Faunal Analysis
Home to those interested in faunal analysis and osteology. Share advice, photos, papers, and ideas
07/07/2022
Incredible Photo Shows Mammoth Tusk Sticking Out Of A River Bank In Alaska Incredible Photo Shows Mammoth Tusk Sticking Out Of A River Bank In Alaska
05/03/2022
University of Washington, Natural Science Illustration Program
Library Guides: Natural Science Illustration Program: Digital Resources Sources for vertebrate anatomy illustrations A collection of resources from BHL featuring animal illustrations.
27/04/2021
Amazing Imagery of Pleistocene animals discovered in western Amazonia.
"The thousands of ice age paintings include both handprints, geometric designs and a wide array of animals, from the "small" — such as deer, tapirs, alligators, bats, monkeys, turtles, serpents and porcupines — to the 'large,' including camelids, horses and three-toed hoofed mammals with trunks."
https://www.livescience.com/ice-age-rock-art-amazon.html?utm_source=notification&fbclid=IwAR3Rpki_RZTVPp9HCkRGqioisSejwzEXzX6V8k8qwupVLkFLwpmaw6EljpQ
Sprawling 8-mile-long 'canvas' of ice age beasts discovered hidden in Amazon rainforest Ice age people painted these animals 12,600 years ago.
31/12/2020
Researchers map DNA from ice-age wolves in bid to trace origin of dogs | CBC News Researchers are mapping the DNA of wolves from the ice age in a bid to pinpoint the origin of the world's first dogs.
12/11/2020
A University of Hawaii researcher deciphers the mystery of glacial floods
Mānoa: UH researcher solves mystery of glacial floods | University of Hawaii News
09/09/2020
Data suggest multiple mastodon dispersal events in North America. Pretty exciting! The paper is available to read online in "Nature."
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17893-z
Monumental DNA Study Reveals Secrets of North American Mastodons A new paper published today offers surprising insight into the American mastodon and its reactions to a changing environment. This stocky megafauna—whose tusks, trunk, and four legs echo today’s elephant—is thought to have lived predominantly within forests and marshy environments throughout a...
24/06/2020
This bone building series of guides, by Lee Post, is really interesting and well done! Illustrated, step by step preparation and articulation of Animal Skeletons. Illustrated osteology books are great. The artists have a tendency to detail notable landmarks.
Bone Building Books Series by Lee Post Step by Step Guides for the Preparation and Articulation of Animal Skeletons Articulations of a Porpoise Skeleton: A Step by Step Guide to Assembling Sma...
Free online access to a very hard to find, and useful, guide for comparing post cranial bison bones to bos ta**us bones in identification. Nice comparisons and helpful in the field!
71 - A guide to the identification of postcranial bones of Bos ta**us and Bison bison / - Biodiversity Heritage Library The Biodiversity Heritage Library works collaboratively to make biodiversity literature openly available to the world as part of a global biodiversity community.
10/04/2020
"An international team of specialists is closer to cracking a 5,000-year-old mystery surrounding the ancient trade and production of decorated ostrich eggs. Long before Fabergé"
Archaeologists on a 5,000-year-old egg hunt - Science Daily | (e) Science News An international team of specialists is closer to cracking a 5,000-year-old mystery surrounding the ancient trade and production of decorated ostrich eggs. Long before Fabergé, ornate ostrich eggs were highly prized by the elites of Mediterranean civilizations during the Bronze and Iron Ages, but t...
13/12/2019
Bones Filled with Marrow Served as Prehistoric Humans' 'Cans of Soup' Mmmm ... marrow.
Wolf–Bison Interactions in Yellowstone National Park
Adaptability of wolves when killing prey species new to them.
academic.oup.com Abstract. We studied interactions of reintroduced wolves (Canis lupus) with bison (Bison bison) in Yellowstone National Park. Only 2 of 41 wolves in this study
Ice Age Bear and Wolf-Like Creature Found in Underwater Mexican Cave
Short faced bear and wolf-like canid and other species discovered much further north than expected. East Tennessee State University!
livescience.com Short-faced bears and a wolf-like canid met their deaths in these caves during the last ice age.
A Future for Red Wolves May Be Found on Galveston Island
Red wolves have been declared extinct in the wild, but wild red wolves may persist in genes found in dogs living on Galveston Island in Texas.
mtu.edu Red wolves, once nearly extinct, again teeter on the abyss. New research finds red wolf ancestry on Galveston Island — providing opportunities for additional conservation action and difficult policy challenges.
Zooarchaeology Short Courses - Zooarchaeology Lab - Research - Archaeology - The University of Sheffield
The University of Sheffield, Zooarchaeology Lab (United Kingdom), is offering short courses in zooarchaeology, January of 2019, to provide training in the theory and methods used in understanding animal bones in archaeology.
The courses include lectures, discussions and hands-on practical activities for professionals, students and enthusiasts! Thank you Veronica Aniceti, at the University of Sheffield, for the links and information!
Extinct Cave Bear DNA Found in Living Bears
Cave bear DNA persists in modern brown and polar bears. Survival through hybridization.
nationalgeographic.com The discovery is the first of its kind outside the human lineage.
America’s first dogs lived with people for thousands of years. Then they vanished
The first American dogs are extinct, however, their DNA lives on within a form of canine cancer.
sciencemag.org America’s first dogs lived with people for thousands of years. Then they vanished
The Dinner Party That Served Up 50,000-Year-Old Bison Stew
Hmmm, much, much more spice please!
atlasobscura.com When life gives you frozen bison, make dinner.
