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Shuvuuia deserti, a species of alvarezsauroid dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period in what is now Mongolia, had extreme low-light vision and specialized hearing acuity, rivaling that of today’s barn owl.

“Owls and nightbirds are nocturnal hunters of active prey that combine visual and hearing adaptations to overcome limits on sensory performance in low light,” said Professor Jonah Choiniere from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand and colleagues.

“Such sensory innovations are unknown in non-avian theropod dinosaurs and are poorly characterized on the line that leads to birds.”

In the new study, the researchers used CT scanning and detailed measurements to collect information on the relative size of the eyes and inner ears of nearly 100 living bird and extinct dinosaur species.

To measure hearing, they looked at the lagena, the organ that processes incoming sound information.

The barn owl, which can hunt in complete darkness using hearing alone, has the proportionally longest lagena of any bird.

To assess vision, the scientists looked at the scleral ring, a series of bones surrounding the pupil, of each species.

They found that many carnivorous theropods, such as Tyrannosaurus and Dromaeosaurus, had vision optimized for the daytime, and better-than-average hearing presumably to help them hunt.

However, a diminutive theropod dinosaur species called Shuvuuia deserti had both extraordinary hearing and night vision.

The extremely large lagena of the species is almost identical in relative size to today’s barn owl, suggesting that Shuvuuia deserti could have hunted in complete darkness.

Its eyes had some of the proportionally largest pupils yet measured in birds or dinosaurs, suggesting that they could likely see very well at night.

The authors hypothesize that, like many desert animals, Shuvuuia deserti would have foraged at night, using its hearing and vision to find prey like small mammals and insects, using its long legs to rapidly run that prey down, and using its strong forelimbs to pry the prey out of burrows or shrubby vegetation.

“Nocturnal activity, digging ability, and long hind limbs are all features of animals that live in deserts today,” Professor Choiniere said.

“But it’s surprising to see them all combined in a single dinosaur species that lived more than 65 million years ago.”

The findings appear in the journal Science.

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Jonah N. Choiniere et al. 2021. Evolution of vision and hearing modalities in theropod dinosaurs. Science 372 (6542): 610-613; doi: 10.1126/science.abe7941

Source: www.sci-news.com/

Colombia has a wealth of fossils, and geologists are leading the charge to both collect data and share ancient history with local communities.

The town of Apulo, about 64 kilometers from Bogotá, is well known in Colombia thanks to its summer weather and beautiful landscapes. It is located in a region of contrasts, where unpaved roads and impoverished populations can be found next to affluent summer houses and luxury resorts

Ammonite fossils are found in abundance on the unpaved roads, rivers, and streams of the region. Residents frequently use them to build and decorate houses and other buildings. Indeed, Colombia has one of the largest deposits of marine and Cretaceous fossils in the world, a fact that is still unknown to most Colombians.

During the Late Cretaceous period, the region was part of the Proto-Caribbean Sea. This ancient ecosystem was biologically rich with a multitude of fish, crustaceans, ammonites, and large reptilian predators. “I imagine it was a sea full of life and diversity.…It changed through millennia, but it was always full of life,” said Cristian David Benavides, who is completing his master’s degree in geology at Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL).

Protecting Colombia’s Paleontological Heritage

In Apulo and other regions of Colombia, there is such an abundance of fossils that farmers, other local residents, and tourists—not paleontologists—are the ones finding them. For example, in 1977, a farmer plowing his field found the almost complete skeleton of a 7-meter Kronosaurus. Since then, some private citizens have engaged in fossil hunting and display.

Colombia’s Cretaceous treasury has also led to a very lucrative illegal fossil trade. In 2018, a decree was signed by former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos to protect the paleontological patrimony of the country. The decree made a difference in keeping fossils in Colombia, said Luis Duque, who works in the tourism office of Villa de Leyva, a hot spot for fossils in Colombia. “Before the decree,” he said, “tourists could buy all kinds of fossils from street vendors.”

