The impact of industrial fishing on coastal ecosystems has been studied for many years. But how it affects food webs in the open ocean―a vast region that covers almost half of the Earth’s surface―has not been very clear. So a team of Smithsonian and Michigan State University scientists and their colleagues looked to the ancient bones of seabirds for answers, revealing some of the dramatic changes that have happened within open-ocean food webs since the onset of industrial fishing. The team’s research is published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A Hawaiian petrel flies over part of its Pacific Ocean foraging grounds. (Photo by Jim Denny)

Few records of species that live in the open ocean date back more than 60 years, and the sheer size of open-ocean regions makes their food webs difficult to study. The Hawaiian petrel (Pterodroma sandwichensis), a crow-sized oceanic bird, offered the team a solution. These birds range widely over the northeast Pacific, and their diets integrate food webs from that vast area.

What the petrels have eaten is recorded in the chemistry of their bones. By extracting protein from bones and feathers and studying stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in the protein, the scientists were able to assess the birds’ diet and how it changed over centuries. What they found from bones 100 to 4,000 years old were nitrogen isotope ratios that were consistently high, indicating a diet of relatively large prey. Those less than a century old, after industrial fishing started, had low ratios, revealing a shift to smaller fish, squid and other prey.

“The question is, have the effects of open-ocean fishing gone beyond targeted species, like tuna,” said Anne Wiley, lead author, Smithsonian postdoctoral researcher and former MSU doctoral student. “Our study is among the very first to show that it has, and because Hawaiian petrels eat such a wide variety of prey over a large area, our results suggest that fishery influence may be widespread and profound in the Pacific. Understanding the influence of fisheries on open-ocean food webs has been one of the great mysteries of biological oceanography.”

In this image lead author Anne Wiley examines a newly discovered, ancient Hawaiian petrel skull from Puu Naio Cave, Maui. After radiocarbon dating, the team learned that this bird died around 1400 A.D. (Photo by Andreanna Welch)

The team’s isotope records are unusual because they are from all the known populations of the species, which breed on different Hawaiian Islands. The records show that separate populations of Hawaiian petrels hunted in different areas of the open ocean for thousands of years. The scientists revealed a foraging shift in multiple Hawaiian petrel populations, emphasizing that the petrels’ diets changed across a very broad expanse of the ocean. This sudden shift in the past 100 years suggests a relatively rapid change in the composition of oceanic food webs in the Northeast Pacific.

“Conservation efforts for endangered seabirds take place mainly on land at breeding colonies where there are obvious threats like introduced predators,” said Helen James, coauthor and research zoologist at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. “Our study suggests we should pay more attention to the lives of these birds at sea.”

There is little doubt that human activity is affecting planet Earth, but just how much? And is it all negative? Rick Potts is the director of the Human Origins Program and curator of anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History. In his nearly 30 years at the Smithsonian, Potts has studied the relationship between environmental change and human adaptation, leading excavations in the East African Rift Valley. In the interview below, Potts explores the human period of Earth’s history, the Anthropocene, and what it means for the future by looking far into the past.

Rick Potts studies and samples a portion of the long climate core obtained by drilling at the early human site of Olorgesailie. The core contains clues to the climate of the past 500,000 years, associated with the origin of our species. (Photo by Jennifer Clark)

Q: What exactly is the Anthropocene?

Potts: The Anthropocene is sometimes viewed as a new geological era on earth: the age of humans. But for many of us, that age has been so short-lived at this point that it’s more of a way of thinking about ourselves–acknowledging the enormous impact of human beings on planet earth.

Q: When was the beginning of the Anthropocene?

Potts: Asking to pinpoint the beginning of the Anthropocene is like asking, “When was the beginning of being human?” One could point to walking upright and making tools to do things and manipulate the world. Or one could look to recent times of the enormous population explosion since the industrial age. But there are all sorts of steps in between and I would say that the making of a stone tool more than 2 million years ago and controlling fire nearly a million years ago were the first real signs that something new was on the scene.

Approximately 2 million years old the Kanjera Stone Tool from Kanjera South, Kenya, is the oldest man-made object in the Smithsonian. According to anthropologist Rick Potts at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the start of the Anthropocene is marked by the use of the first man-made tools.

