Nearly complete 'chicken from hell,' from mysterious dinosaur group

A team of researchers has announced the discovery of a bizarre, bird-like dinosaur, named Anzu wyliei, that provides paleontologists with their first good look at a dinosaur group that has been shrouded in mystery for almost a century. Anzu was described from three specimens that collectively preserve almost the entire skeleton, giving scientists a remarkable opportunity to study the anatomy and evolutionary relationships of Caenagnathidae (pronounced SEE-nuh-NAY-thih-DAY) -- the long-mysterious group of theropod dinosaurs to which Anzu belongs

The three described fossil skeletons of Anzu were unearthed in North and South Dakota, from roughly 66 million-year-old rocks of the Hell Creek Formation, a rock unit celebrated for its abundant fossils of famous dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops. The scientific paper describing the discovery appears today in the freely-accessible journal PLOS ONE.

The team of scientists who studied Anzu was led by Dr. Matthew Lamanna of Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. Dr. Lamanna's collaborators include Dr. Hans-Dieter Sues and Dr. Tyler Lyson of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, and Dr. Emma Schachner of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. According to Dr. Lamanna, "Anzu is far and away the most complete caenagnathid that has ever been discovered. After nearly a century of searching, we paleontologists finally have the fossils to show what these creatures looked like from virtually head to toe. And in almost every way, they're even weirder than we imagined."

Hell's Chicken

At roughly 11 feet long and five feet tall at the hip, Anzu would have resembled a gigantic flightless bird, more than a 'typical' theropod dinosaur such as T. rex. Its jaws were tipped with a toothless beak, and its head sported a tall, rounded crest similar to that of a cassowary (a large ground bird native to Australia and New Guinea). The neck and hind legs were long and slender, also comparable to a cassowary or ostrich. Although the Anzu specimens preserve only bones, close relatives of this dinosaur have been found with fossilized feathers, strongly suggesting that the new creature was feathered too. The resemblance to birds ends there, however: the forelimbs ofAnzu were tipped with large, sharp claws, and the tail was long and robust. Says Dr. Lamanna, "We jokingly call this thing the 'Chicken from Hell,' and I think that's pretty appropriate. So we named it after Anzu, a bird-like demon in ancient mythology."

The species is named for a Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh Trustee's grandson, Wylie.

Not only do the fossils of Anzu wyliei paint a picture of this particular species, they shed light on an entire group of dinosaurs, the first evidence of which was discovered almost 100 years ago. In 1924, paleontologist Charles Whitney Gilmore described the species Chirostenotes pergracilis from a pair of fossil hands found a decade earlier in ~74 million-year-old rocks in Alberta, Canada. Later, in 1940, Caenagnathus collinsiwas named, based on a peculiar lower jaw from the same beds. More recently, after studies of these and other fragmentary fossils, Hans Sues and other paleontologists determined that Chirostenotes and Caenagnathus belonged to the same dinosaur group, Caenagnathidae, and that these animals were close cousins of Asian oviraptorid theropods such as Oviraptor.

Asian relations

Oviraptor ('egg thief') is widely known because the first fossil skeleton of this animal, described in 1924, was found atop a nest of dinosaur eggs, suggesting that the creature had died in the act of raiding the nest. This thinking prevailed until the 1990s, when the same type of egg was found with a baby oviraptorid inside, demonstrating that, rather than a nest plunderer, Oviraptor was a caring parent that perished while protecting its eggs. More than a dozen oviraptorid species have been discovered, all in Mongolia and China, and many are known from beautifully-preserved, complete or nearly complete skeletons. Additionally, beginning in the 1990s, several small, primitive relatives of oviraptorids were unearthed in much older, ~125 million-year-old rocks in northeastern China. Many of these are also represented by complete skulls or skeletons, some of which preserve fossilized feathers. Researchers have established that caenagnathids, oviraptorids, and these more archaic Chinese species are closely related to one another, and have united them as the theropod group Oviraptorosauria. The occurrence of oviraptorosaurs in both Asia and North America was not a surprise to paleontologists, because these continents were frequently connected during the Mesozoic Era (the 'Age of Dinosaurs'), allowing dinosaurs and other land animals to roam between them. However, because their fossils were so incomplete, caenagnathids remained the most poorly known members of Oviraptorosauria, and indeed, one of the least understood of all major dinosaur groups. "For many years, caenagnathids were known only from a few bits of the skeleton, and their appearance remained a big mystery," says Dr. Sues.

More fossils, more knowledge

The nearly completely represented skeleton of Anzu opens a window into the anatomy of this and other caenagnathid species. Armed with this wealth of new information, Dr. Lamanna and his team were able to reconstruct the evolution of these extraordinary animals in more detail than ever before. Analysis of the relationships of Anzureaffirmed that caenagnathids form a natural grouping within Oviraptorosauria: Anzu,Caenagnathus, Chirostenotes, and other North American oviraptorosaurs are more closely related to each other than they are to most of their Asian cousins -- a finding that had been disputed in recent years. Furthermore, the team's analysis confirmed the recent hypothesis that the enormous (and aptly-named) Gigantoraptor -- at a weight of at least 1.5 tons, the largest oviraptorosaur known to science -- is an unusual member of Caenagnathidae as well, instead of an oviraptorid as had initially been proposed. "We're finding that caenagnathids were an amazingly diverse bunch of dinosaurs," says Dr. Lamanna. "Whereas some were turkey-sized, others -- like Anzuand Gigantoraptor -- were the kind of thing you definitely wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. Apparently these oviraptorosaurs occupied a much wider range of body sizes and ecologies than we previously thought."

This is a mounted replica skeleton of the new oviraptorosaurian dinosaur species Anzu wyliei on display in the Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition at Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pa., USA.

