Fossil Overturns Ideas of Jurassic Mammals

AP ^ | February 23, 2006 2:43 PM EST | RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

[VadeRetro]

This image provided by the journal Science shows a Castorcauda lustrasimilis, a docodont mammaliaform from the Middle Jurrassic .Characterized by an evolutionary convergence of its "beaver-like" tail, and some dental feautres for feeding small fish and invertebrates convergent to that of an otter. MARK A. KLINGER

WASHINGTON - The discovery of a furry, beaver-like animal that lived at the time of dinosaurs has overturned more than a century of scientific thinking about Jurassic mammals.

The find shows that the ecological role of mammals in the time of dinosaurs was far greater than previously thought, said Zhe-Xi Luo, curator of vertebrate paleontology at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh.

The animal is the earliest swimming mammal to have been found and was the most primitive mammal to be preserved with fur, which is important to helping keep a constant body temperature, Luo said in a telephone interview.

[PatrickHenry]

... another false creationist distortion.

Jack Chick says:

[Ichneumon]

This is difficult and I only respond to you for it was convenient at this time.Therein in lowly first sentence lies the root of much to which I'll attempt to address.We are so weak.There cannot be scientific discussion about something like a beaver without testostrone, androgen or something clouding the mind and certain comments made.This bespeaks of puberty or dispelling the somewhat noble site we temporarily share for a second of flip comment.Women are our downfall and repose.We are supposed to be equal or above.This talk about beavers well that's very personal stuff and we are idiots.I think and thank God for the fact Women just have this chasm and it's hidden.If they had one more thing going on like their fine breasts or skin or voice or shape they would be exploited even more.Very fine women go too far away trying to make themselves something that they think appeals to men wheras by doing so attract adolescents.I don't care if a woman has one breast or none she's still a woman and gift from God.We are hers also.

Ooookay...

[Ichneumon]

When evos start believing in science again.

We never stopped.

[VadeRetro]

Grim Reaper is now on his first 3-day timeout from the FR mods...

[editor-surveyor]

"You realize that most rocks are cemented with silica, not carbonate..."

No, while most rocks are indeed composed of silicates, it is the silicates that are cemented together by CaCO3 in sedimentary formations.

[RightWingAtheist]

I'm a lifelong paleontology buff, and am also, as Robert Bakker would call me, something of a "mammal chauvinist". I always resented the way mammals were described as "insignificant" just for being small, and secretly hoped that someday, someone would find evidence that large mammals existed in the Mesozoic. Now, I feel vindicated :-)

[manwiththehands]

EXCUSE me, but aren't you the guy who said, and I quote: "It's impossible to 'prove' anything in today's reality"?

[Ichneumon]

I'm saying that essentially all of the fossilized remains are from the deaths that occurred during the first day or two of the eruption of hot water from below. The carbonates dissolved by that initial surge are responsible for most of the cementation that has been observed.

ROFL! Little do you know how little you know. I'm just *dying* to hear you explain how hot water managed to neatly sort layers by nuclear isotope content, so as to give the false *appearance* of age-related superposition (i.e. newer strata on top, older strata on the bottom). We'll wait.

After you've cracked that nut you can work on these massive problems for your bizarrely unworkable scenario:

Problems with a Global Flood

"Polystrate" Fossils

Review of John Woodmorappe's "Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study"

Dinosaur Prints in Coal

The Geologic Column and its Implications for the Flood

Is the Devonian Chattanooga Shale Really a Volcanic Ash-Fall Deposit?

Geology in Error?: The Lewis Thrust

Thrust Faults and the Lewis Overthrust

What Would We Expect to Find if the World had Flooded?

Problems with Walter Brown's Hydroplate Theory

Burrows in the Orkney Islands contradict the Global Flood

Why The Flood Can't Be Global

The Fish is Served With a Delicate Creamy Mercury Sauce

The Letter The Creation Research Society Quarterly Didn't Want You to See

Microfossil Stratigraphy Presents Problems for the Flood

Why Would the Flood Sort Animals by Cell Type?

Fleeing from the Flood

Isotopic Sorting and the Noah's Flood Model

Evidence from the Orkney Islands Against a Global Flood

While the Flood Rages, Termites Dig, Dinosaurs Dance and Cicadas Sing

More Nonsense on "TRUE.ORIGINS": Jonathan Sarfati's Support Of Flood Geology

Why Geology Shows Sedimentation to Be too Slow for a Global Flood

Creationist "Flood Geology" Versus Common Sense -- Or Reasons why "Flood Geology" was abandoned in the mid-1800s by Christian men of science

If you ever managed to resolve all of those apparently insurmountable problems for the creationist version of a flood scenario, feel free to come back and present us with the results of your research. Make sure that your thesis is consistent with the totality of the evidence, however, and not just one tiny corner of it in isolation while violating most of the rest (a common creationist tactic).

Of course, you've already been informed of these issues (where the real-world evidence severely clashes with your scenario) here, here, and here, so why do you blithely repeat the same claim as if you had never been informed of its overwhelming problems?

[VadeRetro]

Yeah. You can picture those two-pound Castorocaudas just whipping up on those Jurassic Allosauruses and whatever. ;)

[editor-surveyor]

"It's clearly a fake, otherwise the same process that fossilized the foot would have fossilized the boot. Duh."

That is a simpleton's answer to a very puzzling find. The boot has been examined to death, and no process by which it could have been faked have been hypothesized by anyone. The portion of a leg is clearly in the boot, and the boot has clearly not been disassembled in any way. There are reports available at the museum regarding the examinations of the exhibit. The assertion that the leather should have been fossilized at the same rate as the leg are not based on any known empiricy, and had the whole thing been left where it was found, perhaps that would have been the result, but still would not have solved your problem.

[RightWingAtheist]

Here's a brief but good layman's page looking at what we know about pre-Eutheric mammals.

[null and void]

Words fail me.

That is such a mind boggling triumph of blind faith over clearly observable facts.

How do you do it without your head exploding?

[editor-surveyor]

All of your 'problems' are imaginary. That the isotope content of the material belched up from below differed from that of the material closer to the surface is no surprise, and all the models for nuke isotope dating are founded in circular assumptions.

As I said, a house of cards.

[P.O.E.]

[VadeRetro]

Thanks for that. So now, a new docodont with pretty good preservation. I wonder what specializations some of the less-preserved ones had.

[VadeRetro]

The boot has been examined to death...

Not true.

[jennyp]

baghdad-bob-lives PLACEMARKER

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"There are no problems with YEC at all. Don't believe the lies!!"

[VadeRetro]

Of course, you've already been informed of these issues (where the real-world evidence severely clashes with your scenario) here, here, and here, so why do you blithely repeat the same claim as if you had never been informed of its overwhelming problems?

I can't imagine why they can't see how this looks. So many of them do this.

[furball4paws]

That depends on whether you are looking at the water coming up out of the geyser or the stuff on the ground. Beautiful pictures of iron oxides, btw. If the water is hot there is little in it (Hot Springs, AR for example has <100 bacteria/ml - quite low. Many of Yellostone's geysers fall in the same range). But the water supports good growth once in contact with the ground, even if the temperature is still the same as the produced water. Shows you the water is "sterile" not because of the temperature, but because ground water is filtered through many feet of rock before it is "erupted".