Q: What are three major ways humans are impacting the earth’s ecosystems?

Potts: Humans control six times more water – fresh water – than is free flowing across the continents. Eighty-three precent of all viable land on earth is occupied, used or altered by human beings, so the imprint of human beings on the landscape is extensive. We have done so much to alter the ocean. Just from silts eroded from agricultural land into the ocean, we can totally alter the nature of marine ecosystems.

Q: What do you say to people who say global warming is a hoax?

Potts: I would say that the scientific evidence is really profound that the earth is warming. These problems are going to need to be solved by a concerted action across the world. Denying climate change is unfortunately part of the range of the ways people try to adjust to a fairly difficult situation.

In September 2012, Rick Potts’s team recovered the first long climate core from an early human site by drilling to the floor of the East African Rift Valley in southern Kenya. The core reached sediments more than 160 meters below the ground. (Photo by Jennifer Clark)

Q: Can we reverse some of the negative effects of the Anthropocene?

Potts: I think there are some things that are too late. For example, the use of carbon-based fuels. Even if we stop right now the earth is going to warm immensely. Population increase – it’s hard to get people to stop having fulfilling lives with families. I think a vision for the Anthropocene is really a matter of–do you try to lower the river or raise the bridge? Lowering the river is really hard to do when the flood of Anthropocene events are coming closer to our own communities. Is raising the bridge an option? Well, I think we need to look at a third option: that is, accommodate the rising tide of problems that the Anthropocene poses and realize we’re all in the same ship together. I believe we need to figure out a way to have a ship that is larger than ourselves and includes as much biological diversity and cultural diversity that can fit into the large boat. –Emily Grebenstein

Miniature camels and horses, a rhinoceros and a giant bear-dog are among fossils unearthed in the recent excavations of the Panama Canal expansion project. These findings shed light on events millions of years ago that altered the Earth’s climate and dramatically changed the geographic distribution of plants and animals.

Juvenile dentition of Arretotherium merdionale, a hippo-like animal, from the Las Cascadas Formation, Panama Canal area. (Photo courtesy Florida Museum of Natural History)

On Friday, 26 Apr., scientists from the Smithsonian in Panama including Carlos Jaramillo, staff scientist and Bruce McFadden, visiting scientist and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Florida, and officials from the Panama Canal Authority including Engineer Ilya Marotta, Vice President of Engineering and Administration of Programs, gathered to celebrate the major accomplishments of an initial 5-year partnership that resulted in:

• Ten new species described based on fossil finds
• More than 6,000 samples collected and georeferenced
• New estimates for the timing of the tectonic and volcanic events that contributed to the formation of the land-bridge
• 50 scientific publications
• An international symposium at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America, 2012
• Presentations at many other international scientific meetings
• News reports in Panama and in major international media outlets
  

  University of Florida doctoral student Aldo Rincon holds the lower jaw of Aguascalietia panamaensis, a newly described species of ancient camel. The 20-million-year-old specimen was recovered from the Las Cascadas formation in Panama. (Photo by Jeff Gage, University of Florida)

“This is a win-win situation for both institutions and for the people of Panama,” said Elena Lombardo, from the Institute’s Office of External Affairs. “Just as the Panama Canal contributes to the world as a vital waterway for commerce, ongoing research in Panama contributes to the world’s understanding of geological history and the evolution of the plant and animal diversity in the American tropics.”

One of the most important results was the project’s contribution to training the next generation of scientists. The international division of the U.S. National Science Foundation granted an additional $4 million to researchers from the Smithsonian and the University of Florida to continue the project.

Following blasting to expand the Panama Canal, geologists and paleontologists organized by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute rush in to map, describe and recover any fossils they can find that might reveal more about the prehistoric ecology of Panama.

“These two projects, along with support from Panama’s national office of science and technology, SENACYT, have led to undergraduate and graduate-level training for students here and in the U.S.,” said Oris Sanjur, STRI’s Associate Director for Science Administration. “Panamanian doctoral student Catalina Pimiento organized the first paleobiology video telecourse for Panamanian students. The project also led to the first major in geology at the University of Panama, the first geology class at the Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá and major collaborations with the Universidad Nacional de Chiriquí, in western Panama.”

