Dinosaur's Curious Back Sail May Have Aided Migration

by Laura Geggel, Staff Writer | December 16, 2015 03:00pm ET

The bizarre rigid "sail" on the back of a newfound species of herbivorous dinosaur may have helped the paleo-beast survive in a variety of climates, a new study finds.

The dinosaur lived during the Early Cretaceous period about 125 million years ago in ancient Spain, the researchers said. During that time, some areas of Iberia had alternating wet and dry periods. Perhaps the dinosaur used its sail to regulate its body temperature, much like an elephant uses its large ears to release excess body heat, the researchers said.

Or, the dinosaur could have used the sail as a place to store fat to use when resources were scarce, the scientists said.

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110-million-year-old crustacean holds essential piece to evolutionary puzzle

Dec 24, 2014 by Kristy Condon

Telamonocarcinus antiquus: the newly discovered
 species is the oldest known "higher" crab,
dating back some 110 million years.

University of Alberta PhD student Javier Luque has found the oldest crown-group true higher crab ever discovered, deep in the tropics of Colombia. The discovery of Telamonocarcinus antiquus pushes back the oldest known record of true higher crabs into the Early Cretaceous, dating about 110 million years ago.

The new finding provides critical information that would shift the paradigm from the previously accepted hypothesis of high latitude origin in the Late Cretaceous period, to a lower latitude Neotropical origin in the Early Cretaceous—several million years earlier than previously thought.

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'Pompeii-Like' Volcanic Eruption Yielded Excellently-Preserved Fossils Of Dinosaurs, Mammals Birds From Early Cretaceous: Researchers

Chinese and American researchers are crediting a Pompeii-like volcanic eruption for the recent discovery of very well-preserved dinosaur, mammal and bird fossils from the early Cretaceous, Discovery Newsreports.


The team said Jehol Biota research suggests that the animals were burned to a crisp as they were being buried.




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100 Million Year Old Seawater Discovered Under Chesapeake Bay

November 22, 2013

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

US Geological Survey (USGS) hydrologists drilling into the largest crater in the country have stumbled across an amazing discovery – the oldest body of seawater ever unearthed.

The water, which according to Discovery News is at least 100 million years old, was found over one kilometer beneath Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. The seawater is believed to have come from the earliest days of the Atlantic Ocean and was hidden beneath a more recent, 56-mile-wide impact crater near the bay’s entrance.

The USGS investigators did not realize how old the water was until they completed an analysis of the chemicals it contained. As it turns out, the water held forms of chloride and bromide, as well as other chemicals that helped them determine that the liquid is, in fact, from the Early Cretaceous Period. While older water has been discovered in Canada, the newly discovered crater is now officially the oldest large body of water on Earth.

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100-Million-Year-Old Spider Attack Found in Amber

Researchers have found trapped in amber a rare dinosaur-age scene of a spider attacking a wasp caught in its web.

The piece of amber, which contains 15 intact strands of spider silk, provides the first fossil evidence of such an assault, the researchers said. It was excavated in a Burmese mine and dates back to the Early Cretaceous, between 97 million and 110 million years ago.

"This juvenile spider was going to make a meal out of a tiny parasitic wasp, but never quite got to it," George Poinar, Jr., a zoology professor at Oregon State University, said in a statement.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/23796-spider-attack-found-in-amber.html