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Beloved actor Jeff Goldblum has teased audiences regarding potential cameos for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, among other details.

Jurassic World was one of the biggest surprise hits in recent Hollywood history. The film was always going to do well but no one expected it to become one of the highest grossing movies of all time.

The pressure is certainly on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom as a result, not only to live up to its predecessor but also to not spoil the party before the already announced third film arrives.

Jurassic Park alum Jeff Goldblum will be returning as Dr. Ian Malcolm for the sequel but has kept tight-lipped about certain plot details, including whether there will be any secret cameos.

When asked on What What Happens Live (via THR) about rumours of Laura Dern returning to the franchise, Malcom responded: “Maybe she will.”

And regarding if he will be back for the third instalment, Goldblum remained coy by teasing: “I can’t divulge anything, but maybe…maybe”, and then adding, “There’s gonna be another one that some people may or may not be in. That’s all I can say.”

Source: www.flickeringmyth.com

Scientists studying a giant fossilized lion skull think it could be evidence of a previously unknown population of lions.

As big as those of the largest cave lions, researchers think the partial skull belonged to an ancient lion far larger than any known to have lived in Africa.

An analysis of the skull was published in the Journal of Paleontology.

The 200,000-year-old fossil was found at a site in Natodomeri in northwest Kenya. The researchers think the gigantic lions may have lived during the late Middle to Late Pleistocene epoch.

The researchers compared the skull to those of modern lions from Africa. The average modern lion skull stretched about 10.5 inches, while the longest measured just over 12 inches.

At nearly 15 inches long, “the fossil [was]about 20 percent longer than even the largest lion skull I have had access to,” Lars Werdelin, a professor of paleobiology at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm and one of the study authors, told Newsweek.

He thinks the skull is very unlikely to simply be an outlier from known lion populations in Africa.

“It really is all about the remarkable size,” Wederlin said. “The skull is so much bigger than that of any living or fossil African lion that the probability that it could come from a population with a mean size and variability similar to those is very, very small.”

While he did not estimate exactly how tall this lion would have stood, the data, Werdelin said, could be generated.

One explanation for the big lions might come from their hefty diets. Megafauna—big animals weighing about 100 lb and larger—roamed far and wide in the Pleistocene era. An abundance of large creatures like the giant buffalo Syncerus antiquus might have sustained these mega lions, the authors wrote.

Source: http://en.brinkwire.com

After half a century of studying prehistoric fish fossils, Chinese paleontologist Chang Meemann has a favorite: Youngolepis.

Living about 400 million years ago, Youngolepis was first thought to be very close to a type of rhipidistians, a possible link in the long evolution from fish to tetrapods, or in other words land vertebrates, including humans.

But after careful study of its small cranium in the 1980s, Chang concluded that Youngolepis had no internal nostrils, a key adaption to allow land vertebrates to breathe out of water.

The discovery overturned mainstream views at the time and led to a decade-long debate and re-consideration on phylogeny of lobe-finned fishes, whose descendants left the water and conquered the land.

Chang is still lauded for her academic contribution and her courage to challenge the dominant view more than 30 years later. The 82-year-old was named the 2018 L'Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards laureate "for her pioneering work on fossil records leading to insights on how aquatic vertebrates adapted to live on land".

The awards, jointly founded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the L'Oreal Foundation, began 20 years ago and are given each year to five outstanding women scientists for their accomplishments in scientific research and commitment.

"Of course, I am happy. It's a great encouragement. But I don't think I am well qualified," Chang told Xinhua before she went to Paris for Thursday's ceremony.

SET GOALS

Born in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu Province, in 1936, Chang wanted to become a doctor early on, due to the influence of her father, who taught human physiology at a medical college. "There were many diligent and well-educated doctors at my father's workplace," Chang recalls.

Her father often took her and her little brother to net shrimps, catch worms and observe ants. "We could express opinions freely to our father or even argue with him. He was always amiable."

But at 17, Chang changed her mind and chose to study geology at college.

"Everyone had a zeal to serve the country," she recalls.

About 200 other women students enrolled the same year and most went on remote geological surveys after graduation. Chang was selected to do scientific research and went to Moscow to study paleontology.

At the suggestion of Wu Hsienwen, a leading Chinese ichthyologist who was then visiting the Soviet Union, she focused on fish fossils. She often wandered along the rivers in Moscow to collect fossils from Holecene sediments and compare them with modern fish.

In 1960, she returned to China and entered the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP). She spent three months each year accompanying geological prospecting teams to collect fossils in the field, a practice she maintained till the age of 80.

