scholarly journals Diversity of raptor dinosaurs in southeastern North America revealed by the first definite record from North Carolina

Author(s):  
Chase D Brownstein

During the Cretaceous period, North America was divided into two landmasses, the eastern Appalachia and western Laramidia. Recent research on several sites scattered across the eastern margin of North America has allowed for the analysis of vertebrate faunas from the once obscured terrestrial fossil record of Appalachia, revealing the landmass harbored a distinctive fauna composed of mostly relict forms. One geological unit that has produced a comparatively extensive record of terrestrial vertebrates, including non-avian dinosaurs, is the Tar Heel Formation of North Carolina. Here, I report the first definitive occurrence of a dromaeosaurid from the Tar Heel Formation in the form of a tooth from a fairly large member of that group. This tooth, like others previously discovered from the southeastern portion of North America, compares favorably with those of saurornitholestine dromaeosaurids from the western United States and Canada. The North Carolina tooth differs in morphology and size from previously reported southeastern North American dromaeosaurid teeth, but is still assignable to a saurornitholestine dromaeosaurid, evincing that the diversity of carnivorous bird-like dinosaurs in the southeastern part of North America during the Late Cretaceous may have been rather low. The tooth, which is intermediate in size between those of smaller dromaeosaurids like Saurornitholestes and gigantic forms like Dakotaraptor, helps fill the gap between larger- and smaller-bodied dromaeosaurids from the Late Cretaceous.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chase D Brownstein

During the Cretaceous period, North America was divided into two landmasses, the eastern Appalachia and western Laramidia. Recent research on several sites scattered across the eastern margin of North America has allowed for the analysis of vertebrate faunas from the once obscured terrestrial fossil record of Appalachia, revealing the landmass harbored a distinctive fauna composed of mostly relict forms. One geological unit that has produced a comparatively extensive record of terrestrial vertebrates, including non-avian dinosaurs, is the Tar Heel Formation of North Carolina. Here, I report the first definitive occurrence of a dromaeosaurid from the Tar Heel Formation in the form of a tooth from a fairly large member of that group. This tooth, like others previously discovered from the southeastern portion of North America, compares favorably with those of saurornitholestine dromaeosaurids from the western United States and Canada. The North Carolina tooth differs in morphology and size from previously reported southeastern North American dromaeosaurid teeth, but is still assignable to a saurornitholestine dromaeosaurid, evincing that the diversity of carnivorous bird-like dinosaurs in the southeastern part of North America during the Late Cretaceous may have been rather low. The tooth, which is intermediate in size between those of smaller dromaeosaurids like Saurornitholestes and gigantic forms like Dakotaraptor, helps fill the gap between larger- and smaller-bodied dromaeosaurids from the Late Cretaceous.


1990 ◽  
Vol 64 (6) ◽  
pp. 1045-1049 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell L. Hall ◽  
Suzan Moore

Although many of the surviving lineages of sea stars appeared during an early Mesozoic radiation of the class and have undergone limited change since then, they have left a very poor fossil record, particularly in the Mesozoic of North America (Blake, 1981). This record from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta is made more significant by the fact that it is apparently only the second occurrence of a member of the family Astropectinidae in the Cretaceous of North America; Lophidiaster silentiensis was described by McLearn (1944) from the Lower Cretaceous (Albian) Hasler Formation, from a now-submerged locality on the Peace River in northern Alberta. All previously recorded fossil sea stars from the North American Cretaceous are representatives of the family Goniasteridae.


1999 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 256-262
Author(s):  
Art Johnson

AN OLD SAYING GOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS, “ARTISTS ARE born, not made.” For Billie Ruth Sudduth, this statement is not quite true. Billie Ruth, who lives in the North Carolina mountains, makes baskets that are prized by collectors from all across North America and have been displayed in the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. She is internationally known for her basket artistry and was the first woman to be designated a Living Treasure by the state of North Carolina. But she was not always a basket maker.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Chase Doran Brownstein ◽  
Immanuel Bissell

Abstract Although the fossil record of the Late Cretaceous eastern North American landmass Appalachia is poor compared to that from the American West, it includes material from surprisingly aberrant terrestrial vertebrates that may represent relictual forms persisting in relative isolation until the end of the Mesozoic. One intriguing question is to what extent eastern and western North American faunas interspersed following the closure of the Western Interior Seaway during the Maastrichtian Stage of the Late Cretaceous ca. 70 Ma. Isolated remains from the Atlantic Coastal Plain in New Jersey have been preliminarily identified as the bones of crested lambeosaurine hadrosaurids, a derived clade known from the Cretaceous of Asia, western North America, and Europe, but have not been formally described. We describe the partial forelimb of a large hadrosaurid from the late Maastrichtian New Egypt Formation of New Jersey. The ulna preserves multiple deep scores identifiable as shark feeding marks, and both bones show ovoid and circular marks attributable to invertebrates. This forelimb is very similar to another partial antebrachium from the same area that shows evidence of septic arthritis. Both these specimens and a complete humerus from the same unit are closely comparable to the lower forelimbs of lambeosaurines among hadrosaurid dinosaurs. Although the absence of lambeosaurine synapomorphies observable on the New Egypt Formation forelimbs precludes their definite referral to Lambeosaurinae, they show that a morphotype of large hadrosauromorph with distinctly elongate forelimbs existed in the latest Maastrichtian of eastern North America and allow for a revision of the latest Cretaceous biogeography of crested herbivorous dinosaurs.


