“Misty”  The Diplodocus Skeleton Purchased by the Natural History Museum of Denmark

The mounted, fossilised remains of a seventeen-metre-long Diplodocus sold at auction last month has been purchased by the Natural History Museum of Denmark.  The museum, which has links to the University of Copenhagen celebrates it’s tenth anniversary on New Years Day and the purchase of this Jurassic sauropod skeleton makes a nice Christmas/Tenth anniversary present for the institution.

Diplodocus Skeleton

The Museum came into being on the 1st January 2004 with the amalgamation of a number of museums (including the geological and zoological museums) and other organisations into one body.  Everything Dinosaur reported on the auction of “Misty” – as this was the nickname of the mounted specimen, earlier in the year.  When the auction took place, the Diplodocus sold for £400,000 GBP (approximately 472,000 euros) but at the time the name of the purchaser was not revealed.

To read more about the sale of “Misty” the Diplodocus: Diplodocus Goes Under the Hammer.

Rare Specimen

Believed to one of just a handful of near complete specimens in the world that represent the Diplodocus genus, the fossil material was originally excavated in Wyoming and from there it went to Holland for further preparation work, cleaning and mounting.  In an announcement to the press, the Copenhagen based museum confirmed that it had bought this auction lot.  The dinosaur, thought to be a female, was purchased following a donation from the Obel Family Foundation.

Diplodocus on its Way to Denmark

Diplodocus Fossil Going to Danish Museum.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The model depicted on the flag of Denmark is one from the CollectA Prehistoric Life model collection, to view this extensive range: CollectA Prehistoric Life/Prehistoric World Models.

Museum Director Morten Meldgaard commented:

 “To own a giant dinosaur is, of course, the dream of any natural history museum.  In order to understand the nature and the world we live in, we have to understand the past, and more than anything else, a dinosaur is an object that connects us with the distant past.”

The Evolution of Life Gallery

The Diplodocus will very probably go on exhibit within a gallery dedicated to the evolution of life on Earth, amongst the Museum’s existing, extensive fossil collection.  With the amalgamation of the various museums and other institutions into a single attraction visitors can marvel at the fossils, hundreds of minerals and examine the huge zoological collection as well as enjoy the famed Botanical gardens.

Christen Obel, the Chairman of the Obel Family Foundation stated:

“I think it’s quite obvious and right that the Natural History Museum of Denmark should own a dinosaur.  So when we suddenly had the opportunity to give the museum this early Christmas present, we jumped at the chance.”

Despite being a small country, the geology of Denmark is extremely varied and many different types of fossil bearing sedimentary deposits are exposed and can be explored.  A number of quarries grant permission to parties of fossil hunters and there are a number of sites along Denmark’s coast where different types of fossil can be found, including many vertebrates (fish).  Intriguingly, Denmark is one of the few countries in Europe where the K-T boundary, that thin iridium layer that separates the Mesozoic from the Cenozoic can be accessed.

It looks like the Diplodocus specimen has found a good home and it is pleasing to hear that this specimen will still be able to be viewed by the public and utilised by palaeontologists carrying out research.

Arcovenator escotae – Hunter from the Arc River Region of France

The Abelisauridae family tree just got a little bit bigger.  A team of scientists from France have published a paper on a new abelisaur, this fossil discovery proves beyond reasonable doubt that these narrow-snouted, short-armed theropods were present in Europe at the very end of the Cretaceous.  Say hello to Arcovenator escotae, which alongside the likes of Tarascosaurus* (T. salluvicus) becomes the second abelisaur to be known from France.

* The fragmentary nature of the fossil material ascribed to Tarascosaurus has led some scientists to question whether this dinosaur actually is a member of the Abelisauridae family.

Abelisaurid

In 2007, as a French construction company called Escota worked on an extension to the major trunk road, the A8, close to the city of Aix-en-Provence, (which itself is about twenty miles north of Marseilles), a series of fossil fragments were discovered in fluvial sandstones, all of which probably came from the same individual animal.