Walking 20 kilometers a day was routine, and every member of the team would eat like a wolf. Chang set a personal record of eating 500 grams of rice in a meal.

"Once I set a goal, I never give up," she says.

Source: www.xinhuanet.com

Scientists have identified a new species of reptile from prehistoric Connecticut and, boy, does it have a mouth on it.

Source: www.sciencedaily.com

On a semiarid Patagonian landscape 85 million years ago, a formidable meat-eater called Tratayenia rosalesi reigned as the apex predator, part of an enigmatic dinosaur group that menaced South America and Australia for tens of millions of years.

Scientists on Wednesday (March 28) described Tratayenia, a two-legged beast up to about 9 metres long, based on fossils unearthed in Argentina's Neuquén province, adding another impressive dinosaur to the list of those that inhabited Patagonia during the Cretaceous Period.

It was a member of a group called megaraptorids that lived in the Southern Hemisphere from about 105 to 85 million years ago.

The group was recognised by palaeontologists only in the past few years, and all of its members - including Tratayenia - are known only from incomplete skeletons.

"Megaraptorids, although still mysterious, seem to have been a pretty badass bunch of predatory dinosaurs," said palaeontologist Matt Lamanna of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.

"Using the remains of different species, including Tratayenia, we can make something like a 'police composite' of a megaraptorid skeleton," Dr Lamanna added. "Megaraptorids had long, low skulls that were crammed with lots of small but sharp and serrated teeth, bones that were riddled with air cavities, and powerful forelimbs that were tipped with absolutely ginormous, wickedly hooked claws on the innermost two fingers."

For Tratayenia, the researchers found about half of the back vertebrae, all its hip vertebrae, some ribs and a fair bit of the pelvis, but none of the skull, limbs or tail.

Patagonia boasted some of the most impressive dinosaurs ever found, including the giant predator Giganotosaurus and the immense long-necked, four-legged plant-eaters Patagotitan, Argentinosaurus and Dreadnoughtus.

"Tratayenia was the largest-known predator about 85 million years ago in Patagonia and perhaps one of the last in its group," said palaeontologist Juan Porfiri of the National University of Comahue's Museum of Natural Sciences in Argentina.

It lived in an ecosystem that included smaller carnivorous dinosaurs including Viavenator, large herbivores such as Traukutitan, snakes similar to boas, crocs, turtles and birds, Dr Porfiri added.

The best known member of Tratayenia's group is Megaraptor, which lived slightly earlier in Patagonia and wielded 40cm-long claws.

"Megaraptorids certainly would have been terrifying to encounter in life: big, heavily armed and powerful, but also probably lighter on their feet than really giant meat-eaters such as Giganotosaurus or T. rex," Dr Lamanna said.

The research was published in the journal Cretaceous Research.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

Among more than 2,000 ancient fossils found in an African excavation, paleontologists have discovered new species of some of the earliest dinosaurs. 

Paleontologists didn't know much about the early Triassic below the equator before conducting this research. Through a decade of research, nine different month-long digs in two countries, and partnerships across several institutions, paleontologists now better understand how life on earth existed as the first dinosaurs evolved. 

The scientists published a series of papers detailing discovered and studied fossils found across Tanzania and Zambia from 252 million years ago. During this time, the Triassic, both countries were part of one enormous landmass called Pangea, consisting of all the continents squished into one.

On Wednesday, a team of researchers published 13 new studies, as part of a project now totaling 37 papers. Detailed in this research were more than 2,000 new fossils, information about the ancient environment, and fossils of Teleocrater, an early dinosaur relative that was discovered in 2017, according to Discover magazine.

Researchers also found a lizard-like reptile called procolophonid, as well as some very early dinosaurs, according to a press release. By comparing the finds to others made in the southern hemisphere, including Antarctica, researchers were able to draw a more complete understanding of the Triassic world. They published their findings in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

"These papers highlight what a regional perspective we now have—we have the same fossils from Tanzania, Antarctica, Namibia and more," Christian Sidor, a University of Washington biology professor and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture said in a statement. "We're getting a much better Southern Hemisphere perspective of what's going on in the Triassic."

Two hundred and fifty-two million years ago, the time to which the fossils are dated back, was an important time in earth’s history. After the End-Permian mass extinction event, much of life on earth had gone extinct, and the few, unremarkable animals that remained were starting to diversify. It was from these early-Triassic animals that mammals and dinosaurs would eventually evolve.