When the Panama Canal was built, enough rock was removed to bury Manhattan under 12 feet of rubble: 200 million cubic meters of earth. Now the slender waterway connecting the Pacific and the Caribbean is being widened to let through more and bigger ships, moving another 152 million cubic meters. This created the opportunity of a lifetime for geologists and paleontologists to understand Earth-changing events.

This fossil from a three-toed browsing horse, Anchitherium clarencei, found in the Panama Canal earthworks, is now in the collection of the University of Florida. (Photo courtesy Aldo Rincon)

More than 100 years ago, the scientific collaboration between Panama and the Smithsonian began when scientists conducted the Panama Biological Survey, basically an environmental impact statement for the construction of the Canal. From a storehouse full of fossil samples still to be processed and geological data to be analyzed, expect announcements of new findings about Panama’s unique geological and biological history for many years to come.

Cheeseburgers. Ice cream. French fries. These are a few of the culprits, doctors warn us, responsible for atherosclerosis, a disease commonly known as hardening of the arteries. Fatty materials from richly processed modern foods accumulate along our artery walls, gradually thickening then slowing and blocking the flow of blood, causing heart attacks and stroke. Our contemporary lifestyles and eating preferences, it would appear, are killing us.

Not so fast, say the authors of a new study published recently in the journal The Lancet. Using CT scans of 137 mummies from Egypt, Peru, southwest America and the Aleutian Islands whose lives spanned some 4,000 years, the researchers turned up evidence of atherosclerosis in approximately one third. These were people who lived thousands to hundreds of years ago, experienced hard daily physical activity and were farmers, foragers and hunter-gatherers. They never came close to a milkshake or a Twinkie. Commonly assumed to be a modern disease, atherosclerosis, the study’s authors conclude “is an inherent component of human aging and not characteristic of any specific diet or lifestyle.”

This video shows the bilateral carotid, bilateral subclavian, and brachiocephalic calcification of Hatiay, a male Egyptian scribe aged 40–50 years, who lived during the New Kingdom (1570–1293 Before Common Era) and was found near modern day Luxor.

“Like grey hair and wrinkles, atherosclerosis may well be part of the aging process,” says Bruno Frohlich, an emeritus scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, one of the paper’s co-authors. “That doesn’t mean we can go out and load-up on cheeseburgers and whipped cream because diet is probably a factor. But THE major factor of this disease may simply be age. The older you get the more likely you are to have hardening of the arteries.”

Co-author Gregory S. Thomas, MD, Medical Director of the Memorial Care Heart & Vascular Institute of Long Beach Memorial Medical Center in California, warns that while some diets are better than others, one cannot count on a particular diet warding off a condition such as atherosclerosis, that may be a fundamental aspect of aging.

This CAT scan shows calcification in the bilateral carotid, bilateral subclavian, and brachiocephalic veins of Hatiay, a male Egyptian scribe aged 40–50 years, who lived during the New Kingdom (1570–1293 Before Common Era), and was found near modern day Luxor.

Mummies used in the study included Ancient Egyptians from the predynastic era, ca 3,100 BCE to the end of the Roman era, 364 CE; Early intermediate to late horizon peoples from present day Peru, ca. 200-1500 CE; Ancestral Puebloans of the Archaic and Basketmaker II cultures of southwest America, ca 1500 BCE to 1500 CE; and the Unangan people from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, ca. 1756 – 1930. By examining individuals from a diversity of time periods, geographical locations and cultures the study proved that no particular life style or diet was protective against atherosclerosis, Frohlich explains.

The researchers examined five areas of the mummies’ bodies for atherosclerosis, the aorta, femoral artery in the thigh; tibial arteries in the legs; carotid arteries of the head and neck; and the heart arteries. A calcified deposit extending along the inside of an artery has a higher density than its surrounding tissue and shows up in a CT scan, Frohlich says.

The diets of the mummies the team scanned were very different, as were the climates in which they lived. Fish and game were a dietary component of all the cultures in the survey, but protein sources varied from cattle for the Egyptians to an almost entirely marine diet of the Unangans from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Egyptians had access to domestic cows, sheep, pigs and ducks while the Peruvians ate domesticated guinea pigs, ducks, Andean deer, birds, frogs and the plants corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, tarwi, manioc, peanuts, beans, bananas and hot peppers.

