by David Braun
Balancing Act
Already the exhibition is drawing more divers, and area dive-tour providers are hoping the underwater museum boosts business and supports reef health, according to a museum statement. “This is a perfect balance where we are protecting the reef, where we are bringing the tourists into the natural area,” Roberto Diaz, president of both the Cancún Nautical Association and the museum, told National Geographic News.
“We are providing art to make it beautiful, and altogether [it] will help.”
ANCIENT CLONE
Moss Has Cloned Itself
for 50,000 Years, Study Says
A moss spreading throughout the Hawaiian Islands appears to be an ancient clone that has copied itself for some 50,000 years—and may be one of the oldest multicellular organisms on Earth, a new study suggests.
Once only found on Hawaii’s Big Island, an ancient moss has begun to appear throughout the Hawaiian Islands. Studies show that this little green organism has been cloning itself for around 50,000 years.
I Think I’m a Clone Now
The peat moss Sphagnum palustre is found throughout the Northern Hemisphere, but the moss living in Hawaii appears to reproduce only through cloning. All the moss populations sampled share a rare genetic marker, which suggests they’re descended from a single founder plant that was carried via wind to Hawaii tens of thousands of years ago.
Surprisingly Diverse
A genetic analysis of the S. palustre moss in Hawaii reveals surprising diversity, which challenges the widespread assumption that clones are genetically uninteresting because they can’t swap DNA through sex.
Study co-author Eric Karlin, a plant ecologist at Ramapo College in New Jersey, wrote, “You would expect one founding plant to have this rare trait. However, it is unlikely that there were many founding plants with each one having the same rare trait.”
Surprisingly Diverse
Fossilized S. palustre moss remains have been found in 23,900-year-old peat near the summit of Kohala Mountain on Big Island (Hawaii). From these remains, Karlin and colleagues inferred that the moss had been in Hawaii at least that long, and perhaps longer.
The team analyzed the genetic diversity of the current population of moss on the island and determined a mutation rate. Using this rate, they estimated how long it took for the different moss populations to get to where they are genetically—about 50,000 years. The analysis also revealed surprising diversity—challenging the popular assumption that clones are genetically drab because they can’t swap DNA through sex.
“They’re not identical because mutations are always occurring,” Karlin said.
TRUTH:
SPHAGNUM IS A GREEK NAME FOR A PLANT HISTORIANS HAVEN’T YET IDENTIFIED, MOTFISALATIN WORD MEANING “MARSHY.” OR “GROWING IN A MARSH.”
Attack of the Clones
Given the absence of sex, the moss has been likely “trapped” on the Kohala summit, Karlin said. Sexual reproduction—which creates airborne spores—would be required for the plant to move elsewhere. But people have also lent a helping—though unwitting—hand in the moss’s spread.
In the past century, people have used the moss for packing material, in doing so moving the species across Big Island as well as on the island of Oahu. “The peat moss has had explosive growth where it was introduced, especially on Oahu,” Karlin said.
The moss’s success comes at the cost of other local plants, however. “It’s a problem,” he said. “The moss completely changes the ecology of the ground layer. Instead of there being soil, there is a solid carpet of moss, and the seeds of many of the local plants don’t grow in the moss layer.”
IT KEEPS GOING AND GOING
World’s Biggest Cave
Found in Vietnam
A massive cave uncovered in a remote Vietnamese jungle is the largest single cave passage yet found.
In 2009, a team of explorers measured the truly gigantic Son Doong cave to determine that it was indeed the world’s biggest single cave passage. The caves entrance had been discovered years earlier, but no one knew just how big a find it would turn out to be.
A New World Record
At 262-by-262 feet (80-by-80 meters) in most places, the Son Doong cave beats out the previous world-record holder, Deer Cave in the Malaysian section of the island of Borneo. Deer Cave is no less than 300-by-300 feet (91-by-91 meters), but it’s only about a mile (1.6 kilometers) long. By contrast, explorers walked 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) into Son Doong, in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, before being blocked by seasonal floodwaters—and they think that the passage is even longer.
TRUTH:
A JUNGLE GROWS INSIDE VIETNAM’S SON DOONG CAVE.
In addition, for a couple of miles Son Doong reaches more than 460-by-460 feet (140-by-140 meters), said Adam Spillane, a member of the British Cave Research Association expedition that explored the massive cavern. Spillane was in the first of two groups to enter the cave. His team followed the passage as far as a 46-foot-high (14-meter-high) wall.
A rock formation shines beneath a skylight in the Son Doong cave. (Photo Credit 9.9)
“The second team that went in got flooded out,” he said. “We’re going back next year to climb that wall and explore the cave further.”
Laser Precision
A local farmer, who had found the entrance to the Son Doong cave several years before, led the joint British-Vietnamese expedition team to the cavern in April 2009. The team found an underground river running through the first 1.6 miles (2.5 kilometers) of the limestone cavern, as well as giant stalagmites more than 230 feet (70 meters) high.
