Virginia Tech geobiologist wins Schuchert Award
...k, Kowalewski and his research team report on what brachiopod shells from 550 to 250 million years ago can tell us about predators' struggle to survive. Since brachiopods (lampshells) don't provide much nourishment, when they fell victim to predators, it was likely due to bad menu choices, lots of competition, ...Still shellfish after 425 million years: Clam-like creature preserved perfectly in ancient fossil
...'s Nature. Showing the internal structure of the brachiopod as well as the stalk and rootlets that kept it tet... dream we might see - an ancient fossil articulate brachiopod with its fleshy parts intact, and preserved in three-dimensions to boot. "Up to now, in all the mil...Soft body fossils of extinct 'lamp shell' digitally reconstructed
...ly reconstructed the first example of a fossilized brachiopod complete with its pedicle, the stalk attaching it ...f them also preserving pedicles," said Briggs. The brachiopod belongs to an extinct group, and this work reveals that its pedicle differs from that on living form...500 million years of errors: Brachiopod shells record shadow of arms race in ancient oceans
...dators. However, the rare predation traces left on brachiopod shells by unknown assailants coupled with a subtle...tifiable record of ecological interactions between brachiopod victims and their attacker. While many previous researchers studied drilled brachiopods at numerous ...Fossils tell the hole story of killer drillers and their prey
... shells," which also may explain why you never see brachiopod chowder on restaurant menus, Baumiller said. The researchers also found a slight increase in the frequency of drill holes on brachiopods in middle-to-late Paleozoic times and a second modest increase sometime after the end of the Paleozoic Era. Those...