Latest news with #BlueBeachFossilMuseum
Miami Herald
30-06-2025
- Science
- Miami Herald
‘Dangerous predator' — 350 million years old — is new species in Canada creekbed
On an inner beach in Nova Scotia, layers of stone and sediment are battered by water. The area is susceptible to the extreme tides in the Bay of Fundy, pulling anything on the surface out to sea, possibly lost forever. For centuries, researchers, geologists and paleontologists have studied Blue Beach because of its abundant fossil record, and in recent years they have worked to start collecting, preserving and categorizing the bones found there. Researchers Chris Mansky and Sonja Wood founded the Blue Beach Fossil Museum as part of this mission, and now their work has led to the discovery of a new prehistoric species. Wood, who died last year, is credited with finding a jaw bone for a previously undescribed species in a study published June 18 in the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 'She (a wheelchair user) was out with Chris along the road at Blue Beach when she got a good feeling that a fossil would be found in the nearby creek,' Conrad Wilson, a Ph.D. candidate at Carleton University and lead author on the study, told McClatchy News in an email. 'She pointed Chris down the rocky embankment into the creek bed and that's where he found the fossil.' The jaw is long and curved and teeth protrude from the bone, according to the study. The teeth near the back of the jaw were conical and nearly vertical, while those near the front were strongly curved backward in a hook-like structure The jaw was identified as a species of actinopterygian, or predatory ray-finned fish, a group that is 'hugely important today,' Wilson said. 'Today, they include more than 50% of all vertebrates and pretty much any fish that is fished commercially, and range from sturgeon to tuna,' Wilson said. '... This one was close to 3 feet long and is strikingly different from its contemporaries because of the curvature of its jaws and the size and anatomy of its fangs.' Each type of tooth served a different purpose in making the fish a 'dangerous predator,' Wilson said. Hooked teeth at the front of the jaw would capture the fish's prey in their mouth, holding them in while the pointed fangs in the back could 'pierce' the creature and 'chop it up,' according to Wilson. This is the earliest record of this kind of dentition in ray-finned fishes, appearing about 350 million years ago, Wilson said. The species was named Sphyragnathus tyche, combining Greek words 'sphyra,' meaning hammer and 'gnathus,' meaning jaw for the genus, according to the study. The species name, Tyche, refers to the Greek goddess of fortune for 'the fortunate circumstances of the fossil's discovery.' Aside from a distinction as a new species, the hammer jaw fish also tells researchers about how all ray-finned fish fared after a catastrophic event. Lots of species were lost at the end of the Devonian period, which ended about 358.9 million years ago, to a mass extinction and the diversity of fish declined, Wilson wrote in a June 24 article published in The Conversation. 'One point of debate revolves around how actinopterygians (ray-finned fishes) diversified as the modern vertebrate world was born — whether they explored new ways of feeding or swimming first,' Wilson wrote. By noting and analyzing the unique teeth, researchers suggest the group of fish focused first on changing their feeding strategy evolutionarily, instead of adapting their swimming, according to Wilson. 'The fossils are telling us about what the fish existing right after a mass extinction looked like,' Wilson told CBC News. '... The beach where this fossil was discovered tells us … this is a group of animals that is doing well, pretty quickly, after a mass extinction.' Blue Beach is on the inner shore of Nova Scotia, on Canada's east coast. The research team includes Wilson, Mansky and Jason S. Anderson.
