Time Traveling

Dr. Who Tardis

The other day, as I was flying over Mississippi at 32,000 ft, I once again thought about how cool it would be to travel through time. Who wouldn’t like to transport himself or herself forward into the
future to see what it will be like thousands of years from now or transport back into time to witness significant historical events? And then it hit me that I do get to do some time traveling, not quite like the great Time Lord Dr. Who, but to me, just as cool. 

When we find fossils at a dig site and look at them, we are peering back into time - way back into time. In our case about 287 million years ago.  These fossils that are now rocks were once bones.  Bones that belonged to living creatures that walked, swam, ate, slept and reproduced.  By studying the fossils, paleontologists like Chris Flis, Museum Director of the Whiteside Museum of Natural History (WMNH), can determine the size, weight, and look of each unique critter.  They can also determine what critter was chewing on other critters by examining bite marks on the fossils.  Pulling all that information together, along with understanding how the soil was formed during the fossilization of the bones allows Chris and Leigh Cook, Collections Curator of WMNH, to paint of picture of what life was like many, many years ago in this part of Texas, allowing all of us to travel back in time.

Chris and Leigh will be presenting this scene at the upcoming Annual Summer Conference at the Tate Geological Museum in Casper, Wyoming in early June in their research paper called, “DISCOVERY OF A MASS ASSEMBLAGE OF THE AQUATIC APEX PREDATOR ERYOPS WITH THE LAST KNOWN SPECIES OF EDAPHOSAURUS WITHIN THE GEORGE RANCH FACIES- CLEAR FORK GROUP; BAYLOR COUNTY, TEXAS”.  That’s a mouth full.  Let me try my best to dissect the title for you.  They discovered something really cool about two critter species that lived many, many years ago in this area of Texas that is now a ranch. (More information about the conference can be found here.)

By studying the fossilized record, their research discovered a community of meat eating Eryops living in the same environment with a community of the plant eating Edaphosaurus (daphys) pagonias.  In their own words, Chris and Leigh paint a picture of “the first documented habitat in which two well known genera together occupy a previously unknown ecological niche.”  All prior discoveries suggested that Edaphosaurus pagonias were not on the menu for Eryops (look it up on Wikipedia which I plan to update after they present their paper).  This habitat had very little variance in critters – it only had common freshwater Permian fish, Permian sharks, Eryops and  Edaphosaurus pagonias.  The fish and sharks would not be enough to sustain the many Eryops, hence, Daphy burgers were on the Eryops’ menu.

Let’s travel back in time to picture this scene.  I’m imagining a massive marsh area like in a coastal plain.  It would often be flooded as the seasonal rains came and went.  Large amounts of vegetation surrounded the wetlands.  Enough vegetation to support the elegant looking Edaphosaurus pagonias.  Pagonias was the largest species of Edaphosaurus.  These Daphys could grow up to 11.5 ft in length and weigh over 650 lbs. Their head was pretty small compared to the rest of their body which included a large dorsal sail (much like it’s fellow pelycosaur, the Dimetrodon, but different in that they had small crossbars on their fin spines). They had a huge belly with symbiotic bacteria to help them digest the plant matter they ate. Sounds like they were on a modern day vegetarian diet.

Then picture one of the Daphys getting too close to one of the many streams that crossed the area when out popped an Eryops getting its next meal.  Eryops was amphibians that could grow up to
9.5 ft. long and weighed around 200 lbs. They were fish and meat eaters.  They would eat their prey much like modern day crocodiles and alligators do, by flinging their heads up and gulping down their food.

Their diet was more like the modern day Tracy Houpt diet.

Unfortunately, this was near the last heyday for these two Permian critters. Both Daphys and Eryops were about to go extinct, geologically time speaking, with whatever happened with the Olson Extinction event (which will be the subject of a later blog).

“There’s always something to look at if you open your eyes!”  Dr. Who

This discovery would never have happened if the owners of the George Ranch, Ken and Charla George hadn’t asked Leigh and Chris to check for fossils on their property.  As Charla says, “Never be afraid to ask ‘would you be interested in looking at an unusual patch of dirt?’ to your local paleontologist."  Ken and Charla have been very supportive of both the field and prep laboratory research efforts for WMNH and have volunteered many hours digging, transporting large jackets, and prepping.

Charla and Chris digging up
some Eryops fossils.

Ken used his tractor to move a large Eryops jacket
back to the museum.  Charla and Ken on right.

    

Chris pointing out some unique features of the Eryops fossil
to Charla prior to prepping it in the lab.

Initial prep of Jack the Giant Killer, a massive Eryops skull
that exceeds 500 mm – now on display at WMNH.

While paleontology doesn’t paint a complete picture of our world, many, many years ago, it does give enough clues to be able to offer up some insights that allows our imaginations to travel back in time…


Tracy Jon Houpt
Tracy is the volunteer Prep Lab Supervisor and Multimedia Specialist at the Whiteside Museum of Natural History.

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