User:Abyssal/Prehistory of North America

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?Oryzomys pliocaenicus is a fossil rodent from the Hemphillian (late Miocene) of Kansas, central United States. It is known from a single mandible (lower jaw) with the back part missing. All three molars are present, but very worn. Together, the molars are 3.6 mm long. The fossil was discovered in 1935 and described in 1939 as a possible species of Oryzomys (in open nomenclature). Later authors doubted this allocation and suggested that it may instead belong in Bensonomys or Jacobsomys, but the material may not allow a definite identification.(see more...)

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Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American paleontologist and comparative anatomist, as well as a noted herpetologist and ichthyologist. Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy, publishing his first scientific paper at the age of nineteen. Cope later married and moved from Philadelphia to Haddonfield, New Jersey, although Cope would maintain a residence and museum in Philadelphia in his later years.

Cope had little formal scientific training, and he eschewed a teaching position for field work. He made regular trips to the American West prospecting in the 1870s and 1880s, often as a member of United States Geological Survey teams. A personal feud between Cope and paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh led to a period of intense fossil-finding competition now known as the Bone Wars. Cope's financial fortunes soured after failed mining ventures in the 1880s. He experienced a resurgence in his career toward the end of his life before dying in 1897.

Cope's scientific pursuits nearly bankrupted him, but his contributions helped to define the field of American paleontology. He was a prodigious writer, with 1,400 papers published over his lifetime, although his rivals would debate the accuracy of his rapidly published works. He discovered, described, and named more than 1,000 vertebrate species including hundreds of fishes and dozens of dinosaurs. His proposals on the origin of mammalian molars and for the gradual enlargement of mammalian species over geologic time ("Cope's Law") are notable among his theoretical contributions. (see more...)

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Did you know?

... that over 200 fossils of Aphaenogaster mayri were known when the species was described in 1930?
... that the extinct brown lacewing Cretomerobius is known from both the Cretaceous and Eocene?
... that, in one study on the aetosaur Redondasuchus, the orientation of a diagram in the paper may have contributed to the misidentification of its holotype as a left scute rather than a right?
... that the extinct lobe-finned fish Laccognathus embryi (reconstruction pictured) had fangs up to 3.8 cm (1.5 in) long?
... that the type specimen of Scolosaurus seriously injured its discoverer, who was excavating it when it fell on him?

... that the Maya city of Ixkun in Guatemala erected one of the tallest stone stelae in the entire Petén Basin?
... that the extinct planthopper Emiliana was described from a single 47 million year old wing?
... that Tilly Edinger founded paleoneurology?
... that malacologist Myra Keen was called the "First Lady of Malacology"?
... that Megalictis ferox, a species of extinct predatory mustelid, resembled a modern wolverine but with three times the body mass?