Baby Shark Original
Posted on 05/31/2019 5:37:16 PM PDT by ETL
There's room for all types in a newly described fossil that shows 259 baby fish swimming together in a school, approximately 50 million years ago.
According to the authors of a new study published Wednesday (May 29) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, this ex-school may be the earliest known fossil evidence that prehistoric fish swam in unison, just as modern fish do today.
A team of Arizona researchers stumbled upon this remarkable rock during a visit to the Oishi Fossils Gallery of Mizuta Memorial Museum in Japan.
Working with the museum, the researchers determined that the fishy fossil probably originated in America's Green River Formation, a geologic stratum in present-day Colorado, Wyoming and Utah that contains a trove of fossils dating to between 53 million and 48 million years ago.
The fish in question all belonged to the extinct species Erismatopterus levatus, and were apparently entombed together in the midst of a routine swim that may have been cut short by an underwater avalanche of sand, the researchers wrote.
All but two of the wee specimens were swimming in the same direction and in a close-knit formation.
To prove that the fish were indeed swimming in a school and not just fossilized that way by coincidence, the researchers ran a series of simulations to reproduce the group's likely movements.
The simulations showed that the fish were apparently not only swimming in unison, but also did so according to a timeless set of behavioral rules that still show up today.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I was just kidding. Figured it was something like that: a kids’ song. :)
It’s difficult to get it out of your head, once you’ve heard it, even once...
Thanks ETL.
Thanks for the warning! :)
That’s quite a remarkable fossil. Talk about bad luck for that school . . .
Schooled! :^)
As the weather turns hot, the ponds, many of them, dry up.
The last bit of water left before the pond completely goes dry looks just like that fossil arrangement.
Seen it dozens of time.
These fish were likely in such a condition, towards the edge of some water, that became isolated from the main body,then closer and closer together in the evaporating water.
They may have been in a school originally, or just as likely scattered about, but brought close as the volume of water they were in diminished.
Who added “junk science” to the keywords?
Damned Global warming/cooling/whatever.
Just to put the 50 million years ago time frame into perspective, the Himalaya mountains hadn't yet formed.
BTW,if you look up at the land mass illustration above, just over to the right of where it says, Indian Ocean, there's a rain forest in Malaysia that has been there for 130 million years....it just sat there as India 'scooted' by.
A 130 Million Year-old rainforest in Malaysia, and it's not in Borneo
Probably one of the FReepers who believes this garbage:
"James Ussher (or Usher; 4 January 1581 – 21 March 1656) was the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625 and 1656. He was a prolific scholar and church leader, who today is most famous for his identification of the genuine letters of the church father, Ignatius, and for his chronology that sought to establish the time and date of the creation as "the entrance of the night preceding the 23rd day of October... the year before Christ 4004"; that is, around 6 pm on 22 October 4004 BC according to the proleptic Julian calendar. "
Must have been on the other side of a transform fault, a slip boundary between two separate tectonic plates.
there's a rain forest in Malaysia that has been there for 130 million years
There must be a LOT of raking to do.
Who added “junk science” to the keywords?
An ignorant, hateful, brain-dead troll.
Wow! Amazing detail!
We seem to have more than a few of those here, on all sorts of topics.
Ha, ha. The amount of composted vegetation that must be there did cross my mind.
Long live rock
The other absurdly stupid troll keyword one sees from time to time is "callingartbell". Guess the troll plans to use a Ouija board.
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