The anatomy and ancient environment of Anzu provide insight into the diet and habitat preferences of caenagnathids as well. Although the preferred food of these oviraptorosaurs remains something of a puzzle, Dr. Lamanna and collaborators think that caenagnathids were probably omnivores -- like humans, animals that could eat either meat or plants. Moreover, studies of the rocks in which several of the most complete caenagnathid skeletons have been found show that these strata were laid down in humid floodplain environments, suggesting that these dinosaurs favored such habitats. In this way, caenagnathids appear to have differed greatly from their oviraptorid cousins, all of which have been found in rocks that were deposited under arid to semi-arid conditions . "Over the years, we've noticed that Anzu and some other Hell Creek Formation dinosaurs, such as Triceratops, are often found in mudstone rock that was deposited on ancient floodplains. Other dinosaurs, like duckbills, are found in sandstone deposited in or next to rivers," says Dr. Lyson, who found his first Hell Creek fossil on his family's ranch in North Dakota when he was only six years old.

Anzu led a life that was fraught with danger. In addition to sharing its Cretaceous world with the most notorious carnivore of all time -- T. rex -- this oviraptorosaur seems to have gotten hurt a lot as well. Two of the three specimens show clear evidence of injuries: one has a broken and healed rib, while the other has an arthritic toe bone that may have been caused by an avulsion fracture (where a tendon ripped a piece off the bone to which it was attached). Says Dr. Schachner, "These animals were clearly able to survive quite a bit of trauma, as two of the specimens show signs of semi-healed damage. Whether these injuries were the result of combat between two individuals or an attack by a larger predator remains a mystery."

As much insight as the Anzu skeletons provide, paleontologists still have much to learn about North American oviraptorosaurs. Ongoing studies of these and other important fossils promise to remove more of the mystery surrounding these remarkable bird-like creatures. "For nearly a hundred years, we paleontologists knew almost nothing about these dinosaurs," concludes Dr. Lamanna. "Now, thanks to Anzu, we're finally starting to figure them out."

A fully-articulated cast of Anzu wyliei is on public view in Carnegie Museum of Natural History's Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition.

Redescription of the oldest-known dolphin skull sheds light on their origins and evolution

Dolphins are the most diverse family of living marine mammals and include species such as the bottlenose dolphin and the killer whale. However, their early evolution and fossil record has been steeped in mystery due to lack of good specimens. A new paper published in latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology re-describes the oldest species of dolphin with a new name: Eodelphis kabatensis. Although the partial skull was previously described in the 1970s the scientific community largely overlooked it. The new re-description has important implications for the evolutionary history of dolphins

The skull of Eodelphis kabatensis was originally collected from a small tributary of the Oshirarika River in Hakkaido, Japan from an outcrop of the Mashike Formation. Researchers working on the specimen have narrowed its age to the late Miocene (13.0-8.5 million years ago), making it the earliest true dolphin species described. "The early evolution of true dolphins is still covered in mystery. Eodelphis kabatensis informs us about the morphology of early dolphins," said lead author Mizuki Murakami.

Eodelphis is an important link in the evolutionary history of dolphins. Prior to this study, there was inconsistency between the fossil record of the dolphins and molecular-based studies. The oldest true dolphin fossils found were less than 6 million years old, while molecular studies suggested they originated and started to diversity between 9-12 million years ago. "Eodelphis kabatensis, being discovered from sediments that were deposited 8-13 million years ago, has largely resolved this discrepancy and provides the best glimpse yet of what the skull of the first dolphins may have looked like," said Jonathan Geisler, a marine mammal paleontologist at the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine.

In addition to its importance as the earliest true dolphin, this new study also incorporates the most comprehensive analysis of the relationships within the Delphinoidea, the group that encompasses toothed whales. By including Eodelphis in the analysis, the authors were able to get a much clearer picture of the evolution of the toothed whales. Furthermore, the presence of Eodelphis in the Pacific Ocean during the late Miocene has implications for the geographic history of dolphins. While more specimens need to be discovered, this study suggests that dolphins might have had their origins in the Pacific.

Shrinking helped dinosaurs and birds to keep evolving

Although most dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, one dinosaur lineage survived and lives on today as a major evolutionary success story -- the birds.

An Oxford University-led team studied how dinosaurs evolved into a huge range of shapes and sizes over 170 million years. Shrinking their bodies may have helped the group that became birds to continue exploiting new ecological niches throughout their evolution.

A study that has 'weighed' hundreds of dinosaurs suggests that shrinking their bodies may have helped the group that became birds to continue exploiting new ecological niches throughout their evolution, and become hugely successful today.

An international team, led by scientists at Oxford University and the Royal Ontario Museum, estimated the body mass of 426 dinosaur species based on the thickness of their leg bones. The team found that dinosaurs showed rapid rates of body size evolution shortly after their origins, around 220 million years ago. However, these soon slowed: only the evolutionary line leading to birds continued to change size at this rate, and continued to do so for 170 million years, producing new ecological diversity not seen in other dinosaurs.

A report of the research is published in PLOS Biology.

'Dinosaurs aren't extinct; there are about 10,000 species alive today in the form of birds. We wanted to understand the evolutionary links between this exceptional living group, and their Mesozoic relatives, including well-known extinct species like T. rex, Triceratops, and Stegosaurus,' said Dr Roger Benson of Oxford University's Department of Earth Sciences, who led the study. 'We found exceptional body mass variation in the dinosaur line leading to birds, especially in the feathered dinosaurs called maniraptorans. These include Jurassic Park's Velociraptor, birds, and a huge range of other forms, weighing anything from 15 grams to 3 tonnes, and eating meat, plants, and more omnivorous diets.'

The team believes that small body size might have been key to maintaining evolutionary potential in birds, which broke the lower body size limit of around 1 kilogram seen in other dinosaurs.

'How do you weigh a dinosaur? You can do it by measuring the thickness of its leg bones, like the femur. This is quite reliable,' said Dr Nicolás Campione, of the Uppsala University, a member of the team. 'This shows that the biggest dinosaurArgentinosaurus, at 90 tonnes, was 6 million times the weight of the smallest Mesozoic dinosaur, a sparrow-sized bird called Qiliania, weighing 15 grams. Clearly, the dinosaur body plan was extremely versatile.'

