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Forelimb bone data predicts predator style

By Guest PostSeptember 19, 2014Natureaggressive brustkreb, borja figueirido, brown university, brustkrebspatientinnen, cheetah, christine janis, early american history, human history, in a box, jochen maurer, krysta svore, microsoft breakthroughs, odai johnson, paleobiologist, post quantum world, predict, pure water brew, quantum computing ecosystem, record, therapiemoeglichkeit, topological qubit, tradition of rebellions, vhemotherapeutika

In their quest to understand what kind of hunter the extinct marsupial thylacine was, two paleobiologists built a dataset of forelimb bone measurements that predict the predation style of a wide variety of carnivorous mammals. They describe the data in a study posted online in the Journal of Morphology.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — At the start of their research, paleobiologists Christine Janis and Borja Figueirido simply wanted to determine the hunting style of an extinct marsupial called thylacine (also known as the “marsupial wolf” or the “Tasmanian tiger”). In the end, the Australian relic, which has a very dog-like head but both cat- and dog-like features in the skeleton, proved to be uniquely unspecialized, but what emerged from the effort is a new classification system that can capably predict the hunting behaviors of mammals from measurements of just a few forelimb bones. (more…)

Discovery Places Turtles Next to Lizards on Family Tree

Where do turtles belong on the evolutionary tree? For decades, the mystery has proven as tough to crack as the creatures’ shells. With their body armor and retractable heads, turtles are such unique creatures that scientists have found it difficult to classify the strange animals in terms of their origins and closest relatives.

“We know turtles evolved from a common ancestor along with birds, lizards and snakes about 300 million years ago, but who modern-day turtles are most closely related to is one of the biggest and most controversial questions in the field of systematics,” said Tyler Lyson, a Yale University graduate student who studies the evolutionary relationships between different animal groups. (more…)

Tag Archives: paleobiologist

Forelimb bone data predicts predator style

Discovery Places Turtles Next to Lizards on Family Tree