(Press-News.org) Boulder, CO, USA - The meters-long, carnivorous "shrimp" from hell that once ruled the seas of Earth a half billion years ago may have been a real softy, it turns out. A new 3-D modeling of the mouth parts of the Anomalocaris, along with evidence that these parts were not hard like teeth, but flexible, shows that the famed predator could not have been munching on the hard shells of trilobites and other such creatures of the early seas.
What's more, there is no evidence from fossilized stomach contents or feces that Anomalocaris' ate anything hard enough to leave a fossilized trace. In fact it was this lack of fossil evidence backing any dietary preference – right alongside other animals that do show fragments of what they ate in their gullets – which inspired the investigation, said paleontologist James "Whitey" Hagadorn of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
Hagadorn will be presenting his team's discoveries about Anomalocaris on Monday, Nov. 1, at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver.
"It was supposed to roam around the Cambrian seas gobbling up trilobites and everything else," said Hagadorn. But the pineapple-like whorl of mouth parts and the associated whisker-like appendages of Anomalocaris all appear to have been bendable, in the fossil remains, he said. They are not mineralized like the exoskeletons of the trilobites they were supposedly eating.
His suspicions prompted Hagadorn to develop a 3-D, finite element analysis model of the Anomalocaris mouth. This allowed for testing just how the mouth worked and how much force it could create – in other words, how strong a bite it had. The model turned up some surprises.
"It couldn't even close its mouth," said Hagadorn. And there was no practical way these mouth parts could create the force needed to break open a modern lobster shell nor a shrimp shell, which were used as analogues for a trilobite carapace in the model.
Another interesting discovery made along the way came from studying more than 400 Anomalocaris mouths. In none of them did Hagadorn find any signs of wear. That's strange because if they were genuine teeth there would be chips, scratches and other signs they were being used to munch on hard-shelled animals.
The model, gut contents, feces and wear all suggest Anomalocaris was not a trilobite eater. But they fail to help explain what this impressive beast from the Cambrian was eating.
"Maybe it ingested things and then spit them out," Hagadorn speculated. Another possibility is that it somehow broke down the food it was eating into very fine particles before ingesting it. At this point the only thing that appears certain is that the famed biggest predator of the early Cambrian is more mysterious than ever.
INFORMATION:
WHAT
Paper No. 125-1: PUTTING ANOMALOCARIS ON A SOFT-FOOD DIET?
Abstract link: http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2010AM/finalprogram/abstract_181965.htm
Session No. 125: Paleontology V - Predation and Biological Interactions
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2010AM/finalprogram/session_27553.htm
WHEN & WHERE
1:30 PM-1:45 PM, Monday, 1 November 2010
Colorado Convention Center: Four Seasons Ballrooms 2/3
For on-site assistance during the 2010 Annual Meeting, 31 October November, contact Christa Stratton in the Newsroom (7:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m. MDT), Colorado Convention Center, Room 206, +1-303-228-8429.
The Geological Society of America, founded in 1888, is a scientific society with more than 22,000 members from academia, government, and industry in more than 97 countries. Through its meetings, publications, and programs, GSA enhances the professional growth of its members and promotes the geosciences in the service of humankind. Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, GSA encourages cooperative research among earth, life, planetary, and social scientists, fosters public dialogue on geoscience issues, and supports all levels of earth science education.
www.geosociety.org
Earth's first great predator wasn't
2010-11-02
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
How lead gets into urban vegetable gardens
2010-11-02
Boulder, CO, USA - One common mitigation approach is to build a raised bed and fill it with freshly composted, low-lead soil from elsewhere, right? Maybe not, according to researchers studying the mysterious case of the lead contamination found within raised beds in community gardens in the Boston communities of Roxbury and Dorchester.
"Raised beds are surrounded by a sea of contaminated soil," said Daniel Brabander of Wellesley College. Brabander, his students and colleagues have been studying the lead in 144 backyard gardens in coordination with The Food Project, an ...
Morrison Natural History Museum discovers baby sauropod tracks
2010-11-02
Morrison, CO, USA–Staff at the Morrison Natural History Museum have again discovered infant dinosaur footprints in the foothills west of Denver, Colorado, near the town of Morrison. Dating from the Late Jurassic, some 148 million years ago, these tracks were made before the Rocky Mountains rose, when Morrison was a broad savanna full of dinosaurs.
