GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Area residents who have discovered a mysterious fossil while gardening or hiking and would like to learn more about it now have the perfect opportunity.

The Florida Museum of Natural History is hosting “Ask a Paleontologist” events from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Sunday (Feb. 12), March 4, April 15 and May 6.

Florida Museum vertebrate paleontology collections manager Richard Hulbert and Florida Museum invertebrate paleontology collections manager Roger Portell will identify fossils for visitors and share information about paleontology March 4 and May 6. Hulbert is also scheduled for Feb. 12 and Portell for April 15.

“The best way for people to learn is to communicate with those doing the research,” said Florida Museum education assistant Amanda Erickson Harvey. “This is a great opportunity for kids and adults alike to learn about our state’s prehistoric life. Florida is rich with fossils, and research by museum paleontologists continues to expand our knowledge about the animals and plants that lived here millions of years ago. ”

Some fossils commonly found in Florida include bones of large animals, such as 15- to 20-foot-tall giant ground sloths and glyptodonts, 10-foot-long relatives of the armadillo, as well as shark teeth and numerous aquatic invertebrates.

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Source: Amanda Harvey, 352-273-2052, aerickson@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Kate Martin
Media contact:  Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Join the Florida Museum of Natural History for its first presentation of the “Ken and Linda McGurn Speaker Series: Public Engagement in Science” at 4 p.m. Feb. 6.

Visitors may enjoy an engaging discussion titled “Youth partnering in paleontology: Museums as centers for citizen science” by Robert Ross, associate director for outreach at the Paleontological Research Institution and its Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, N.Y. Admission is free and light refreshments will be served after the presentation in the museum’s classroom in Powell Hall on the University of Florida campus.

Ross plans to discuss ways to better engage the public in specimen-based science and a project called “Fossil Finders” that used thousands of fifth- to eighth-graders from around the country to assist with paleontological research.

“I’ll talk about it from a researcher’s perspective — the process of figuring out how to involve non-specialists in ways that are genuinely useful for doing science,” said Ross, who has worked at the Paleontological Research Institution for 15 years and was part of the team that opened the Museum of the Earth in 2003.

Made possible through a donation by Ken and Linda McGurn of Gainesville, the speaker series is designed to highlight ways scientists can better engage the public in research.

“It’s very important to bring science to the people, and what better way to accomplish that than involve them in the process,” Ken McGurn said. “This series provides an opportunity for researchers and students from a variety of disciplines as well as the public to explore the idea together.”

The series continues through the spring with presentations scheduled for March 12, April 9 and May 14. It will resume with four presentations in the fall, scheduled for Sept. 10, Oct. 8, Nov. 5 and Dec. 10.

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Writer: Leeann Bright
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Take a prehistoric road trip with the Florida Museum of Natural History during the opening of “Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway with artist Ray Troll and paleontologist Kirk Johnson” from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Feb. 4.

University of Florida mascots Albert and Alberta are scheduled to appear from 11 a.m. to noon for visitor photographs with the Albertosaurus skeleton in the exhibit. UF paleontologists, paleobotanists and geologists, as well as members of state fossil clubs including the Tampa Bay Fossil Club, Southwest Florida Fossil Club, Florida Fossil Hunters and the Florida Paleontological Society will also speak with visitors and display specimens from their collections.

“Visitors will have the chance to talk with experts, ask questions and examine real fossils,” said Amanda Erickson Harvey, Florida Museum education assistant. “The activities complement the exhibit, and it will be fun for visitors of any age.”

Opening day events also include face painting and two docent-guided tours of the exhibit at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

Visitors may even compare their feet with the cast of a duck-billed dinosaur footprint in the museum’s Discovery Room.

Outside the museum, field vehicles with tools used by museum researchers will be displayed, and visitors may borrow fossil- and dinosaur-themed books, DVDs and CDs from the Alachua County Library District bookmobile.

Food from High Springs Orchard and Bakery as well as David’s BBQ will also be available for purchase.

The exhibit features 30 fossils, including a complete skeleton cast of Triceratops horridus, the famous three-horned dinosaur, in addition to Albertosaurus, a ferocious carnivore that lived about 70 million years ago. The fossils complement 19 color prints and five large-scale murals of Troll’s creative artwork, which illustrates imagined scenes from prehistoric times and brings fossils from the museum’s research collection to life. The exhibit also features a paleontology laboratory where visitors may watch museum scientists, volunteers and students prepare and examine actual fossils from the field.