To augment their research, a team is now taking small tissue samples from a number of the mummies to study their DNA, as well as the stable isotope signatures to reconstruct diet and get the exact age of the mummies. “From a bone sample we can get an idea of what a person was eating for the last six years of his or her life,” Frohlich says.  “A hair sample can tell us what they ate for the last 4 to 6 months. And if we take a sample of the first lower molar then we may get an idea of what the mother ate while she was pregnant with that individual,” Frohlich says.

Africa isn’t the kind of place you might expect to find penguins. But one species lives along Africa’s southern coast today, and newly found fossils confirm that as many as four penguin species coexisted on the continent in the past. Exactly why African penguin diversity plummeted to the one species that lives there today is still a mystery, but changing sea levels may be to blame, the researchers say.

Only one penguin species lives in Africa today — the endangered black-footed penguin, or Spheniscus demersus. But newly found fossils confirm that as many as four penguin species coexisted on the continent in the past. (Harvey Barrison photo)

The fossil findings, described in a recent issue of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, represent the oldest evidence of these iconic tuxedo-clad seabirds in Africa, predating previously described fossils by 5 to 7 million years.

Co-authors Daniel Thomas of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and Dan Ksepka of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center happened upon the 10-12 million year old specimens in late 2010, while sifting through rock and sediment excavated from an industrial steel plant near Cape Town, South Africa.

Jumbled together with shark teeth and other fossils were 17 bone fragments that the researchers recognized as pieces of backbones, breastbones, wings and legs from several extinct species of penguins.

Based on their bones, these species spanned nearly the full size spectrum for penguins living today, ranging from a runty pint-sized penguin that stood just about a foot tall (0.3 m), to a towering species closer to three feet (0.9 m).

Only one penguin species lives in Africa today—the black-footed penguin, or Spheniscus demersus, also known as the jackass penguin for its loud donkey-like braying call. Exactly when penguin diversity in Africa started to plummet, and why, is still unclear.

Only one penguin species lives in Africa today — the endangered black-footed penguin. (Photos by Daniel Thomas)

Gaps in the fossil record make it difficult to determine whether the extinctions were sudden or gradual. “[Because we have fossils from only two time periods,] it’s like seeing two frames of a movie,” said co-author Daniel Ksepka. “We have a frame at five million years ago, and a frame at 10-12 million years ago, but there’s missing footage in between.”

Humans probably aren’t to blame, the researchers say, because by the time early modern humans arrived in South Africa, all but one of the continent’s penguins had already died out.

A more likely possibility is that rising and falling sea levels did them in by wiping out safe nesting sites.

Although penguins spend most of their lives swimming in the ocean, they rely on offshore islands near the coast to build their nests and raise their young. Land surface reconstructions suggest that five million years ago — when at least four penguin species still called Africa home — sea level on the South African coast was as much as 90 meters higher than it is today, swamping low-lying areas and turning the region into a network of islands. More islands meant more beaches where penguins could breed while staying safe from mainland predators.

But sea levels in the region are lower today. Once-isolated islands have been reconnected to the continent by newly exposed land bridges, which may have wiped out beach nesting sites and provided access to predators.

Although humans didn’t do previous penguins in Africa in, we’ll play a key role in shaping the fate of the one species that remains, the researchers add.

Numbers of black-footed penguins have declined by 80% in the last 50 years, and in 2010 the species was classified as endangered. The drop is largely due to oil spills and overfishing of sardines and anchovies — the black-footed penguin’s favorite food.

“There’s only one species left today, and it’s up to us to keep it safe,” Thomas said.–Source: National Evolutionary Synthesis Center/ Robin Ann Smith

The uplift of the Isthmus of Panama 2.6 million years ago formed a land-bridge that has long thought to be the crucial step in the interchange of animals between the Americas. This includes the  movement of armadillos and giant sloths up into North America, and the relatives of modern horses, rabbits, foxes, pigs, cats, dogs, and elephants down into South America.

This image shows a life reconstruction of Culebrasuchus mesoamericanus, gen. et sp. nov., in its ancient near coastal environment during the early Miocene of Panama. (Original artwork by Danielle Byerley © Florida Museum of Natural History)

However, in the March 2013 issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, researchers from the University of Florida and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute describe fossil crocodilians that shed a surprising new light on the history of interchange and animal distributions between the Americas.

