Fossils Discovery : latest - NZ never sank completely

amazed

Tuesday January 15, 2008
Ancient dinosaur fossil haul returned to China

By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA (Reuters) - A 100-million-year-old haul of dinosaur eggs and fossils from China and smuggled illegally into Australia was on Tuesday headed back to Beijing.

Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett handed over more than 750 kilograms of dinosaur, mammal and reptile fossils, estimated to be worth millions of dollars, to Chinese ambassador Zhang Junsai in Canberra.

"I am delighted to return them to their rightful place. Australia will not tolerate illicit trade in cultural heritage objects," Garrett said.

The fossils belonged to a cache seized by police after raids in Western Australia state between 2004 and 2007, mounted with the help of Chinese authorities.

The best would attract black market prices of up to A$100,000 ($90,000), although they were culturally priceless, Garrett said.

The hoard included 1,300 fossilised dinosaur eggs and skulls, dinosaur nests and fossilised fish. Some of the oldest Trilobite examples were up to 450-million-years-old.

Clusters of meat-eating velociraptor eggs lay petrified alongside nests from dome-headed Nithopods, which roamed earth between 70 and 122 million years ago.

A complete skeleton of a Keichousaurus, a marine reptile from the Triassic period 230 million years ago, was also among the group, most of which came from Liaoning Province in northern China, an area renowned for fossils.

"They are key to understanding the evolutionary phases of life on earth," Garrett said.

Zhang said there was no evidence Australia was a hub for illegal trade in fossils, although a hoard of 10,000 fossils was returned to China in 2005 and another the previous year.

"China is working very hard and seriously on the conservation of its natural and cultural heritage. Such reckless risk-taking will not escape the punishment of the law," he said.

Australia in 2005 returned to Egypt's ambassador a bronze axe head, bowl and jewellery unearthed in tombs and dated to between 664 and 332BC, after they were discovered at a Melbourne gallery.

Another 130 kilograms of dinosaur and plant fossils were returned to Argentina in 2007.

[ Last edited by  amazed at 25-1-2009 12:11 AM ]

amazed

Fossil of most primitive 4-legged creature found
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

Wed Jun 25




This undated handout artist rendering provided
by Philip Renne shows a Ventastega. Scientists
have found the fossil skull of the most primitive
four-legged critter in Earth's history, a key point
in the evolution from fish to animals that eventually
walked on on land. At lower left are two Bothriolepis




WASHINGTON - Scientists unearthed a skull of the most primitive four-legged creature in Earth's history, which should help them better understand the evolution of fish to advanced animals that walk on land.

The 365 million-year-old fossil skull, shoulders and part of the pelvis of the water-dweller, Ventastega curonica, were found in Latvia, researchers report in a study published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Even though Ventastega is likely an evolutionary dead-end, the finding sheds new details on the evolutionary transition from fish to tetrapods. Tetrapods are animals with four limbs and include such descendants as amphibians, birds and mammals.

While an earlier discovery found a slightly older animal that was more fish than tetrapod, Ventastega is more tetrapod than fish.

The fierce-looking creature probably swam through shallow brackish waters, measured about three or four feet long and ate other fish. It likely had stubby limbs with an unknown number of digits, scientists said.

"If you saw it from a distance, it would look like a small alligator, but if you look closer you would find a fin in the back," said lead author Per Ahlberg, a professor of evolutionary biology at Uppsala University in Sweden.

"I imagine this is an animal that could haul itself over sand banks without any difficulty. Maybe it's poking around in semi-tidal creeks picking up fish that got stranded."

This all happened more than 100 million years before the first dinosaurs roamed Earth.

Scientists don't think four-legged creatures are directly evolved from Ventastega. It's more likely that in the family tree of tetrapods, Ventastega is an offshoot branch that eventually died off, not leading to the animals we now know, Ahlberg said.

"At the time there were a lot of creatures around of varying degrees of advancement," Ahlberg said. They all seem to have similar characteristics, so Ventastega's find is helpful for evolutionary biologists.

Ventastega is the most primitive of these transition animals, but there are older ones that are oddly more advanced, said Neil Shubin, professor of biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago, who was not part of the discovery team but helped find Tiktaalik, the fish that was one step earlier in evolution.

"It's sort of out of sequence in timing," Shubin said of Ventastega.

Ahlberg didn't find the legs or toes of Ventastega, but was able to deduce that it was four-limbed because key parts of its pelvis and its shoulders were found. From the shape of those structures, scientists were able to conclude that limbs, not fins were attached to Ventastega.

One question that scientists are trying to figure out is why fish started to develop what would later become legs.

Edward Daeschler, associate curator of vertebrate zoology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, theorizes that the water was so shallow that critters like Ventastega had an evolutionary advantage by walking instead of swimming.




aku kagum dgn palaentologist nih..      camner ler depa boley tahu 365 million nyer fossil sumer nih...  cisss    respect samer ahli2 kaji bumi  nih...   ....  kalu tengok kat lukisan ventastega tu.. mcm kepala bewak  ajer...

cluesan

bila ko master dlm bidang biology sebagai asas, semua ni x mustahil, sbb drpd tulang2 dan fosil2 tersebut kita leh tahu usia dan bagaimanakah rupa haiwan tersebut melalui discoloration, preservation, decayness dan lain2 lagi.

