Rhynchosaurs

Imagine a reptilian pig with a hammerhead, no visible ears, and a parrot-like beak, and you'll have a pretty good mental picture of a rhynchosaur.

Rhynchosaurs were herbivores that in some fossil localities account for 40 to 60% of the specimens found, making them the most abundant plant eaters on land. They were reptiles with stocky bodies and a powerful beak.

Early forms were small, less than a meter long, and typically lizard-like in build. They had narrow, wedge-shaped skulls with a few small, blunt teeth for eating plants.

Later versions grew up to two meters in length. The skull in these later forms were short, broad and triangular, becoming much wider than long, giving them a somewhat hammer-head appearance, although the eyes were set close together, near the top of the beak. The broad skull accommodated powerful jaw muscles that enabled the rhynchosaurs to cut up tough plant material. The teeth were modified into broad tooth plates, and the lower jaw fit into a groove on the upper jaw, enabling the ‘cutting’ of plant fibers.

The hind feet were equipped with massive claws, presumably for digging up roots and tubers, although digging claws are usually found on the front feet. Like many animals of their time, they spread all across Pangea, and thus across the world.

And that seems to about all there is to say about the rhynchosaurs. They lived during the Triassic era (251 to 199 million years ago), dying out just before herbivore dinosaurs appeared.

I think I would have found rhynchosaurs terrifying, particularly the larger ones, even though they were basically reptilian cows or deer. Let’s face it, the larger ones were as long as a man is tall, and who’s to say they wouldn’t try munching on this new plant called human that invaded their space, even if it didn’t sit still like other plants?

What do you think? If you had a time machine, would you venture back to visit them up close and personal?

 

https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/taxa/verts/archosaurs/rhynchosauria.php

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhynchosaur

Palm Trees by Another Name

The Arecaceae are perennial flowering plants. Their form can be as climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants. They are all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees. There are 2,600 species of Arecaceae known, most of them restricted to tropical and subtropical climates. Most palms have large, compound, evergreen leaves (known as fronds) arranged at the top of an unbranched stem. Palms exhibit enormous diversity and inhabit nearly every type of habitat within their range, from rainforests to deserts.

Modern monocots appear in the fossil record around 80 million years ago, although specific species of Arecaceae appeared 94 million years ago, according to fossilized pollen. By 60 million years ago, many of the modern specialized palms became widespread and common, much more widespread than they are today.

The use of palms is as old or older than human civilization, starting with cultivating the date palm in the Middle East some 5,000 or more years ago. Date wood, pits for storing dates, and other remains of the date palm have been found in Mesopotamian sites. If not for the date palm, human expansion into the hot and barren parts of the “old” world would have been much more difficult. The date palm provided food which was easily stored and carried on long journeys. It provided shade and protection from the desert winds. It yielded such a variety of products that practically all parts of the palm had a useful purpose.

The economic importance of Arecaceae includes coconut products, oils, dates, palm syrup, ivory nuts, carnauba wax, rattan cane, raffia, and palm wood. There are a number of palms that can be used to make wine, at least one of which turns to vinegar within a day.

It kind of makes me want to go out and hug a palm tree, for without palms, who knows how long it might have taken humans to reach this point in their civilization? Which makes me wonder, would we have grown up any wiser if we had taken a slower path to get here? Or would that early difficulty of exploring the deserts have burned us into tighter powder kegs of anger that made our history even more bloody than what we experienced?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecaceae

Octopuses

The octopus is a soft-bodied mollusc with 8 limbs (also known as tentacles). About 300 species are recognized, and the order of Octopoda is grouped within the class Cephalopoda, along with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. The octopus is bilaterally symmetric, with one side the mirror image of the other.

The 8 appendages of an octopus trail behind them as they swim, which they do by expelling a jet of water. With 8 arms to control, they have a complex nervous system. They also have excellent sight and are among the most intelligent and behaviorally diverse of all invertebrates.

With so many types of octopuses, they are found throughout the sea, from seashores to the abyssal depths. Most species grow quickly and don’t live very long. In most species, the male dies after mating, while the female watches over the fertilized eggs until they hatch, then she dies.

The octopus has many strategies to defend themselves, including the expulsion of ink, the use of camouflage and threat displays, the ability to jet quickly through the water and hide, and even deceit. Only one specie is known to be deadly to humans, although all octopuses are venomous.

The largest known octopus specie is the giant Pacific octopus. Adults usually have an arm span up to 14 ft (4.3 m) and weigh around 33 lb (15 kg). The largest specimen scientifically documented weighed 156.5 lb (71 kg), but much larger sizes have been claimed for the giant Pacific octopus, including one that weighed 600 lb (272 kg) with an arm span of 30 ft (9 m). A carcass of the seven-arm octopus was estimated to have a live mass of 165 lb (75 kg).

The smallest specie is octopus wolfi, which is about 1 in (2.5 cm) and weighs less than 0.035 oz (1 g).

The bulbous head of the octopus contains most of the vital organs. Lacking any bones at all, even large specimens of octopus can squeeze through a 1 inch gap, which can make them quite the escape artist!

I think we all know that the tentacles can bend in any direction at any location, and that the interior surface of the tentacles are covered in circular suckers. But I didn’t know that the octopus typically uses 2 tentacles to ‘walk’ along the sea floor, while the other 6 are used for foraging.

Octopuses have 3 hearts; a systemic heart that circulates blood around the body, and two branchial hearts that pump blood through each of the two gills. The systemic heart is inactive during swimming, so the animal tires easily and prefers to crawl. Their blood contains a copper-rich protein to transport oxygen. This makes the blood very viscous and bluish in color, but it transports oxygen more efficiently in cold water with limited oxygen availability than hemoglobin.

In several sets of mythology, octopuses appear as sea monsters, from the Kraken of Norway to the Gorgon of ancient Greece, and probably many more.

I saw a tv episode once on what evolution would do with today’s species in another million years, and one of the things suggested was that at least one specie of octopus would leave the sea to seek food in the forests on land. While this is an intriguing thought, I wonder if the octopus would have to develop some kind of support for its internal organs, to keep them from dragging along the ground, or a thick skin that could resist tearing and leaving those organs scattered behind it. Because it isn’t exactly dealing with the full force of gravity while it’s in the water, but it would have to once it came ashore.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus