Tolly Monster Research Paper

The origin of modern day whales, a mystery that has puzzled paleontologists for years, may have just been solved with the discovery of an ankle bone. This discovery might sound simple and unimportant, but the bones of these ancient animals hold many unanswered questions and provide solid proof of origin and behavior. The relationship between whales and other animals has proven to be difficult because whales are warm-blooded, like humans, yet they live in the sea. The fact that they are warm-blooded suggests that they are related to some type of land animal. However, the questions of exactly which animal, and how whales evolved from land to water, have remained unanswered until now.

In the 1930s, a strange bone was found on the shore of the lake by Oscar Frederickson. The bone was believed to be a spinal vertebra. Sadly, the original bone was lost in a fire, but a wooden copy was made. The bone was showed to Dr. James McLeod of the University of Manitoba, who felt it resembled a vertebra. However, he felt it was the vertebra of a whale-like creature that had been extinct for over four million years.

The Tollund man’s body was discovered by Viggo and Emil Hojgaard, and Viggo’s wife, Grethe Hojgaard. In 1950 the family were cutting peat to use for fuel. As the family worked, they suddenly saw a face in about 2 metres of peat. They immidiatly called the police at Silkeborg.

The ungulate hypothesis had morphological evidence based on cerebral blood circulation that indicated a link between Cetaceans and Artiodactyls (even-toed ungulates).1 It was also hypothesized that another group of extinct mammals, the mesonychids, were the direct ancestors of modern whales. Mesonychids were a taxa of large and carnivorous ungulates. The evidence that led to this hypothesis was based on the teeth of mesonychids being similar to the teeth of early whales, called archaeocetes.1 Phylogenetic analyses done in the mid-2000s as well as the discovery of hind limbs in archaeocetes that lived around the same time as mesonychids, have since shown this hypothesis to be false; mesonychids, however, are considered still a sister group to the cetaceans.1,2

A young F. Carl Mahoney was off to Witchita Falls County in Texas. He enlisted in the Vietnam War. To then become a medical corpsman in the US Air Force. After 3 months of basic training in northwestnorthwest Texas (a barren desert, ) this man receivedreceived orders to report for medic duty in England. In Suffolk, England there was no combat, only lots of suffering and families in need.

Hybridization of species in the wild is both rare and often unsuccessful. The product of hybrids are most often sterile and unfit to survive in the natural world. North America may claim one of the most successful hybrids of this century. The newly discovered “coy wolf” is a mix between two canis species, the western coyote and the eastern wolf. This hybrid is also called the eastern coyote or northeastern coyote. The hybrid did not arise spontaneously. Human’s set up the perfect scenario to create a hybrid from species that would otherwise be allopatric. Humans highly influenced the formation and success of this hybrid. Without human destruction of American ecosystems, the coy wolf may have never walked this Earth.

Beginning with the simplest one-celled organism, an extraordinary animal rose in the murky waters entitled to a non-comparable killing-eating machine. This organism has become nature’s most genuine and most successful creature that it has remained unchanged for over 250 million years. Nature finally invented the perfect king of the sea. This animal has given the sea it’s “living” adjective; in turn, it was entitled—the “great white shark.”

The author and his colleagues chose to focus on 375 million year old rocks in their search for fossils because amphibians that look dissimilar to fish were discovered in 365 million year old rocks, while fish without amphibian characteristics were discovered in 385 million year old rocks. Thus, it is possible that the evolutionary intermediary, or the “missing link” between fish and amphibians, would be discovered in 375 million year old rocks, between the two time periods. The rocks examined were sedimentary in composition, as the gradual and relatively gentle formation of sedimentary rock under conditions of mild pressure and low heat are conducive to the fossilization of animal remains. Sedimentary rock is also often formed in rivers and seas, where animals are likely to live. This site provides a resource that describes means by which fossils are formed and how the fossil record may be interpreted, and shows some examples of fossils demonstrating evolution through geological periods: http://www.fossilmuseum.net/fossilrecord.htm. In 2004, Shubin and his colleagues were looking for fossils on Ellesmere Island, in northern Canada. This location was chosen because of its lack of human development, as well as of obstructing natural formations and life forms such as trees, which

In the science of paleontology, the history of life is studied. Paleontologists study fossils to learn the past ecologies, evolution, and the origins of humans. In order to understand the processes that have led to both the origination and destruction of organisms since life began, paleontologists incorporate both scientific knowledge and studies. Fossil findings are critically important for confirming predictions of evolution theory. Of the many discoveries that are made yearly to add depth to the understanding of evolution, an example is a recent discovery of a creature they named Tiktaalik. The Tiktaalik was uncovered to be a transitional animal between shallow-water fishes and limbed animals. The creature supports the idea that it emerged from both mammals and reptiles, suggesting that the two are related. These findings support prediction of evolution, contradicting the belief that God

The Paleodictyon Nodosum is a living fossil. This creature is found in the mid-atlantic and it is believed to be on this planet for an astonishing 50 million years and during this time it did not change. The depth where this animal is found is more than 3,218 meters. Peter Rona of Rutger New Jersey an oceanographer has proven that the paleodictyon does in fact exist through his many deep sea expeditions and photographs since 1976. The photographs that are taken of this creature shows a very distinctive structure, whether it was made by a creature, but this creature still remains unknown. The paleodictyon has a hexagonal shape with holes inside them that resembles a waffle. No one has yet to discover what creature created these holes or if

The Burgess Shale Phyllopod bed was discovered in the early 1900’s. This discovery was monumental in the field of geology. The Lagerstatten and its immaculate fossil fauna introduced geologists to the lost world of a Middle Cambrian sea bed. The unique imprint fossils of bizarre organisms like Pikaia, and Anomalocaris perplexed scientists for over a century. This was because of their preservation, but also because of their characteristics. These findings are much more than just preserved soft bodied remains. This perfect storm of preservation changed the world's view on evolution and phylogeny. The seemingly insignificant organisms

One of the main discoveries that has helped paleontologists and microbiologists alike is fossils discovered in China in 1998. These fossils “have transported paleontologists across a great divide in the history of life on Earth, taking them deep into virtually unexplored time, showing them the earliest known forms of tiny ancestral animals and pointing out where they should be searching next for evidence of the origins of the first such complex life.” (John, N.W. 1998)

Chrondrichthyans are an important lineage in that their studies can shed light onto evolutionary processes that can give key insights into both development of extinct early-jawed fishes and the evolution of higher

Rapid morphological transitions in organisms have been difficult to witness, especially for ecologist and paleontologist. This has raised concerns for some evolutionary biologist whom suggest that transitional forms are not visible in the fossil record and represent speciation events. Seeley (1986) reported that a rapid morphological transition did indeed occur in the intertidal snail Littorina obtusata between 1871 and 1984 in response

In quiescent environments such as the deep sea, complex traces, such as the geometric Paleodictyon, are formed from sophisticated feeding strategies, such as microbial farming. On the other hand, high energy environments of low-diversity vertical Skolithos traces from suspension feeders and sessile predators. Furthermore, horizontal traces of Skolithos can be formed at conditions with very high energy, as a response to increased food due to increased oxygenation. In addition, the role of trace fossils as indicators of relative current strength and direction has been indicated as crescent or shadow deposits in the lee of the biogenic structures that acted as ‘baffles’, or deflection of animal tracks or trails by currents. Indirect evidence of currents can also be deduced by the infillings of abandoned burrows by sediments of coarser grain size, denoting water movement to supply the previous suspension feeders with nutrients.