{"id":63425,"date":"2021-06-24T12:40:11","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T16:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/?post_type=news&#038;p=63425"},"modified":"2021-06-24T12:40:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T16:40:11","slug":"museum-paleontologist-redescribes-triassic-protomammal-using-ct-data","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/news\/museum-paleontologist-redescribes-triassic-protomammal-using-ct-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Museum paleontologist redescribes Triassic protomammal using CT-data"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Museum\u2019s Research Curator of Paleontology, Christian Kammerer, has co-authored a new paper: \u201cCranial anatomy of <em>Bolotridon frerensis<\/em>, an enigmatic cynodont from the Middle Triassic of South Africa, and its phylogenetic significance,\u201d published in the journal <em>PeerJ<\/em> on June 16, 2021.<\/p>\n<p><em>Bolotridon<\/em> was historically one of the most poorly-known cynodonts (a group of synapsids, or \u201cprotomammals\u201d, that include modern mammals as their descendants). Kammerer and colleagues used computed tomographic (CT) scanning to reveal new anatomical information in the only known <em>Bolotridon<\/em> skull, a specimen housed at the Bayerische Staatssammlung f\u00fcr Pal\u00e4ontologie und Geologie in Munich, Germany. Based on this new data, they were able to determine that <em>Bolotridon<\/em> was closely related to the most diverse and abundant group of Triassic cynodonts, the Eucynodontia. This provides important new context for the origins of eucynodonts, whose Triassic radiation culminated in the origin of mammals.<\/p>\n<p>Full article: <a href=\"https:\/\/peerj.com\/articles\/11542\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>https:\/\/peerj.com\/articles\/11542\/<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Bolotridon.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Bolotridon_640w.jpg\" alt=\"Partial skull of Bolotridon frerensis (top); CT-scan reconstruction of Bolotridon, (bottom).\" class=\"img-responsive\" \/><\/a><span style=\"font-size:12px;\">Partial skull of <em>Bolotridon frerensis<\/em> (top); CT reconstruction of <em>Bolotridon<\/em> skull (bottom). Photo: Christian Kammerer. Rendering: Luisa Pusch.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr class=\"cleardiv\" \/>\n<p><em>For more information about our upcoming activities, conservation news and ground-breaking research, follow @NaturalSciences on\u00a0<\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/naturalsciences\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Instagram<\/a><\/em><em>,\u00a0<\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/naturalsciences\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Twitter<\/a><\/em><em>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/naturalsciences\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a><\/em><em>.\u00a0Join the conversation with #visitNCMNS.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63428,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/63425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/63425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}