Pedro Patarroyo, an expert on Cretaceous sedimentary rocks and professor of geosciences at UNAL, believes the decree goes too far, however: “You need to register all your fossils and ask for permission for any excavation.…Is it possible to register and ask for permission for every single ammonite fossil found?…If a [local resident] or a tourist finds a fossil and picks it up, will they get in trouble with the law?…[Plus, this] decree has not been shared widely with most members of society.”

Protecting fossils goes beyond preventing them from being used to construct roads or being the basis of illegal trade, Patarroyo said. By preserving, studying, and teaching about fossils paleontology can contribute to a sense of belonging and responsibility to the land. “By learning about fossils,” he said, “communities will not let others take them away, and they can reappropriate their own knowledge and their territory.”

Why Are Geologists the Ones Doing Paleontology in Colombia?

In Colombia, paleontology hasn’t developed as a professional and academic pursuit in its own right; the tasks and responsibilities of studying fossils and ancient life—and how to protect the fossils that remain of it—have traditionally fallen to those who study geology. “[Colombian paleontologists] have a disadvantage as they lack biological training,” according to Patarroyo, although “this is not an impediment. As geologists, we have important knowledge of the relationships between rocks and the once-living organisms within them.”

In 2020, during the First Colombian Congress of Paleontology, scientists discussed whether Colombian universities should award a discrete paleontology degree. Many academics argued it’s not worth separating paleontology from geology because there are just not enough well-funded jobs or sufficient research opportunities to pursue.

There are currently two main sources of funding for paleontological excavations in Colombia: universities and fossil fuel corporations. Patarroyo proudly described his work as a professor taking students to do fieldwork, although most of the funds for paleontological research come from fossil fuel companies.

In fact, some of the most iconic fossils found in Colombia have been discovered in coal mines such as Cerrejón. These charismatic fossils include giant turtles and the Titanoboa. According to Patarroyo, the relationship between corporations and paleontological research can be problematic: The corporations’ “main interest is to extract coal (and other fossil fuels), and in the process many fossils are being destroyed.”

Rocky Road Ahead for Colombian Paleontology

Fossil fuel companies, dependent on global fuel prices, can also be inconsistent in funding paleontological research. Ecopetrol, the largest petroleum company in Colombia, had funded a project with researchers from UNAL to recover fossil materials in an area in which they were planning to build an oil pipeline, for example.

When the initial grant money was fully spent, Ecopetrol stopped financing the project, despite the groundbreaking discovery of a 10-meter-long pliosaur that researchers named Sachicasaurus vitae, after the nearby town of Sáchica. The research leader, Colombian paleontologist and geologist María Páramo, worked to get new funding from sources like El Servicio Geológico Colombiano (Colombian Geological Survey) to continue to study this remarkable fossil.

When Páramo showed this fossil to Benavides for the first time, “she was laughing with joy, seeing the smile on my face,” he remembered. Having the opportunity to work with this remarkable fossil convinced Benavides that he wanted to pursue paleontology.

Source: https://eos.org/

To understand the origins of our lineage it is necessary to reconstruct the morphology, behavior and environment of the last common ancestor between modern humans and other apes. However, there is no scientific consensus on the phylogenetic positions of the diverse and widely distributed Miocene apes.

These fossil apes are often at the center of the debate, as some scientists dismiss their importance in the origins of the human lineage (the “hominins”) and others confer a star role in evolution.

According to a study published in the journal Science, these prehistoric remains can inform us about essential aspects of evolution, including the nature of our last common ancestor: a species of ape unlike any currently alive.

The researchers reviewed the main theories about the origin of the human lineage in the Miocene, as well as the evolutionary role of the apes of that period, since the publication of “The origin of the man” 150 years agoDarwin, 1871). The work includes discoveries in the fields of comparative anatomy, paleontology, geology, genetics, phylogenetic methods, and functional morphology, among others.

Every extinct species is a window to the past

Sergio Almecija

“Every extinct species is a window to the past. Chimpanzees and humans share a common ancestor that lived towards the end of the Miocene. To infer what this last common ancestor between apes and humans was like, it is essential to understand what the apes that lived before the divergence were like ”, Spanish paleontologist Sergio Almecija, from the American Museum of Natural History, who is leading the research, tells SINC. The Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont and the New York Institute of Technology (USA) also participate in the study.

