were able to fill the critical role of acting as first responders to a marine mammal emergency. “Calling in these reports is extremely valuable as it allows us to respond when safe and appropriate, and also helps us gain information on various threats affecting the animals,” said Lyman.”

9. Elephants Receive First of Its Kind Vaccine

“Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus is the leading cause of death for Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) born in facilities in North America and also causes calf deaths in the wild in Asia. A 40-year-old female received the new mRNA vaccine, which is expected to help the animal boost immunity[….]”

10. Conservation partners and Indigenous communities working together to restore forests in Guatemala

“The K’iche have successfully managed their natural resources for centuries using their traditional governing body and ancestral knowledge. As a result, Totonicapán is home to Guatemala’s largest remaining stand of conifer forest. […] EcoLogic has spearheaded a large-scale forest restoration project at Totonicapán, where 13 greenhouses now hold about 16,000 plants apiece, including native cypresses, pines, firs, and alders. […] The process begins each November when community members gather seeds. These seeds then go into planters that include upcycled coconut fibers and mycorrhizal fungi, which help kickstart fertilization. When the plantings reach about 12 inches, they’re ready for distribution.”

July 8-14 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)