The fossil material consisted of elements from the back of the skull, a tail bone (caudal vertebra), bones from the lower right leg and three teeth.  Importantly, the presence of cranial material, enabled the scientists including Thierry Tortosa (Museum of Natural History, Aix-en-Provence) in collaboration with Eric Buffetaut, one of the world’s leading experts on European dinosaurs, and the palaeontologist responsible for naming and describing Tarascosaurus, to positively identify the material as being from an abelisaur.

Arcovenator escotae

This new dinosaur has been named Arcovenator escotae, the name means “hunter from the River Arc”, the specific name honours the motorway construction company which delayed the building work until all the sediments and strata in the construction site had been properly mapped and explored.

New theropod dinosaur from France.

Phylogenetic studies carried out by the French team suggest that this member of the Abelisauridae is more closely related to the taxa known from India and Madagascar than to South American forms of abelisaur.  In addition, along with Tarascosaurus, Arcovenator is assigned a position in the Abelisauridae that indicates it is a basal, primitive member.  The discovery of these fossils in Campanian aged strata (72-76 million years old), have led the scientists to propose that Africa and Europe may have played a significant role in abelisaurid dispersal, and not South America as previously thought.

Fearsome, theropods – a typical Abelisaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

At an estimated six metres in length, this theropod was very probably the apex predator in what was to become southern Europe at the end of the Cretaceous.  It shared its environment with titanosaurs, ornithopods and a variety of mammals and birds, including several types of large flightless bird.

The scientific paper: “A new abelisaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of southern France: Palaeobiogeographical implications” by Thierry Tortosa, Eric Buffetaut, Nicolas Vialle, Yves Dutour, Eric Turini, Gilles Cheylan published in the Annales de Paléontologie.

Research Shows that Neanderthals and Denisovans were Closely Related

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology based in Leipzig (Germany) have completed an analysis of ancient hominin DNA from a cave located in the Altai Mountains of Siberia.  Their study suggests the existence of a mystery human species, as evidence from the genome indicates the likelihood of extensive interbreeding and the possible recording of genetic material from Homo erectus.  H. erectus, although very different from modern humans, is much more “modern looking” than earlier hominins.  It also has the distinction of being the longest living species in terms of the age of its fossil record.

Homo erectus

The earliest fossil material ascribed to H. erectus is approximately 1.9 million years old, yet H. erectus may have survived until just fifty thousand years ago.  Fossils are known from Europe and Asia, but it is likely this species evolved in Africa.  It is the oldest globally distributed species of hominin known.

The research team have also announced that they have completed the most detailed analysis of a Neanderthal’s DNA to date.  The details of the team’s work has been published in the scientific journal “Nature”.  Back in 2010, Everything Dinosaur team members reported on the discovery of a new hominin species after researchers found fragmentary fossil remains in a cave located in the Altai Mountains.  The cave known as the Denisova Cave, gave rise to the name of this new species, they were labelled Denisovans, a type of human distinct from both Neanderthals and H. sapiens that lived in that part of Siberia forty thousand years ago.

To read the article on the discovery of the Denisovans: Evidence of New Species of Early Human Found.

Neanderthal Toe Bone

This new research concerns a Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) toe bone that was found in the same cave as the Denisovan discovery, although it comes from a layer of sediments believed to date from between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago.  The Denisova site has provided evidence of Denisovans, Neanderthals and modern humans, this location seems to have been home to at least three species of early humans over the years – although each species occupied the cave at different times in prehistory.

The Neanderthal Toe Bone Used in the Study

Neanderthal Toe Bone used in the Study.

Picture credit: Bence Viola

Professor Svante Paabo (Max Planck Institute) led the analysis of the toe bone and it has revealed some interesting information about both Neanderthals and other early human types.  The toe bone came from a female Neanderthal, one that was highly inbred perhaps the child of half-siblings who shared the same mother.  Other family relationship scenarios are possible however, including that her parents were an uncle/niece or aunt/nephew combination.  It is also feasible from the DNA study that her parents were a grandparent and grandchild or double first-cousins (the children of two siblings who bred with siblings).