Deciphering the origin of our lineage

There are two main approaches to solving the problem of human origins: the “descending”, which is based on the analysis of living apes, especially chimpanzees; and the “ascendant”, which gives importance to the largest tree of the apes, most of which are extinct.

In this way, some scientists assume that hominids arose from an ancestor that walked with the knuckles, similar to chimpanzees. Others argue that it was from an ancestor more similar, in some features, to part of the strange apes of the Miocene.

“Darwin speculated that humans originated in Africa from an ancestor different from any living species. However, he remained cautious given the scarcity of fossils at the time,” Almécija explains.

The researchers in this paper explain that top-down studies sometimes ignore the reality that living apes – humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and hylobatids – are just the survivors of a much larger and now extinct group. On the other hand, those based on the bottom-up approach are likely to give individual fossil apes an important evolutionary role.

A species with unique features

Humans split from apes – specifically, the chimpanzee lineage – sometime between 9.3 and 6.5 million years ago, towards the end of the Miocene. To understand the origins of hominids, the paleoanthropologists they have tried to reconstruct the physical characteristics, behavior and environment of the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.

Miocene fossil ape skeletons show combinations of features that do not exist today

The group of hominoids Living organisms include humans and what we commonly call apes. A notable characteristic of all of them is our orthograde body shape, that is, erect. “For example, both chimpanzees and humans have a wide, shallow rib cage and a short, stiff lower back. Instead, today’s monkeys have a quadruped body plan. Like most of the mammals –Dogs and cats, for example– have a narrow and deep torso, with a long and flexible spine in the lower back ”, continues Almecija.

Fossil ape skeletons from the Miocene show combinations of features that do not exist today. The so-called Sivapithecus (12 to 9 million years old, found in India and Pakistan) shows an orangutan-like face with a body more similar to a quadruped monkey.

For its part, Pierolapithecus (12 million years old, Spain) shows a body plan and size similar to a current great ape. However, its vertebrae were similar to those of a gibbon and his hands shorter than those of a chimpanzee. “These strange combinations are the root of the problem. There is no consensus among researchers on how to interpret these strange apes from the Miocene”, Says the expert.

To assume that our ancestor with the chimpanzee was no different from a current chimpanzee is to deny that the latter have evolved

Sergio Almecija

These unique characteristics are due to the fact that each species exhibits its unique mosaic of primitive and derived characters. For example, humans have five fingers on each hand and foot, a primitive feature present in almost all primates and mammals.

“Our slow development is not extremely different from that of the great apes current (orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees). Therefore, it is a primitive characteristic for primates, but derived for hominids. At the same time, we show a uniquely derived type of locomotion, among primates: bipedalism usual terrestrial ”, adds the researcher.

The first fossils thought to be in the human lineage, represented by various parts of the body, show combinations of characteristics. Some of them are present in modern apes. Others are only represented in Miocene apes. For example, Orrorin tugenensis (6 million years old, Kenya) has a thumb and femur similar to that of Australopithecus afarensis (“Lucy”, around 3 million years old). However, other features of the femur are more similar to a Kenyan ape from 18 million years ago than to a current chimpanzee.

“To assume that our ancestor with the chimpanzee was not different from a current chimpanzee is to deny that the latter have evolved,” concludes Almecija.

Reference: S. Almécija et al. “Fossil apes and human evolution.” Science

Source: www.explica.co/

Two detailed evaluations of the anatomy of inner ears and for some, scleral eye rings, from 124 extinct and 91 living species reveal new insights into the evolution of dinosaur sensory biology and behavior, including their ability to fly, hunt at night, and hear the high-pitched chirps of their offspring. The two separate studies - by Michael Hansen and colleagues and Jonah Choiniere and colleagues, respectively - leverage cutting-edge imaging techniques and sophisticated statistical analyses.