While opening day activities are free, admission to “Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway” is $5 for adults, $4.50 for Florida residents, seniors and college students and $4 for ages 3-17. Value admission tickets to the exhibit and Butterfly Rainforest are also available, $13 for adults, $12 for Florida residents, seniors and college students and $9 for ages 3-17. Museum members receive free admission to both exhibits.

“Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway” is presented by the Toomey Foundation for the Natural Sciences Inc. and the Florida Museum Associates Board. The exhibit was organized by the Burke Museum at the University of Washington.

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Sources: Amanda Harvey, 352-273-2052, aerickson@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Logan Gerber
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

But they are not just pretty – when nails appeared on all fingers and toes in modern primates about 55 million years ago, they led to the development of critical functions, including finger pads that allow for sensitive touch and the ability to grasp, whether it’s a nail polish brush or remover to prepare for the next trend.

In a new study co-authored by University of Florida scientists, researchers recovered and analyzed the oldest fossil evidence of fingernails in modern primates, confirming the idea nails developed with small body size and disproving previous theories nails evolved with an increase in primate body size. More than 25 new specimens of Teilhardina brandti – an extinct primate originally described from a single lower molar – include pieces of upper teeth and ankle bones that show the mammal lived in trees. Its nails allowed the lemur-like animal to grasp onto branches and move through the trees with more agility, researchers said.

“If you take all the primates that are alive today, they’re all going to have characteristics that look the same, but unlike people, many of them live in trees,” said co-author Jonathan Bloch, an associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. “By finding parts of the skeleton of this primitive primate, we are able to test whether nails were present in the common ancestor of the group that includes lemurs, monkeys, and humans – it’s direct evidence as opposed to speculation.”

Appearing in the current online edition of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, the study provides a better understanding of the evolutionary relationships of one of the oldest known modern primates, as well as the time frame and environmental conditions that allowed for the development of nails on all fingers and toes, an exclusive feature among primates.

Specimens of T. brandti were collected over the last seven years in northwestern Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin and represent the earliest North American species from the group of euprimates, also known as “true” primates. The fossils date to the early Eocene epoch, about 55.8 million years ago, at the same time as a 200,000-year global warming event known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum occurred, Bloch said. Mammals evolved to be smaller during that time, when even- and odd-toed hoofed mammals, distantly related to modern deer and horses, also first appeared in the fossil record.

“The appearance of the first modern primates in North America co-occurred with the appearance of other modern mammals such as horses, and it’s all associated with a major global warming event,” said co-author Stephen Chester, a Yale University doctoral student and research associate at UF. “It in part set the stage for what we see today in terms of modern mammalian biodiversity.”

Less than 6 inches long, T. brandti was omnivorous, Bloch said. While archaic primates mostly had claws, some of the characteristics of modern primates include forward-facing eyes, an enlarged brain and nails on all digits.

“They are the smallest true nails known on record, whether living or fossil,” said first author Ken Rose, a professor in the Center for Functional Anatomy & Evolution at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “That certainly doesn’t suggest nails developed with larger bodies.”

Based on the age of the fossils and analyses of Teilhardina species from other parts of the world, researchers were also able to analyze the hypothesis that mammals migrated from Asia into North America. Instead, they likely passed from Asia, through Europe and into North America on high-latitude land connections.

“This research really suggests that we are looking at something extremely close [to the species found in Europe] and that’s of great interest in itself,” Rose said. “We can show these species were extremely close morphologically in time and found in Europe and Wyoming.”

During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, average temperatures were about 15 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today, and the large variety of mammals found in the fossil record from that time remains a mystery to scientists.

“The finding of this animal and the concentrated effort of this period of time might be one of those things where the closer you look, the less you know,” said Gregg Gunnell, director of the Division of Fossil Primates at the Duke Lemur Center. “But any time we have the opportunity to add more morphological information to analyze the relationships of animals to answer these biogeographic questions, we can hopefully get closer and closer to an understanding of what led to this big radiation (diversification) of primates in the first place.”

Study co-authors also include Rachel Dunn of Johns Hopkins University and Doug Boyer of Brooklyn College, City University of New York. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and Yale University.