Whatever the exact family relationship, based on this evidence, even the most ardent soap script writers would do well to come up with a convoluted story line to explain this one away.

Denisovan Cave Material

The research into the toe bone when compared to data on the Denisovans suggest that Neanderthals and Denisovans were closely related and probably looked very similar to each other as species.  Based on this study, it indicates that the Neanderthal/Denisovan common ancestor split off from the branch of the human family tree that would eventually lead to our own species, around 400,000 years ago.  The genome study as revealed by the Max Planck Institute also indicates that the Neanderthals and the Denisovans themselves diverged from each other around 300,000 years ago.

In addition, this genetic analysis threw up a surprise result.  It has been postulated that the Denisovans interbred with a mystery, fourth type of early hominin that was living in Eurasia.  Between 2.7 and 5.8% of the Denisovan genome comes from this, as yet not identified species.

This group split from the others more than a million years ago, and may represent the early human species known as Homo erectus, which fossils show was living in Europe and Asia a million or more years ago.
But Spanish researchers also recognise a species known as Homo antecessor, whose fossils show up about a million years ago at the Atapuerca site, near Burgos in Spain, and this may be another candidate.

Though Denisovans and Neanderthals eventually died out, they left behind bits of their genetic heritage because they occasionally interbred with modern humans.  The research team estimates that between 1.5 and 2.1 percent of the genomes of modern non-Africans can be traced to Neanderthals, whilst perhaps as much as 0.8% (on average across the entire human genome), of modern human DNA can be traced back to the Denisovan lineage, although most Denisovan DNA traces are associated with those modern humans from Oceanic or Asian populations.

Excavations in the Denisova Cave System Indicate at Least Three Species of Hominin Have Inhabited It

Excavation work in the cave.

Picture credit: Bence Viola

The study proposes that as much 6% of the genomes of Aboriginal Australians, natives of New Guinea and some Pacific Islanders can be traced to Denisovans.  The new analysis finds that the genomes of Han Chinese and other mainland Asian populations, as well as of Native Americans, contain about 0.2% Denisovan genes.

Interbreeding between populations has certainly “clouded” the genetic map of modern humans and it is difficult to distinguish links to different species as a result, but the research has also identified at least eighty-seven specific genes to H. sapiens that are significantly different to Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA.  The research team suggest that these genes may hold clues to behavioural differences between different types of early human and may even go some way to explaining why we are still here but the Neanderthals and Denisovans as species are extinct.

Mummified Edmontosaurus Fossil Provides Evidence of a Soft-Tissue Comb like a Rooster

The weird and wonderful world of the Dinosauria just got a little more peculiar with the publication of a scientific paper in the academic journal “Current Biology” that announces the discovery of a soft-tissue comb present in the fossilised remains of a duck-billed dinosaur discovered in Canada.  The fossil record rarely preserves soft tissues and although a number of palaeontologists had suspected that some types of dinosaur may have sported flamboyant soft tissue crests, fossil evidence had been rather thin on the ground.

Soft Tissue Crest

Looking at birds, reptiles and mammals today a number of species have various soft skin pouches, wattles combs and even trunks in the case of members of the Proboscidea.  So why not extinct animals?  It seems that scientists examining the skull of a beautifully mummified hadrosaur from Upper Cretaceous sediments that make up the Wapiti Formation (Alberta, Canada) have uncovered evidence of soft tissue crests in a species of Edmontosaurus (E. regalis) whilst working close to the city of Grande Prairie.

The three-dimensional, cranial crest seems to be entirely composed of soft tissue.  Its location came as a big surprise to Dr Phil Bell (Department of Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia), as he put his chisel through the middle of it as he prepared the fossil skull specimen.  He simply did not expect to find any structure that was part of the dinosaur in that part of the matrix that he was excavating.

