RE: The Miocene of New Zealand

[John Scanlon <riversleigh@outbackatisa.com.au>]

Ah, those New Zealand snakes again!

This identification was a mistake - mine.

Announcing it to the world was probably also a mistake, but not mine. It was
those Kiwis did that.

It turns out that certain freshwater fish have palatal tooth-bearing
elements that, if broken in a certain way, are practically indistinguishable
from fragments of snake pterygoid bones broken in a certain other way. The
tooth morphology and attachment is remarkably convergent, but the teeth in
the fish are relatively enormous, so remains of a tiddler can be seen as
evidence of a giant snake.

The suspicious fact (the dog that didn't bark, if anyone knows their Holmes)
was the absence of any snake vertebrae from the same deposit. 

New Zealand still has no snakes.
 
-----------------------------------------------
Dr John D. Scanlon
Palaeontologist, 
Riversleigh Fossil Centre, Outback at Isa
19 Marian Street / PO Box 1094
Mount Isa  QLD  4825
AUSTRALIA
Ph:   07 4749 1555
Fax: 07 4743 6296
Email: riversleigh@outbackatisa.com.au
http://tinyurl.com/f2rby


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tommy Tyrberg [mailto:tommy.tyrberg@norrkoping.mail.telia.com]
> Sent: Monday, April 24, 2006 2:30 AM
> To: david.marjanovic@gmx.at; DML
> Subject: Re: The Miocene of New Zealand
> 
> At 12:44 2006-04-23, David Marjanovic wrote:
> >http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0809_020808_wirnzsnake.ht
> ml
> >
> >Don't get _too_ shocked. The "mammals" turn out to be a bat on the 2nd
> page.
> 
> 
> More details on this fauna are available here:
> 
> http://www.rsnz.org/publish/jrsnz/2003/020-lo.pdf
> 
> http://nrm.museum/ve/birds/sape/SAPE_abstracts_2004.pdf
> 
> Tommy Tyrberg