Posted on 03/18/2011 6:16:53 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The seals met their demise more than 3 million years ago. Bobby Boessenecker, a graduate student at Montana State University, has conducted field research in Santa Cruz County since 2005, and according to his article published in last month's edition of the scientific journal Palaios, the seal bones appear to have been bitten by another mammal. Boessenecker said that fact makes them a rare find.
There are only two other examples in the world's fossil record of mammal on marine mammal violence, Boessenecker said...
The fossils appear to be an upper arm bone and a forearm bone of different seals believed to be ancient relatives of the Northern Fur seal. One of the bones was found by Frank Perry, a research associate of the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.
The two previously discovered specimens: a British Columbian sea lion pup killed by its father during the ice age and a 38 million-year-old Egyptian whale assaulted by a fellow whale.
...[Boessenecker] said that they can definitely rule out sharks in the investigation. The conical shaped puncture wounds indicate that a mammal inflicted the blow; however, it could have happened post mortem.
"There's no evidence that they passed through a digestive system," he said. "Usually when that happens, bone is dissolved by the digestive juices and it ends up with these weird, erosional pits. And the ends of the bones get dissolved away."
..."Dinosaur paleontologists are off their rockers going so far," he said of the detailed scenarios that unfold in documentaries about T. Rex and company.
"Mammal paleontologists are a little more sane," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at physorg.com ...
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U.S. fossil raises questions about mammal origins"The fossilized set of jaw bones have been determined to be 110 million years old, about the same age as the oldest remains from similar mammals that so far were found only in Asia, said paleontologist Richard Cifelli."
“a 38 million-year-old Egyptian whale assaulted by a fellow whale.”
Probably a Bully Whale.
I didn’t think Seal was that old.
Sea Lion types are mauling their smaller bretherin all the time.
Just how do they know it was the seals father that killed it?
“Just how do they know it was the seals father that killed it?”
Had to be. That’s how men are, the brutal SOBs.
A seal walks into a bar...the bartender asks “what will it be?” The seal replies- anything but a Canadian Club. ;)
I know, right...it was probably the Mom’s new boyfriend...
In all seriousness, I questioned that as well...
Don't these people realize that the lose credibility when they make stuff up like this?
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