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Source: : Jon Bloch, 352-273-1938, jbloch@flmnh.ufl.edu,
Writer: Danielle Torrent, dtorrent@flmnh.ufl.edu
Media Contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

The specimens formerly comprised the world’s second-largest collection of Florida vertebrate fossils. The museum will honor Lake Wales resident John Waldrop for the donation of his collection during the fourth annual meeting of the Southeastern Association of Vertebrate Paleontology at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Paramount Plaza Hotel in Gainesville.

“Over the decades, Waldrop has had a longstanding influence and impact on what we’ve been able to do, and it’s always been through his collections,” said Florida Museum vertebrate paleontology curator Bruce MacFadden. “He’s always been extremely generous and encouraged us to use his collection, but now it will be in the public domain forever, which sustains its value.”

Vertebrate paleontology collections manager Richard Hulbert said the specimens span the entire range of Florida’s fossil record, from about 10,000 to 40 million years old. The donation increases the museum’s collection by about 10 percent, and the fossils are especially valuable because Waldrop had been collecting since the 1960s and maintained detailed records about locality and age, Hulbert said.

Waldrop, a retired middle school science and community college teacher, said many of the fossils were collected in areas now covered by subdivisions.

“The collection could never be duplicated,” Waldrop said. “I felt it was a really important collection and I fully intended it to go to science. Richard Hulbert asked me one day if I would consider donating it and he caught me at the right time.”

For about 10 years, Waldrop focused his fieldwork first on phosphate mines in South Florida, then rivers, shell pits and quarries, some of which no longer exist, he said. One of his most productive sites was the Peace River, which Hulbert said has become a hotspot for hobbyists in the last 20 years.

“We don’t have many fossils from Peace River, but Waldrop very early on realized it was a problem, and he and his team got in there in the ’70s before everyone,” Hulbert said

In addition to the vertebrate fossils, the donation includes about seven times as many invertebrate specimens.

“The real value of his collection isn’t yet known, but what we’ve picked up so far indicates there are many surprises,” said Florida Museum invertebrate paleontology collections manager Roger Portell. “I pulled out one box just to see what was inside, and with a brief look could tell there were dozens of species absent from our collections.”

When possible, Waldrop also collected materials stratigraphically, meaning he recorded the specific rock layers in which they were found, a method seldom used 20 years ago, Portell said. While he did not know the exact number of specimens in Waldrop’s invertebrate collection, Portell said there were up to 3,000 boxes, each containing a large number of fossils.

“We’re very happy to accept his collection because it will expand our holdings and give greater breadth to the number of taxa we have in our collections,” Portell said. “Most of his collection sites are no longer accessible, so it greatly enhances certain aspects of our collection, and what we have leftover will go to education. It’s all going to be useful.”

Although Waldrop’s collection was private, he said he was always willing to lend specimens to researchers from the 40-by-40-foot air-conditioned warehouse he dubbed the “Timberlane Research Organization” after the road on which it was located. He collected most of the specimens himself, with occasional assistance from his students at McLaughlin Middle School in Lake Wales and Polk Community College in Winter Haven.

Waldrop said his interest in paleontology began with a science assignment as a student at Gainesville High School. His project on shark teeth found in the creek near the school later led to his master’s in geology at UF and life’s ambition to understand the geology of Florida. As a teacher, he also helped influence some of his students to pursue paleontology.

“I wanted to know more about the geology of Florida than anybody else, and in some ways I think I achieved that,” Waldrop said.

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Source: Richard Hulbert, 352-273-1930, rhulbert@flmnh.ufl.edu
Roger Portell, 352-273-2110, portell@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Danielle Torrent
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

The study, appearing in this week’s online early edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes how scientists could use carbon and oxygen isotopes from fossils to more accurately determine whether extinct animals were warm-blooded or cold-blooded and better estimate temperature ranges during the times these animals lived.

“Without a time machine, it has previously been impossible to directly take the temperature of extinct animals such as dinosaurs or megalodon sharks,” said study co-author Richard Hulbert, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. “The method described in the study has been shown to work with 12-million-year-old fossils from Florida and the next step is to look at even older fossils. For example, we have no teeth of Titanoboa, the largest snake ever discovered, but we could use 60-million-year-old crocodylian teeth from the same deposit to find out more about the snake’s environment.”

Funded in part by the National Science Foundation, the new “clumped-isotope” paleothermometer method used in the study analyzes two rare heavy isotopes, carbon-13 and oxygen-18, found in tooth enamel, bones and eggshells.

