Free Republic

Detailed fossilized insect remains preserved in amber for over 23 million years (AFP/HO) Peru researchers make rare ancient insect find (AFP) – 3 hours ago LIMA — Researchers in Peru said Tuesday they have discovered the remains of ancient insects and sunflower seeds trapped inside amber dating from the Miocene epoch, some 23 million years ago. The rare find was made in the remote mountainous jungle region near Peru's northern border with Ecuador, paleontologist Klaus Honninger told AFP. "These new discoveries are very important, because the insects and sunflower seeds confirm the type of climate that existed during the Miocene...

Palaeontologists have discovered two mammal hairs encased in 100 million-year-old amber. While older 2D fossilised hairs are known, those preserved in the amber are the oldest 3D specimens known. The hairs, found alongside a fly pupa in amber uncovered in southwest France, are remarkably similar to hair found on modern mammals. That implies that the shape and structure of mammal hair has remained unchanged over a vast period of time.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Marine microorganisms have been found in amber dating from the middle of the Cretaceous period. The fossils were collected in Charente, in France. This completely unexpected discovery will deepen our understanding of these lost marine species as well as providing precious data about the coastal environment of Western France during the Cretaceous.This work was carried out by researchers at the Géosciences Rennes laboratory (CNRS/Université de Rennes 1), together with researchers from the Paléobiodiversité et Paléoenvironnement laboratory in Paris (CNRS/Muséum national d'histoire naturelle/Université Pierre et Marie Curie) and the Centre de Géochimie de la Surface in Strasbourg (CNRS/Université de...

Scientists Discover 356 Animal Inclusions Trapped In Opaque Amber 100 Million Years OldExamples of virtual 3D extraction of organisms embedded in opaque amber: a) Gastropod Ellobiidae; b) Myriapod Polyxenidae; c) Arachnid; d) Conifer branch (Glenrosa); e) Isopod crustacean Ligia; f) Insect hymenopteran Falciformicidae. (Credit: M. Lak, P. Tafforeau, D. Néraudeau (ESRF Grenoble and UMR CNRS 6118 Rennes)) ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2008) — Paleontologists from the University of Rennes (France) and the ESRF have found the presence of 356 animal inclusions in completely opaque amber from mid-Cretaceous sites of Charentes (France). The team used the X-rays of the European light source...

Dino-Era Feathers Found Encased in Amber James Owen for National Geographic NewsMarch 11, 2008 Seven dino-era feathers found perfectly preserved in amber in western France highlight a crucial stage in feather evolution, scientists report. The hundred-million-year-old plumage has features of both feather-like fibers found with some two-legged dinosaurs known as theropods and of modern bird feathers, the researchers said. This means the fossils could fill a key gap in the puzzle of how dinosaurs gave rise to birds, according to a team led by Vincent Perrichot of the Museum für Naturkunde-Berlin in Germany. The find provides a clear example "of...

How Amber Becomes Death Trap For Watery Creatures ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2007) — Shiny amber jewelry and a mucky Florida swamp have given scientists a window into an ancient ecosystem that could be anywhere from 15 million to 130 million years old. Scientists at the University of Florida and the Museum of Natural History in Berlin made the landmark discovery that prehistoric aquatic critters such as beetles and small crustaceans unwittingly swim into resin flowing down into the water from pine-like trees. Their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The resin with its entombed...

MEXICO CITY (AP) - A Mexican researcher announced the rare find of a tiny tree frog completely preserved in amber on Wednesday that he estimates lived about 25 million years ago. The chunk of amber containing the 0.4-inch frog was uncovered by a miner in southern Chiapas states in 2005 and was bought by a private collector, who lent it to scientists for study. Only a few preserved frogs have been found in chunks of amber - a stone formed by ancient tree sap - mostly in the Dominican Republic. Like those, the frog found in Chiapas was of the...

A scientist has found a 100 million-year-old bee trapped in amber, making it possibly the oldest bee ever found. "I knew right away what it was, because I had seen bees in younger amber before," said George Poinar, a zoology professor at Oregon State University. The bee is about 40 million years older than previously found bees. The discovery of the ancient bee may help explain the rapid expansion and diversity of flowering plants during that time. Poinar found the bee in amber from a mine in the Hukawng Valley of northern Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. Many researchers buy...

A scientist has described a spider that was trapped and preserved in amber 20 million years ago. Palaeontologist Dr David Penney, of the University of Manchester, found the 4cm long by 2cm wide fossil during a visit to a museum in the Dominican Republic. Since the discovery two years ago, he has used droplets of blood in the amber to reveal the age of the specimen. It is thought to be the first time spider blood has been found in amber and scientists hope to extract its DNA. Dr Penney, of the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, said...

The world's oldest known spider silk has been found in a 130 million-year-old piece of amber. The discovery, which dates from the Early Cretaceous period, was made in amber beds located near Jezzine in Lebanon. The fibre is 90 million years older than the thread that previously held the record for the oldest preserved silk, according to the report in the journal Nature. The Lebanese silk strand is four millimetres in length and has tiny glue droplets spaced out along it. The diameter of the thread, and the size, density, arrangement and shape of the droplets, closely match those in...