The team examined rates of body size evolution on the entire family tree of dinosaurs, sampled throughout their first 160 million years on Earth. If close relatives are fairly similar in size, then evolution was probably quite slow. But if they are very different in size, then evolution must have been fast.

'What we found was striking. Dinosaur body size evolved very rapidly in early forms, likely associated with the invasion of new ecological niches. In general, rates slowed down as these lineages continued to diversify,' said Dr David Evans at the Royal Ontario Museum, who co-devised the project. 'But it's the sustained high rates of evolution in the feathered maniraptoran dinosaur lineage that led to birds -- the second great evolutionary radiation of dinosaurs.'

The evolutionary line leading to birds kept experimenting with different, often radically smaller, body sizes -- enabling new body 'designs' and adaptations to arise more rapidly than among larger dinosaurs. Other dinosaur groups failed to do this, got locked in to narrow ecological niches, and ultimately went extinct. This suggest that important living groups such as birds might result from sustained, rapid evolutionary rates over timescales of hundreds of millions of years, which could not be observed without fossils.

'The fact that dinosaurs evolved to huge sizes is iconic,' said team member Dr Matthew Carrano of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. 'And yet we've understood very little about how size was related to their overall evolutionary history. This makes it clear that evolving different sizes was important to the success of dinosaurs.'

All teeth and claws? New study sheds light on dinosaur claw function

Theropod dinosaurs, a group which includes such famous species asTyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor, are often regarded as carnivorous and predatory animals, using their sharp teeth and claws to capture and dispatch prey. However, a detailed look at the claws on their forelimbs revealed that the form and shape of theropod claws are highly variable and might also have been used for other tasks

Inspired by this broad spectrum of claw morphologies, Dr Stephan Lautenschlager from Bristol's School of Earth Sciences studied the differences in claw shape and how these are related to different functions.

His research focussed on the therizinosaurs, an unusual group of theropods which lived between 145 and 66 million years ago. Therizinosaurs were very large animals, up to 7m tall, with claws more than 50cm long on their forelimbs, elongated necks and a coat of primitive, down-like feathers along their bodies. But in spite of their bizarre appearance, therizinosaurs were peaceful herbivores.

Dr Lautenschlager said: "Theropod dinosaurs were all bipedal, which means their forelimbs were no longer involved in walking as in other dinosaurs. This allowed them to develop a whole new suite of claw shapes adapted to different functions."

In order to fully understand how these different claws on the forelimbs were used, detailed computer models were created to simulate a variety of possible functions for different species and claw morphologies.

The dinosaur claws were also compared to the claws of mammals, still alive today, whose function (that is, how and for what the claws are used) is already known.

In the course of evolution, several theropod groups, including therizinosaurs, changed from being carnivores to become plant-eaters. This new study reveals that, during this transition, theropod dinosaurs developed a large variety of claw shapes adapted to specific functions, such as digging, grasping or piercing.

Dr Lautenschlager said: "It's fascinating to see that, with the shift from a carnivorous to a plant-based diet, we find a large variety of claw shapes adapted to different functions. This suggests that dietary adaptations were an important driver during the evolution of theropod dinosaurs and their transition to modern birds."

Discovery sheds new light on the habitat of early apes

Baylor University researchers, in collaboration with an international team of scientists, have discovered definitive evidence of the environment inhabited by the early ape Proconsul on Rusinga Island, Kenya. The groundbreaking discovery provides additional information that will help scientists understand and interpret the connection between habitat preferences and the early diversification of the ape-human lineage

Their research findings -- published this month inNature Communications -- demonstrate that Proconsul and its primate relative Dendropithecus inhabited "a widespread, dense, multistoried, closed canopy" forest.

Daniel Peppe, Ph.D., assistant professor of geology in Baylor's College of Arts and Sciences, said that previous work on the fossil sites on Rusinga Island suggested a variety of contradictory environmental preferences for Proconsul and that none of the previous work could definitively tie Proconsul to a specific habitat.

"Our research findings provide direct evidence and confirm where the early ape lived about 18 to 20 million years ago," Peppe said. "We now know that Proconsul lived in a closed-canopy, tropical seasonal forest set in a warm and relatively wet local climate."

Lauren Michel, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in the geology department at Baylor, was among the team of international researchers who found fossils of a single individual of Proconsul among geological deposits that also contained tree stump casts, calcified roots and fossil leaves. This discovery "underscores the importance of forested environments in the evolution of early apes," Peppe said.

"While excavating one of the major fossil sites on Rusinga Island, our team found four teeth from Proconsul amid an expansive fossil forest system," Michel said. "Ultimately, we were able to find 29 tree stump casts and unearth root casts in the same horizon as the fossil teeth."

"The varying diameters of the tree stumps coupled with their density within the fossil soil, implies that the forest would have [comprised] trees with interlocking or overlapping branches, thus creating a canopy," Michel said. Also, further evidence from the excavation site has shown that the landscape was "stable for decades to a few hundred years while the forest grew," Michel added.

Adding to the novelty of the research teams' findings is how all of forest artifacts were contained in one layer or strata.

"What is spectacular about this discovery is that all of these individual elements--tree stumps, leaves, roots, animals--are tied together in a single stratigrap

hic interval. This gives us tremendous resolution in reconstructing the specific environment inhabited by one of our early ape ancestors," said Kieran P. McNulty, Ph.D., co-director of research on Rusinga Island and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota.

Researchers were also able to determine the climate for the fossil forest.

"Evidence from the forest fossil soil suggests that the precipitation was seasonal with a distinct wet and dry period. During the dry season, there was probably relatively little rainfall," Peppe said. "Additionally, by studying fossil leaves at the site, we were able to estimate that there was about 55 to 100 inches of rainfall a year and the average annual temperature was between 73 and 94 degrees Fahrenheit."

