New Coelacanth Discovered in Texas

A professional paleontologist has identified a new species of coelacanth from 100 million-year-old fossil remains found in the fossil-rich Duck Creek Formation, Texas.

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The paleontologist named the new species Reidus hilli for Robert T. Hill, a geologist with the US Geological Survey who led surveys of Texas during the 1800s. Hill described much of the geology of Texas, including the Duck Creek Formation. Hill is acclaimed as the “Father of Texas Geology.”

Xenoceratops: The New Horned Dinosaur from Canada

Xenoceratops means ‘alien horned-face,’ referring to the strange pattern of horns on its head and the scarcity of horned dinosaur fossils from this part of the fossil record, it also honors the Village of Foremost, located close to where the fossils were found.  

The dinosaur was about 20 feet (6 meters) long and weighed more than 2 tons. It had a parrot-like beak with two long brow horns above its eyes, a large frill protruded from the back of its skull featuring two huge spikes.

The first dinosaur remains were believed to be found in 1676 by Robert Plot, who was the curator of an English museum.

In 1822, Mary Ann Mantell and her husband, Gideon, found enormous teeth believed to be the remains of a huge, extinct iguana.

Finally, in 1841, British scientist Richard Owen coined the word "Dinosauria" (which means "fearfully great reptile" or "terrible reptile"). He realized that the bones belonged to no existing animal.

Since then, over 700 species of Dinosauria have been discovered and named.

Recently, a new species of the family ceratopsidae has been identified. Not only is this extraordinarily rare, but extremely valuable for piecing together the puzzle of this group of dinosaur species.

The dinosaur is described from skull fragments from at least three individuals from the Foremost Formation originally collected by Dr Wann Langston Jr. in the 1950s, and is currently housed in theCanadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Canada.

Dr Ryan and Dr Evans stumbled upon the undescribed material more than a decade ago and recognized the bones as a new type of horned dinosaur. Dr Evans later discovered a 50-year-old plaster field jacket at the Canadian Museum of Nature containing more skull bones from the same fossil locality and had them prepared in his lab at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Original Sci-News Article 

New Species of Indo-Pacific Fish Discovered

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50,000 Starfish Mysteriously Stranded Off of Ireland

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Spade-Toothed Beaked Whale Finally Found

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Species of the Day: Spotted Handfish

Description

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Chordata
Class	Actinopterygii
Order	Lophiiformes
Family	Brachionichthyidae
Genus	Brachionichthys (1)

The spotted handfish (Brachionichthys hirsutus) is one of the world's most endangered marine fish. This extremely distinctive fish is almost pear-shaped ⁽²⁾ and unusually, has hand-like 'paired fins' that enable it to 'walk' along the seafloor ⁽³⁾; both the pectoral and ventral fins are used in this locomotion ⁽⁴⁾. When swimming through the water, the unpaired or 'median' fins (such as the tail and anal fin) are used ⁽⁴⁾. These fish are cream in colour with a myriad of dusky brown, and occasionally yellow-brown spots ⁽⁴⁾, the pattern of which is unique to each individual ⁽³⁾. Some individuals also have orange markings on their fins. Handfish have a small lure just above their mouth, the function of which is unknown but does not appear to be used to entice prey ⁽⁴⁾.

Size

Length: 10 - 15 cm ⁽²⁾

Biology

Spotted handfish spawn during September and October ⁽³⁾, the male enticing the female by his courtship display ⁽⁵⁾. Compared to many other fish, the female produces a relatively small number of eggs; around 80 to 250 eggs are spawned and these are often positioned around the base of a sea squirt (a jelly-like invertebrate)⁽³⁾. The female guards the eggs for seven to eight weeks until the fully-formed juveniles hatch. These tiny young measure a mere six to seven millimetres and when they emerge, move straight to the bottom of the seabed, instead of dispersing ⁽³⁾.

Spotted handfish feed by sucking in prey items ⁽⁵⁾, including shrimps, small fish and small crustaceans such asamphipods ⁽³⁾.

Range

Endemic to the lower Derwent River estuary in Tasmania, the spotted handfish was a relatively common species until the 1980s. The species has declined massively, however; only three breeding colonies were known to exist in 1998 ⁽³⁾.

Habitat

The bottom-dwelling spotted handfish is found on coarse to fine sand and silt, in coastal waters from depths of 2 to 30 metres ⁽³⁾.

Status

The spotted handfish is classified as Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List ⁽¹⁾.

Threats

The spotted handfish was common in the lower Derwent River estuary until the mid 1980s, when the species underwent a catastrophic decline ⁽²⁾. Although unproven, it is thought that the introduction of the northern Pacific seastar (Asterias amurensis) to Tasmania at this time may be the key to the decimation of the handfish population ⁽³⁾. These seastars are voracious predators of shellfish and it is thought that they may also eat the eggs of handfish or the sea squirts upon which the eggs are attached ⁽²⁾. The deterioration of coastal habitats due to development may also be involved in the decline ⁽³⁾. This species is under added threat from its vastly reduced population, limited dispersal, restricted distribution and low reproductive rate ⁽³⁾.

Conservation

Just two spotted handfish were reported between 1990 and 1994; this dire state of the population led to the formation of the Spotted Handfish Recovery Team in 1996 ⁽³⁾. The Recovery Team consists of a number of government agencies concerned with saving this rare, and bizarre, fish. Research into existing wild populations and the development of captive breeding techniques are some of the priorities of the recovery plan ⁽³⁾. Initial work has been encouraging, with successful breeding attempts from two adult pairs of spotted handfish at the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries Aquaculture ⁽²⁾. A captive population may be used in a future re-introduction programme to restore these fish to some of their previous range ⁽⁶⁾.

None of this is my information. All credit goes to Arkive.org for its remarkable filing of species, for the information shown here as well as the photos included within this post.

A special and most wonderful thank you to them!

Flamboyant Cuttlefish Hunting an Unsuspecting Mantis Shrimp!

The Flamboyant Cuttlefish in the hunt. 

Not the stealth, the color change, and the method of hunting. 

One magnificent cephalopod!