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Bergisuchus
''Bergisuchus'' is an extinct genus of small sebecosuchian mesoeucrocodylian known primarily from the Eocene Messel Pit in Germany. Few fossils of ''Bergisuchus'' have been discovered, only a single incomplete snout, a few partial lower jaws and some teeth. Despite being fragmentary, the jaw bones are enough to indicate that ''Bergisuchus'' had a short, deep, narrow snout and serrated teeth, quite unlike the broad flat snouts of modern crocodylians. As with other sebecosuchians, it is likely that ''Bergisuchus'' was a fast, terrestrial animal, terrestrial predator and not an aquatic animal, aquatic ambush hunter like modern crocodylians. Its presence in Europe is also unusual, as later sebecosuchians were restricted entirely to South America, and so ''Bergisuchus'' indicates the group was once much more widespread in the early Cenozoic. History of Discovery ''Bergisuchus'' was first discovered by Dr. Dietrich Berg from the German Messel Pit in 1966, who originally classified it a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sebecosuchia
Sebecosuchia (meaning "Sobek crocodiles") is an extinct group of mesoeucrocodylian crocodyliforms that includes the families Sebecidae and Baurusuchidae. The group was long thought to have first appeared in the Late Cretaceous with the baurusuchids, but '' Razanandrongobe'' pushes the origin of Sebecosuchia to the Middle Jurassic. The last surviving members of the group, the sebecids, appear to have lasted until the late Miocene or early Pliocene on the Greater Antilles. Fossils have been found primarily from South America but have also been found in Europe, North Africa, Madagascar, and the Indian subcontinent. History and phylogeny Sebecosuchia was first constructed in 1937 by George Gaylord Simpson. In 1946 the concept was again used by American paleontologist Edwin Colbert to include '' Sebecus'' and Baurusuchidae. ''Sebecus'', which had been known from South America since 1937, was an unusual crocodyliform with a deep snout and teeth that were ziphodont, or serrated and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sebecus
''Sebecus'' (meaning "Sobek" in Latin) is an extinct genus of Sebecidae, sebecid crocodylomorph from Paleogene period of South America. Like other sebecosuchians, it was entirely terrestrial and carnivorous. The genus is currently represented by two species, the type species, type ''S. icaeorhinus'' and ''S. ayrampu''. Several other species have been referred to ''Sebecus'', but were later reclassified as their own genera. History and species Named by United States, American paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson in 1937, ''Sebecus'' was one of the first known sebecosuchians. Simpson described the type species, ''S. icaeorhinus'', from a fragmented skull and lower jaw found in the Sarmiento Formation. The specimen was discovered by the American Museum of Natural History's First Scarritt Expedition to Patagonia, during 1930 and 1931. Teeth had been known since 1906 when Argentine paleontologist Florentino Ameghino associated them with carnivorous dinosaurs. The more complete mater ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Messel Pit
The Messel Formation is a Formation (geology), geologic formation in Hesse, central Germany, dating back to the Eocene Epoch (geology), epoch (about 47 Ma). Its geographic range is restricted to the Messel pit. There it unconformably overlies crystalline Variscan basement and its Permian cover (Rotliegend) as well as Eocene volcanic breccias derived from the basement rocks. The formation mainly comprises lacustrine laminated bituminous shale (‘oil shale’) renowned for its content of fossils in exceptional preservation, particularly plants, arthropods and vertebrates (e.g. ''Darwinius masillae''). Messel pit The Messel pit () is a disused quarry near the village of Messel (Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg, Hesse) about southeast of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Bituminous shale was mined there. Because of its abundance of well-preserved fossils of the Messel Formation dating from the middle of the Eocene, it has significant geological and scientific importance. Over 1400 taxa o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''Ēṓs'', 'Eos, Dawn') and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch.See: *Letter from William Whewell to Charles Lyell dated 31 January 1831 in: * From p. 55: "The period next antecedent we shall call Eocene, from ήως, aurora, and χαινος, recens, because the extremely small proportion of living species contained in these strata, indicates what may be considered the first commencement, or ''dawn'', of the existing state of the animate creation." The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isoto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammal Paleogene Zone
The Mammal Paleogene zones or MP zones are a system of biostratigraphic zones in the stratigraphic record used to correlate mammal-bearing fossil localities of the Paleogene period of Europe. It consists of thirty consecutive zones (numbered MP 1 through MP 30; MN 8 and 9 have been joined into MN 8 + 9 zone; and MP 17 zone is split into two zones - MP 17A and MP 17B zone) defined through reference faunas, well-known sites that other localities can be correlated with. MP 1 is the earliest zone, and MP 30 is the most recent. The Grande Coupure extinction and faunal turnover event marks the boundary between MP 20 and MP 21, the post-Grande Coupure faunas occurring by MP 21 onward. The MP zones are complementary with the MN zones in the Neogene. These zones were proposed at the Congress in Mainz held in 1987 to help paleontologists provide more specific reference points to evolutionary events in Europe, but are used by paleontologists on other continents as well.Norbert Schmidt-Kittle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holotype
