Favorite Peer Projects

Titanoboa: The Amazonian Monster, was one of my favorite projects solely based on the fact that it was over a giant snake. Titanoboa was a massive snake that measured at about 50 ft long and weighed over a ton. Related to the modern day Boa Constrictor, it lived in a similar environment- the dense, swampy, humid and hot jungles of the Amazon. It lived during the Paleocene era around 60 million years ago. It would hunt it's prey by ambushing it, then constricting the unfortunate prey to death- be it crocodiles or other ancient Cerrajon animals. It could then go up to a year without eating again. Fossils of the snake were uncovered while workers were mining for coal and uncovering layers of rock in the Cerrajon coal mine.

Marine Fossils was another one of my favorite projects, as I have had a fascination with fossils for awhile, specifically marine fossils. A fossil is any impression or remains of an organism that is preserved in rock or mineral. Fossils are identified by certain qualities- skeletal structure, characteristics, functions, etc. The first person to come up with idea of classification was Aristotle. Two common types of marine fossils were trilobites and sponges. Ichthyosaurus are another type of marine fossil, a lizard-fish like animal that hunted fish and squid during it's reign. It's fossils were found in Torres del Paine in Chile. Two organisms that exist today that are living relatives of marine fossils include salmon and dolphins, they have similar skeletal structures and teeth as their ancestors did.

The Middle Between Birds and Dinosaurs was another one of my favorite projects, most projects that had to do with dinosaurs or prehistoric life held my attention for some portion depending on how well it was done. There were three main similarities between birds and dinosaurs that helped scientists theorize this link between species- they had similar feet, laid eggs, and had hollow bones. In China, a fossil was found by a Belgium scientists that was of a dinosaur, as it had needle sharp teeth, but it had feathers. The dino-bird was named Archeapteryx and sparked a worldwide revolution in paleontology, that maybe dinosaurs and birds were one and the same, just evolved.

Summary of Quarterly Project: Megalodon.

Not only was Megalodon the biggest prehistoric shark that ever lived; it was the largest predatory marine creature in the history of our planet. This shark not only existed, but it hunted and swam throughout the ancient oceans- 1.5 million years ago before going extinct. Carcharodon Megalodon, the king of sharks, was named after it’s teeth. Carcharodon, in ancient greek, translates to “ragged tooth”, due to the serrations the teeth this family of shark equip in their mouths- designed to rip and tear through flesh.  This shark had teeth as big as the palm of your hand, at about 7 inches long. Due to sharks having a cartilage skeletal system instead of a bone one like most vertebrates, fossilized evidence of shark “bones” is very hard to come by. But some vertebrae have been found. Fossils have been excavated from many parts of the world- including Europe, Africa, North and South America, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, The Canary Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malta, Grenadines, and India. Megalodon teeth have also been found in areas far from continental lands, including the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Due to fossil evidence being found nearly all over the world, we can assume that Megalodon was a cosmopolitan- it’s range encompasses the entire globe.most paleontologists propose that Megalodon, due to its ability to reach high speeds and great size, would prefer to hunt. Fossil evidence has found that Megalodon ate a large variety of fauna, including dolphins, porpoises, small and large whales, and even giant sea turtles that roamed the ancient oceans. During the late and Pliocene and Pleistocene eras, there were ice ages, which cooled the oceans. This is also cooled the Earth’s oceans, this cooling in turn impacted Megalodon, as it preferred warmer, tropical, waters, and as a result it may have declined in population until its ultimate extinction during the Pleistocene era. Competition, climate change, and decline in food supply are three theories to their decline.