The fossil tracks represent infant sauropods, according to discoverer Matthew Mossbrucker, the museum's director. Sauropods are giant, herbivorous long-necked dinosaurs, sometimes known as "brontosaurs." The sauropod Apatosaurus ...
Scarcity of new energy minerals will trigger trade wars
2010-11-02
Boulder, CO, USA - It's not hard to argue in favor of alternatives to fossil fuels these days, but one popular argument – domestic energy security – may be standing on very shaky legs. A lot of rare metals are needed to make photovoltaic panels, rare earth magnets for wind generators, fuel cells and high-capacity batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles. But most industrialized nations, including the United States, are almost entirely dependent on foreign sources for those metals. The only way this is going to change is if there is more domestic exploration and mining. ...
UC research: Rabbit's food brings luck in decreasing estrogen levels in wastewater
2010-11-02
The November 2010 issue of "Environmental Pollution" details successful experiments at the University of Cincinnati wherein rabbit's food resulted in the abiotic (non-biological) transformation and absorption of four different types of estrogen, reducing the levels of these estrogen hormones by more than 80 percent in wastewater.
The research has practical implications since it could point to inexpensive treatment technologies and materials for reducing estrogens in wastewater.
Currently, estrogen in wastewater represents a major conduit for the entry of the hormone, ...
Antibiotics have long-term impacts on gut flora
2010-11-02
Short courses of antibiotics can leave normal gut bacteria harbouring antibiotic resistance genes for up to two years after treatment, say scientists writing in the latest issue of Microbiology, published on 3 November.
The researchers believe that this reservoir increases the chances of resistance genes being surrendered to pathogenic bacteria, aiding their survival and suggesting that the long-term effects of antibiotic therapy are more significant than previously thought.
Antibiotics that are prescribed to treat pathogenic bacteria also have an impact on the normal ...
Childhood stroke study identifies the contraceptive pill and smoking as risk factors
2010-11-02
Researchers are calling for clear guidelines on childhood stroke after a study, published in the November issue of Acta Paediatrica, found wide variations in time lag to diagnosis, investigation and treatment.
They are also keen to see the development of appropriate rehabilitation services, after a follow-up study found that 85% of the children who survived a stroke had neurological dysfunction or limitations.
Dr Sten Christerson studied the records of all children who had experienced their first stroke over a seven-year period in the Uppsala-Orebro Health Care Region, ...
Arthritis drugs could help prevent memory loss after surgery, study suggests
2010-11-02
Anti-inflammatory drugs currently used to treat diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis may also help prevent cognitive problems after surgery, according to a new study by researchers at Imperial College London and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
The research also reveals for the first time that a specific inflammatory response in the brain may explain why many patients experience memory loss or other forms of cognitive dysfunction after surgery or critical illness.
The findings, from research in mouse models, could lead to human clinical trials within ...
Quantum computing with braids in flatland
2010-11-02
When confined to a 2-dimensional sheet, some exotic particle-like structures known as anyons appear to entwine in ways that could lead to robust quantum computing schemes, according to research appearing in the November 1 issue of the journal Physical Review B. The physicists at Bell Laboratories who performed the research are hopeful the anyons can be induced to follow paths that twist into braids that would be much more resistant to disturbances that corrupt data and calculations in quantum computers relying on individual particles.
The anyons the researchers believe ...
Virginia Tech computer scientist, student design award winning software to combat hacking
2010-11-02
One of the serious threats to a user's computer is a software program that might cause unwanted keystroke sequences to occur in order to hack someone's identity. This form of an attack is increasing, infecting enterprise and personal computers, and caused by "organized malicious botnets," said Daphne Yao, assistant professor of computer science at Virginia Tech (http://www.cs.vt.edu/user/115).
To combat the "spoofing attacks," Yao and her former student, Deian Stefan, now a graduate student in the computer science department at Stanford University, developed an authentication ...
Typists' errors and intention theories
2010-11-02
New research published today in the journal Science says people think about things they think they don't think about. Vanderbilt University psychologists Gordon Logan and Matthew Crump say when highly skilled people such as surgeons, carpenters, or pilots perform actions without thinking, those actions are highly controlled. The finding adds key information to a debate on whether people consciously perform actions in which they are highly skilled.
Previous research suggests conscious control of driving a car for an experienced driver, for example, is an illusion. These ...