A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several examples, but explicitly designated as the holotype. Under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), a holotype is one of several kinds of name-bearing types. In the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN) and ICZN, the definitions of types are similar in intent but not identical in terminology or underlying concept. For example, the holotype for the butterfly '' Plebejus idas longinus'' is a preserved specimen of that subspecies, held by the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. In botany and mycology, an isotype is a duplicate of the holotype, generally pieces from the same individual plant or samples from the same genetic individual. A holotype is not necessarily "ty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snout
A snout is the protruding portion of an animal's face, consisting of its nose, mouth, and jaw. In many animals, the structure is called a muzzle, Rostrum (anatomy), rostrum, beak or proboscis. The wet furless surface around the nostrils of the nose of many mammals is called the rhinarium (colloquially this is the "cold wet snout" of some mammals). The rhinarium is often associated with a stronger sense of olfaction. Variation Snouts are found on many mammals in a variety of shapes. Some animals, including ursines and great cats, have box-like snouts, while others, like shrews, have pointed snouts. Pig snouts are flat and cylindrical. Primates Strepsirrhine primates have muzzles, as do baboons. Great apes have reduced muzzles, with the exception being human beings, whose face does not have protruding jaws nor a snout but merely a human nose. Dogs The muzzle begins at the Stop (dog), stop, just below the eyes, and includes the dog's nose and mouth. In the domestic dog, most of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandible
In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla). The jawbone is the skull's only movable, posable bone, sharing Temporomandibular joint, joints with the cranium's temporal bones. The mandible hosts the lower Human tooth, teeth (their depth delineated by the alveolar process). Many muscles attach to the bone, which also hosts nerves (some connecting to the teeth) and blood vessels. Amongst other functions, the jawbone is essential for chewing food. Owing to the Neolithic Revolution, Neolithic advent of agriculture (), human jaws evolved to be Human jaw shrinkage, smaller. Although it is the strongest bone of the facial skeleton, the mandible tends to deform in old age; it is also subject to Mandibular fracture, fracturing. Surgery allows for the removal of jawbone fragments (or its entirety) as well a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darmstadt
Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest city in the state of Hesse after Frankfurt am Main, Wiesbaden, and Kassel. Darmstadt holds the official title "City of Science" () as it is a major centre of scientific institutions, universities, and high-technology companies. The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and the European Space Agency's European Space Operations Centre (ESA ESOC) are located in Darmstadt, as well as Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung, GSI Centre for Heavy Ion Research, where several chemical elements such as bohrium (1981), meitnerium (1982), hassium (1984), darmstadtium (1994), roentgenium (1994), and copernicium (1996) were discovered. The existence of the following elements was also confirmed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open-pit Mining
Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock (geology), rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or rocks are found near the surface where the overburden is relatively thin. In contrast, deeper mineral deposits can be reached using underground mining. Open-pit mining is considered one of the most dangerous industrial sector, sectors in the industrial world. It causes significant effects to miners' health, as well as damage to the ecological land and water. Open-pit mining causes changes to vegetation, soil, and bedrock, which ultimately contributes to changes in surface hydrology, groundwater levels, and flow paths. Additionally, open-pit produces harmful pollutants depending on the type of mineral being mined, and the type of mining process being used. Extraction Miners typically drill a series of test holes to locate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geisel Valley
The Geisel valley () is a valley in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, situated west of Merseburg, Saalekreis district. It is named after the River Geisel which rises in Mücheln and is a tributary of the Saale, just under long. Its main settlements are Braunsbedra and Mücheln, which in the future will merge into the 'collective municipality' of ''Geiseltal''. The Geisel valley was quarried for coal from 1698 until the mines were closed in 1994; The mining of brown coal is first attested for 1698 near the Zöbigker grove but is most likely to be older. Initially, only twelve smaller pits emerged at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, which spread to large areas; ultimately, the Braunsbedra-Geiseltal mines became one of the largest connected mining regions in Germany. Coal/Lignite mining At the beginning of the twentieth century, the region was characterized by mostly independent pits (Elisabeth 1906, Großkayna 1907, Beuna 1907, Cecilie 1907, Rheinland 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Binomial Nomenclature
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, although they can be based on words from other languages. Such a name is called a binomial name (often shortened to just "binomial"), a binomen, name, or a scientific name; more informally, it is also called a Latin name. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), the system is also called nomenclature, with an "n" before the "al" in "binominal", which is a typographic error, meaning "two-name naming system". The first part of the name – the '' generic name'' – identifies the genus to which the species belongs, whereas the second part – the specific name or specific epithet – distinguishes the species within the genus. For example, modern humans belong to the genus ''Homo'' and within this genus to the species ''Hom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
