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.
For their size, they are about as vicious as you can get. Beautiful creatures though. Recent research suggests that they're a key factor in the boom-bust cycles of lemmings in northern latitudes.
mushroom mushroom
Prehistoric badger had dinosaurs for breakfast
nature.com | 01/12/05 | Michael Hopkin
Posted on 01/13/2005 5:32:06 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1320387/posts
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Dunno, but I'd imagine it takes a while to clean the fossils, then make casts, and finally do the reconstructions.
Has it not occurred to you that there were previous finds of the same critter, which allowed these paleontologists to identify the jawbone fairly quickly? And, that those previous finds showed other portions of the animal -- enough to be able to describe it for the reporter?
pepperoni pepperoni olive olive........
http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/
So these animals created green-house gasses so as to alter their environment? No cars; no smokers. ..how did this happen?
But big or small; short or tall; wisdom still says, you never look a 'gift' horse in the mouth. . .
For sure. . .'death and taxes' his fault as well. . .
I love Badgers, from a distance. They have such loose skin that when bitten by a dog, they are nearly undamaged, but can turn inside their skin to get to the dogs muzzle and neck. Dogs seem to be unable to stay away from Badgers at first, but very quickly get their fill.
Nah. I'm not much on Seti.
Still, you don't have to be a creationist to know that science has a longstanding addiction to "the Next Great Discovery"(tm)...even more so since the Creationist debates have revived because everything is propped up as another magic bullet to put creationist to bed.
If they had any shame, they'd be mortified at the number of times they've had to backtrack.
Exactly what you said BUMP.
I figured you might be a SETI advocate because so many scifi fans are. It is music to my ears to hear otherwise.
It might have occurred to me had the article allowed for that. But it didn't. The article described the find as "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." Doesn't strike me that either have been seen before from that phrasing.
When we want fairy tales we'll come to you Race. You've proven to adept at them.
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