Palges Meeting October 2010 in Munich

The 80 th Annual Meeting of the German Paleontological Society took place from the 6th through the 8th October 2010 within the halls of the Bavarian State Collection for Geology and Paleontology in Munich.

Of particular interest for me was the session on Early Mesozoic vertebrates chaired by the Rauhut couple and Richard Butler as it united many interesting characters, such as Silvio Renesto, Martin Ezcurra, Rainer Schoch, and Daniela Schwarz-Wings and covered a variety of Triassic vertebrates including archosaurs, temnospondyls, and bony fish.

With 5 talks and 6 posters our small Freibergian working group had quite a number of contributions this year (my prof Jörg Schneider was talking about Paleozoic cockroaches from China, Olaf Elicki about Cambrian trace fossils from Africa and the Middle East, Frederik Spindler about the evolution of haptodonts and other early synapsids, Jan Fischer about oxygen isotope signals in Permian and Triassic freshwater shark teeth and I had a talk on osteoderm histology and the Chroniosuchia). My colleagues Ilja Kogan and Jan Fischer won the 1st poster prize with their poster entitled "The Madygen lake deposits: A unique multi-taxa kindergarten for Triassic fisches" - which is quite an achievement as normally the winner comes from the host institute of the Palges Meeting.

The image on the right shows me in front of a poster entitled "Paleontology in the German Wikipedia" [pdf].

Even though there are many private collectors and paleontology enthusisasts in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland you won't find much about "regional paleontology" in the German Wikipedia which was the reason for my colleagues and me to introduce some aspects of Wikipedian (Pop-)Sciencewriting.

The poster praised the advantages Wikipedia can have if it is reasonably incorporated in public outreach campaigns and we commented critically on the dinosaur focus which increases the already biased public image of what paleontology is about.

Fieldwork photo of the week

Some parts of the Madygen succession are particularly rich in plant remains inluding calamite stems accumulated in thin, sometimes coaly siltstone layers.

Chroniosuchians and stay in Moscow

To resolve the riddle: The bonified eyeball from the last post represents a a ball-shaped intercentrum of a chroniosuchid from the Permian of Russia.

In chroniosuchian reptiliomorphs the intercentra (white arrows) are interlocked with the amphicoelous pleurocentra in a ball-and-socket-like fashion. The image on the left shows some section of a Chroniosuchus vertebral column in ventral view. Intercentra become bony balls only in the adult individuals - not fully bonified in sub-adults and juveniles they are preserved with a crescent, disk-like or ellipsoidal shape.

Also, the fusion of the neural arch with the pleurocentrum - a feature otherwise characteristic for "higher reptiliomorphs" such as seymouriamorphs and diadectomorphs - is only completed in the course of ontogenesis (so that you can find suture lines in the subadult individuals).

Moscow: Paleontological Institute and Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences (PIN)

The paleo-style PIN building has a castle-like rectangular shape with an inner courtyard featuring life-size sculptures of fossil critters from Russia and areas of the former Soviet Union. The exhibition has almost everything you wish for as a vertebrate enthusiast (here depicted: the two-story dinosaur hall). Rich in type specimens the collection is essential for some and important for many studies - so earlier or later many of the fossil vertebrate people spend some time there.

Concering the Chroniosuchia: With the exception of bystrowianid chroniosuchian remains from Kupferzell, Germany (Witzmann et al. 2008) and China (Young 1979) and some rather questionable Chinese chroniosuchid chroniosuchians (Li & Cheng 1999), all yet described Permian and Triassic chroniosuchian taxa come from the European part of Russia and are mostly archived in the PIN. I am thankful to Valery Golubev who helped me a lot during my week of stay when I was studying the type materials and to Jury Gubin who nicely put up with me in his room.

Some literature on chroniosuchians

Here considered: titles also available in English (plus the Chinese ones mentioned above).

Golubev, V. K. (1998). "Narrow-armored Chroniosuchians (Amphibia, Anthracosauromorpha) from the Late Permian of Eastern Europe." Paleontologicheskij Zhurnal 1998(3): 64- 73. [Russian, English]

Golubev, V. K. (1998). "Revision of the Late Permian chroniosuchians (Amphibia, Anthracosauromorpha) from Eastern Europe." Paleontologicheskij Zhurnal 1998(4): 68- 77. [Russian, English]

Golubev, V. K. (1999). "A new narrow-armored chroniosuchian (Amphibia, Anthracosauromorpha) from the Late Permian of the East Europe." Paleontologicheskij Zhurnal 1999(2): 43- 50. [Russian, English]

Li, J., Cheng Z. (1999). " New anthracosaur and temnospondyl amphibians from Gansu, China." Vertebrata PalAsiatica 37(3): 234- 247. [Chinese with English abstract]

