Fantastic Science Book: Locked in Time: Animal Behavior Unearthed in 50 Extraordinary Fossils

As a meteorologist, I love all things science. In addition to weather, I'm especially fascinated by dinosaurs and fossils. So when I heard about "Locked in Time: Animal Behavior Unearthed in 50 Extraordinary Fossils" by Dean Lomax, I knew I had to read it. This book contains 50 amazing fossil finds, and each finding is accompanied by Amazing illustrations by paleoartist Bob Nicholls of the dinosaur, bird, marine animal or insect that is the topic of the finding. 

The author is brilliant in his explanations, and i was amazed that he could discuss details about the lives, structure and habits of mammals, dinosaurs, marine mammals, birds and snakes. Dean Lomax knows how to bring prehistoric creatures into the knowledge of modern mankind.

Even people who are remotely interested in paleontology will find this fascinating. 5 of 5 Stars! Here's the description of the book:

SUMMARY:

Fossils allow us to picture the forms of life that inhabited the earth eons ago. But we long to know more: how did these animals actually behave? We are fascinated by the daily lives of our fellow creatures―how they reproduce and raise their young, how they hunt their prey or elude their predators, and more. What would it be like to see prehistoric animals as they lived and breathed?

From dinosaurs fighting to their deaths to elephant-sized burrowing ground sloths, this book takes readers on a global journey deep into the earth’s past. Locked in Time showcases fifty of the most astonishing fossils ever found, brought together in five fascinating chapters that offer an unprecedented glimpse at the real-life behaviors of prehistoric animals. 

(Photo: Dr. Dean Lomax, author) 

Dean R. Lomax examines the extraordinary direct evidence of fossils captured in the midst of everyday action, such as dinosaurs sitting on their eggs like birds, Jurassic flies preserved while mating, a T. rex infected by parasites.

Each fossil, he reveals, tells a unique story about prehistoric life. Many recall behaviors typical of animals familiar to us today, evoking the chain of evolution that links all living things to their distant ancestors.

(Image: Illustration by paleoartist Bob Nicholls in the book); 

Locked in Time allows us to see that fossils are not just inanimate objects: they can record the life stories of creatures as fully alive as any today. Striking and scientifically rigorous illustrations by renowned paleoartist Bob Nicholls bring these breathtaking moments to life.

Big Discovery! Flowering Plants Go Back to Jurassic Period!

As a prehistory, fossil and dinosaur enthusiast I recently read about a big discovery that breaks new ground in the understanding of evolution of flowering plants! The fossil of a flowering plant was discovered that dates back to the Jurassic Period! It was previously thought that they didn't develop until the following period (Cretaceous), so this takes flowering plant development back even further in time. Here's the story from LiveScience! 

(Image) The fossilized Florigerminis jurassica plant with a defined stem, bulbous fruit and fossilized flower bud (marked by the white arrow). (Image credit: NIGPAS)

164 million-year-old plant fossil is the oldest example of a flowering bud

By Harry Baker LIVESCIENCE

Researchers have uncovered the earliest example of a flower bud in a 164 million-year-old plant fossil in China. The discovery firmly pushes back the emergence of flowering plants into the Jurassic period, between 145 million and 201 million years ago.

The fossil, which was uncovered in the Inner Mongolia region of China, is 1.7 inches (4.2 centimeters) long and 0.8 inches (2 cm) wide. It contains a stem, a leafy branch, a bulbous fruit and a tiny flower bud around 3 square millimeters in size. The researchers have named the new species Florigerminis jurassica.

There are two main types of plants: flowering plants, known as angiosperms, and non-flowering plants, known as gymnosperms. The flower bud and fruit in the fossil are both clear indicators that F. jurassica was an angiosperm and not a gymnosperm, which was the dominant plant type during the Jurassic period. Until now, fossil evidence has shown that angiosperms did not arise until the Cretaceous period, between 66 million and 145 million years ago, but the new fossil is the most convincing evidence yet that this was not the case.

"Many paleobotanists are surprised [by the fossil], as it is quite different from what is stated in books," senior author Xin Wang, a researcher at Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS), told Live Science in an email. "But I am not so surprised," he added.

The new fossil is not the oldest example of a fossilized flower to ever be discovered. In 2018, in a study published in eLife, researchers described 174 million-year-old flowers from a plant in the genus Nanjinganthus, also found in China, Live Science previously reported.

However, some researchers have questioned whether Nanjinganthus can truly be considered an angiosperm because the flowers were not complex enough to distinguish them from leafy structures seen in gymnosperms, ScienceAlert reported. Flowers are also extremely delicate and hard to fossilize, which can make it hard to tell them apart from other plant material, Wang said.

But the flower bud and fruit in the new fossil prove without a doubt that F. jurassica was definitely an angiosperm, he said. The fossil, therefore, "underscores the presence of angiosperms in the Jurassic and demands a rethinking of angiosperm evolution," the researchers wrote in a statement.

Wang believes that several other known plant genera from the Jurassic period, including Nanjinganthus, Juraherba, Yuhania, Jurafructus, Xingxueanthus and Schmeissneria, could also potentially be angiosperms, but he says there is no way to tell for sure without fossil evidence. Until now, scientists had just assumed those genera were gymnosperms because they arose in the Jurassic.

However, if angiosperms were present during the Jurassic, they would have been very uncommon compared to gymnosperms and geographically isolated, which makes finding similarly well-preserved examples of other flower buds very unlikely, he said.

Alternatively, it is also possible that F. jurassica may be one of the very first evolutionary links between older angiosperm-like plants, such as Nanjinganthus, and more recent true angiosperms found in the Cretaceous period, Wang said.

The study was published online Jan. 6 in the journal of the Geological Society of London.

11 Amazing Fossil Discoveries!

If you're interested in science, palentology or dinosaurs, here's a short special from "Epic Wildlife" that you need to see. It's called "11 Amazing Fossil Discoveries."  We were unaware of many of these findings, and they're amazing.

 From the Dragon like creature found in China, to one of the best Fossil exhibits in the world, these are 11 AMAZING Fossil Discoveries!
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/eIVIQPTdNX4