Welcome back! Now that we're all starting to get into the swing of things, I'm attempting to get the Carleton Evolution and Palaeontology group back online and in business!
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter at @CarletonUEvoPal.
We're still looking for group members and non-group members to do guest posts on our blog. So please email us at Evo.Paleo.Carleton@gmail.com if you're interested.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
What I'm Studying: New Data on Struthiomimus altus and the Evolution of Ornithomimids in the Belly River Group
Struthiomimus altus as imagined by Irwin Christman in 1921, courtesy of copyrightexpired.com. |
A published figure incorporating data from the ROM Struthiomimus. |
• It is one of only two specimens referred to S. altus from the Belly River Group that has a precisely documented quarry locality (Currie & Koppelhus 2005, supplementary CD).
• It is the only specimen referred to S. altus from the Belly River Group to preserve certain portions of the skull.
• It is one of only a few specimens referred to S. altus that combines the cranial, axial and appendicular elements of a single individual.
These conditions make the ROM Struthiomimus an important specimen for evaluating the diagnostic characters of S. altus, and whether it is the same species as geologically younger occurences of Struthiomimus.
When Osborn (1917) named the genus Struthiomimus, he justified its distinction from the closely related Ornithomimus partly on the basis of its lower stratigraphic occurrence, which fit the pattern he had observed in other dinosaur groups. However, subsequent discoveries enlarged the stratigraphic ranges of both taxa, and they are now known to have overlapped (Kobayashi et al. 2006, Cullen et al. 2013). The current stratigraphic range of Struthiomimus is unusually long for a dinosaur genus, and the longevity of species, or rate of species turnover within Struthiomimus, if any, is poorly understood. The Oldman and Dinosaur Park Formations were not recognized as formally distinct until the 1990s (Eberth & Hamblin 1993), and it is therefore uncertain which formation(s) much of the S. altus material from the Belly River Group was collected from. I'll also be examining fragmentary ornithomimid material from the geologically older Milk River, Foremost and Oldman Formations to see if I can detect any changes in the taxonomic content or diversity of Albertan ornithomimids preceding S. altus in the fossil record.
References
Cullen, T. M., Ryan, M. J., Schröder-Adams, C., Currie, P.J. and Kobayashi, Y. 2013. An ornithomimid (Dinosauria) bonebed from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, with implications for the behavior, classification, and stratigraphy of North American ornithomimids. PLoS One 8 (3, e58853):1-9.
Currie, P. J. and Koppelhus, E. B. (eds.) 2005. Dinosaur Provincial Park: A Spectacular Ancient Ecosystem Revealed. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Eberth, D. A. and Hamblin, A. P. 1993. Tectonic, stratigraphic, and sedimentologic significance of a regional discontinuity in the upper Judith River Group (Belly River wedge) of southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and nothern Montana. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 30: 174-200.
Kobayashi, Y., Makovicky, P., and Currie, P. 2006. Ornithomimids (Theropoda: Dinosauria) from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, Canada. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 26 (3): 86A.
Osborn, H. F. 1917. Skeletal adaptions of Ornitholestes, Struthiomimus and Tyrannosaurus. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 35: 733-771.
Russell, D. A. 1972. Ostrich dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous of western Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 9: 375-402.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Week of March 18 Discussion
This week we are discussing:
Laflamme et al. (2012), Ecological Tiering and the Evolution of a Stem: The Oldest Stemmed Frond from the Ediacaran of Newfoundland, Canada (http://jpaleontol.geoscienceworld.org/content/86/2/193.short).
Laflamme et al. (2012), Ecological Tiering and the Evolution of a Stem: The Oldest Stemmed Frond from the Ediacaran of Newfoundland, Canada (http://jpaleontol.geoscienceworld.org/content/86/2/193.short).
Saturday, March 16, 2013
New Posts to Come
We have big plans for guest posts on research at Carleton and the Canadian Museum of Nature. Check back soon!
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Organizational Meeting
We're having our first meeting of the Fall semester today at 5:30 at Mike's Place. Come on down and we can get all new and returning people acquainted over a beer. We'll also be voting on the regular meeting time for the Fall...I guess...
See you at Mike's!
See you at Mike's!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Carleton Evolution and Palaeontology at CPC2012
The Canadian Paleontology Conference took place in Toronto this past weekend. Four grad students from Carleton presented two talks and two posters, for which the following abstracts were published:
Campbell, J.A., Haggart, J.W., Druckenmiller, P.S., Schröder-Adams, C.J., Zazula, G. and Ryan, M.J. 2012. First record of a Cretaceous plesiosaur from the Yukon Territory. Canadian Paleontology Conference Proceedings 10: 20.
Cullen, T.M., Ryan, M.J., and Evans, D.C. 2012. Taxonomy and paleoecology of a vertebrate microsite from the Foremost Formation of southern Alberta, Canada. Canadian Paleontology Conference Proceedings 10: 27.
Dionne, D., Schröder-Adams, C., and Cumbaa, S. 2012. Vertebrate fossil-rich bonebeds in the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway: Towards a classification scheme. Canadian Paleontology Conference Proceedings 10: 28-29.
McFeeters, B. 2012. Bone "Taxon B": Re-evaluation of a supposed small theropod from the mid-Cretaceous of Morocco. Canadian Paleontology Conference Proceedings 10: 51-52.
Campbell, J.A., Haggart, J.W., Druckenmiller, P.S., Schröder-Adams, C.J., Zazula, G. and Ryan, M.J. 2012. First record of a Cretaceous plesiosaur from the Yukon Territory. Canadian Paleontology Conference Proceedings 10: 20.
Cullen, T.M., Ryan, M.J., and Evans, D.C. 2012. Taxonomy and paleoecology of a vertebrate microsite from the Foremost Formation of southern Alberta, Canada. Canadian Paleontology Conference Proceedings 10: 27.
Dionne, D., Schröder-Adams, C., and Cumbaa, S. 2012. Vertebrate fossil-rich bonebeds in the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway: Towards a classification scheme. Canadian Paleontology Conference Proceedings 10: 28-29.
McFeeters, B. 2012. Bone "Taxon B": Re-evaluation of a supposed small theropod from the mid-Cretaceous of Morocco. Canadian Paleontology Conference Proceedings 10: 51-52.
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