Slashdot Mirror
Jurassic Beavers Challenge Current Mammal Theories
Bombula writes "According to a BBC article, Castorocauda lutrasimilis, a beaver-like creature discovered in the Jiulongshan Formation in China which apparently lived 164 million years ago, poses challenges to conventional theory of mammalian history. That is, of course, assuming this is a genuine fossil - no small assumption, given Chinese fossils' track record of forgery, fabrication, and fraud."
You can find some examples of fossil forgeries at http://www.paleodirect.com/fakechinesefossils1.htm
Remember, when confronted with a Jurassic Beaver, make sure to stand perfectly still. They can only see movement.
OH NO....ARGHHHHHHH!!!
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I suppose papermaking, the compass, gunpowder and printing never were that noteworthy anyway...
It's easy to tell if it's a real Chinese beaver or not. Real Chinese beavers are very small and they taste like salted cashews.
The article's authors must have been less interested in generating Australian interest than Slashdot sometimes seems to be, but save for the shape of its mouth the fossilised critter appears to have had much more in common with Australia's peculiar aquatic monotreme than with the mentioned northern hemisphere placentals.
The fossil even has spurs on its hind legs just where the modern platypus has its unique-amongst-mammalia poison delivery system. Front legs equipped for burrowing suggests in may have also used very playpus-like diggings.
While detailed dental structure is particularly important for cladistics, it is also something that can be subject to high selection pressure -- you have to keep eating -- so it would not be that unlikely that an otter-like snout would evolve into that equally unique to mammals duck bill during a 165 million year river journey from China to Oz.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
On the other hand - the mammals didn't originate from nothing 65 million years ago, but they were at the time more adaptable than the reptiles. This means that mammals must have existed earlier than 65 million years ago, but it is likely that they resembled mice and other small mammals and fed on insects and vegetation.
Most fossils that we actually have from the jurassic period are large and important as they seem they are likely to be the top of an iceberg where the mass of animals are likely to be small. Unfortunately - small dead animals are likely to dissolve completely or have been eaten to the very last piece. This means that finding small fossilized animals will help us to understand the evolution better - so start digging!
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Right, because the only possible explanation for this must be that our entire theory of evolution must be out to lunch. No, it couldn't possibly be anything else /sarcasm.
Every single time the theory of evolution needs to be revised, you ID/creationist zealots pounce and proclaim that "evolution is disproved!!!" Bullshit.
A scientific theory is subject to revision when and if new data shows itself. That is in part why they're called theories - theory in science does not mean "guess", as ID proponants like to insinuate, but rather means an explanation for a phenominon that is as current as our understanding can make it. When we learn more, we go back and make changes to a theory to account for the new data.
Theories are almost never completely thrown out, but are often radically altered as we become more knowledgeable; Einstein didn't disprove Newton's theories about motion, but because of him we do know far more than Newton did in his time.
This does not disprove Darwin. Quit salavating; your bias is showing.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
In a seperate article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, they talked with the rep from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History who was part of the team that made the discovery. It was not solely Chinese. It was funded by the Carnegie and I suppose the fossils will be on display in PIttsburgh at some point.