Brunch Coffeeshop

Things People are Talking About…

There have been a lot of fossils mentioned in the news lately, and I mean other than G W Bush. The beginning of this month the 80 million year old crocodile ancestor Montealtosuchus arrudacamposi was described as ‘a missing link to prehistoric crocodiles,’ and was found in Brazil.

Then there were reports of the ‘tiny pterodactyl’ Nemicolopterus crypticus, who hung out in the Ginko forests of China 120 million years ago, chowing down on bugs. At about eight inches long it was only tiny in relation to its fossil relatives, which could have wingspans of 20 to 40 feet.

Next came news from Wyoming that a bat fossil found there shows that bats evolved their flight ability before they developed echo-location, a subject of some debate prior to this find. Onychonycteris finneyi had a one-foot wingspan and claws on all five ‘fingers’, but lacked the bony features associated with echo-location. The fossil was almost complete, and dated to about 52 million years ago.

Now in today’s news we see the Goliath Frog from Madagascar. This critter, dubbed Beelzebufo or ‘the frog from Hell,’ lived about 70 million years ago, and was almost 16 inches long, weighing in at about 10 pounds. The interesting thing is that it was related to modern ‘horned toads’ which are found only in the Americas, and were previously thought to have evolved there.

Ok, I’ve seen rats around here. The usual ‘Norway’ type that infests all the world, and a local type that is a bit smaller, brown, with rounded ears. Neither are particularly welcome in my yard. But one of their ancestors could have bullied his way into the house had he a mind to …

In a COSMOS article, they describe a rat-like rodent that lived four million years ago in South America, that would scare the b-jesus out of anyone. The skull was half a meter long. They estimate the entire beast would have weighed about 700 Kilos (almost a ton).

These monsters lived long after the dinosaurs went extinct of course, or they would have been quickly eaten-up as dino-snacks. They did have to contend with three-meter tall birds and ancient saber-toothed relatives of the opposum that were fiercer predators than most of the mammals around at that time. I’m kind of glad something or other found a way to drive those huge rats extinct, and begin to think that maybe extinction isn’t always such a bad thing.