"Documenting life's history with fossil discoveries remains the core of paleontology, but these two studies typify a new wave of paleontologist, armed not with a pick and shovel but with a CT scanner and R code," writes Lawrence Witmer in a related Perspective. Hansen et al evaluated the inner ear structures across extinct and living archosaurs, a group that includes non-avian dinosaurs, crocodilians, and birds. They discovered clear patterns relating the shape of the semi-circular canal and cochlea to movement ability, including walking on two or four feet, and flying, as well as to the ability to hear high-frequency sound. According to the authors, the analysis reveals the earliest instances of flight ability in dinosaurs and potentially the earliest emergence of parent-offspring vocal communication. Choiniere et al. also examined the inner ear, as well as aspects of the visual system, in living and extinct theropods. They found that the hearing and visual adaptations required for nocturnal, owl-like predation evolved early, particularly within the Late Cretaceous alvarezsaurids. The findings suggest that nocturnal sensory adaptations evolved independently in dinosaurs long before the origin of modern birds and demonstrate convergence for these traits across non-avian dinosaurs, birds and mammals and over millions of years. "Until recently, the advances presented by these teams of authors were unthinkable, in that many aspects of internal anatomy and certainly their connection to habits like parental care and daily activity patterns had been out of reach," Witmer writes.

Source: www.eurekalert.org/

You don’t have long left to snag the biggest LEGO dino set to date, as 75936 Jurassic Park: T. rex Rampage is due to retire by the end of 2021.

According to Brick Fanatics’ sources, the 3,120-piece set – which first arrived on shelves in 2019 – will be gone by January. That doesn’t mean you can safely wait until December 31 to pick up your copy, however, as that’s not a hard and fast expiry date.

More likely, the LEGO Group will begin winding down production of the set as we inch closer towards 2022, which means it could prove difficult to come by in the run-up to Christmas. If you’re hoping to pick it up for a special someone for the festive season, then (even if that special someone is yourself – we aren’t judging), you’re better off buying soon and stashing it away.

With a huge, brick-built Jurassic Park gate and minifigures of John Hammond, Ian Malcolm, Ellie Sattler, Alan Grant, Ray Arnold and Dennis Nedry in the box, there’s a lot to love about 75936 Jurassic Park: T. rex Rampage. But the main draw is obviously that giant T. rex, which far and away dwarfs any other LEGO dinosaur ever committed to ABS.

Check out our full review of 75936 Jurassic Park: T. rex Rampage for more reasons why you shouldn’t miss out on an otherwise incomparable set in the LEGO line-up, and one that will surely never be repeated.

Source: www.brickfanatics.com/

New biogeographical affinities in Cretaceous flora.

A study published in Cretaceous Research expands the paleontological richness of continental fossils of the Lower Cretaceous with the discovery of a new water plant (charophytes), the species Mesochara dobrogeica. The study also identifies a new variety of carophytes from the Clavator genus (in particular, Clavator ampullaceus var. latibracteatus) and reveals a set of paleobiographical data from the Cretaceous much richer than other continental records such as dinosaurs'.

Among the authors of the study are Josep Sanjuan, Alba Vicente, Jordi Pérez-Cano and Carles Martín-Closas, members of the Faculty of Earth Sciences and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona, in collaboration with the expert Marius Stoica, from the University of Bucharest (Romania).

Charophytes: a tool for biostratigraphy

Charophytes are pluricellular algae considered to be the ancestors of vascular plants. Since the Silurian period to date, they have occupied several lacustrine water environments (oligotrophic, alkaline and brackish waters). Nowadays, the anthropic action (exploitation of natural habitat, drainage of wet areas, pollution, etc.) is a threat to the conservation of charophyte pruderies.

For the scientific community, the fossil remains of charophytes -specially, their calcified fructifications- are abundant microfossils with a high biostratigraphy value in the dating of stratum at a local and regional scale. With a wide distribution and high rate of evolution and extinction, some species became excellent fossil indicators of the relative age of continental units.

Water flora in the lakes of the ancient Tethys Ocean islands

The study published in the journal Cretaceous Research focused on the analysis of the water paleoenvironments rich in charophytes in two continental formations -Z?voaia and Gherghina-, dominated by clay, silt and loam of lacustrine origins.