Novikov, I. V., M.A. Shishkin (2000). "Triassic chroniosuchians (Amphibia, Anthracosauromorpha) and the evolution of the trunk dermal ossifications in the bystrowianids." Paleontological Journal 34(supplement): S165- S178. [English]

Novikov, I. V., M.A. Shishkin, V.K. Golubev (2000). Permian and Triassic anthracosaurs from Eastern Europe. The Age of Dinosaurs in Russia and Mongolia. M. A. S. M.J. Benton, D.M. Unwin, E.N. Kurochkin. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 60- 70. [English]

Witzmann, F., R.R. Schoch, M.W. Maisch (2008). "A relic basal tetrapod from the Middle Triassic of Germany." Naturwissenschaften 95(1): 67- 72. [English]

Young, C. C. (1979). "A new Late Permian fauna from Jiyuan, Honan." Vertebrata Palasiatica 17: 99- 113. [Chinese with English abstract]

Bonified eyeball

Or what the hell is this?

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Madygen river oasis. Close to the point where the river cuts through a Paleozoic limestone massif (on the left), forming a deep gorge.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Badlands of the SW outcrop area (Urochishche Madygen). Reddish colours mark the "Variegated Member" of the Madygen Formation. In the distance: tree tops of the Madygen river oasis.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Colourful Jurassic strata. Who can see the unconformity?

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

In the back you can see a tectonic contact: Massive limestones are thrusted over some less competent schist units and/or Madygen sediments. Thanks to Juliane for that photo.

Fieldwork Photo of The Week

Morning time at the digging site: Having contemplated the vast landscape bare of human presence but sprenkled with the litter of a forgotten civilization graduate student Jan Fischer decides on the right moment for starting his daily business of not moving to many a rock at once and feigning the impression of having survived another day in this vale of tears only at the close of livelong fatigue and exhaustion...

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

See the spy in the back? Some Kyrgyz aborigines can't help being distrustful...

I'm thankful to Juliane Hentschke who safed us these moments and a number of bones.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Excursion group 2008 and Madygen badlands, close to the boundary between "Variegated Member" (T3) and "Upper Graycolored Member" (T4) of the Madygen Formation (subdivision of Dobruskina 1995).
The transitional zone includes sandstone horizons with large-scale x beds.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Northern Alay Chain, Batken District, SW Kyrgyzstan.

Standing on massive Devonian limestones we are looking to the NNW. On the right you can see the greenish Madygen river oasis bearing a few farms and fruit plantations. On the left: the badlands represent the SW outcrop area of the Triassic Madygen Formation.

To the north and northwest reddish strata and ribs of Cretaceous conglomerate follow which overlie a narrow stripe of Jurassic. Than there is a succession of mostly Cenozoic rocks forming the core of a syncline.

In the distance you can see larger massifs of mostly Paleozoic schists, limestones and conglomerates. And then there is the greenish plain to the northwest marking another outcrop of fineclastic sediments.

This is Dzhaylyau-Cho ("good meadow"), the NW outcrop area of the Madygen Fm, including "Sharov Quarry" as the most famous locality for insects and tetrapods.


Can you see the artificial band-like wall to the west of the Madygen oasis - this is some relic from ancient times (built under Alexander the Great according to a myth).

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Two pix from the field camp:

The clubroom buildung, now fully erect and in use. In green: Our cook Ludmilla from Osh.

The penultimate act of packing and repacking one day before the end of the expedition.

Fieldwork Photo of the Weak

The Neverending Outcrop: Younger stratigraphic succession near Madygen, SW Kyrgyzstan.
The greyish-brownish Madygen Formation is overlayn uncomformably by varicoloured continental Jurassic strata which in turn are separated by an uncomformity from reddish deposits of the facially diverse Cretaceous including massive conglomeratic banks.


Paleogene: A yellowish marine succession containing mass occurrences of oysters and massive carbonates is followed by younger continental deposits of the Tertiary.

Note the roofs of premises belonging to the village of Madygen.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

You can see the rise of our club room one day after the arrival in Madygen. Gas bottles, sample boxes, and limestone boulders are integral parts of the construction.

Borrowed this photo of a tent erection from this year's Madygen participant Daniel Rutte, who started an exchange semester in Golden, Colorado, shortly after the field trip and after becoming a Bachelor in Freiberg (but only 'of Science' unless I'm much mistaken).

Triassic critters: Kazacharthrans

Kazacharthrans - or Katzen, as we call them (jokingly) in German - are an endemic group of small branchiopod crustaceans which were named after the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan, where the type locality is situated. All yet known occurrences are restricted to the Middle Triassic to Lower Jurassic of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, the northwestern Chinese Province Xinjiang, and Kyrgyzstan: the Madygen Formation).