2009 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 172
Author(s):  
Dorothy Hodder

Coastal North Carolina, and especially Wilmington and the Lower CapeFear area, has been the location for many exciting events for more than four centuries. This book provides a comprehensive tool for discovering these sites.  In this easy-to-use guide, author Jack E. Fryar, a native of Wilmington, offers an illustrated tour of the many historical tourism stops in the southeastern part of the state. The list of entries is color-coded by location and includes a wide range of sites, including the gardens, cemeteries, museums, and even the North Carolina Room at the New Hanover County Public Library.


1993 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 434-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Kegel Christensen

Actinocamax cobbani, a new belemnitellid species from the middle Coniacian of Montana and Wyoming, is described, including univariate and bivariate biometric analyses. The species is stout and medium sized, lanceolate or strongly lanceolate in ventral view, and has adorally a low cone-shaped alveolar fracture. It may be granulated. It is compared to species of Actinocamax Miller and Gonioteuthis Bayle from the North American and North European paleobiogeographic provinces. The importance of various morphological characters, such as the shape of the guard and the structure of the adoral end, are discussed. The majority of the belemnitellids of the North American Province are endemic and the stratigraphic distribution is punctuated during the Late Cretaceous, suggesting short-lived migrations of populations from the North European Province.


Zootaxa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4496 (1) ◽  
pp. 411
Author(s):  
ROBERTO CARRERA-MARTÍNEZ ◽  
MAC A. JR. CALLAHAM

The genus Lumbricus L. was the first described genus of earthworms, with L. terrestris as its type species. The genus can be easily distinguished because it is the only lumbricid genus with a tanylobic prostomium, with the exception of the North American native Bimastos eiseni (Levinsen). With six known Lumbricus species introduced in North America (Reynolds & Wetzel, 2012), Lumbricus rubellus is one of the most widespread. In addition, L. rubellus has been associated with negative ecological effects as result of its invasion (Greiner et al. 2012). The Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina, USA, is no exception from earthworm invasions (Snyder et al. 2011). Recent research in an area near the extreme southwestern end of the Park (35.5538º N; 83.9943º W), resulted in the collection of ten specimens of L. rubellus, on 27 July 2011. Among these specimens was one that had an abnormal epilobic prostomium and under-developed tubercula pubertatis, whereas the rest had the typical Lumbricus tanylobic prostomia and fully developed tubercula pubertatis. To facilitate discrimination and identification in future encounters of an epilobic L. rubellus we provide here a full description of this specimen. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of a specimen of L. rubellus with an epilobic prostomium. The specimen will be deposited in the nascent Terrestrial Oligochaete Collection at the Georgia Museum of Natural History in Athens, Georgia, USA. The specimen was fixed in 10% formalin, and is preserved in 70% ethanol.


1988 ◽  
Vol 120 (S144) ◽  
pp. 39-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald R. Noonan

AbstractThe supercontinent of Pangaea, which once included most lands, fragmented during the Mesozoic. By the Late Cretaceous there were two northern land masses that were strikingly different from those of present day: Asiamerica consisting of present western North America and Asia; and Euramerica comprising Europe and eastern North America. Mild climates facilitated the spread of terrestrial organisms within each of these land masses, but epicontinental seas hindered movements between Europe and Asia and between eastern and western North America.The insects of Euramerica presumably once formed a fauna extending from eastern North America to Europe that differed from the fauna of Asiamerica. The opening of the North Atlantic separated insects in Europe from those in eastern North America. This produced vicarious patterns, with some insects of eastern North America now being more closely related phylogenetically to those of Europe than to those of western North America. Most groups of insects have not been examined for such trans-Atlantic vicariances, but studies reviewed in this paper suggest such relationships for some groups of Collembola, Hemiptera, Homoptera, Coleoptera, Diptera, and Hymenoptera.The last suitable land connections between Europe and eastern North America were severed approximately 20–35 million years ago. The insects separated by this severance evolved at different rates. Some groups split in this way have apparently undergone little evolution and have the same species on both sides of the North Atlantic, but other vicarious groups have differentiated into taxa that are now distinct at specific and supra-specific levels.The opening of the North Atlantic probably split both tropical- and temperate-adapted insects in Euramerica. However, without fossil data it is difficult to identify the biogeographical patterns resulting from such splitting of the tropical-adapted groups. Most presently recognized European and eastern North American vicarious patterns of insects were probably caused by division of Euramerica rather than dispersal across Beringia.


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