The explorers surveyed Son Doong’s size using laser-based measuring devices. Such modern technology allows caves to be measured to the nearest millimeter, said Andy Eavis, president of the International Union of Speleology, the world caving authority, based in France. “With these laser-measuring devices, the cave sizes are dead accurate,” he said. “It tends to make the caves smaller, because years ago we were estimating, and we tended to overestimate.”
TRUTH:
THE SON DOONG CAVE BELONGS TO A NETWORK OF ABOUT 150 CAVES, MANY OF WHICH HAVE YET TO BE SURVEYED, IN THE ANNAMITE MOUNTAINS.
Eavis, who wasn’t involved in the survey, agreed that the new findings confirm Son Doong’s record status—despite the fact that he had discovered Borneo’s now demoted Deer Cave. “This one in Vietnam is bigger,” Eavis conceded.
However, the British caver can still claim the discovery of the world’s largest cave chamber, Sarawak Chamber, also in Borneo. “That is so large it may not actually be beaten,” he said. “It’s three times the size of Wembley Stadium” in London.
Noisy and Intimidating
Son Doong had somehow escaped detection during previous British caving expeditions to the region, which is rich in limestone grottos. “The terrain in that area of Vietnam is very difficult,” said expedition team member Spillane.
“The cave is very far out of the way. It’s totally covered in jungle, and you can’t see anything on Google Earth,” he added, referring to the free 3-D globe software.
“You’ve got to be very close to the cave to find it,” Spillane said. “Certainly, on previous expeditions, people have passed within a few hundred meters of the entrance without finding it.”
“Couldn’t have done it without him … It took three expeditions to find Hang Son Doong. Khanh had found the entrance as a boy but had forgotten where it was. He only found it again last year.”
Howard Limbert
British caver, on the help provided by a villager named Ho Khanh in discovering Son Doong
The team was told that local people had known of the cave but were too scared to delve inside. “It has a very loud draft and you can hear the river from the cave entrance, so it is very noisy and intimidating,” Spillane said.
Of more concern to the caving team were the poisonous centipedes that live in Son Doong. The explorers also spotted monkeys entering through the roof of the cave to
feed on snails, according to Spillane.
“There are a couple of skylights about 300 meters [985 feet]] above,” he said. “The monkeys are obviously able to climb in and out.” Planned return visits to the cave include bringing a biologist along to survey the cave’s subterranean wildlife.
Bigger Caves Waiting?
Eavis, of the International Union of Speleology, added that there are almost certainly bigger cave passages awaiting discovery around the world. “That’s the fantastic thing about caving,” he said. Satellite images hint, for example, that caves even larger than Son Doong lie deep in the Amazon rain forest, he said.
IT STINKS!
New “Porta Potti” Flower Discovered
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. And a new species of Amorphophallus—the genus that includes the “corpse flower — still smells like rotting meat and feces.
Discovered on an island off the coast of Madagascar, the newfound plant grows up to 5 feet (1.5 meters) high and blooms once a year with a “really foul” stench, according to discoverer Greg Wahlert, a postdoctoral researcher in botany at the University of Utah.
The plant smells of rotting meat. (Photo Credit 9.10)
Lynn Bohs, a biology professor in the same lab as Wahlert, described the smell in a statement as a combination of “rotting roadkill” and a “Porta Potti.” The new flower adds to the roughly 170 species in the Amorphophallus genus, which means “misshapen penis” in Greek after the phallic shape of the plants’ flowers.
Stroke of Luck
Wahlert discovered the new species—named A perrieri—in full bloom while collecting violets in two remote islands northwest of Madagascar in 2006 and 2007. Suspecting the plant might be a new species, he brought back samples and began cultivating them. After consulting with an Amorphophallus expert in the Netherlands, he confirmed that A. perrieri was a previously undescribed species.
Because A. perrieri is dormant for much of the year, Wahlert’s discovery is a case of good timing. For months out of the year, there’s little rain in that part of Madagascar, so the plants remain dormant underground. “These things are growing out of the most miserable soil,” said Wahlert, who is working on a scientific paper about the species.
TRUTH:
CORPSE FLOWERS, MEMBERS OF THE AMORPHOPHALLUS GENUS, ATTRACT NOCTURNAL INSECTS SUCH AS BEETLES AND FLIES THAT USUALLY LAY EGGS IN ROTTING FLESH.
The specimen he is cultivating in the university’s greenhouse shot up its flower in just two weeks. If Wahlert had been visiting the islands at a different time, “I could have very easily missed it.”
Stinky Flowers “Fascinating”
All Amorphophallus species emit smells to attract flies and other insects. Though a few emit more pleasant aromas, such as chocolate or spices, most smell terrible to human noses, Wahlert said. “You can imagine in Africa, where big game will die and rot in the sun … that’s what they smell like,” Wahlert said.
Despite the stench, he added, “I’m glad I got a stinky one. It’s fascinating to me.”
CHAPTER 10
Prehistoric Life
(Photo Credit 10.1)
Judging by the number of freaky fossils they uncover, you would think that paleontologists have a penchant for the peculiar. Their day jobs consist of finding strange beasts like the prehistoric snake longer than a school bus, rare ancient saber-toothed squirrels, and the massive “thunder thighs” dinosaur. Sea monsters and giant rabbits may seem weird to you and me, but they are par for the course for anyone who digs up the very distant past.