“Clumping is temperature dependent, so at low temperatures you get more clumping together in a mineral while high temperatures mean less clumping,” said lead author and California Institute of Technology postdoctoral scholar Robert Eagle. “If you can measure the clumping accurately enough, you can work out the temperature at which a mineral formed. In the case of teeth and bone, this will be the body temperature of the organism.”

The researchers first tested the method on modern species: the white rhinoceros, Indian elephant, Nile crocodile, American alligator and sand tiger shark. The study confirmed the rhinoceros and elephant, like all mammals, are warm-blooded, and their tooth enamel forms at about 37 degrees Celsius. Researchers confirmed the accuracy within 2 degrees Celsius by measuring teeth of modern sharks from temperature-controlled aquariums. In the next stage of the study, researchers tested fossils of mammoths and older extinct Florida alligator and rhinoceros species.

“The method we present is a big advance because it allows a direct measurement of the body temperature of extinct species, free from the assumptions required with other approaches,” Eagle said.

Hulbert said previous research to measure body temperatures of extinct species by comparing concentrations of oxygen-16 and oxygen-18 involved making several assumptions about climate during mineral formation including average humidity of a region, the degree of seasonality and distance from nearest ocean.

The study authors concede there are limitations to the clumped isotope analysis method for studying the evolution of thermoregulation. The results are not a lifelong record and only provide a snapshot of temperature of that animal’s body part at the time of formation. Hulbert also said if the tooth enamel has been significantly altered or chemically changed over geologic time, the method will not work.

Eagle said further testing of different-sized dinosaurs and other extinct vertebrates will provide more evidence about whether they were warm- or cold-blooded.

“Temperatures in the range of 26 to 30 degrees Celsius would suggest dinosaurs were similar to alligators and crocodiles,” Eagle said. “Temperatures of 36 degrees or higher would be interesting but would not necessarily mean that they were warm-blooded like mammals. It’s possible the higher body temperature could be a result of their large body mass, which allows greater heat retention than smaller cold-blooded animals like alligators. This question will be better answered after measuring dinosaurs of different sizes.”

Other study authors are John Eiler of the California Institute of Technology; Edwin Schauble of the University of California, Los Angeles; Thomas Tütken of the Universität Bonn in Germany and Aradhna Tripati, who has appointments at the California Institute of Technology, UCLA and the University of Cambridge.

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Source: Richard Hulbert, 352-273-1930 or 352-273-1821, rhulbert@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Vilma Jarvinen
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Scott Sampson, author and host of the popular PBS children’s series “Dinosaur Train,” will present a free public lecture and book signing at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 25 at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Sampson, a curator at the Utah Museum of Natural History, will discuss his latest research and new book, “Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life.” Sampson has published more than 130 scientific and popular articles, lectured extensively to audiences of all ages on dinosaurs and evolution, and conducted fieldwork in a number of countries, including Canada, Kenya, Madagascar, Mexico South Africa, the United States and Zimbabwe. He divides his work time between scientific research and a variety of education-related projects.

His two-day appearance in Gainesville, which also includes a public pre-kindergarten event at the Florida Museum from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 26, is co-sponsored by the museum, WUFT-TV/DT and the Early Learning Coalition of Alachua County.

“The Florida Museum and area residents are extremely fortunate to have someone with Scott’s credentials coming to speak and present the ‘Dinosaur Train’ event said Jamie Creola, museum assistant director for education and visitor services. “He is highly respected in the scientific community as a leader in vertebrate paleontology research and also has a special gift for engaging and educating audiences of all ages.”

After receiving his Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Toronto in 1993, Sampson spent a year working at the American Museum of Natural History, followed by five years as assistant professor of anatomy at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine. From 1999-2007, he held a dual position with the Utah Museum of Natural History and the University of Utah department of geology and geophysics. Sampson’s research has focused on the ecology and evolution of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs, and he currently is working on a large project in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, which has yielded many remains of a previously unknown collection of dinosaurs.

For more information call 352-846-2000.

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Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

The Florida Museum of Natural History is Florida’s state natural history museum, dedicated to understanding, preserving and interpreting biological diversity and cultural heritage. It is located near the intersection of Southwest 34th Street and Hull Road in the University of Florida Cultural Plaza in Gainesville. Hours are 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. Butterfly Rainforest admission is $9.50 for adults ($8 Fla. residents) and $5 for children ages 3-12. Prices subject to change. For more information, including directions and parking, call 352-846-2000, or visit www.flmnh.ufl.edu.