Research on Rusinga Island has been ongoing for more than 80 years and has resulted in the collection of thousands of mammal fossils, including many well-preserved specimens of Proconsul and other primates. Evidence from these fossils of Proconsul indicate that it probably had a body position somewhat "similar to modern monkeys," but that details of its anatomy suggest some "more ape-like climbing and clambering" abilities. Since 2011, the team's research at the fossil forest site has resulted in the collection of several additional new primate fossils.

"This understanding of Proconsul's skeletal anatomy and how it moved demonstrates that the species was well-suited for life in a dense, closed canopy forest, which is consistent with our findings," Michel said.

Other contributing authors to the study include: Steven G. Driese of Baylor University; William H. Horner of Baylor University and Colorado State University; James A. Lutz of Utah State University; Holly M. Dunsworth of University of Rhode Island; William E. H. Harcourt-Smith of Lehman College, City University of New York, and the Natural History Museum; Thomas Lehmann of Senckenberg Research Institute ; Sheila Nightingale of City University of New York and Kieran P. McNulty of University of Minnesota.

Habitat of early apes: Evidence of the environment inhabited by Proconsul

University of Rhode Island anthropologist, along with colleagues from an international team of scientists, has discovered definitive evidence of the environment inhabited by the early ape Proconsul on Rusinga Island, Kenya. The findings provide new insights into understanding and interpreting the connection between habitat preferences and the early diversification of the ape-human lineage

The early ape Proconsul (center) and the primate Dendropithecus (upper right) inhabited a warm and relatively wet, closed canopy tropical seasonal forest 18 million years ago in equatorial eastern Africa (Rusinga Island, Kenya).

Their research, which was published today in the journal Nature Communications, demonstrates thatProconsul and its primate relative Dendropithecusinhabited "a widespread, dense, multistoried, closed canopy" forest.

Holly Dunsworth, URI assistant professor of anthropology, said that the research team found fossils of a single individual of Proconsul, which lived 18 to 20 million years ago, among geological deposits that also contained tree stump casts, calcified roots and fossil leaves. The discovery underscores the importance of forested environments in the evolution of early apes.

"To have the vegetation of a habitat preserved right along with the fossil primates themselves isn't a regular occurrence in primate paleontology," she said. "It's especially rare to have so many exquisite plant fossils preserved at ancient ape sites."

Rusinga has been known since the 1980s for preserving a fossil ape and other creatures in a hollowed out, fossilized tree trunk. But it wasn't until the research team's discovery of additional tree trunks and fossil primates preserved in the same ancient soil that there was a strong link between the ape and its habitat at the site.

"It's probably the best evidence linking ape to habitat that we could ask for," Dunsworth said. "Combined with analyses of the roots, trunks and even beautifully preserved fossil leaves, it's possible to say that the forest was a closed canopy one, meaning the arboreal animals, like Proconsul, could easily move from tree-to-tree without coming to the ground. This environmental evidence jibes with our behavioral interpretations of Proconsul anatomy--as being adapted for a life of climbing in the trees--and with present-day monkey and ape ecology."

Additional evidence from the excavation site has shown that the landscape was stable for many years while the forest grew.

According to co-author Daniel Peppe of Baylor University, evidence from the forest soil suggests "the precipitation was seasonal with a distinct wet and dry period. During the dry season, there was probably relatively little rainfall," he said. "Additionally, by studying fossil leaves at the site, we were able to estimate that there was about 55 to 100 inches of rainfall a year and the average annual temperature was between 73 and 94 degrees Fahrenheit."

Research on Rusinga Island has been ongoing for more than 80 years and has resulted in the collection of thousands of mammal fossils, including many well-preserved specimens of Proconsul and other primates. Evidence from these fossils indicate that Proconsul probably had a body position somewhat similar to modern monkeys, but that details of its anatomy suggest some more ape-like climbing and clambering abilities. Since 2011, the research team's work at the fossil forest site has resulted in the collection of several additional new primate fossils.

Dunsworth said that her work at the site is continuing.

"We don't know exactly what we're going to find, but without a doubt, if we keep searching, we're going to find knowledge about early ape evolution, which was, of course, a significant chapter in our own history," she said.

A 'smoking gun' on Ice Age megafauna extinctions

It was climate that killed many of the large mammals after the latest Ice Age. But what more specifically was it with the climate that led to this mass extinction? The answer to this is hidden in a large number of sediment samples from around the Arctic and in the gut content from permafrozen woolly rhinos, mammoth and other extinct ice age mammals.

It was climate that killed many of the large mammals after the latest Ice Age. But what more specifically was it with the climate that led to this mass extinction? The answer to this is hidden in a large number of sediment samples from around the Arctic and in the gut content from permafrozen woolly rhinos, mammoth and other extinct ice age mammals.

It is a bit of a shift in paradigm Willerslev and co-workers publish in this week's edition of the journalNature. The common image of a light-brown grass-steppe dominating the northern hemisphere during the Ice Age does not hold any longer. The landscape was far more diverse and stable than today, and big animals like woolly rhino and mammoth fed on grasses and particularly on protein-rich forbs. But at the Last Glacial Maximum 25,000 -- 15,000 years ago, at a time when the climate was at its coldest and driest, a major loss of plant diversity took place. The animals barely survived.

After the Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago it became warmer again. After the large reduction of plant diversity during the Last Glacial Maximum another kind of vegetation now appeared. One of the key food sources of the large mammals- the protein-rich forbs -- did not fully recover to their former abundance. This likely proved fatal for species like woolly rhino, mammoth, and horse in Asia and North America. Even though it became warmer again after the end of the Ice Age the old landscapes did not return.

Professor Eske Willerslev, a researcher of ancient DNA and director of the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, says: "We knew from our previous work that climate was driving fluctuations of the megafauna populations, but not how. Now we know that the loss of protein-rich forbs was likely a key player in the loss of the ice age megafauna. Interestingly one can also see our results in the perspective of the present climate changes. Maybe we get a hold on the greenhouse gases in the future. But don't expect the good old well-known vegetation to come back when it becomes cooler again after the global warming. It is not given that the 'old' ecosystems will re-establish themselves to the same extent as before the warming. It's not only climate that drives vegetation changes, but also the history of the vegetation itself and the mammals consuming it."