Uniformity in variety
Uniformity in variety: Antler morphology and evolution in a predator-free environment. Alexandra A.E. van der Geer
http://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2018/2159-uniformity-in-variety
Honeylocusts and Mastodons
Honey Locusts reveal a story of ancient mammoth and mastodon defenses.
Climate Degradation and Extreme Icing Events Constrain Life in Cold-Adapted Mammals
Very interesting article. "...increasingly frequent Arctic weather events affect some cold-adapted mammals, and suggest that an understanding of species responses to a changing Arctic can be enhanced by coalescing groundwork, rare events, and insights from local people."
nature.com Article
Fossils in 3D: Making Ancient Bison Bones Available to the World
What’s over 20,000 years old and can be downloaded online? Ancient bison fossils of course! With funding from a Department of the Interior's Cultural and Sci...
New approach measuring early butchering practices can help answer questions about evolution - Purdue University
Pretty exciting use of 3-D imaging, and morphology analysis, in identifying cultural usage marks on animal bones recovered from archaeological sites.
purdue.edu Researchers, led by a Purdue University anthropology professor, have found that statistical methods and 3D imaging can be used to accurately measure animal bone cut marks made by prehistoric human butchery, and to help answer pressing questions about human evolution.
UT faculty member helps identify new species of prehistoric crocodile
A Middle Cretaceous crocodile species was recently recovered in Texas, by a team of researchers from the University of Tennessee. The findings were published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Here is a link to the abstract:(http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2017.1349776)
eurekalert.org Around 95 million years ago, a giant relative of modern crocodiles ruled the coastlines and waterways of what would one day become north central Texas. A team including the University of Tennessee, Knoxville's Stephanie Drumheller-Horton has identified this species, Deltasuchus motherali.
Discovery of 13 million-year-old ape skull shows what human ancestors may have looked like
Thirteen million year old ape ancestor skull discovered at the Middle Miocene site of Napudet, Northern Kenya. Included in this article is a link to the original Nature article.
washingtonpost.com Scientists have nicknamed the ape skull “Alesi,” after a word in the local Turkana language for “ancestor.”
Why are some eggs round and others pointy? It may have to do with how well a bird flies
An interesting study from Princeton University about egg shape.
latimes.com It’s a mystery that goes back to the days of Aristotle, flummoxing biologists and mathematicians for centuries: Why do bird’s eggs come in so many different shapes and sizes?
Paleontology Database | Burke Museum
This site is great for those interested in Pacific Northwest paleontology and osteology.
DNA from dirt: Tracing ancient humans found in ’empty’ caves
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/dna-from-dirt-tracing-ancient-humans-found-in-empty-caves/
seattletimes.com BERLIN (AP) — No bones? No problem! Scientists say they've figured out a way to extract tiny traces of ancient human DNA from dirt in caves that lack skeletal remains. The technique could be valuable for reconstructing human evolutionary history,...
Humans Lived in North America 130,000 Years Ago, Study Claims
This is a pretty big deal. There is a lot of ongoing hard work and research dedicated to investigating this site. Very interesting arguments from all sides.
nytimes.com If early humans smashed mastodon bones found in California in 1992, scientists will have to rethink how humans came to the Americas.
This Strange Little Badger Stole a Cow and Buried Its Entire Body Underground
Taphonomy at its finest.
sciencealert.com It's not unusual for the American badger ( Taxidea taxus ) to dig a hole and bury food for later.
Preliminary paleoenvironmental analysis of permafrost deposits at Batagaika megaslump, Yana Uplands, northeast Siberia
This big (0.6 mile) hole in Siberia, possibly a result of clear cutting in the 1960's, is exposing ancient trees, and prehistoric animal remains as well. This link takes you directly to the article.
The Woolly Mammoth’s Last Stand
At Wrangel Island and St. Paul Island, Woolly mammoths suffered a genetic "point of no return" before extinction 4000 to 5000 years ago.
nytimes.com A new study shows how an endangered or declining species may result in an irreversible genetic meltdown.
Clovis Culture, Ice Age Fauna Weren’t Wiped Out by Cosmic Impact, Study Finds
westerndigs.org A new study may finally put to rest one of the most vexing theories about America’s natural history: that the giant fauna of the Ice Age — and the culture of humans who hunted them — were wiped out by a cosmic impact.
The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, South Dakota
Longest-living animal gives up ocean climate secrets: Analysis of the quahog clam reveals how the oceans affected the climate over the past 1,000 years
sciencedaily.com A study of the longest-living animal on Earth, the quahog clam, has provided researchers with an unprecedented insight into the history of the oceans.
Odontoma in a 255-Million-Year-Old Mammalian Forebear
Evidence that a gorgonopsian harbored a benign tumor made up of miniature, tooth-like structures.
Early cave art and ancient DNA record the origin of European bison
Origin of European bison using DNA and cave art.
nature.com The ancestry of the European bison (wisent) remains a mystery. Here, Cooper and colleagues examine ancient DNA from fossil remains of extinct bison, and reveal the wisent originated through the hybridization of the extinct Steppe bison and ancestors of modern cattle.
The Making of California's Mini-Mammoths
Was swimming the only way the mammoths arrived on this southern California beach? There was no land bridge to the Channel Islands to cross. Maybe so, as this article suggests.
blogs.scientificamerican.com A lucky find changes the story of how Channel Islands mammals came to be so small