The fossils are partial skulls of two new species of caiman, relatives of alligators, who live exclusively in South America today. They were discovered in rocks dated from 19.83 and 19.12 million years old and that were exposed by excavations associated with the expansion of the Panama Canal.

“These are the first fossil crocodilian skulls recovered from all of Central America. They fill a gap in evolution between the alligators of North America and the caimans of South America. It’s quite incredible.” says lead author Alex Hastings, a fossil crocodilian specialist at Georgia Southern University.

The presence of the fossils in Panama indicates that caimans dispersed North from South America by the early Miocene, which is over 10 million years earlier than the spread of mammals. This discovery is additionally important because caimans lack the ability to excrete excess salt from their bodies and are restricted to freshwater environments. As a result, they could have only dispersed a short distance across sea water, which supports a recent hypothesis that Central and South America were much closer to each other 19 million years ago than previously thought, and paints a new picture of the past histories of American animals.

“We are starting to understand that while the mammals in Panama 19-21 million years ago were very similar to those found in Mexico, Texas, and Florida at that time, the reptiles tell a different story,” says co-author Jonathan Bloch, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History. “Somehow, they were able to cross over from South America when it was completely isolated by seaways—this is one of the mysteries that will drive future inquiry and research in this region.”

Journal link:  Hastings, Alexander K, Jonathan I Bloch, Carlos Jaramillo, Aldo F Rincon, and Bruce J. MacFadden. “Systematics and biogeography of crocodylians from the Miocene of Panama.’ Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 33(2):1-125. Source: Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Dozens of biographies have been written about Charles Darwin, one of the most influential thinkers in history. Now, for the first time, his life is portrayed pictorially in an illustrated biography in graphic novel-style for all ages to enjoy—especially younger readers.

Darwin’s 1859 groundbreaking treatise On the Origin of Species established his theories of evolution and natural selection. Yet he was not born this legendary figure of scientific achievement—he began as an English boy who was ordinary in most ways, except for his exceptional curiosity.

Darwin: A Graphic Biography, released by Smithsonian Books in celebration of Darwin’s birthday Feb. 12, tells the story of his little-known youth. It is especially appropriate for ages 10 to 15 because its expressive text and illustrations draw readers into Darwin’s world and along for his adventures, including a “beetling” expedition and his legendary travels through Africa, South America and Australia. Readers will see the tirelessly inquisitive young boy learn and grow, and they will get to know the person Darwin was before he became a great scientist.

Darwin’s story is even presented by apes. The “Ape TV” feature used to frame the narrative gives readers basic facts about evolution that are presented in a humorous light. The graphic-novel format allows readers to immerse themselves in the scientific world of the 1800s and place Darwin’s accomplishments in that context. The book explains how evolutionary theory changed before, during and after Darwin’s life and how monumental Darwin’s contribution to science was.

Readers will learn that Darwin’s patience, curiosity and perseverance allowed him to become successful. Darwin: A Graphic Biography conveys the role of trial and error in science and the importance of finding out what one wants to explore in life.

About the Authors

Eugene Byrne is a freelance journalist whose work focuses on history and has been published in many periodicals, including BBC History. Simon Gurr is a cartoonist and illustrator who has been producing Web and print comics with a focus on educational illustration for more than 20 years. Darwin: A Graphic Biography is the third historical graphic novel that Byrne and Gurr have collaborated on.

To purchase Darwin: A Graphic Biography online please click here.

Archaeologists working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama have discovered a cluster of 12 unusual stones in the back of a small, prehistoric rock-shelter near the town of Boquete. The cache represents the earliest material evidence of shamanistic practice in lower Central America.

Ruth Dickau, Leverhulme Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Exeter in England, unearthed the cache of stones in the Casita de Piedra rock-shelter in 2007. A piece of charcoal found directly underneath the cache was radiocarbon dated to 4,800 years ago. A second fragment of charcoal in a level above the cache was dated to 4,000 years ago.

Stones found in precolombian shaman’s cache, Boquete, Panama (Composite photo by Ruth Dickau)

“There was no evidence of a disturbance or pit feature to suggest someone had come along, dug a hole and buried the stones at a later date,” Dickau said. “The fact that the stones were found in a tight pile suggests they were probably deposited inside a bag or basket, which subsequently decomposed.”

