News thread

[gigadino96]

I want to marry you creature386 only because you used the word fora in the OP. Really, I love you.

Anyway:

Whether dinosaurs were in decline before their final extinction 66 Mya has been debated for decades with no clear resolution. This dispute has not been resolved because of inappropriate data and methods. Here, for the first time to our knowledge, we apply a statistical approach that models changes in speciation and extinction through time. We find overwhelming support for a long-term decline across all dinosaurs and within all three major dinosaur groups. Our results highlight that dinosaurs showed a marked reduction in their ability to replace extinct species with new ones, making them vulnerable to extinction and unable to respond quickly to and recover from the final catastrophic event 66 Mya.

www.pnas.org/content/113/18/5036.abstract

I was actually interested in that, since I'm getting interested in K-Pg event. Or that was just an excuse to say that I love creature for his use of the word fora. Who knows?

[creature386]

I'm the husband and you're the wife, just to make that clear.

To add some seriousness to the post (like you, I wanted to add some snark, but I cannot leave my post without seriousness), this study seems to be fairly consistent with what I've heard before, but it is of course always nice to see some rigorous analysis of the whole thing. Here's the PDF for those who care:
centaur.reading.ac.uk/63750/1/Sakamoto%20et%20al.%202016.%20PNAS%20-%20final%20submitted%20ver.pdf

[Ceratodromeus]

Some very good news, the giant panda is no longer considered an endangered species, though of course it's considered a precarious situation. very cool stuff here guys
www.livescience.com/55991-giant-pandas-no-longer-endangered.html

[Infinity Blade]

gigadino96 and creature386

There is a scientist who has expressed some sort of dissent over that recent study's conclusions. I thought it would be appropriate to put it here.

John Long, a palaeontologist at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, calls the work "innovative and clever". But, he adds, "one thing is not counted in the argument, and that is the actual biomass of the species on the planet".

In other words, just because there are fewer species of an animal, it doesn't necessarily mean the animal is dying out.

Take koalas. Some 20 million years ago or so, Australia was home to around 16 species of koalas, Long says: "Then you look at today, and we have only one species of koala. But they're highly abundant. It doesn't mean they're on the way out."

Long says this isn't to say the dinosaurs weren't slowly moving towards extinction prior to the asteroid apocalypse. But without biomass or population numbers, it's impossible to say for sure. And the fossil record is not a particularly good indicator of population size, he says: "We can only, at best, guess it."

link

Edit: to further add to this, blaze actually made another point about how the study defines success several months ago.

This study suffers from the flaw of equating rate of speciation with success, something that's highly debatable. In the modern world, geographical range is generally seen as evidence of success and when species extend their range it follows that the end result is less endemic speciation, less number of species does not mean less individuals or that the taxon is in decline.

[creature386]

Since we lack a Psittacosaurus profile, I'll post this here:
www.cell.com/pb-assets/journals/research/current-biology/S200backup/vinther.pdf

New pigment evidence gives us information about Psittacosaurus' body colors. The body is darker on the back and on the sides than on the belly, this is quite common in modern animals and helps with camouflage by producing a countershading effect (the Sun makes objects brighter on the top than below, but by having a naturally darker back than belly, this effect can be defied).

[creature386]

Why tardigrades/water bears are so resistant:
www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12808
Basically, they have very good genes for DNA protection and repair.

[Ceratodromeus]

Some good news, some bad news. Trade in the much desired african grey parrot has been banned

africageographic.com/blog/global-trade-african-grey-parrots-banned/


Meanwhile, Wildebeest and cheetah populations are in decline in Kahlahari & Zimbawbwe

africageographic.com/blog/kalahari-wildebeest-numbers-fall-to-less-than-a-thousand/

africageographic.com/blog/survey-shows-massive-decline-zimbabwes-cheetah-population/

[creature386]

Our understanding of the conquest of land may need to be revised:
www.livescience.com/56011-early-tetrapod-lived-in-water.html
Known Acanthostega specimens may have represented juveniles. Adults may have been a lot more terrestrial than them.
This (together with tetrapod footprints from Poland which are about 390 million years old) imo supports the view that tetrapods are older than we thought.

[Infinity Blade]

Rabbs' fringe-limbed tree frog is now extinct.

news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/09/toughie-rabbs-fringe-limbed-tree-frog-dies-goes-extinct/

[Ceratodromeus]

We probably have a new species of the dwarf crocodile lineage(special thanks to Humanum for posting this on Carnivora)
www.newscientist.com/article/2107837-weird-orange-crocodiles-found-gorging-on-bats-in-gabons-caves/\

[Infinity Blade]

A Carnivora member named micrompciraptor found this. New otodontid named Megalolamna. The study also concluded that "members of the megatoothed lineage, including 'megalodon', ought to be classified into the genus Otodus, and not to its traditional genus Carcharocles" (link).

Edit: Never mind, I just found out it's already in the profile. Though, I guess if you weren't aware before, you are now.

[Ceratodromeus]

Chinese alligators are showing signs of a comeback
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161026133227.htm

[Ceratodromeus]

Once more showing their Ingenuity, common chimpanzees have been recorded fishing algae out of rivers using long sticks
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajp.22613/full

[Infinity Blade]

Machairodus horribilis; an apparently 405 kilogram saber toothed cat (link).

[creature386]

Snails using their shells as clubs against predators:
www.nature.com/articles/srep35600