Uh-oh - another transitional fossil!
Posted on February 7th, 2008 by blue collar scientistFossilScience reports on some new fossils of Australian crayfish and their burrows, styling them “missing links.” The fossils, from 115 million years ago, were formed at a time when Australia was an antarctic continent.
The crayfish body fossils consist of an abdomen and two claws, and the fossil burrows are nearly identical to those made by modern crayfish in southeastern Australia. “Comparing these fossil burrows to those made by modern crayfish in Australia shows us that their behavior hasn’t changed that much,” says (Emory University paleontologist Anthony) Martin.
It sounds like crayfish are alongside crocodilians as preserving their gross phenotype since the time of the dinosaurs. As the story notes, crayfish - which cannot survive in salt water - occur on all continents except Antarctica. The fossils therefore contribute to the already overwhelming evidence that the continents were at one time all connected.
As far as I can tell, the reason the fossils should be considered transitional is that they help to support the hypothesis of molecular biologists that all southern hemisphere crayfish evolved from a population in southeastern Australia.
Two things which suck about this story:
- Apparently there are no photos of the fossils. At least I can’t find any published with any news accounts. This badly cripples any attempt to do timely science outreach on this newsworthy story.
- The paper, which is in press at an online journal, is subscription only. The journal is owned by Elsevier, the biggest journal publisher in the world, with half a billion dollars profit in 2005. So if there is any illustration there, mere mortals aren’t allowed to see it.
February 8th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Hi B.C.S.,
Thanks for the p.r. about the fossil crayfish (and their burrows) from Down Under. I’m glad to see my gentle nudging of our media-relations people to put out a press release on the study is getting some attention from people who are enthused about cool science that’s happening, and especially in paleontology.
I agree with both of your criticisms, the lack of photos and access to the original article.
With regard to the first one, just send me an e-mail address and I’ll be glad to send the photos of the fossils, which I gave to my media people but evidently went no further. Part of the problem is that they weren’t fantastic specimens. Which is to say, they weren’t fishing lures photographed in a beautiful way to convince people about the rightness of creationism: they were real fossils, and one of them in particular was really beaten up (almost lost its existence to a rock saw). Trace fossil photos in particular (the fossil crayfish burrows) are also tough to show in a way that a news outlet will be wowed by them enough to run the picture. (Although for an exception, go to ScienceDaily.com and check out the story there.) Oh well - I tried!
And for your second point, I’ll also be glad to send you a reprint of the article once I have the final, published version. I hear you loud and clear about limited access - not good at all for public outreach. That’s why I made sure at least a news story got out about it, and then I’m happy to give more information to anyone who wants it, straight from the horse’s mouth (and for free - no half billion of profit in my bank account…hell, I don’t even have a full six-pack in my fridge right now!).
Thanks again for the interest, and keep evolving!
Cheers,
Tony (Martin)
February 20th, 2008 at 4:42 am
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