Footprints from past ecosystems

Professor Christian Brochmann, a botanist at the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo in Norway, states: "We show that the permafrost contains a vast, frozen DNA archive left as footprints from past ecosystems, and that we can dechiffer this archive by exploring the collections of plants and animals stored in Natural History Museums. Using DNA from museum collections as reference, we could identify the different plant species that co-occurred with extinct ice age mammals."

Dr. Mari Moora and Professor Martin Zobel, vegetation ecologists from the University of Tartu, Estonia, say: "For the first time, ecologists have been able to piece together the characteristics of more complete plant communities occurring in the Arctic during the last 50,000 years. The new information shows clearly that the vegetation of the Late Pleistocene was rich in forbs but lost considerable diversity at the peak of the ice age. Different plant communities, with graminoids and woody plants prevailing, then started to develop during the Holocene."

Dr. Pierre Taberlet, an ecologist at the CNRS in France, further states: "We should realise that the results presented in this paper would have never been obtained without a very broad collaboration (30 teams from 12 countries) involving the following scientific areas: ancient DNA, palaeo-ecology, taxonomy, molecular ecology, community ecology, zoology, bioinformatics, molecular genetics, and geology. Whereas competition among scientists often is believed to be the main stimulus promoting global scientific output, this study clearly demonstrates that extensive collaboration is a viable alternative."

'Smoking gun'

The article in Nature elaborates on the Willerslev group's results from 2011 where the researchers pointed at climate as the culprit for the mass extinction of some of the large mammals'. But in 2011 the researchers lacked a 'smoking gun'. Now they got it! 242 permafrost sediment samples and eight fossil samples from large mammals from around the Arctic have been dated and analysed for DNA. The data shows that the likely main reason for the mass extinction of the large mammals after the latest Ice Age is changes in the vegetation.

Key points

• So far the common image of much of the northern hemisphere during the latest Ice Age has been of a landscape dominated by grass steppe. The new results show this to be exaggerated. The landscape was far more diverse and dominated by protein-rich forbs. After the Ice Age the forbs became rarer and some of the large forb-eating mammals went extinct or near-extinct.
• Severe climate changes put an extreme stress on animals and plants. After the Last Glacial Maximum the composition of the ecosystems changed. New kinds of vegetation invaded -- but without the large herbivores following. When debating the impact of climate change one should not expect the return of the former ecosystems even though the climate change may be reversed.

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Countering caregiver placebo effect in pets

How do you know that your pet is benefiting from its pain medication? A new clinical trial design could help overcome pet owners' unconscious observation bias and determine whether the drugs they test are effective.

When animals are recruited for clinical trials, particularly for pain medications, researchers must rely on owner observation to determine whether the medication is working. Sounds simple enough, but as it turns out, human and animal behavior can affect the results.

All clinical trials have a "control" -- often a set of participants that receive a placebo in place of the medication. In human trials researchers have long struggled with the placebo effect -- the psychological impact that the patient's belief in the treatment can have on his or her condition. To get around this, researchers put a lot of effort into developing tools sensitive enough to distinguish between the placebo effect and the medication's "real" effect.

"In veterinary medicine, we're one step removed from the patient, and so we run into what we call the 'caregiver placebo effect,' which is how we refer to a number of factors that result in unconscious influence on owners' responses," says Margaret Gruen, NC State veterinary clinician and researcher. "Merely observing behavior can change it, and any changes in daily routine, like administering medication, will affect the way you relate to that animal and change its behavior." This makes controlling for the placebo effect more difficult, and even the most sensitive detection techniques still have trouble distinguishing between the real and the placebo effect.

Take cats for example. Inscrutable at the best of times, they are also notorious for their reluctance to take medication. So if your cat is participating in a clinical trial for pain medication, both your relationship to the animal and its behavior are going to undergo some pretty significant changes once you start administering medication. And these changes will occur whether or not your pet likes the medication or placebo. That, coupled with your optimism about what the results may be and the fact that you're now closely scrutinizing the cat's every move, can change your responses. "We cannot get away from this," says Dr. Gruen, "so we need to find a way around it."

To do so, Gruen and lead researcher Duncan Lascelles tested a low dose of a drug commonly used for pain management in cats with degenerative joint disease. They started by giving all of the trial participants an initial two-week placebo to get the animals used to taking the medication. The owners were aware that they were giving placebo during this period. This was followed by a three-week trial, with half of the participants receiving the drug and half receiving placebo, without the owners knowing which was which. Finally, there was a three-week "blinded placebo washout," in which all of the participants were again taking a placebo, but the owners weren't aware of the change.

"The final three-week period is where we were able to get real results about the usefulness of the medication," Gruen says. "During the three week medication trial, all of the owners indicated that their pets improved, which is due to the caregiver placebo effect. But during the washout phase, owners of the cats who had been receiving the medication in the first phase said that their pet's signs of pain were returning, while the owners of cats who had received placebo in the first phase did not notice any change.

"So we were able to circumvent the placebo effect and determine that this medication is effective in cats with degenerative joint disease," Gruen continues. "We understand that this approach will need further investigation, but we believe this design may be useful both in veterinary studies and in human studies where the placebo effect is particularly strong."

Nasty parasitic worm, common in wildlife, now infecting U.S. cats

When Cornell University veterinarians found half-foot-long worms living in their feline patients, they had discovered something new: The worms, Dracunculus insignis, had never before been seen in cats

"First Report of Dracunculus Insignis in Two Naturally Infected Cats from the Northeastern USA," published in the February issue of the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, document the first proof that this raccoon parasite can infect cats.

The worms can grow to almost a foot long and must emerge from its host to lay eggs that hatch into larvae. It forms a blister-like protrusion in an extremity, such as a leg, from which it slowly emerges over the course of days to deposit its young into the water.

