Posted on 02/24/2005 4:22:48 PM PST by aculeus
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) -- Scientists are marveling at a fossil find in California's San Joaquin Valley that has produced the remains of a never-before-seen badger-like creature and a monstrous predator that looks like a cross between a bear and a pit bull.
Among the discoveries was the skull of an animal that appears to be an entirely new genus within the same family as otters, skunks and weasels.
"It just blew me out of my mind," Xiaoming Wang, associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, said after seeing the fossil of the badger-like animal. "It looks like it was very ferocious."
A team led by paleontologist J.D. Stewart recovered bones from 25 species of vertebrates, as well as birds and snails, that date to roughly 15 million years ago. The best-preserved 1,200 specimens now make up a permanent collection at the University of California, Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology.
The dig is a legacy of California's power crisis of 2000-2001. The fossils were unearthed during construction of new electricity transmission lines at the so-called Path 15, the infamous utility bottleneck in the state's north-south electricity conduit near Los Banos.
Also found on the site just west of Fresno were the most complete remains yet discovered in the San Joaquin Valley of a bear-dog creature that ruled what once was a savannah-like environment.
Stewart, a research associate at the National History Museum in Los Angeles, said his team found a jaw bone and an inch-long fang from what they estimate was a 200-pound creature.
"They look something like a large pit bull," Stewart told the San Francisco Chronicle. "They're very tough customers."
Also found was the most complete skull ever of the early horse Merychippus californicus, Latin for "ruminant horse of California."
The three-toed horse stood only 3 1/2 feet tall from its shoulders to the ground, said Stewart, adding that the animal marks a milestone on the evolutionary path of horses.
"Horses are getting bigger," he said. "They've got one toe, and their teeth are getting longer. You may not want to call it evolution. Call it what you want. That's what the evidence shows."
Long after the dinosaurs, the horses thrived in the middle part of the Miocene Epoch, during what the Florida Museum of Natural History's Web site calls "the heyday or `hayday' of horses," referring to the change in diet.
Another find _ two-thirds of a giant tortoise shell _ marked the most complete remnant of the ancient creature ever found in California.
"Very little is known about the West Coast tortoises," said renowned turtle expert and retired paleontologist Howard Hutchison. "It's really about the first time ever when you can say with some certainty that it's linked to the ones found in the Great Plains."
Copyright © 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
"...his team found a jaw bone and an inch-long fang from what they estimate was a 200-pound creature. 'They look something like a large pit bull,' Stewart told the San Francisco Chronicle. 'They're very tough customers.'"
I cannot buy that with a jawbone and a tooth alone you can in any way shape or form predict that a creature "looks something like a large pit bull" or is a "very tough customer" without engaging in a lot of far-too-speculative hypothesizing. Science can't be well served by the use of extremely hypothetical comments like this from very small pieces of data.
Ping.
"They look something like a large pit bull," Stewart told the San Francisco Chronicle. "They're very tough customers."
Imagine the size of the meth lab it must have been guarding!
Wolverines routinely take on Cars. They lose, but often penetrate the radiator, leaving the driver and his vehicle out of action.
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Pound for pound, the members of that family ( badgers, wolverines ) are the meanest creatures on God's green earth. Best to leave them alone if they're in the vicinity.
It takes a while to totally inhabit a language. Some never do.
I was hoping for a pic of a cross between Hillary and Madeline.
you said it.....I'm in Calif and there are some in the foothills but my mom and dad are from Michigan...My dad said he saw a few out in the woods in N. Michigan and told me when I was young that they were the most ferocious little bas**rds around......
Thinking the same thing... I nearly shot a Newfoundland that woke us up wandering through our campsite in the dark... Only thing that stopped me was I don't think bears ~pant~. ;~D
Friendly guy - was camping not too far from us, we found out the next day.
"Badgers don't fight fair. That's why god created dachshunds".
hey wait a minute.
isn't this one of those threads that get attacked by freepers for already being posted earlier?
i could have sworn that susan estrich was already being talked about.
Missing link to the modern slip and fall lawyer?
This shows good judgment on your part. ;-)
They are distantly related. Racoons too.
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