Posted on 12/18/2006 3:43:14 PM PST by blam
Germs Found Trapped in Amber Lived With First Dinosaurs
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
December 13, 2006
Scientists have discovered a "microworld" of 220-million-year-old life trapped in tiny drops of ancient amber.
The fossilized plant resin preserved bacteria, fungi, algae, and microscopic animals known as protozoans some 220 million years ago—the era when the very first dinosaurs began to appear.
Surprisingly, these microscopic organisms look quite familiar to today's scientists.
Alexander Schmidt and colleagues from the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, report that the microbes have undergone few or no physical changes since the Triassic period—from 245 million to 208 million years ago.
During Earth's many geological epochs and climatic shifts, countless species have appeared only to vanish or evolve. Yet these microbes appear to be related to present-day organisms.
The find was described in this week's edition of the journal Nature.
Extinction Survivors
Most fossils of microorganisms have been found in marine sediments, not terrestrial environments.
And such marine fossils typically reveal patterns of great change over Earth's many epochs, unlike the new Triassic amber find.
"Many marine microorganisms serve as so-called index fossils [for the dating of rock sediments] because they are so characteristic for a single period of time," Schmidt said.
Terrestrial regions changed as much as marine environments did during these shifts, he added, but not all of these changes registered at a microscopic scale "Although there were big changes in the composition of forests from the Triassic to recent [times] … their microhabitats probably changed little, even during extinction events," Schmidt explained.
Many ancient organisms have been found in amber, but samples older than about 135 million years are quite rare.
The amber was found near Cortina d'Ampezzo, a village in the Dolomites mountain range in northern Italy.
During the Triassic, the region was covered by humid forests on the coast of an ancient sea.
Surprisingly? Why is that a surprise? Protozoans stumbled upon a winning formula. Why change when there's no pressure to?
Well if they didn't change a great deal this could be considered a shot in the arm for 'intelligent design' for one.
Someday we'll open a real Pandora's Box.
No it wouldn't. Nothing in evolutionary theory says that an organism that has stumbled upon a successful formula has to change -- in fact it says the opposite. There will always be some genetic changes over time, but there's absolutely no need for dramatic change if the formula works.
Have any single cell creatures changed much in 200 million years? Doesn't seem like they necessarily would. Colonies, i.e., animals might change, evolve, considerably while retaining the same kinds of cells all along.
If it ain't broke don't fix it.
"Why are these micro organisms so familiar?"
Great numbers of ancient germs and other poxy bugs and organisms have existed for decades in the United States Congress, not to mention the local legislatures of many of the fifty states.
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"Hey, did anyone find the princes?"
I dino.
How soon will some bozo scientist decide to grow some of these things and forget to lock them up tight one night?
*ahem*
That's why sex was a great invention from an evolutionary standpoint...
Cortina d'ampezzo
that's it, way down there...
Hold on...my wife really needs to see this.
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