Worms in the Dracunculus genus are well known in human medicine. D. insignis' sister worm, the waterborne Guinea worm, infected millions of humans around the world until eradication efforts beginning in the 1980s removed it from all but four countries -- with only 148 cases reported in 2013. Other Dracunculus worms infect a host of other mammals -- butDranunculus insignis mainly infects raccoons and other wild mammals and, in rare cases, dogs. It does not infect humans.

The cats that contracted the Dranunculus insignis worms likely ingested the parasites by drinking unfiltered water or by hunting frogs," said Araceli Lucio-Forster, a Cornell veterinary researcher and the paper's lead author.

It takes a year from the time a mammal ingests the worm until the females are ready to migrate to an extremity and start the cycle anew.

While the worms do little direct harm beyond creating shallow ulcers in the skin, secondary infections and painful inflammatory responses may result from the worm's emergence from the host. There are no drugs to treat a D. insignis infection -- the worms must be removed surgically.

"Although rare in cats, this worm may be common in wildlife and the only way to protect animals from it is to keep them from drinking unfiltered water and from hunting -- in other words, keep them indoors," said Lucio-Forster.

The Eurasian lynx as a key to the conservation and future viability of the endangered Iberian lynx

Understanding the mechanisms which control reproduction in lynx is essential for their continued viability and effective conservation.

A team of international scientists from Europe discovered that the Corpus luteum of the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) has the longest lifespan among mammals known to date. This hormone producing tissue is responsible for restricting this lynx species (and presumably the other lynx species as well) to only having one estrous cycle per year (mono-estrous) and therefore only one opportunity per year to become pregnant. The findings were published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

The Eurasian lynx recovered in many parts of its European range.

The scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin (IZW) took the Eurasian lynx as a "model" species to investigate the reproductive cycle of lynxes in order to assist in the conservation of the highly endangered Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus), the most threatened cat species worldwide, restricted to a few locations in southern Spain. A key component in the conservation strategy for the Iberian lynx are the captive breeding centers in Spain and Portugal where Iberian lynx are bred in order to be re-introduced back into the wild. Improving reproductive performance in captivity entails a thorough understanding of the mechanisms that facilitate reproduction in these felids.

The team's key discovery is that lynxes have corpora lutea (CLs, the gland producing the pregnancy hormone progesterone) which are maintained in their ovaries over many years -- the longest lifespan known in mammals, and therefore indicative of a reproductive strategy unique for felids -- and probably for mammals in general. In other species, the CLs disappear before, or shortly after, the female gives birth. Surprisingly, the female lynx can switch off its CL's progesterone production when entering a new cycle during spring or before giving birth without destroying the CL. Later on, progesterone is produced continuously, suppressing the follicular development in the ovary and therefore preventing the onset of a second oestrus cycle within the same year. If a female cannot mate during its 5 -- 7 estrous days per year, an entire reproductive period will therefore be lost, reducing fertility and effective lifetime reproductive output, a substantial problem for a small population such as the Iberian lynx.

"To obtain these results, our international team followed the reproductive cycles of captive Eurasian lynx in German zoological gardens and of free-ranging Eurasian lynx in Norway with the help of a Norwegian wildlife research project, Scandlynx, over a period of almost three years. We used advanced three-dimensional ultrasound techniques and in-house hormone analyses to uncover the mysterious development of the oestrus cycle," says veterinarian scientist Johanna Painer from the IZW.

Europe is home to two Lynx species, the Eurasian lynx and the Iberian lynx. Both species experienced drastic declines in population size during the last century. Whereas the Eurasian lynx recovered in many parts of its European range with the help of re-introduction projects, the population of the Iberian lynx crashed completely and was declared to be the most critically endangered felid species worldwide, today.

It is unknown to what extent lynxes will have the flexibility to adapt their reproduction to anthropogenic environmental changes. This study provides essential information for the assisted reproduction techniques in Iberian lynx which continue to be refined and improved, such as artificial insemination or embryo-transfer. Future research will focus on the manipulation of reproductive cycles to increase the reproductive output for breeding centers and to discover the molecular mechanism underlying this unique phenomenon.

Zoonotic feline tularemia prevented by finding influential geospatial factors

 A Kansas State University epidemiologist is helping cats, pet owners and soldiers stay healthy by studying feline tularemia and the factors that influence its prevalence.

Ram Raghavan, assistant professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology, and collaborative researchers have found that a certain combination of climate, physical environment and socio-ecologic conditions are behind tularemia infections among cats in the region. More than 50 percent of all tularemia cases in the U.S. occur in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas, Raghavan said.

Francisella tularensis, a bacterium that causes tularemia, commonly circulates among ticks, rabbits and rodents in the wild, but also frequently infects domestic cats. Tularemia is a zoonotic disease that can spread to humans through ticks or insect bites, eating undercooked rabbit meat, close contact with infected animals or even through airborne means. If left untreated, it can cause death in humans and animals, Raghavan said.

While it is not known exactly how many human tularemia cases are caused by exposure to infected cats, it is possible for cats to transmit the disease to owners through bites and scratches. Cats also can be reliable sentinels for recognizing disease activity in the environment. If cats hunt outdoors or come into contact with an infected rabbit or animal, they can bring tularemia back to their owners.

Raghavan's research so far has found that tularemia is more likely to appear:

* In newly urbanized areas.

* In residential locations surrounded by grassland.

* In high-humidity environments. Raghavan found that locations where tularemia was confirmed had high-humidity conditions about eight weeks before the disease appeared.

For the research, Raghavan is partnering with the university's geography department and the Public Health Department of Fort Riley Medical Activity. Raghavan maps tularemia cases confirmed by the Kansas State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and then collaborates with John Harrington Jr. and Doug Goodin -- both professors of geography -- to compile geospatial data for tularemia locations. By bringing in layers of data the researchers are determining how different influential factors -- such as climate, land cover, landscape and pet owners' economic conditions -- can lead to feline tularemia.

