Popular images of Ice Age California tend to feature enormous, extinct mammals like mammoths and saber-toothed cats. By contrast, new research published in Nature examines populations of small mammals that survived through the end of the Ice Age and how they were affected by the climate change. The research team of Jessica Blois (formerly at Stanford, now at University of Wisconsin, Madison), Elizabeth Hadly (formerly of UCMP, now at Stanford) and Jenny McGuire (UCMP) studied fossilized … [Read more...] about Global warming and declining mammal diversity: new research in Nature
mammals
Marine vertebrate paleontology in Half Moon Bay
This week, we welcome guest blogger Robert Boessenecker. Bobby has been interested in paleontology since he was a kid. He grew up in the Bay Area; when he found Miocene shark teeth in the Santa Cruz Mountains, he was hooked. He first got involved with the UCMP when he was a high school freshman — he visited the museum with his dad, to interview UCMP Assistant Director Mark Goodwin for a school project. Bobby is now getting a Masters' degree at Montana State University. He studies the taphonomy … [Read more...] about Marine vertebrate paleontology in Half Moon Bay
The game of prehistoric life
Evolve or Perish is a new board game – not from the makers of Monopoly, but from ETE, the Evolution of the Terrestrial Ecosystems Program, at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. UCMP Faculty Curators Cindy Looy and Ivo Duijnstee designed the game in collaboration with illustrator Hannah Bonner. Hannah is well-known for her cartoon paleobooks When Bugs Were Big and When Fish Got Feet. The three enjoy collaborating -- Hannah created the logo for Cindy's lab's web site, and she is … [Read more...] about The game of prehistoric life
Fossils found fortuitously
Not all fossils are discovered by paleontologists combing the earth on special expeditions. Many fossils are found by accident — particularly during construction projects. Impressive fossils, like whales, mammoths, and sloths, have been found while digging foundations for buildings, leveling land for highways, and excavating subway tunnels. This spring, the UCMP blog will take you on a tour of Bay Area construction sites, past and present, to show you some of the fossils underfoot in the … [Read more...] about Fossils found fortuitously
How many mammoths?
A few weeks ago, the UCMP welcomed visitor Jake Enk, a graduate student from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Jake visited the UCMP to saw off chunks of fossil mammoth teeth. Yes, you read that right. He took a small saw, sterilized the blade with bleach, and sliced off a small piece of tooth. Even after tens of thousands of years, mammoth teeth still contain DNA. Jake will put a little piece of the tooth in a test tube, and use a series of chemicals to purify the mammoth DNA. He does … [Read more...] about How many mammoths?
Lupé’s story, part 2: Prototyping the mammoth exhibit
UCMP graduate student Kaitlin Maguire is working with the Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose to develop a new exhibit about the life of Lupé, a mammoth fossil that was found in the nearby Guadalupe River. This is the second in a series of blogs about Lupé and the new exhibit. Read Kaitlin’s first Lupé blog here. Development of the Lupé Story Exhibition is moving along quickly as exhibit ideas come to life in prototyping labs, in which the development team at the Children’s Discovery … [Read more...] about Lupé’s story, part 2: Prototyping the mammoth exhibit
Fossils provide baseline for mammal diversity
As more and more species go extinct, biologists wonder whether we are on the verge of the earth's sixth mass extinction. A new study, by Marc Carrasco and Tony Barnosky of the UCMP and Russell Graham of Pennsylvania State University, uses the fossil record to examine mammal biodiversity in North America over the past 30 million years. Carrasco and his collaborators used data from two fossil databases, MioMap and Faunmap, to determine the baseline of mammal diversity before humans arrived in … [Read more...] about Fossils provide baseline for mammal diversity
UCMP’s Tony Barnosky in The Economist
Check out this week's issue of The Economist — it features the work of UCMP Faculty Curator Tony Barnosky. Tony looks at how climate change affects the ecology and distribution of mammals — in the distant past and in the future. The UCMP last blogged about Tony's work here. … [Read more...] about UCMP’s Tony Barnosky in The Economist
Paleo Video: Kaitlin Maguire at the John Day Fossil Beds
Watch this video and join UCMP graduate student Kaitlin Maguire on a field trip to the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument! After visiting the park last spring, Kaitlin decided it's the perfect place to do her dissertation research. "When you do a field project for paleontology, especially if you're looking for fossils, you never know what you're going to find — you never know if there's going to be enough data," says Kaitlin. But paleontologists from the UCMP and elsewhere have been … [Read more...] about Paleo Video: Kaitlin Maguire at the John Day Fossil Beds
Lupé’s story: A mammoth’s journey from the ground to a museum
In 2005, Roger Castillo found the fossilized bones of a juvenile mammoth in the Guadalupe River near San Jose. Roger was walking his dog along the river, which he did frequently as a volunteer for the Guadalupe-Coyote Resource Conservation District, when he saw the tusks of the mammoth's skull poking out of the soil along the riverbank. At the time he wasn't exactly sure what he was looking at but recognized their importance and contacted the UCMP. The fossilized mammoth has been named Lupé, … [Read more...] about Lupé’s story: A mammoth’s journey from the ground to a museum
One more Moropus
This summer, Carolyn Rounds visited the UCMP to study our Moropus fossils. Carolyn is a grad student in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. And Moropus is an extinct horse-like creature, part of a taxonomic group called chalicotheres. Chalicotheres are pretty unique — they had claws instead of hooves. They didn’t use their claws to rip apart prey; they were herbivores, and they probably used their claws to pull vegetation down from trees. … [Read more...] about One more Moropus