Based on the placement and the unusual composition of the stones in the cache, Richard Cooke, STRI staff scientist, suggested they were used by a shaman or healer. Consulting geologist Stewart Redwood determined that the cache consists of a small dacite stone fashioned into a cylindrical tool; a small flake of white, translucent quartz; a bladed quartz and jarosite aggregate; a quartz crystal aggregate; several pyrite nodules that showed evidence of use; a small, worn and abraded piece of chalcedony; a magnetic andesite flake; a large chalcedony vein stone; and a small magnetic kaolinite stone naturally eroded into an unusual shape, similar to a flower.

Casita de Piedra rockshelter. (Photo by Eduardo Bejerano)

“A fascinating aspect of this find is that these are not ordinary stones but are rocks and crystals commonly associated with gold deposits in the Central Cordillera of Panama and Central America,” Redwood said. “However, there are no gold artifacts in the rock-shelter, and there’s no evidence that the stones were collected in the course of gold prospecting as the age of the cache pre-dates the earliest known gold artifacts from Panama by more than 2,000 years. But the collector of the stones clearly had an eye for unusual stones and crystals with a special significance whose meaning is lost to us.”

Indigenous groups who lived near this site include the Ngäbe, Buglé, Bribri, Cabécar and the now-extinct Dorasque peoples. Shamans or healers (curanderos) belonging to these and other present-day First Americans in Central and South America often include special stones among the objects they use for ritual practices. Stones containing crystal structures are linked to transformative experiences in many of their stories.

Anthony Ranere, from Temple University in Philadelphia, first identified and excavated Casita de Piedra in an archaeological survey of western Panama in the early 1970s. He found that the small rock-shelter had been repeatedly occupied over thousands of years and used for a variety of domestic activities such as food processing and cooking, stone-tool manufacture and retouch, and possibly woodworking. Dickau returned to the site to expand excavations from December 2006 to January 2007.

Dickau’s group radiocarbon dated charcoal from the base levels of the shelter and discovered it was first occupied more than 9,000 years ago, much earlier than Ranere originally proposed. Her research also showed that the people who would have benefitted from the shaman’s knowledge practiced small-scale farming of maize, manioc and arrowroot, and collected palm nuts, tree fruits and wild tubers. They also probably hunted and fished in the nearby hills and streams, but the humid soils in the shelter destroyed any evidence of animal bones. Other Preceramic peoples in Panama who lived in small, dispersed communities across the isthmus by 4,000 years ago commonly practiced these activities.

This research project was authorized by Panama’s National Institute of Culture and funded by the Smithsonian and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.–Beth King

Two new mosquito species discovered in Eocene deposits from northwestern Montana reveal just how remarkably little these parasites have changed in the last 46 million years. Found in well preserved shale deposits the new fossils are so detailed that scientists were able to determine they represent two previously unknown species.

The remarkably detailed fossil of a female Culiseta lemniscata mosquito from the Eocene.

The fossils are not insects trapped in amber but compression fossils made of shale, explains Dale Greenwalt, a volunteer at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and co-author of a recent paper on the discovery.

The detailed fossil of a female Culiseta kishenehn mosquito from the Eocene.

The newly named Eocene mosquitoes—Culiseta kishenehn and Culiseta lemniscata—represent just two of perhaps hundreds of mosquito species that have come and gone in the last 45-million years, Greenwalt explains. “The consensus is that one species of insect might be able to make it through one million or two million years, and in the extreme maybe 10 million years. So it is amazing how similar the insects flying around today are to the ones that were flying around 50 million years ago. We can find morphological differences that distinguish specific species, but overall they are extremely similar.”

A male mosquito of the same species.

Equally remarkable is the level of preservation in the Montana fossils, which contain details as intricate as wing veins, sexual organs, scales and hair-like structures on the mosquito wings. “To think that something as fragile as a mosquito would die and settle to the bottom of a body of water and be preserved in rock is extraordinary. It must have been shallow, very calm water with an extremely thin annual sediment layer—something only a few hundred microns thick,” Greenwalt says. The Montana climate was much warmer then—wet subtropical to tropical, he adds.