The closest recent relatives of kazacharthrans and an anatomically quite similar group are the tadpole shrimps (Notostraca), including the 'living fossil' species Triops cancriformis, which has not changed since its earliest occurrence in the Triassic.

Kazacharthran head shield from Madygen; width: 1.2 cm.

The most complete body fossils from Madygen consist of a relatively large cephalothoracic shield (see pic) and a segmented tail with a small and spiny shield at the end (telson). Madygen finds show the head shield often considerably deformed. As the animals were subject to moulting, the abundancy of kazachthran body fossils is raised by the preservation of exuviae.

The riddle of kazachrathran radiation. Kazacharthrans are regarded as a Triassic offspring from the lineage of the otherwise conservative group of notostracans which have persisted since the Carboniferous without larger anatomical changes. As the Kazacharthra develop a relatively high diversity (14 genera, >20 species described) in a narrow spatial and temporal window, the crucial questions is, what their speciality (and fate) was.

Sebastian Voigt (who is in charge of the Madygen project here in Freiberg) is a paleoichnologist and also working on kazacharthran trace fossils and their ethological and ecological implications (see ref below), using the ichnia of recent triopsids for comparison (the reminiscence of a childhood dream to have those lovely trackmakers in your aquarium). Understanding the palaeoenvironment and fossil association of kazachathran body and trace fossils in the Madygen Fm will hopefully help to understand the peculiarity of "Katzen".

Refs:

Chen P., K.G. McKennzie & Zhou, H.(1996): A further research into Late Triassic Kazacharthra from Xinjiang Uigur autonomous region, NW China. - Acta Palaeontologica Sinica 35(3): 272-301.

Preliminary results on Madygen kazacharthrans can be found in the abstract volume of the 2007 fall meeting of the German Palaeontological Society (pdf, 33MB):
Voigt, S.(2007): Kazachartran body and trace fossils from shallow lake deposits of the Madygen Formation (Middle to Upper Triassic, Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia). In: O. Elicki & J.W. Schneider (eds): Fossile Ökosysteme. - Wissenschaftliche Mitteilungen 36, Institut für Geologie, TU Freiberg, p. 160

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

July or August 2007 at "Sharov Quarry": Toilo, who is living in Madygen, is talking to me while I am dripping some fixation solution on a fish or plant fossil.

That pile of weathered shale debris we are sitting on is the product of Sharov's group in the 1960s and of our work. The photo is taken from the position of the outcrop wall.

The Sharov locality is the place where all hiherto described Madygen tetrapods, most insects and fishes, and some of the best plant fossils have been found.

Rock-paper-scissors

Unpacking of the 2008 finds in a rather relaxed "subbotnik".
This year's fieldwork season turned out to be a good one for plants and for Philippe Moisan Tapia, palaeobotanist and graduate student at the University of Münster - he is doing his dissertation on the Madygen flora.

Triassic critters: Titanopterans

Among the most remarkable fossil insects from Madygen are the titanopterans which can reach wing spans of 50 cm. The Titanoptera form a subgroup of the Neoptera and were usually regarded as having an order rank when the Linnean taxonomic system is applied.

Recently, there was a revision done by Olivier Béthoux, who is currently working as a Humboldt research fellow at the geological institute of my alma mater (actually he is my "bureau mate"):

Béthoux (2007): Cladotypic taxonomy applied: Titanopterans are Orthopterans. - Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny 65(2): 135- 156.

Recent orthopterans include grasshoppers and crickets. Olivier Béthoux shows on the basis of wing venation topology that members of a Permian "family" of Orthoptera - the Tcholmanvissiidae - are the closest relatives of the Triassic group Titanoptera. Such a relationship was also proposed by Madygen researcher A. G. Sharov as early as 1968 but later doubted by others.

The 'Titanopterida' are newly defined as a subgroup of the 'Tcholmantitanopterida' which are in turn a subgroup of Tcholmanvissiidae:

"Species that evolved from the (segments of) metapopulation lineage in which the character state ‘in forewing, CuPaα• + CuPaβ and CuPb having the same point of origin’, as exhibited by giganteus Tillyard, 1916 and vulgaris Sharov, 1968, has been acquired." (see page 145)

The cryptic formulas refer to higher order branches of the posterior Cubitus (CuP), a main wing veine.

Olivier's paper is interesting for another reason: As announced in the title he uses the relationship of titanopterans as an example for applying his concept of cladotypic taxonomy which on its own may be worth a post here (after I got the point). One part of his idea may be frightening for some biologists - as in the definition above there is no longer a need for binary nomenclature.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Blue-collar workers: undergrads Daniel & Juliane plus me.