"Taking a multidisciplinary and computational approach helps us quickly understand the disease and make new discoveries," Raghavan said. "We use diagnostic information collected over time at the Kansas State Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and a wealth of extremely useful information from NASA and other agencies. We can then put all these data in a framework where it is useful for public health and animal health."

While tularemia is more common in young children and men, people also can get the disease when mowing lawns in a contaminated area, Raghavan said. Both human and feline tularemia cases peak through late spring and summer -- when the weather is warmer, more ticks are present and more people are outside. Tularemia cases decrease at summer's end.

"Climate plays such a huge role in zoonotic diseases," Raghavan said. "With all the talk about climate change, we need to know if there are any significant climate effects that are causing tularemia cases to increase."

Tularemia also poses concerns for the military and soldiers during training exercises, whether they are training in U.S. bases or bases around the world. During training, soldiers are actively engaged in the environment and that increases the risk of tularemia infection.

"They could be crawling on the ground and may come in contact with a dead animal or rabbit that was infected with tularemia," Raghavan said. "The soldiers also can be bitten by ticks. All it takes is a few bacteria to cause infection."

Because of the low infection dose of organisms, it is even more important to understand tularemia because of its potential as a bioterrorism tool, Raghavan said.

"If a little of the bacteria was present in the form of an aerosol, it could be released in a crowded area and potentially infect a lot of people very quickly," Raghavan said. "Because it is such a rare disease, not everyone is prepared for it, even though the treatments are very simple. Untreated infections can cause death."

Symptoms of tularemia in humans may include fever, swelling of lymph nodes, skin ulcers near tick bites, or cough, chest pain and difficulty breathing in more serious cases. Clinical signs in cats include lethargy, anorexia and fever. People should contact their doctor or their veterinarian if they observe tularemia symptoms, Raghavan said.

The researchers recently published their work in the journal of Vector Borne and Zoonotic Diseases.

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Cat parasite found in western Arctic Beluga deemed infectious

University of British Columbia scientists have found for the first time an infectious form of the cat parasite Toxoplasma gondii in western Arctic Beluga, prompting a health advisory to the Inuit people who eat whale meat

The same team also discovered a new strain of the parasite, previously sequestered in the icy north, that is responsible for killing 406 grey seals in the north Atlantic in 2012.

Presenting their findings today at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Michael Grigg and Stephen Raverty from UBC's Marine Mammal Research Unit say that the "big thaw" occurring in the Arctic is allowing never-before-seen movement of pathogens between the Arctic and the lower latitudes.

"Ice is a major eco-barrier for pathogens," says Michael Grigg, a molecular parasitologist with the U.S. National Institutes of Health and an adjunct professor at UBC. "What we're seeing with the big thaw is the liberation of pathogens gaining access to vulnerable new hosts and wreaking havoc."

Toxoplasmosis, also known as kitty litter disease, is the leading cause of infectious blindness in humans and can be fatal to fetuses and to people and animals with compromised immune systems.

"Belugas are not only an integral part of Inuit culture and folklore, but also a major staple of the traditional diet. Hunters and community members are very concerned about food safety and security," says Raverty, a veterinary pathologist with the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture and Lands' Animal Health Centre and an adjunct professor at UBC. Raverty has led the systematic sampling and screening of hunter-harvested Beluga for 14 years.

Grigg has also identified the culprit of the 2012 grey seal die-off as a new strain ofSarcocystis. While not harmful to humans, the Arctic parasite, which was namedSarcocystis pinnipedi at the AAAS meeting today, has now killed an endangered Steller sea lion, seals, Hawaiian monk seals, walruses, polar and grizzly bears in Alaska and as far south as British Columbia.

Researchers find unique fore wing folding among Sub-Saharan African Ensign wasps

Researchers discovered several possibly threatened new species of ensign wasps from Sub-Saharan Africa -- the first known insects to exhibit transverse folding of the fore wing. The scientists made this discovery, in part, using a technique they developed that provides broadly accessible anatomy descriptions.

The researchers used principles of origami paper folding to physically visualize the transverse folding of the wings. In their paper, they included a print, cut and fold template to help readers comprehend the wing fold system.

"Ensign wasps are predators of cockroach eggs, and the transverse folding exhibited by these species may enable them to protect their wings while developing inside the cramped environment of cockroach egg cases," said Andy Deans, associate professor of entomology, Penn State. "It also may be useful while they are active in their cockroach prey's leaf-litter environment."

According to Deans, only a few other insects -- mainly some earwigs, cockroaches and beetles -- are capable of folding their hind wings transversely, along a line between the front and back wing margin, as opposed to longitudinal folding, which occurs along a line from the wing base to the wing tip.

"These other insects fold their wings transversely so that the wings can be shortened and tucked under a modified, shell-like fore wing," he said. "This, however, is the first time anyone has observed an insect that folds its fore wings transversely."

The researchers examined wasps belonging to the family Evaniidae from Sub-Saharan Africa. They named five new species -- one of them, Trissevania slideri is named after their colleague David "Slider" Love, coordinator of farm and greenhouse operations, Penn State. The scientists also created an identification key for the new tribe,Trissevaniini.

" We didn't know these new species existed until now, and at least two of them --Trissevania heatherae and T. mrimaensis -- are found only in a small patch of forest in Kenya that is threatened by mining activity," Deans said.

According to Deans, to officially give a new species a name one must, among other things, provide a diagnosis that describes how this species differs from others.

"In most cases, the diagnosis lists certain phenotypic aspects of the wasps, such as having a black head or fuzzy hind legs," he said. "Diagnoses are typically written in natural language and using one's own custom lexicon. There is no standard syntax to describe the way an organism looks, which makes these data difficult to extract in any large-scale way."

To get around this problem, the researchers developed a technique that provides broadly accessible descriptions.

"The gist is that one could actually query across existing anatomy data using computers," he said. "For example, one could search for all the species that have fuzzy heads, or all the species that have a patch of hairs on the ventral surfaces of their abdomens. One could then cross-reference the result with information about the surrounding environment, the cockroach host, or the evolutionary history of the wasp. The more we test and refine this approach the better we'll understand its capabilities and utility."