In the Lower Cretaceous, the charophytes flora of the paleo-islands of the large archipelago that built the area of current Europe and Maghreb revealed a defined biogeographical identity. In the islands of the archipelago of the ancient Tethys Ocean, the Clavatoraceae family stood out for its abundance and biodiversity.

The conclusions show a coincidence of 75% of taxons of the charophytes of the Iberia and Hateg (Romania) paleo-islands "that would differentiate these insular flowers from neighbouring continental flora, both Asiatic ones in the east and North-American ones in the western area", notes Josep Sanjuan, lecturer at the Department of Earth and Ocean Dynamics and first author of the article.

Despite the high affinity that existed between the charophyte flora of the islands that built the archipelago of the ancient Tethys Ocean, "there could also be island endemisms," says researcher Alba Vicente, who works at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The dominant taxa on these islands from the past belong to the Clavatoraceae, an extinct family of charophytes. "Specifically, two subfamilies are represented (Clavatoroidae and Atopocharoidae), and one of the most prominent and common genera in all these islands was Globator, its evolution is a very useful tool for dating the continental successions of the Lower Cretaceous", note the experts Jordi Pérez-Cano and Carles Martín-Closas.

New findings in the charophyte paleontological records

The new species Mesochara dobrogeica is a gyrogonite -the fossilized oospore of charophytes- in the ovoid morphology with pointed apex and base. This small sized fossil fructification -which is about 385 microns high and 310 microns wide- presents apical pore shaped ornamentation. "This new species from the Mesochara genus would be the oldest ornamented piece of the current charophyte Charoidae family", notes Josep Sanjuan, who also collaborates with the American University of Beirut (Lebanon).

The Clavator ampullaceus var. latibracteatus is a new variety of charophyte fossil that shows a type of fruiting, the utricle, large in size (about 769 microns high and 802 microns wide) with bilateral symmetry. It consists of a phylloid - a leaf-like structure close to the main axis, two internal lateral bract cells and a bract cell in abaxial position. The two internal bract cells appear near the apical pore and have a complex structure that characterizes this new variety.

Source: www.eurekalert.org/

Paleontologists working in museum collections in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany have identified five additional specimens of a 240-million-year-old ichthyosaur, named Besanosaurus leptorhynchus, which was previously known from a single fossil housed.

Middle Triassic ichthyosaurs are rare, and mostly small in size. The new Besanosaurus specimens described in the peer-reviewed journal PeerJ - the Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences - by Italian, Swiss, Dutch and Polish paleontologists provide new information on the anatomy of this fish-like ancient reptile, revealing its diet and exceptionally large adult size: up to 8 meters, a real record among all marine predators of this geological epoch. In fact, Besanosaurus is the earliest large-sized marine diapsid - the group to which lizards, snakes, crocodiles, and their extinct cousins belong to - with a long and narrow snout.

Besanosaurus leptorhynchus was originally discovered near Besano (Italy) three decades ago, during systematic excavations led by the Natural History Museum of Milan. The PeerJ article re-examines its skull bones in detail and assigns five additional fossils to this species: two previously undescribed fossil specimens, and two fossils previously referred to a different species (Mikadocephalus gracilirostris), which turns out to be not valid due to lack of significant anatomical differences with Besanosaurus.

The six specimens vary mainly in size and likely represent different growth stages. According to this re-analysis, Besanosaurus is the oldest and basal-most representative of a group of ichthyosaurs known as shastasaurids.

All specimens, housed in museums in Milan, Zurich, and Tübingen were collected in the last century from the bituminous black shales of the Monte San Giorgio area (Italy/Switzerland, UNESCO World Heritage), which were deposited some 240 million years ago at the oxygen-depleted bottom of a peculiar marine basin. The locality is famous worldwide for its rich fossil fauna that, besides ichthyosaurs, includes many other marine and semiaquatic reptiles, a variety of fish, and hard-shelled invertebrates.

"The extremely long and slender rostrum suggests that Besanosaurus primarily fed on small and elusive prey, feeding lower in the food web than an apex predator: a novel ecological specialisation never reported before this epoch of the Triassic in a large diapsid reptile. This might have triggered an increase of body size and lowered competition among the diverse ichthyosaurs that co-existed in this part of the Tethys Ocean", says Gabriele Bindellini of the Earth Science Dept. of Milan University, first author of this study.

