{"id":5530,"date":"2016-10-01T19:00:58","date_gmt":"2016-10-02T00:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=5530"},"modified":"2016-10-01T19:00:58","modified_gmt":"2016-10-02T00:00:58","slug":"three-in-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/10\/01\/three-in-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Three In One"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Discover Magazine&#8217;s D-brief<\/strong><\/em> blog <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/d-brief\/2016\/09\/07\/3-for-1-fossil-find-a-boon-for-researchers\/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=News0_DSC_160908_000000_Final%20remainder&amp;utm_content=&amp;spMailingID=26458589&amp;spUserID=MTE2MDc3MjcxNjY5S0&amp;spJobID=881353017&amp;spReportId=ODgxMzUzMDE3S0#.V_BKNUBifmg\" target=\"_blank\">covers<\/a> a 3-in-1 fossil:<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 530px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/d-brief\/files\/2016\/09\/Screen-Shot-2016-09-07-at-12.04.53-PM.jpg?resize=520%2C349\" alt=\"screen-shot-2016-09-07-at-12-04-53-pm\" width=\"520\" height=\"349\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>An image from the study showing the juvenile snake that ate a lizard that ate an insect. The arrow points to tip of the lizard\u2019s snout. (Credit: Krister T. Smith)<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>It\u2019s not often that paleontologists uncover a fossil that reveals what its\u00a0dinner ate for dinner.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Working in Germany\u2019s Messel Pit, a prehistoric volcanic lake, researchers found an insect inside of a lizard inside of a snake (a snalizect?), all preserved for posterity in ancient sediment.\u00a0It\u2019s essentially a prehistoric turducken, although not one you\u2019re likely to serve up at Thanksgiving dinner.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This particular example of fossil-ception let researchers peer\u00a0into a 48-million year old food chain, and bolsters theories about the dining habits of this particular species of snake, likely belonging to the genus\u00a0Paleopython.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For those who love dense, academic prose, this is from the original article by Krister T. Smith and Agustin Scanferia on <em><strong>Springer Link<\/strong><\/em>, aka\u00a0<em><strong>Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The distorted skull is seen in left dorsolateral view (Fig.\u00a0<span class=\"InternalRef\"><a href=\"http:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007%2Fs12549-016-0244-1#Fig2\">2c<\/a><\/span>), but CT reconstructions allow the observation of most of the ventral side of preserved bones (Fig.\u00a0<span class=\"InternalRef\"><a href=\"http:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007%2Fs12549-016-0244-1#Fig2\">2b<\/a><\/span>). The edentulous premaxilla exhibits long transverse processes as in most boines. The frontals bear a conspicuous thin supraorbital shelf, which confers a quadrangular shape in dorsal view. This configuration can be observed in <em class=\"EmphasisTypeItalic \">Palaeopython fischeri<\/em>, as well as in juvenile and adult boines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Discover Magazine&#8217;s D-brief blog covers a 3-in-1 fossil: It\u2019s not often that paleontologists uncover a fossil that reveals what its\u00a0dinner ate for dinner. Working in Germany\u2019s Messel Pit, a prehistoric volcanic lake, researchers found an insect inside of a lizard inside of a snake (a snalizect?), all preserved for posterity \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/10\/01\/three-in-one\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5530"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5533,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5530\/revisions\/5533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}