Greenwalt and his colleagues have been excavating insect fossils from Kishenehn Basin shale in northwestern Montana for a number of years and so far have managed to collect nearly 20,000 fossil insect specimens, he says. “The vast majority are tiny gnats, an insect related to mosquitoes. The next most common is an aquatic bug that once scuttled around on the surface of shallow ponds and swamps,” Greenwalt says. “So far we have 35 fossil mosquitoes. The Kishenehn formation is turning out to have more highly preserved fossil mosquitoes than any other place in the world.” –John Barrat

Greenwalt and Ralph Harbach of the Natural History Museum, London, are co-authors of a recent paper in the journal Zootaxa describing the long extinct mosquitoes: “Two Eocene species of Culiseta (Diptera: Culicidae) from the Kishenehn Formation in Montana,” Zootaxa; Ralph E. Harbach & Dale Greenwalt.

A new species of hangingfly with wings that perfectly mimic the multi-lobed leaf of an ancient ginkgo-like tree has been discovered in China by scientists from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and the University of Maryland, as well as the College of Life Sciences at Capital Normal University, in Beijing. Exquisitely preserved in fossil sediments dating from the Middle Jurassic, the insect, newly named Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia, was discovered in 165 million-year-old deposits, as was the ginko-like tree, Yimaia capituliformis, the mimicked plant.

Reconstruction of J. ginkgofolia mimicking the leaves of Y. capituliformis. This relationship was beneficial for both the insect mimic and plant model. (Courtesy Chen Wang, Capital Normal University)

 “The mimicry is so amazing that some 165 million years later it even fooled me as I was examining fossils from the field and at the lab in China,” says Conrad Labandeira, paleobiologist at the National Museum of Natural History and co-author of a paper on the discovery in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. Hanging down by its long forelegs from the bottom of a leaf petiole, the four long wings and body of J. ginkgofolia would have perfectly mimicked the five hanging lobes of a single ginkgo-like leaf.

Hangingflies are a subset of scorpionflies with long legs, narrow wings and a long thin body. (The body of the type specimen of this insect is 38.5 millimeters, or about 1.5 inches.). J. ginkgofolia, was found in deposits of the Jiulongshan Formation at Daohugou Village, in northeastern China’s Inner Mongolia, and represents a new genus and species.

This fossil shows Juracimbrophlebia ginkgofolia, appearing similar to Y. capituliformis.

J. ginkgofolia’s shape and form most likely attracted smaller insects that fed upon the leaves of the ginkgo-like plant, which J. ginkgofolia would catch and eat, Labandeira explains. In this way the insect benefited from a reciprocal relationship with the tree, a relationship that the fossils indicate lasted about 1 million years. The ability of these insects to hide in plain-sight upon the leaves of the ginkgo-like tree also helped it avoid predators such as other insects, pterosaurs and small, tree-living dinosaurs and mammals.

A fossil of the ginkgoalean leaf Yimaia capituliformis.

“This discovery is important because it is a rare example of insect mimicry modeled on a gymnosperm and not a flowering plant,” Labandeira says. “Virtually all of today’s examples of insect mimicry are modeled on flowering plants, the angiosperms. J. ginkgoflora, however, lived about 45-million years before the appearance of flowering plants, so this discovery gives us better idea of the early relationships between gymnosperms and this hangingfly insect group.” Although the ginkgo-like Y. capituliformis occurs in other geologic deposits, the hangingfly has not, Labandeira says. “They both probably went extinct at the end of the Jurassic.”

“Jurassic mimicry between a hangingfly and a ginkgo from China,” (article link) by Yongjie Wang, Conrad C. Labandeira, Chungkun Shih, Qiaoling Ding, Chen Wang, Yunyun Zhao, and Dong Ren, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, volume 109.

Ancient pollen and charcoal preserved in deeply buried sediments in Egypt’s Nile Delta document the region’s ancient droughts and fires, including a huge drought 4,200 years ago associated with the demise of Egypt’s Old Kingdom, the era known as the pyramid-building time.

“Humans have a long history of having to deal with climate change,” said Christopher Bernhardt, a researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey. “Along with other research, this study geologically reveals that the evolution of societies is sometimes tied to climate variability at all scales — whether decadal or millennial.”