WUFT-TV/DT broadcasts to16 counties in North Central Florida (21 via cable). WUFT broadcasts programming from the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and other venues, as well as local news, public affairs and entertainment shows. WUFT broadcasts via three digital channels: the main channel, 5.1 broadcasts in High Definition (HD); 5.2 is Standard Definition (SD) and features PBS Create; Channel 5.3 offers programming from the Florida Knowledge Network and PBS World. WUFT-TV/DT is on Cox Cable Channel 3 in Gainesville. The additional digital channels, 5.2 and 5.3 are on Cox Cable Channel 113 and 114 respectively. The WUFT studios are located in the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications and serve as a training facility for telecommunication students.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A 60-million-year-old relative of crocodiles described this week by University of Florida researchers in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology was likely a food source for Titanoboa, the largest snake the world has ever known.

Working with scientists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, paleontologists from the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus found fossils of the new species of ancient crocodile in the Cerrejon Formation in northern Colombia. The site, one of the world’s largest open-pit coal mines, also yielded skeletons of the giant, boa constrictor-like Titanoboa, which measured up to 45 feet long. The study is the first report of a fossil crocodyliform from the same site.

“We’re starting to flesh out the fauna that we have from there,” said lead author Alex Hastings, a graduate student at the Florida Museum and UF’s department of geological sciences.

Specimens used in the study show the new species, named Cerrejonisuchus improcerus, grew only 6 to 7 feet long, making it easy prey for Titanoboa. Its scientific name means small crocodile from Cerrejon.

The findings follow another study by researchers at UF and the Smithsonian providing the first reliable evidence of what Neotropical rainforests looked like 60 million years ago.

While Cerrejonisuchus is not directly related to modern crocodiles, it played an important role in the early evolution of South American rainforest ecosystems, said Jonathan Bloch, a Florida Museum vertebrate paleontologist and associate curator.

“Clearly this new fossil would have been part of the food-chain, both as predator and prey,” said Bloch, who co-led the fossil-hunting expeditions to Cerrejon with Smithsonian paleobotanist Carlos Jaramillo. “Giant snakes today are known to eat crocodylians, and it is not much of a reach to say Cerrejonisuchus would have been a frequent meal for Titanoboa. Fossils of the two are often found side-by-side.”

The concept of ancient crocodyliforms as snake food has its parallel in the modern world, as anacondas have been documented consuming caimans in the Amazon. Given the ancient reptile’s size, it would have been no competition for Titanoboa, Hastings said.

Cerrejonisuchus improcerus is the smallest member of Dyrosauridae, a family of now-extinct crocodyliforms. Dyrosaurids typically grew to about 18 feet and had long tweezer-like snouts for eating fish. By contrast, the Cerrejon species had a much shorter snout, indicating a more generalized diet that likely included frogs, lizards, small snakes and possibly mammals.

“It seems that Cerrejonisuchus managed to tap into a feeding resource that wasn’t useful to other larger crocodyliforms,” Hastings said.

The study reveals an unexpected level of diversity among dyrosaurids, said Christopher A. Brochu, a paleontologist and associate professor in geosciences at the University of Iowa.

“This diversity is more evolutionarily complex than expected,” said Brochu, who was not involved in the study. “A limited number of snout shapes evolved repeatedly in many groups of crocodyliforms, and it appears that the same is true for dyrosaurids. Certain head shapes arose in different dyrosaurid lineages independently.”

Dyrosaurids split from the branch that eventually produced the modern families of alligators and crocodiles more than 100 million years ago. They survived the major extinction event that killed the dinosaurs but eventually went extinct about 45 million years ago. Most dyrosaurids have been found in Africa, but they occur throughout the world. Prior to this finding, only one other dyrosaurid skull from South America had been described.

Scientists previously believed dyrosaurids diversified in the Paleogene, the period of time following the mass extinction of dinosaurs, but this study reinforces the view that much of their diversity was in place before the mass extinction event, Brochu said. Somehow dyrosaurids survived the mass extinction intact while other marine reptile groups, such as mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, died out completely.

The crocodyliform’s diminutive size came as a surprise, Hastings said, especially considering the giant reptiles that lived during the Late Cretaceous. The fossil record also points to the possibility of other types of ancient crocodyliforms inhabiting the same ecosystem. “In a lot of these tropical, diverse ecosystems in which crocodyliforms can thrive, you often see multiple snout types,” he said. “They tend to start speciating into different groups.”