"Studying these fossils was a real challenge. All Besanosaurus specimens have been extremely compressed by deep time and rock pressure, so we used advanced medical CT scanning, photogrammetry techniques and comparisons with other ichthyosaurs to reveal their hidden anatomy and reconstruct their skulls in 3D, bone by bone", remarks Cristiano Dal Sasso of the Natural History Museum of Milan, senior author of the PeerJ article, who in 1996 originally described and named Besanosaurus.

Interestingly, the Italian researchers started re-studying the Milan Besanosaurus roughly at the same time an international team including Andrzej Wolniewicz (IP PAS, Warsaw), Feiko Miedema (SMNS, Stuttgart), and Torsten Scheyer (UZH, Zurich) started working on the Swiss specimens. "Rather than doing parallel studies, we pooled our data and efforts and pulled on the same string, to enhance our understanding of these fascinating extinct animals", adds Torsten Scheyer.

Source: www.eurekalert.org/

Sahonachelys mailakavava, a newly-identified species of pelomedusoid turtle from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar, had an unusually flattened skull, a particularly gracile lower jaw, and enlarged tongue bones, which not only gave it a frog-like appearance, but also suggest that it was a specialized, aquatic suction feeder that fed upon moving prey.

Sahonachelys mailakavava lived in what is now Madagascar during the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous epoch, between 72 and 66 million years ago.

As in all modern turtles, the ancient species lacks teeth, but in addition the surfaces at the upper and lower jaws that face toward each other are poorly developed, showing that the turtle did not use its jaws to process food, but instead swallowed prey whole, which is typical for suction feeders.

It likely fed on small-bodied living prey, such as insect larvae, fish fry, and tadpoles using quick strikes.

“Sahonachelys mailakavava is a stunning example of evolution in isolation,” said Dr. David Krause, a paleontologist in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University.

“It represents a lineage that evolved on Madagascar for over 20 million years and joins a litany of other bizarre Late Cretaceous vertebrate animals that we’ve found on the island.”

“This specimen is, by far, the best turtle fossil we discovered during the 28 years of conducting field research there.”

A nearly complete skeleton of Sahonachelys mailakavava was discovered in June 2015 in the Maevarano Formation in northwestern Madagascar.

“This is the best-preserved turtle of the entire Late Cretaceous of the southern continents and as such very significant in terms of reconstructing its way of life and relationships with other turtles,” noted Professor Walter Joyce, a paleontologist in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Freiburg.

The paleontological fauna of Madagascar is known for animals that are very specialized, which is in part due to its long isolation from surrounding continents.

Sahonachelys mailakavava shows that the Malagasy fauna was already unique in the Late Cretaceous epoch.

The ancient turtle is the only representative of its group to have evolved suction feeding, which is otherwise only known in distant relatives, so-called snake-necked turtles.

“As palaeontologists, we try to understand the biology and evolution of past life,” said Dr. Serjoscha Evers, also from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Freiburg.

“Fossils like this give a wealth of information that is not always present.”

“The identification of suction feeding in a new turtle lineage is exciting and was unexpected.”

“It shows how animals evolve similar traits for similar functions, even if they are only distantly related.”

A paper describing the discovery was published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

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Walter G. Joyce et al. 2021. A new pelomedusoid turtle, Sahonachelys mailakavava, from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar provides evidence for convergent evolution of specialized suction feeding among pleurodires. R. Soc. open sci 8 (5): 210098; doi: 10.1098/rsos.210098

Source: www.sci-news.com/

Paleontologists from the Ohio State University at Marion and Gonzaga University have identified a new species of large machairodontine saber-toothed cat from the fossilized remains found in North America.

The newly-identified cat lived in what is now North America between 5.5 and 9 million years ago (Miocene Epoch).

It belongs to Machairodus, a genus of large saber-toothed cat that lived in Africa, Eurasia and North America, and is an ancient relative of the best-known saber-toothed cat Smilodon.

Named Machairodus lahayishupup, the new species had a mass up to 410 kg, making it one of the largest felids in Earth’s history.