Deeply buried sediments in Egypt’s Nile Delta document ancient droughts associated with the demise of Egypt’s Old Kingdom, the era known as the pyramid-building time. (Wikipedia photo)

Bernhardt conducted this research with Benjamin Horton, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Jean-Daniel Stanley of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The study was published in July’s edition of Geology.

The researchers used pollen and charcoal preserved in a Nile Delta sediment core dating from 7,000 years ago to the present to help resolve the physical mechanisms underlying critical events in ancient Egyptian history.

They wanted to see if changes in pollen assemblages would reflect ancient Egyptian and Middle East droughts recorded in archaeological and historical records. The researchers also examined the presence and amount of charcoal because fire frequency often increases during times of drought, and fires are recorded as charcoal in the geological record. The scientists suspected that the proportion of wetland pollen would decline during times of drought and the amount of charcoal would increase.

And their suspicions were right.

Large decreases in the proportion of wetland pollen and increases in microscopic charcoal occurred in the core during four different times between 3,000 and 6,000 years ago. One of those events was the abrupt and global mega-drought of around 4,200 years ago, a drought that had serious societal repercussions, including famines, and which probably played a role in the end of Egypt’s Old Kingdom and affected other Mediterranean cultures as well.

The Nile River and Delta seen from space. (NASA image)

“Our pollen record appears very sensitive to the decrease in precipitation that occurred in the mega-drought of 4,200 years ago,” Bernhardt said. “The vegetation response lasted much longer compared with other geologic proxy records of this drought, possibly indicating a sustained effect on delta and Nile basin vegetation.”

Similarly, pollen and charcoal evidence recorded two other large droughts: one that occurred some 5,000 to 5,500 years ago and another that occurred around 3,000 years ago.

These events are also recorded in human history — the first one started some 5,000 years ago when the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt occurred and the Uruk Kingdom in modern Iraq collapsed. The second event, some 3,000 years ago, took place in the eastern Mediterranean and is associated with the fall of the Ugarit Kingdom and famines in the Babylonian and Syrian Kingdoms.

“Even the mighty builders of the ancient pyramids, more than 4000 years ago, fell victim when they were unable to respond to a changing climate,” USGS Director Marcia McNutt said. “This study illustrates that water availability was the climate-change Achilles’ heel then for Egypt, as it may well be now, for a planet topping seven billion thirsty people.”—Source: University of Pennsylvania.

Paleontologist Carlos Jaramillo’s group at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and colleagues at North Carolina State University and the Florida Museum of Natural History discovered a new species of fossil turtle that lived 60 million years ago in what is now northwestern South America. The team’s findings were published in the Journal of Paleontology.

An artist’s conception of the prehistoric turtle Puentemys mushaisaensis. (Illustration by Liz Bradford)

The new turtle species is named Puentemys mushaisaensis because it was found in La Puente pit in Cerrejón Coal Mine, a place made famous for the discoveries, not only of the extinct Titanoboa, the world’s biggest snake, but also of Carbonemys, a freshwater turtle as big as a smart car.

Scientists excavate a fossil specimen of Puentemys mushaisaensis from the Cerrejon Coal Mine. (Photo by Edwin Cadena)

Cerrejon’s fossil reptiles all seem to be extremely large. With its total length of 5 feet, Puentemys adds to growing evidence that following the extinction of the dinosaurs, tropical reptiles were much bigger than they are now. Fossils from Cerrejon offer an excellent opportunity to understand the origins of tropical biodiversity in the last 60 million years of Earth’s history.

The most peculiar feature of this new turtle is its extremely circular shell, about the size and shape of a big car tire. Edwin Cadena, post-doctoral fellow at North Carolina State University and lead author of the paper, said that the turtle’s round shape could have discouraged predators, including Titanoboa, and aided in regulating its body temperature.

The width of the turtle’s shell probably exceeded the maximum expansion of the Titanoboa’s mouth. Its circular, low-domed shape would have increased the area of the body exposed to the sun, helping the cold-blooded turtle warm to a temperature at which it was more active.

Reference:  Cadena, E.A., Bloch, J.I., and Jaramillo, C.A. 2012. New Bothremydid turtle (Testudines, Pleurodira) from the Paleocene of Northeastern Colombia. Journal of Paleontology, 86(4):689-699.