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Source: Alex Hastings, 440-225-3633, ahastings@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Bill Kanapaux, bkanapaux@flmnh.ufl.edu
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A team of researchers including a University of Florida paleontologist has used a rich cache of plant fossils discovered in Colombia to provide the first reliable evidence of how Neotropical rainforests looked 58 million years ago.

Researchers from the Smithsonian Institution and UF, among others, found that many of the dominant plant families existing in today’s Neotropical rainforests — including legumes, palms, avocado and banana — have maintained their ecological dominance despite major changes in South America’s climate and geological structure.

The study, which appears this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined more than 2,000 megafossil specimens, some nearly 10 feet long, from the Cerrejón Formation in northern Colombia. The fossils are from the Paleocene epoch, which occurred in the 5- to 7-million-year period following the massive extinction event responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs.

“Neotropical rainforests have an almost nonexistent fossil record,” said study co-author Fabiany Herrera, a graduate student at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. “These specimens allow us to actually test hypotheses about their origins for the first time ever.”

Herrera said the new specimens, discovered in 2003, also provide information for future studies that promise to provide an even stronger understanding of the plants that formed the earliest Neotropical communities.

Many previous assumptions and hypotheses on the earliest rainforests are based on studies of pollen fossils, which did not provide information about climate, forest structure, leaf morphology or insect herbivory.

The new study provides evidence Neotropical rainforests were warmer and wetter in the late Paleocene than today but were composed of the same plant families that now thrive in rainforests. “We have the fossils to prove this,” Herrera said. “It is also intriguing that while the Cerrejón rainforest shows many of the characteristics of modern equivalents, plant diversity is lower.”

The site, one of the world’s largest open-pit coal mines, also yielded the fossil for the giant snake known as Titanoboa, described by UF scientists earlier this year.

“These new plant fossils show us that the forest during the time of Titanoboa, 58 million years ago, was similar in many ways to that of today,” said Florida Museum vertebrate paleontologist Jonathan Bloch, who described Titanoboa but was not part of the rainforest study. “Like Titanoboa, which is clearly related to living boas and anacondas, the ancient forest of northern Colombia had similar families of plants as we see today in that ecosystem. The foundations of the Neotropical rainforests were there 58 million years ago.”

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Megafossils found at the Cerrejón site made it possible to use leaf structure to identify specimens down to the genus level. This resolution allowed the identification of plant genera that still exist in Neotropical rainforests. With pollen fossils, specimens can be categorized only to the family level.

Researchers were surprised by the relative lack of diversity found in the Paleocene rainforest, Herrera said. Statistical analyses showed that the plant communities found in the Cerrejón Formation were 60 percent to 80 percent less diverse than those of modern Neotropical rainforests. Evidence of herbivory also showed a low diversity level among insects.

The study’s authors say the relative lack of diversity indicates either the beginning of rainforest species diversification or the recovery of existing species from the Cretaceous extinction event.

The researchers estimate the Paleocene rainforest received about 126 inches of rainfall annually and had an average annual temperature greater than 86 degrees. The Titanoboa study, which used different methods, estimated an average temperature between 89 and 91 degrees. Today the region’s temperatures average about 81 degrees.

Herrera is now comparing fossils from the Cerrejón site to specimens from other Paleocene sites in Colombia to see how far the early rainforest extended geographically. He is also examining fossils from a Cretaceous site to determine differences in composition before and after the extinction event.

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Source: Fabiany Herrera, Office: 352-273-1934, Cell: 352-222-3897, fherrera@flmnh.ufl.edu
Writer: Bill Kanapaux
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu

Florida Museum vertebrate paleontology curator Bruce MacFadden was interviewed for the “Terror Bird” show, which includes footage of the Titanis skeleton sculpture from the museum’s “Hall of Florida Fossils: Evolution of Life and Land” exhibit.

Titanis lived on the South American continent and was a top predator after the dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago. They used their strong beaks and neck muscles to spear through the meat and bones of captured prey. Most of these birds were flightless.

“Terror Bird,” part of the “Prehistoric Predators” series, also airs at 12 a.m. Wednesday, 1 p.m. May 3 and 5 p.m. May 5.

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Writer: Kelly Donovan
Media contact: Paul Ramey, 352-273-2054, pramey@flmnh.ufl.edu