Source: www.newsweek.com

An international team of paleontologists from the University of Edinburgh, Staffin Museum and Chinese Academy of Sciences has discovered a new dinosaur tracksite at Rubha nam Brathairean (Brothers’ Point) on the Isle of Skye, Scotland.

The tracks were made by massive dinosaurs some 170 million years ago (Middle Jurassic period), in a muddy, shallow lagoon.

The site preserves an abundance of small sauropod and several isolated and broken medium-to-large theropod footprints.

The trackmakers of sauropod prints are estimated to have stood 5-8.2 feet (1.5-2.5 m) at the hip – fairly large, but not as colossal as famous species like Brontosaurus, Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus.

In addition to the sauropod tracks, several theropod tracks are present at the site. These tracks reflect medium-sized individuals — with estimated hip heights ranging from 2.9 to 7 feet (0.87-2.13 m) — that spent some time in the same lagoonal environment as the small sauropods.

“The more we look on the Isle of Skye, the more dinosaur footprints we find,” said team member Dr. Steve Brusatte, from the School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh.

“This new site records two different types of dinosaurs — long-necked cousins of Brontosaurus and sharp-toothed cousins of Tyrannosaurus rex — hanging around a shallow lagoon, back when Scotland was much warmer and dinosaurs were beginning their march to global dominance.”

The find is globally important as it is rare evidence of the Middle Jurassic, from which few fossil sites have been found around the world.

“This tracksite is the second discovery of sauropod footprints on Skye,” said team member Paige dePolo, also from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Geosciences.

“It was found in rocks that were slightly older than those previously found at Duntulm on the island and demonstrates the presence of sauropods in this part of the world through a longer timescale than previously known.”

“This site is a useful building block for us to continue fleshing out a picture of what dinosaurs were like on Skye in the Middle Jurassic.”

The researchers measured, photographed and analyzed about 50 footprints at the site.

The footprints were difficult to study owing to tidal conditions, the impact of weathering and changes to the landscape.

In spite of this, the team identified two trackways in addition to many isolated footprints.

The team’s results were published in the Scottish Journal of Geology.

_____

Paige E. dePolo et al. A sauropod-dominated tracksite from Rubha nam Brathairean (Brothers’ Point), Isle of Skye, Scotland. Scottish Journal of Geology, published online April 2, 2018; doi: 10.1144/sjg2017-016

CANON CITY, Colo. (AP) - Everyone knows dinosaurs are extinct. But this is a case of one that was extinguished.

It was a 24-foot high electronic Tyrannosaurus rex featured at the Royal Gorge Dinosaur Experience in Colorado.

Thursday morning, the T. rex began smoldering before catching fire.

Both the dinosaur and spectators were fully involved; park visitors stood and watched as flames spread through the dinosaur.

At times the T. rex appeared to be breathing flames.

Park co-owner Zach Reynolds says he thinks an electrical malfunction caused the blaze.

Reynolds says the T. rex is a total loss, but notes it "made for some spectacular imagery" before it burned out.

A replacement is expected to be in place by the summer.

Here's the video:

Source: The Associated Press.

The ocean may be the origin of all life on Earth, but that isn’t to say that all the animals who evolved on land left the water behind forever. In fact, we’re starting to get a pretty good picture of why certain species that returned back to the water decided to do so and how they developed into the marine animals we know today. Paleontologists say creatures began exploring the land during the Silurian period (440-410 million years ago). No one is sure why this occurred. Some scientists say it may have been tight competition for resources in marine environments that pushed species to look for food elsewhere.

The first land explorers were arthropods, who started spending just a little bit of time on the surface and then began doing so more and more. They were pre-adapted to land exploration because of their hard shells, which helped retain water. Around 370 million years ago, certain species became permanent land residents. Spiders, mites, and centipedes were the first inhabitants. Then, over the next few million years, amphibians, reptiles, and finally mammals made it onto the scene. But that doesn’t mean they all stayed on land.

During the Early Triassic period (approx. 252-247 million years ago) onward, dozens of terrestrial and freshwater animals returned to the sea. Birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals were among them. They evolved and eventually became dominant players in their ecosystems during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Today, lots of the marine mammals we know and love started out as land-based species.

For instance, a walrus’s ancestor resembles the modern otter, while whales come from a species of ancient deer-like creatures known as Indohyus. They roamed southern Asia about 48 million years ago. An Indohyus was only about the size of a raccoon, and researchers believe that they fed on aquatic plants.

So what coaxed these creatures back into the ocean 100 million years after their ancestors climbed out of it? A duo of researchers contend that this question has received far too little attention, until now. The results of their study has been published in a report in the journal Paleobiology. To date, there have been two prevailing hypotheses.