Yahoo
22-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Researchers discover ancient predatory, fanged fish that swam in Nova Scotia waters
HALIFAX — Researchers have discovered a new species of ancient fish with hooked front fangs that made them a fearsome and effective predator. A paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology this week says the long, curved jaw of the animal sheds light on how fish were evolving smaller, front teeth that acted like fishing hooks, about 350 million years ago. Meanwhile, the centimetre-long back fangs were used to chew the catch before digestion into a body that may have been almost a metre long. They hunted for prey in the inland waters of Nova Scotia, in what was likely a vast inland lake. Lead author Conrad Wilson, a doctoral candidate in paleontology at Carleton University, said in an interview Friday that the fish has been named Sphyragnathus tyche, with the first phrase meaning "hammer jaw." "I would say it's a fairly fearsome looking fish. If its mouth is open, you would see those fangs in the jaw," he said. But the fossil is also significant for the clues it offers to the evolution of ray-finned fish — a huge and diverse vertebrate group that occupies a wide range of aquatic and semi-aquatic environments around the globe. "These fish were the last major group of vertebrates to be identified and we still have big gaps in our knowledge about their early evolution," said the researcher, who published his paper with Chris Mansky, a fossil researcher at the Blue Beach Fossil Museum in Hantsport, N.S., and Jason Anderson, a professor of anatomy at the veterinary faculty at the University of Calgary. "The fossils are telling us about what the fish existing right after a mass extinction looked like," said Wilson, referring to the transition from the Devonian to the Carboniferous periods. Wilson says paleontologists have wondered how ray-finned fish recovered from the extinction period as other groups of fish, such as the heavily armed category referred to as placoderms, were disappearing. "The beach where this fossil was discovered tells us is ... this is a group of animals that is doing well, pretty quickly, after a mass extinction," he said. The paper theorizes that the feeding methods of the evolving teeth may have played a role, creating an evolutionary advantage for the species. Wilson noted "that particular feature of the curved and pointy fang at the front and processing fangs at the back became a feature of many species in times to come." The area where the fossil was found — at Blue Beach on the Minas Basin, about 90 kilometres north of Halifax — was believed to be part of a vast freshwater lake not far from the ocean. The research team's paper credits Sonja Wood, former director of the Blue Beach Fossil Museum, for finding the fossilized jaw by urging Mansky to check along a creek that flowed onto the beach. Wood, who died last year, was in a wheelchair and had urged her colleague to search the area. "She had a good feeling about what could be found ... and she said he should go and have a look," said Wilson. "He went down and sure enough it (the jaw fossil) was sitting right there," said the researcher, adding that Mansky managed to recover the fossil before a storm rolled through that night. Wilson said more discoveries are possible as examination of the fossils from the Blue Beach area continues. "We have lots of different anatomies that simply haven't been described yet. And we'll be working on that in a paper that's coming up in a few months," he said. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 21, 2025. Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press
CBC
21-06-2025
- Science
- CBC
Researchers discover ancient predatory, fanged fish that swam in Nova Scotia waters
Researchers have discovered a new species of ancient fish with hooked front fangs that made them a fearsome and effective predator. A paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology this week says the long, curved jaw of the animal sheds light on how fish were evolving smaller, front teeth that acted like fishing hooks, about 350 million years ago. Meanwhile, the centimetre-long back fangs were used to chew the catch before digestion into a body that may have been almost a metre long. They hunted for prey in the inland waters of Nova Scotia, in what was likely a vast inland lake. Lead author Conrad Wilson, a doctoral candidate in paleontology at Carleton University in Ottawa, said in an interview Friday that the fish has been named Sphyragnathus tyche, with the first phrase meaning "hammer jaw." "I would say it's a fairly fearsome looking fish. If its mouth is open, you would see those fangs in the jaw," he said But the fossil is also significant for the clues it offers to the evolution of ray-finned fish — a huge and diverse vertebrate group that occupies a wide range of aquatic and semi-aquatic environments around the globe. "These fish were the last major group of vertebrates to be identified and we still have big gaps in our knowledge about their early evolution," Wilson said, who published his paper with Chris Mansky, a fossil researcher at the Blue Beach Fossil Museum in Hantsport, N.S., and Jason Anderson, a professor of anatomy in the veterinary faculty at the University of Calgary. "The fossils are telling us about what the fish existing right after a mass extinction looked like," said Wilson, referring to the transition from the Devonian to the Carboniferous periods. Wilson said paleontologists have wondered how ray-finned fish recovered from the extinction period as other groups of fish, such as the heavily armed category referred to as placoderms, were disappearing. "The beach where this fossil was discovered tells us ... this is a group of animals that is doing well, pretty quickly, after a mass extinction," he said. The paper theorizes that the feeding methods of the evolving teeth may have played a role, creating an evolutionary advantage for the species. Wilson noted "that particular feature of the curved and pointy fang at the front and processing fangs at the back became a feature of many species in times to come." The area where the fossil was found — at Blue Beach on the Minas Basin, about 90 kilometres north of Halifax — was believed to be part of a vast freshwater lake not far from the ocean. The research team's paper credits Sonja Wood, former director of the Blue Beach Fossil Museum, for finding the fossilized jaw by urging Mansky to check along a creek that flowed onto the beach. Wood, who died last year, was in a wheelchair and had urged her colleague to search the area. "She had a good feeling about what could be found ... and she said he should go and have a look," said Wilson. "He went down and sure enough it [the jaw fossil] was sitting right there," he said, adding that Mansky managed to recover the fossil before a storm rolled through that night. Wilson said more discoveries are possible as examination of the fossils from the Blue Beach area continues. "We have lots of different anatomies that simply haven't been described yet. And we'll be working on that in a paper that's coming up in a few months," he said.
