Good afternoon everyone!
Happy Friday and welcome to another installment
of Fossil Reports.
[Newsroom music]
So I just realized that this is a very bad
idea to wear a shirt with green writing when
I'm on a green screen.
What we do if you're new here is we take stories
that we could not get to on our Facebook,
Twitter and Instagram accounts.
And anything related to paleontology we talk
about here.
We always include the full links to what we're
talking about down below in the description
and with that we have 3 stories that we've
got to talk about.
And with that let's get started.
And what better way to end your week then
with more politics!
Now with all jokes aside, the senate just recently
passed legislation called Senate Bill 47
which is the National Resource Management
Act.
And it passed with an overwhelming majority
of 92 to 8.
Now the bill goes over a lot of stuff but
there is one thing that is mainly important
to paleontology.
That is the formation of Jurassic National
Monument.
This is laid out in section 1252 of the bill
and what it looks like it does is that converts
the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur quarry which
is currently managed by the Bureau of Land
Management Over to the National Park Service.
It also expands the site from 721 acres right
now up to 850 acres.
And for those of you like me who have no concept
of land area this is about 1.3 square miles.
This is also not the first attempt that we
have seen to convert the Cleveland Lloyd Dinosaur
quarry into a National Monument.
In fact according to the Salt Lake Tribune
twenty five hundred acres
as the National Monument in a bill called
the Emery County Public Lands Management Act
of 2018.
Now what happened is some of this got subsided
within this new act.
And as of the recording of this video the
bill is currently being wait to be sent to
a House committee.
Now what does this all mean for the Cleveland-Lloyd
Dinosaur Quarry?
Well the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur quarry is
located near Price, Utah.
And if you haven't been yet it is an absolutely
fantastic place to visit.
It already has sort of a monument feel to
it with interpretive trails
and an interpretive center with a museum.
However, the main thing that is happening
with this act is that the land is being transferred
from BLM to National Park Service as a national
monument.
If you have any thoughts or a further comments
on this topic please let us know in the comments.
We now direct our attention to the Eocene
and specifically the Green River Formation
of Wyoming which is about 52 million years
old
and the Messel Pit of Germany which is about
47 million years old.
And researchers there have described 2 new
species of passerine birds.
These are the oldest finches in the fossil
record with seed eating beaks.
Both species have been assigned to the genus
Eofringillirostrum
with E. boudreauxi being the species from
Wyoming
and E. parvulum being the species from Germany.
Now today the role of seed eating birds plays
a large role in ecology.
And also the diversity of these birds is phenomenal.
However, we actually know very little of the
lineage of these birds.
But with the discovery of these new fossils
we now know more about the stem lineage of
the passerines called the Psittacopedidae
not to be confused with the parrots, the Psittaciformes.
And finally, we return to the Miocene of Gujarat,
India.
And as a quick recap of the Miocene was an
epoch that spanned from about 23-5 million
years ago.
And from Gujarat we have the first occurrence
of sexual dimorphism in the family Strombidae.
The Strombidae are the conchs.
And today modern conchs exhibit sexual dimorphism
with the females being larger than the males.
Size variation also occurs in conchs when
they are found in different environments due
two different nutrient availability.
However, because these cocks all came from
the same place with the same depositional
environment it is safe to assume That there
are indeed 2 sexes of conchs.
Sexual dimorphism is known from other groups
within the fossil record but this is the first
time it is known within the conch family.
And I am left saying, because I have no idea
how to wrap this all up together, fossils
are cool.
So be sure to like, comment and subscribe
follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
If you have content that you would like us
to cover, or if you have something you'd like
to see us do more of
like if you would like to see us do more preparation
videos
let us know in the comments below.
Thanks for watching!
Bye!
[Whistle]