AIRHEADS
T. Rex, Other Dinosaurs Had Heads Full of Air
Dinosaurs were airheads—and not just because they had tiny brains, a new study says.
Three-dimensional scans of the skulls of Tyrannosaurus rex and other dinosaurs reveal the creatures had more empty space inside their heads than previously thought. These air spaces made the skulls light but strong and could have helped dinosaurs breathe, communicate, and hunt.
The extra room may even have paved the way for flight in some species. “Air is a neglected system that is actually an important contributor to what animals do,” said study co-author Lawrence Witmer, a paleontologist at Ohio University in Athens.
TRUTH:
EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THAT TYRANNOSAURUS REX COULD EAT UP TO 500 POUNDS (230 KILOGRAMS) OF MEAT IN ONE BITE.
Muscle Heads
Witmer and colleague Ryan Ridgely made detailed CT scans of air cavities in the skulls of two predators, T. rex and Majungasaurus; and two ankylosaurs, Panoplosaurus and Euoplocephalus, both plant-eaters with armored bodies and short snouts.
The results mark the first time scientists were able to accurately estimate the weight of a dinosaur’s head. A T. rex head, for example, would have weighed more than 1,100 pounds (about 500 kilograms)—close to the average weight of an adult cow, Witmer and colleagues found.
Until now, paleontologists had to make do with estimates for the weight of dinosaur heads, said Tom Holtz, a paleontologist at the University of Maryland who was not involved in the research. “Larry’s team is able to calculate a volume for the skull, so they can constrain the weight far more securely,” Holtz said. “This is the next best thing to having a fleshy T. rex head to dissect.”
Witmer estimates that T. rex’s head would have been 18 percent heavier if not for the air spaces in its skull. This savings may have allowed T. rex to pack more muscle onto its head, which possibly strengthened its bite and allowed it to tackle bigger prey.
“Crazy Straws”
The nasal airways in the ankylosaurs, however, were surprisingly convoluted. It was as if “crazy straws” had been rammed up the creatures’ snouts, Witmer said. These winding airways were often located next to large blood vessels. “Whenever we see that, it raises the possibility that we’re looking at heat transfer,” Witmer said.
(Photo Credit 10.2)
This setup would have allowed hot blood circulating through the creatures’ heads to dump excess heat into the airways, helping to cool their brains and the rest of their bodies. The transferred heat also could have warmed up air the dinosaurs breathed, making gas exchange in the lungs easier.
In addition, the twisty nasal passages may have acted as resonating chambers for sounds. The two ankylosaur species examined had slightly different airways, so their voices would have been subtly different, Witmer said.
Hollow Bones
The research could provide new clues about how dinosaurs achieved flight. Some of the new study’s research subjects were theropods, the group of dinosaurs from which modern birds are descended.
“Very often people have thought that birds have hollow bones because they fly, but it could be the other way around,” Witmer said. “They could have evolved hollow bones for other reasons, and that gave them the lower body mass necessary to take to the air.”
“I’ve been looking at sinuses for a long time, and indeed people would kid me about studying nothing—looking at the empty spaces in the skull. But what’s emerged is that these air spaces have certain properties and functions.”
Lawrence Witmer
Chang Professor of Paleontology, Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine
Hans-Dieter Sues is a dinosaur expert at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., who did not participate in the research. Witmer “certainly makes a strong case for paranasal sinuses [air-filled spaces within the skull] reducing the weight of the skull in certain dinosaurs,” Sues said. Sues cautioned, however, that “such functional hypotheses are difficult to test even in living species, including our own.”
JURASSIC JAWS
Massive “Sea Monster” Skull Revealed
Packing what may be the world’s biggest bite, a recently revealed “sea monster” would have given Jaws a run for its money.
A scary new “sea monster” skull went on display in 2011 at the United Kingdom’s Dorset County Museum, showing the world another of the terrifying pre
dators that used to swim in the world’s oceans.
The 7.9-foot-long (2.4-meter-long) skull belonged to a pliosaur, a type of plesiosaur that had a short neck, a huge, crocodile-like head, and razor-sharp teeth. When alive about 155 million years ago, the seagoing creature would have had a strong enough bite to snap a car in half, according to the museum.
Mexican Pliosaur
Two German paleontologists found the 120-million-year-old pliosaur specimen—with a head the size of a car—in Mexico in 2002.
The Dorset County Museum exhibit includes a life-size model of the pliosaur head to show what the animal would have looked like. A digital model of the Dorset pliosaur was also created using data from a high-energy microfocus CT scanner. Scientists from several universities are teaming up for further research from the find, such as searching for fossil plankton that may have been preserved in mud surrounding the fossil pieces.
Fossil Find
Amateur collector Kevan Sheehan found the skull in pieces between 2003 and 2008 at the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, a 95-mile (152-kilometer) stretch of fossil-rich coastline in England. Sheehan gathered the pieces as they were washed out of a landslide on the coast of Weymouth Bay—the largest segment being more than 176 pounds (80 kilograms). Three pieces were later found by two other collectors, making the skull more than 95 percent complete, according to the museum.
