TODAY IN HISTORY: The great Neil Armstrong, first human to walk on the Moon, was born August 5, 1930 in Wapakoneta, Ohio, Earth. Pictured here on April 22, 1969 training for the Apollo 11 mission on a simulated Moon at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
And now it’s time for temnospondyls!
One of the most successful tetrapod groups of the late Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic, temnospondyl amphibians first appeared 330 million years ago and flourished for the next 210 million years, being found on every continent occupying a diverse range of habitats. And, depending on who you ask, they might even still be around today in the form of modern amphibians – but we’ll talk more about that later on in the month.
Sclerocephalus lived during the Late Carboniferous of Germany (~301-297 mya), and grew to around 1.5m long (4′11″). It’s known from many well-preserved fossil specimens, some of which show soft tissue impressions and stomach contents, and we even have evidence of its complete life cycle from larvae to metamorphosis to full maturity.
Juveniles were slender-bodied with external gills and longer tails, preying on small crustaceans and plankton. As they grew and metamorphosed, they lost their gills, strengthened their skeleton, and bulked up their limbs, moving to a diet of fish and other amphibians.
Unlike modern amphibians Sclerocephalus and some other temnospondyls were also scaly, although it’s important to note that these were much more like fish scales than those of reptiles. There would have been a layer of skin over the top, and the scales probably wouldn’t have been particularly visible in life.
One of the few prehistoric amphibians to be regularly featured in popular media – including that one time Star Trek misrepresented it as a synapsid – Eryops was one of the largest land animals of its time. Living during the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian (300-295 mya) of the southwestern United States, the largest known specimens reached a whopping 3m in length (9′10″).
Although it was semi-aquatic and probably fed mainly on fish, its particularly
stocky build and stiff torso would have made it a poor swimmer.
Instead, it may have been more of an ambush hunter similar to modern crocodiles.
It also probably had a basic eardrum, or tympanum, allowing it to hear sounds in air – which was impressive for the time, considering that many of the contemporary early synapsids were functionally deaf. Although this type of hearing system was once thought to be ancestral to all tetrapods, it now seems like it actually evolved completely independently four or five different times in different lineages.
Chapters: 21/?
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Characters: Julian Bashir, Ezri Dax, Elim Garak
Additional Tags: Correspondence, Epistolary, Friendship, Post-Canon, Lovers to Friends, Friends to Lovers
Summary:
Garak writes to Bashir. Bashir writes to Garak. The letters, and the spaces in between.
***
A smol update.
The shiny black, orange-spotted adults can approach two inches in length. Offspring beg both parents for food, inducing regurgitation by stroking their jaws like wolf pups. They’re federally endangered American burying beetles, largest of the 31 species of North American carrion beetles.
We are alotted a little space on Earth. We survive in the wilderness that can take back what it has given; as easily as blowing its breath on us or sending the sea to tell us we are not so big
The flamboyant cuttlefish (Metasepia pfefferi) performs a hypnotic dance across the ocean floor. But don’t be fooled by its beauty—this flashy cephalopod could be deadly.
Filmmaker and biologist Shane Siers captured the cryptic creature in Puerto Galera, Philippines.
“Usually no more than three inches [in length], their small stature is offset by big and bizarre behavior and literally flashy coloration,“ he says. "They usually move around by ‘walking’ along the [seafloor], moving the bottom of the mantle back and forth in a comical, elephant-like shuffle while undulating their fins and waving their brightly colored tentacles.”
See more from filmmaker Shane Siers.
http://www.macronesia.net/
(via:
National Geographic)
hychlorions
sporesgalaxy
people love to compliment tiktok's algorithm on how good it is at showing them updates to videos they'd seen in the past but tumblr, man. tumblr doesn't even need an algorithm. it's just a bunch of nosy ass people spreading around the information and it is almost always a reliable system. if i see a post on tuesday the update will come around on my dash by friday without fail
algorithm vs small town gossip