“We believe these were animals that were routinely taking down bison-sized animals. This was by far the largest cat alive at that time,” said Dr. Jonathan Calede, a researcher in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the Ohio State University at Marion.

Dr. Calede and his colleague, Dr. John Orcutt from the Department of Biology at Gonzaga University, examined several humeri (upper arm bones) of Machairodus lahayishupup from museums in Oregon, Idaho, California and Texas.

“One of the big stories of all of this is that we ended up uncovering specimen after specimen of this giant cat in museums in western North America,” Dr. Orcutt said.

“They were clearly big cats. We started with a few assumptions based on their age, in the 5.5 to 9 million-year-old range, and based on their size, because these things were huge.”

“What we didn’t have then, that we have now, is the test of whether the size and anatomy of those bones tells us anything — and it turns out that yes, they do.”

“A discovery that this giant cat in North America existed at the same time similar animals lived around the world also raises another evolutionary question,” Dr. Calede said.

“It’s been known that there were giant cats in Europe, Asia and Africa, and now we have our own giant saber-toothed cat in North America during this period as well.”

“There’s a very interesting pattern of either repeated independent evolution on every continent of this giant body size in what remains a pretty hyperspecialized way of hunting, or we have this ancestral giant saber-toothed cat that dispersed to all of those continents. It’s an interesting paleontological question.”

The discovery is reported in a paper published in the Journal of Mammalian Evolution.

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J.D. Orcutt & J.J. Calede. Quantitative Analyses of Feliform Humeri Reveal the Existence of a Very Large Cat in North America During the Miocene. J Mammal Evol, published online May 3, 2021; doi: 10.1007/s10914-021-09540-1

Source: www.sci-news.com/

Resident Evil Village mods are already pushing the envelope; one in particular puts Barney the Dinosaur in the role of the game's enemies.

The release of Resident Evil Village is still a handful of days away, but mods are already taking things to another level with one in particular placing Barney the Dinosaur as an enemy type. Barney has maintained his status as a pop culture staple for nearly 30 years, first debuting in PBS' Barney & Friends in 1992. There are memes and such that make him seem scary, but how much terror can a purple dinosaur with flat teeth conjure up?

Resident Evil obviously has the answer. In the last few months, RE Village managed to subvert expectations and toy with emotions in a way the franchise arguably hasn't in the past. And it all stemmed from marketing revolving around one central figure - Lady Dimitrescu. The tall vampire lady may very well go down as one of the brand's scariest villains to date. Zombies are played out, werewolves will eventually reach that same threshold, and the likes of RE3's Nemesis are designed to induce nothing but terror. Akin to other vampiric figures of yore, Lady Dimitrescu is alluring, captivating. Online chatter suggests fans can't wait to encounter her in-game, even when she's at her most terrifying, overly long claws and all. But even the countess is no match for Barney the Dinosaur.

Capcom recently hosted its final Resident Evil Village demo, so some players chose to make the most of it. Twitter user Marcos RC went above and beyond, though, evidenced by a Barney-starring mod shared on social media. Marcus RC's mod substitutes RE Village enemies with the friendly dinosaur in the cellar area of Castle Dimitrescu. It's a genuinely frightening sight to behold. In almost any other circumstance, many would consider Barney a welcoming sight, but there are three of them in this mod. And one appears to be laughing... Suffice it to say, Barney's never been more terrifying.

This is rather eerie on its own, but craziest of all is that such a mod sets precedent. First, someone turned the docile Barney into a Resident Evil villain. Who might be next, though? Pikachu, Blue from Blue's Clues, the Teletubbies - the latter of whom are creepy as is? Hopefully, turning childhood safe spaces on their head won't become commonplace once RE Village's modding community starts getting its feet wet. Five Nights at Freddy's has caused enough distress.

RE Village aims to conjure up plenty of nightmare fuel all on its own. Lady Dimitrescu isn't the only new mark of terror on the block, either. Werewolves are making their franchise debut and the eerie village setting will likely boast several other horrors that Capcom has yet to unveil.

Source: Marcos RC/Twitter / https://screenrant.com/