In addition to photographing the wasps' wings, the team used principles of origami paper folding to physically visualize the transverse folding of the wings.

"We used origami, one of the most ancient and simple art forms to understand the wing folding, which, based on our observations through microscopes was otherwise impossible to understand," said István Mikó, research associate in entomology. "In our paper, we included a print, cut and fold template for the readers that helps them and us to comprehend the simple, yet enigmatic, wing fold system of the new tribe,"

According to Mikó, insect wings are common subjects of researchers who investigate bio-inspired technologies.

"The relatively simple wing-folding mechanism of the new tribe can be utilized in advance technologies, such as applying morphing systems in aerospace vehicle research or expandable structural systems in space missions," Mikó said.

The team's results appeared in the May 1 issue of PLOS ONE.

The researchers said that by characterizing the phenotypes of these species of wasps, they are one step closer to understanding the evolutionary history of the family Evaniidae.

"Understanding the evolutionary history of this family of wasps is important because this knowledge will inform our attempts to reclassify the wasps in a way that is robust and predictive," Deans said.

In the future, the team plans to use the same methods it developed to investigate other groups of wasps in the family Evaniidae as well as those in the lineage Ceraphronoidea, small wasps that parasitize many other groups of insects and for which very little is known about their diversity and morphology.

Journal Reference:

1. István Mikó, Robert S. Copeland, James P. Balhoff, Matthew J. Yoder, Andrew R. Deans. Folding Wings like a Cockroach: A Review of Transverse Wing Folding Ensign Wasps (Hymenoptera: Evaniidae: Afrevania and Trissevania). PLoS ONE, 2014; 9 (5): e94056 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094056

Synthesized 'solar' jet fuel: Renewable kerosene from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide

With the first ever production of synthesized "solar" jet fuel, the EU-funded SOLAR-JET project has successfully demonstrated the entire production chain for renewable kerosene obtained directly from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide (CO₂), therein potentially revolutionizing the future of aviation. This process has also the potential to produce any other type of fuel for transport applications, such as diesel, gasoline or pure hydrogen in a more sustainable way

Artist's rendering of the functional principle.

Several notable research organizations from academia through to industry (ETH Zürich, Bauhaus Luftfahrt, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), ARTTIC and Shell Global Solutions) have explored a thermochemical pathway driven by concentrated solar energy. A new solar reactor technology has been pioneered to produce liquid hydrocarbon fuels suitable for more sustainable transportation.

"Increasing environmental and supply security issues are leading the aviation sector to seek alternative fuels which can be used interchangeably with today's jet fuel, so-called drop-in solutions," states Dr. Andreas Sizmann, the project coordinator at Bauhaus Luftfahrt. "With this first-ever proof-of-concept for 'solar' kerosene, the SOLAR-JET project has made a major step towards truly sustainable fuels with virtually unlimited feedstocks in the future.

The SOLAR-JET project demonstrated an innovative process technology using concentrated sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water to a so-called synthesis gas (syngas). This is accomplished by means of a redox cycle with metal-oxide based materials at high temperatures. The syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, is finally converted into kerosene by using commercial Fischer-Tropsch technology.

"The solar reactor technology features enhanced radiative heat transfer and fast reaction kinetics, which are crucial for maximizing the solar-to-fuel energy conversion efficiency" said Professor Aldo Steinfeld, leading the fundamental research and development of the solar reactor at ETH Zürich.

Although the solar-driven redox cycle for syngas production is still at an early stage of development, the processing of syngas to kerosene is already being deployed by companies, including Shell, on a global scale. This combined approach has the potential to provide a secure, sustainable and scalable supply of renewable aviation fuel and more generally for transport applications. Moreover, Fischer-Tropsch derived kerosene is already approved for commercial aviation.

"This is potentially a very interesting novel pathway to liquid hydrocarbon fuels using focussed solar power," said Professor Hans Geerlings at Shell. "Although the individual steps of the process have previously been demonstrated at various scales, no attempt had been made previously to integrate the end-to-end system. We look forward to working with the project partners to drive forward research and development in the next phase of the project on such an ambitious emerging technology."

SOLAR-JET (Solar chemical reactor demonstration and Optimization for Long-term Availability of Renewable JET fuel) was launched in June 2011 and is receiving financial support from the European Union within the 7th Framework Programme for a duration of four years. In a first step, the technical feasibility of producing solar kerosene was proven. In the next phase of the project, the partners will optimise the solar reactor and assess the techno-economic potential of industrial scale implementation. The outcomes of SOLAR-JET will put Europe to the forefront of research, innovation and production of sustainable fuels directly from concentrated solar energy.

TIGER FOUND DEAD

  A tiger was found dead in suspicious circumstance with its limbs missing in the Nllamala Forest in Mabhubhnagar district. Though the big cat reportedly died two days ago, the incident came into light on Thursday when the Shepherds alerted the local officials. It is suspected that the smugglers kills the tiger and cut off its limbs for nails due to the high demands of then\m in the international market. The carcass of the tiger was found at Rushula Cheruvu in the Munnanoor forest range. Rushula Cheruvu is major source of water for the wild animals. That's why the smugglers always keep an eye on this.
              Though the officials also suspected that the tiger was old enough, so it can be possible that the tiger was dead because of its age, and after the death of that big cats, the smugglers came and took away its limbs. The Post-mortem report will ensure the real cause of the death of this tiger.

FIRST NEW RIVER SPECIES SINCE 1918

                      Scientist of Brazil have discovered the first new river dolphin species since the the end of the 1st world war. Named after the Araguaia river where it was found, the species only the fifth known of its in the world. writing on the journal Plos One, the researchers said it separated from the South American river species more than two million years ago. There are believed to be about 1000 of the creature living in the Araguaia river basin.
                       River Dolphins are very rare creatures. According to the IUCN, there are only four known species, and three of them are red listed (Critically Endangered)