In one, ecosystem collapse caused mass extinction, pushing animals back toward the sea for food. In another, competition added pressure on species while abundant food sources in the ocean, particularly in areas near the shoreline, pulled species back toward the sea. Geerat Vermeij at the University of California-Davis and his colleague Ryosuke Motani decided to test these theories to see which one was more likely.

The scientists isolated 69 incidents in which a terrestrial species decided to live in or extract sustenance from the ocean after a mass extinction had taken place. In two of the largest such events, one that occurred 201 million years ago at the end of the Triassic and another at the end of the Cretaceous period, there was no grand exodus of land animals back into the sea. A 2014 South African study discovered an increase in species returning to the ocean 66 million years ago, at the tail end of the Cretaceous extinction. What differed in this study was that the previous one only included animals which are still around today.  

Vermeij and Motani’s study supports the idea that terrestrial animals took advantage of food sources in the ocean periodically, not just after mass extinctions, and the trend has only increased over the past 60 million years or so. One reason that may be a pull factor: kelp and seagrass beds developed over this period, allowing for more marine life to sprout and proliferate closer to shore.

To learn more about whale evolution, click here.

Source: http://bigthink.com

Bony fishes are the most diverse of all extant vertebrate groups. A comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the group now provides new insights into its 250-million-year evolutionary history.

With some 30,000 currently recognized species, the true bony fishes or teleosts, which belong to the Neopterygii, account for more than half of modern vertebrate diversity. In collaboration with her Argentinian colleague Emilia Sferco, LMU paleontologist Adriana López-Arbarello, who is in the Paleontology and Geobiology Section at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and is also a member of the Geobiocenter, has undertaken a new analysis of the group's family tree. Their results, which shed new light on 250 million years of evolutionary history, appear in the online journal Royal Society Open Science.

More than 99% of the species of Neopterygii in the world today belong to a single lineage, the true bony fishes or Teleostei. Relative to the rich diversity of the teleosts, the other two neopterygian lineages are strikingly impoverished. The Ginglymodi are made up of the seven recognized species of gars, and the Halecomorphi ¬now consist of a single species, Amia calva, commonly known as the bowfin. In their heyday in the Mesozoic – the Age of the Dinosaurs – the picture was very different. At that time, the Ginglymodi and the Halecomorphi were highly diverse, and they dominated the oceans and freshwater habitats, while the teleosts were a much more modest presence in the world's waters.

The huge difference in the numbers of extant species assigned to the three groups makes it extremely difficult to unravel the relationships between them. However, fossil specimens can help to correct this imbalance, and thus make it possible to elucidate their 250-million-year history. "In fact," says Adriana López-Arbarello, "our study was motivated by the discovery of one very unusual fossil genus." Specimens of this genus, dated to 240 million years ago, which exhibit traits characteristic of both the Ginglymodi and the Halecomorphi, were recovered by a Swiss team from an important marine fossil Lagerstätte in the Alps. Their discoverers invited López-Arbarello to participate in the anatomical investigation and description of their finds. Later, López-Arbarello und Sferco took up the task of working out how the new genus fits into the neopterygian family tree. To do so, they assembled the largest morphological dataset yet constructed for fossils of this subclass.

Phylogenetic analysis of these data revealed that Ginglymodi and Halecomorphi are more closely related to each other than either is to Teleostei. This confirms what has been regarded by many paleontologists as a controversial notion – namely that the first two taxonomic groups share a common ancestor, and can therefore be subsumed into a single common taxon. In addition, the new study shows that, in the Mesozoic, all three lineages underwent several rapid adaptive radiations, i.e. during which large numbers of novel species evolved over comparatively short periods of time. Not only were Ginglymodi and Halecomorphi represented by enormous numbers of species, these species were characterized by a broad spectrum of morphological and ecological specializations. Indeed, some of the most impressive Mesozoic fossils belong to these lineages. One example is Scheenstia maximus, which grew to a length of nearly 2 meters.

The Teleostei subsequently developed a wide variety of feeding habits, and enhanced their maneuverability and the efficiency of their reproductive strategies, while the diversity of the other two lineages progressively declined. Precisely why this happened is still unclear. "One can perhaps compare this situation with the evolution of the dinosaurs," López-Arbarello remarks. "Many successful and diverse groups of dinosaurs died out at the end of the Mesozoic. Only one survived, and its diversification continues – the birds. We have no really convincing explanation for their success either. – So we still have a lot to learn about the fauna of the Mesozoic and the biological world of which it was a part."

Source: https://phys.org