Science is really fun.

kroit92

menggunakan carbon-14 untuk mengenal pasti usia fossil..  

amazed

Sarang reptilia era dinosaur ditemui

WELLINGTON: Satu sarang spesies reptilia dipercayai wujud sejak zaman dinosaur ditemui di kawasan darat New Zealand, penemuan pertama dalam tempoh 200 tahun lalu, kata pihak berkuasa, semalam.

Empat biji telur putih bersisik reptilia ‘tuatara’ asli ditemui kakitangan di Kawasan Perlindungan Hidupan Liar Karori di sini, ketika penyelenggaraan rutin semalam, kata pengurus pemuliharaan Rouen Epson.

“Sarangnya ditemui secara tidak sengaja dan ia adalah bukti konkrit pertama yang kami dapati bahawa tuatara itu sedang membiak. Mungkin ada sarang lain di kawasan ini,” katanya lagi.

Tuatara, reptilia seperti naga yang boleh membesar sehingga 80 sentimeter, adalah keturunan terakhir spesis yang berjalan bersama dinosaur 225 juta tahun lalu, kata pakar zoologi.

Ia mempunyai karektor yang unik seperti dua barisan gigi atas menutupi satu bahagian bawah. Ia juga mempunyai mata yang sama, kelenjar yang sensitif cahaya pada bahagian atas tengkoraknya. Satu tompokan kulit berwarna putih - digelar ‘mata ketiga’ akan hilang secara beransur ketika ia membesar.

Spesies asal New Zealand, tuatara hampir pupus di tiga pulau utama negara itu lewat 1700-an berikutan adanya pemangsa seperti tikus. Ia masih hidup di hutan belantara di 32 pulau kecil yang bebas daripada pemangsa itu.

Sebanyak 70 ekor tuatara dihasilkan di Taman Perlindungan Karori pada 2005. Tambahan 130 lagi dibebaskan di taman itu tahun lalu.

Taman Perlindungan seluas 250 hektar itu terletak tidak jauh dari pinggir bandar ini, ditubuhkan untuk membiak burung asal, serangga dan haiwan lain terlindung daripada pemangsa. - AP





ni gambaq tuatara (lived more than 200 million years ago..)

   


ada kat auckland zoo .. endangered species!!

Tuataras are the only remaining descendants of an order of ancient reptiles that lived more than 200 million years ago. The animals live on just a few small islands off the coast of New Zealand. They are nocturnal, sleeping during the day and hunting for insects, birds, or small lizards at night. Should a predator seize a tuatara’s tail, the animal can easily shed the appendage and grow a new one.

z3t_ex

biar betik,
tikus pn bole pupus tuatara..
body skit pnya ganas..

GRINDSAKHTANIC

ahhhhhh,cutenyer,buleh di bela ni....!

Narutah

haiwan2 kat australia dgn new zealand ni manja2 yek? haiwan asal tak boleh survive bila mat saleh bawa kucing, anjing dan arnab masuk. ni tikus pun dah membahayakan spesis asal jugak

fifiey

kat university aku ade 2 ekor menatang ni..suke duduk dlm lubang die jek..patut pon xpupus..

alphawolf

Bukan manja...tapi sebab pertambahan pemangsa dalam kes kucing dan anjing dan pembiakan terlampau oleh arnab....

amazed

January 24, 2009
New Zealand 'Never Sank Completely'



LONDON, Jan 24 (Bernama) -- Scientists have claimed that a recently discovered fossil is strong evidence that New Zealand never sank completely, despite previous theories that it was fully submerged some 25 million years ago.

The fossil, dating back 18 million years, belongs to the endangered New Zealand tuatara -- a lizard-like reptile which is the only survivor of a group that was widespread at the time of the dinosaurs, the Press Trust of India said.

An international team from Britain, Australia and New Zealand has found evidence that ancestors of the tuatara have been on the landmass since it separated from the rest of the prehistoric southern super-continent of Gondwana 82 million years ago.

The oldest known tuatara fossil is only about 34,000 years old. The new fossil discovery dates to the Early Miocene (from 19 to 16 million years ago).

Its jaws and teeth closely resemble those of the present-day tuatara, so it appears to bridge a gap of nearly 70 million years in the fossil record of the group between the Late Pleistocene of New Zealand and the Late Cretaceous of Argentina, according to the scientists.

Team leader Dr Marc Jones of University College London said: "It has been argued New Zealand was completely submerged during the Oligo-Miocene drowning of the continent some 25 to 22 million years ago.

"However, the diversity of fossils now known from the Miocene suggests it is more likely that enough land remained above the water to ensure the survival of a number of species, such as frogs, kauri trees and several modern freshwater insects, as well as the tuatara."

The findings have been published in the latest edition of the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society B' journal.

-- BERNAMA


hah!! baguih ler NZ will never sank completely... aku pun lom pi NZ lagi...  ada ler gak harapan nak pi sana nanti... :victory: