Category: Paleontology

Dino/Bird Maker Space

March 25, 2024 By arne hendriks Off

Birds evolved through a unique phase of sustained miniaturisation in theropod dinosaurs. They didn’t just shrink but continued to do so over long periods of time. Therefor we can conclude that long before their small descendents developed the ability to fly, smallness already had clear…

Human-sized Penguin

July 20, 2022 By arne hendriks Off

Global warming is causing many species of animals to shrink. That is why we’re intrigued by this counter-intuitive RESEARCH on prehistoric giant penguins. Most penguin species today are small to average sized flightless birds that live in the colder regions of the southern hemisphere. They…

Shrinking Human Clickbait?

June 16, 2022 By arne hendriks Off

Hmmm, interesting. In the context of what seems to be the promotion of a new book on mammals, professor Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh lists several all too well-known examples related to the phenomenon of shrinking as a survival mechanism when temperatures rise…

Neglecting Gravity

April 17, 2018 By arne hendriks Off

As Stephen Jay Gould writes in “Size and Shape” we are prisoners of the perceptions of our size, and rarely recognize how different the world must appear to the very small. Since our relative surface area is so small at our large size, we are…

Haplogroup Hot Switch

April 1, 2018 By arne hendriks Off

Haplogroup I-M170 is a common Y chromosome DNA haplogroup among unnecessary tall males mostly situated in North and South East Europe. The descendants sharing this specific group of identical genetic traits all come from a unique male ancestor that lived approximately 22.000 years ago during…

Transient Dwarfism of Soil Fauna

November 30, 2017 By arne hendriks Off

It’s been well established that rising temperatures and CO2 levels in the environment tends to decrease animal size. But what about the keystone species and ecosystem engineers that make soil? Although there’s not been much contemporary research into this the fossil record allows us to…

Small-Bodied Survivor

June 9, 2016 By arne hendriks 0

Ever since 2004 when several remains of a 50.000 year old tiny bodied human species were excavated, the Indonesian island of Flores and its ancient population have been in the centre of paleontologists attention. Homo floresiensis as it was named inspired a lively and sometimes…

Dinosaur-Bird Transition

February 16, 2016 By arne hendriks 1

Wonderful things can happen when a species shrinks. In the case of a particular lineage of theropod dinosaurs that wonderful thing eventually turned out to be flight. Dinosaurs became birds. Before the bulky theropods that roamed the Earth 200+ million years ago turned into the…

Non hopping Kangaroo

November 24, 2014 By arne hendriks 1

When asked what defines a kangaroo, most people would probably say it’s the fact that they hop. Christine Janis of Brown University was studying a species of giant kangaroo, the Procoptodon goliah when it occurred to her that its weight of 240 kg, it’s bone…

Shrinking is Easy

September 5, 2013 By arne hendriks 1

There’s a basic asymmetry in macro-evolution. On the evolutionary scale shrinking is easy and growing large is difficult. This is probably due to the emergence, during a trend of increasing maximum body size, of a series of anatomical, physiological, environmental, genetic and other constraints that…

The Short Origin of Species

December 23, 2012 By arne hendriks 0

Cope’s rule, that species tend to increase body size over time, seems to reinforce the present day believe that bigger is better. Why else, if not for evolutionary advantages, would species evolve towards bigger size? Unfortunately it is precisely this deterministic thinking that we’ve become…

Cope’s (non)Rule

October 31, 2012 By arne hendriks 1

Cope’s rule states that, as geologic time progresses, body size increases. Edward Drinker Cope, a dinosaur fossil hunter who postulated the rule at the end of the 19th century, based his theory on the analysis of over 1500 fossil families. The more recent species in his…

Hot Adaptations

October 8, 2012 By arne hendriks 1

Palaeontologists studying fossilised horses have found a direct link between the size of mammals and climate change. According to Dr. Jonathan Bloch, curator of the Florida Museum of Natural History, as temperatures go up size goes down, and vice versa. Bloch: ‘Horses started out small 56…

Big Bird

December 7, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

The research for The Incredible Shrinking Man broadens, and some surprising connections are surfacing. In earlier reports on dwarfism and gigantism we discovered the special position of islands in regards to the size of its inhabitants. The Indonesian island of Flores is again the stage…

Is Global Warming Shrinking our Brain?

August 28, 2010 By arne hendriks 2

This study by Jessica Ash and Gordon G. Gallup Jr. suggests that human cranial capacity as an indicator of brain size grew dramatically during our evolution, and that variations in global temperature as well as progressive shifts toward global cooling account for as much as…

Prisoners of Size?

May 8, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

In the short article Size and Shape the late paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould remembers how he once overheard a children’s conversation in a New York playground:  “Two young girls were discussing the size of dogs. One asked: “Can a dog be as…

The Hobbit of Flores

April 5, 2010 By arne hendriks 2

Homo floresiensis, nicknamed “hobbit”, is an extinct human species discovered in 2003 on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Partial skeletons of nine individuals have been recovered, including one complete skull. This hominin is remarkable for its small body and brain and for its survival…