Dinosaur Breath The largest flying creature alive today is the Andean condor Vultur gryphus. At maximum size it weighs about 22 pounds and has a wingspread of about 10 feet. But 65 million years ago in the late cretaceous period, the last age of dinosaurs, there was another larger flying animal, the giant pterosaur Quetzalcotalus. It had a wingspread of over 40 feet, the size of a small airplane. Other pterosaurs were also quite large. The pteranodons of the late jurassic period, the classic flying dinosaurs of magazine illustrations, had a maximum wingspan of about 33 feet. This presents a...

Mammoth discoveries on the North Norfolk coast could be bigger than the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, if marketed properly, according to a local tourism operator. Louise O’Shea, who runs the Beach Cafe in West Runton, spoke out after North Norfolk District Council missed out on £2 million from the Coastal Community Fund to rebrand a stretch of coastline, between Weybourne and Sea Palling, the Deep History Coast. She explained that the mystery of Nessie attracts around one million visitors to the shores of Loch Ness, in the Scottish Highlands, every year and is estimated to be worth around...

President Trump is skipping this year’s Kennedy Center honors after backlash from the honorees. Three of this year’s five award winners, including television icon Norman Lear, singer Lionel Richie and dancer Carmen de Lavallade, vowed to boycott the annual White House reception. Of the remaining honorees, Queens native and rapper LL Cool J hasn’t commented on whether he would attend, and singer Gloria Estefan pledged to use the event as an opportunity to influence Trump on immigration issues.

June 8, 2017 | David F. Coppedge Stop the Presses! Human Evolution Falsified! Human bones found in Morocco undermine almost everything that has been taught about human evolution since Darwin. But is that news? Happens every year, doesn’t it? This news is so hot, we have to get the word out now and wait for a fuller analysis later. Evolutionary paleoanthropology is in big trouble, if a new find in Morocco is as important as the news are making it out to be. Announced in Nature this week, the discoverers are dating bones from five individuals at over 300,000 Darwin...

Fossils Destroy Human Evolution Story Again Posted on February 16, 2017 The old picture of human evolution is in tatters again. “Your face is probably more primitive than a Neanderthal’s.” That surprising headline on the BBC News summarizes the radical change in thinking of leading evolutionary paleoanthropologists about so-called ‘modern’ humans: i.e., those members of our genus Homo that have been unblessed by the self-serving species name sapiens (“the wise”). If you read Richard Gray’s article without the assumption of evolution, you may find yourself questioning the sapience of some moderns.

Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered a 100-million-year-old insect preserved in amber with a triangular head, almost-alien and "E.T.-like" appearance and features so unusual that it has been placed in its own scientific "order" -- an incredibly rare event. There are about 1 million described species of insects, and millions more still to be discovered, but every species of insect on Earth has been placed in only 31 existing orders. Now there's one more. The findings have been published in the journal Cretaceous Research and describe this small, wingless female insect that probably lived in fissures in the bark...

A dinosaur fossil that almost went undiscovered is giving scientists valuable clues about a family of creatures that flourished just before the mass extinction. The bird-like species, found at a building site in southern China and nicknamed the 'Mud Dragon', was preserved almost intact, lying on its front with its wings and neck outstretched. Scientists speculate that the creature may have died in this pose after becoming mired in mud about 66-72 million years ago. Scientists have named the new species Tongtianlong limosus, meaning 'muddy dragon on the road to heaven'. The two-legged animal belongs to a family of feathered...

Paleontologists have teamed up with a paleoartist to create a model which challenges everything you thought you knew about the typical dinosaur. Dr. Jacob Vinther ofa Psittacosaurus — nicknamed a "parrot-lizard" — is about the size of a turkey, has bristles on its tail and a birdlike beak. In other words, a bit weird, but also pretty cute. It's also quite likely that the animal had feathers and a horn on each cheek, the experts say. Quite aptly, Psittacosaurus belongs to the group ceratopsians, which basically means "horned faces" in Greek. It's the same group that contains Triceratops. The scientists...

In an extraordinary find, a team of Australian researchers have uncovered the world's oldest fossils in a remote area of Greenland, capturing the earliest history of the planet and demonstrating that life on Earth emerged rapidly in the planet's early years. Led by the University of Wollongong's (UOW) Professor Allen Nutman, the team discovered 3.7-billion-year-old stromatolite fossils in the world's oldest sedimentary rocks, in the Isua Greenstone Belt along the edge of Greenland's icecap. The findings are outlined in a study published in Nature, with co-authors Associate Professor Vickie Bennett from The Australian National University (ANU), the University of New...

'Descendants of the Dragon' confirmed at the Liaohe River ValleyIn thousands of years, the Chinese people have been deeming themselves as "the descendant of the dragon" though there is no enough solid proof to support the statement. But in this year, with continually findings of dragons in archeological work at the Liaohe River Valley, the statement that the Chinese people are "the descendant of the dragon" is further confirmed. In thousands of years, the Chinese people have been deeming themselves as "the descendant of the dragon" though there is no enough solid proof to support the statement. But in this...