Duck-billed Dinosaur

Edmontosaurus is one of the best known Late Cretaceous dinosaurs.  It was one of the most abundant types of dinosaur roaming North America in the Late Cretaceous.  These herbivores grew up to 12 metres in length and a number of species have been described from fossil remains found in both the United States and Canada.

An Illustration of an Edmontosaurus

Edmontosaurus dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Commenting on the discovery, Dr Bell stated:

“An elephant’s trunk or a rooster’s comb might never fossilise because there is no bone in them.  This discovery is equivalent to learning for the first time that elephants had trunks.  We have lots of skulls of Edmontosaurus, but until now there have been no clues to suggest they might have had a big fleshy crest.”

“Flat-headed Hadrosaurines”

Previously, palaeontologists had described the likes of Edmontosaurus as “flat-headed hadrosaurines”, their skulls generally lacking the spectacular bony, hollow crests of the lambeosaurine hadrosaurs, dinosaurs such as Corythosaurus and Lambeosaurus.  Now it looks like this view is going to have to be revised.  The crests on some hadrosaurs had been linked to vocalisation, social signalling or intra-specific competition where animals of the same species might compete for mates.

This fossil find, from a mummified Edmontosaurus, one of a few dinosaur “mummies” known to science, provides the first view of a soft-tissue signalling structure in the Dinosauria.

A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur commented:

“Although no colour evidence has been recovered from the fossil, we can speculate that this was a colourful crest, further evidence of ornamentation in the Dinosauria.  This is additional evidence that hints at complicated social behaviour amongst ornithopods.”

Crest evolution within Hadrosaurinae apparently culminated in the secondary loss of the bony crest in genera that lived at the very end of the age of dinosaurs.  However, the new specimen indicates that cranial ornamentation was in fact not lost but substituted in Edmontosaurus by a fleshy display structure.  It also implies that visual display played a key role in the evolution of hadrosaurine crests and raises the possibility of similar soft-tissue structures among other members of the Dinosauria.

An Illustration of E. regalis with the “Rooster” Comb

Soft-tissue crests in members of the Dinosauria.

Picture credit: Julius Csotonyi

A Mummified Dinosaur

Described as being like a rather small, rounded bowler hat-like structure, the palaeontologists studying the fossil material estimate the soft-tissue crest was approximately 20 centimetres high and perhaps as much as 30 centimetres in length.  Although the fossilised remains are described as “mummified” this is not a technically correct term.  Very hot and dry conditions can desiccate the bodies of once living creatures, leading to a remarkable degree of preservation.

In the case of the dinosaur fossils often referred to as “mummies”, their remains have been buried quickly, the bones are in the “life position” and articulated, very occasionally soft tissue structures such as skin impressions are preserved. However, this is the first time that scientists have found evidence of a skull crest comprised entirely of soft tissue.

Dr Bell went onto to speculate that other dinosaurs, even really famous ones might have sported soft-tissue crests and other structures.  He stated:

“There’s no reason that other strange fleshy structures couldn’t have been present on a whole range of other dinosaurs, including T. rex or Triceratops.”

The hadrosaur specimen has been preserved in the typical “death pose” of a dinosaur, with the head and neck arched over the back, the picture below shows the position of the fossil portion in respect to the rest of the animal and the white arrows indicate the position of the crest.

Looking at the Crest Fossil Material (E. regalis)

Dinosaur with a chicken’s comb.

Picture credit: Federico Fanti et al/Current Biology

The white arrows indicate the position of the crest, “c” = comb or crest indicate, the “m” refers to matrix, infill by sediment.  Scale bar shown represents 10 centimetres and the “ca” represents cluster areas which are referred to within the scientific paper.

A Close up of the Edmontosaurus Skull Material

Arrows indicate preserved impression of skin, the presence of a crest and skull bones.

Picture credit: Federico Fanti

This fossil discovery provides further evidence that the bones of dinosaur and other vertebrates do not necessarily, give us the complete picture of how they actually looked.  The research team have to be congratulated for the great care they have taken (not withstanding the odd slip with the chisel), in the preparation of this fossil material.