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Tag: Jaws

  • Jawless Ancient Fish: Distant Relative To Humans

    Fossils of a prehistoric fish are revealing important details about the earliest vertebrate life on earth. A discovery was made that shows jaws evolved in animals that have backbones.

    On Wednesday, researchers described the fossil specimens of the fish that were uncovered at the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies. Many of the fossils were preserved, which allowed scientists to study their body structures.

    The fish is called the Metaspriggina, and scientists said that it lived around 515 to 500 million years ago during the Cambrian Period. The Metaspriggina grew around two inches long and had no jaws. It had a tapering and narrow body, accompanied by a small head. It also had large eyes and small nasal sacs.

    However, Jean-Bernard Caron, one of the study authors from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, said that the structures near the gills of the fish show the antecedent of a jaw.

    The Metaspriggina is one of the creatures that started the lineage of animals with backbones, including jawed fishes, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and even people.

    Caron said that studying fossils of the Metaspriggina allows us to have an understanding of where we came from and what our distant relatives might have looked like.

    “Metaspriggina is important because it fills an important gap in our understanding of the early evolution of the group to which we belong, but in particular shows with remarkable clarity the arrangement of the so-called branchial arches,” paleontologist from University of Cambridge Simon Conway Morris said.

    The Metaspriggina had seven pairs of gill arches that were used for respiration and for filtering food particles. The first pair were said to be more robust than the others, and may be the first step in the evolution of a working jaw, said Caron.

    A portion of the jaw bones eventually developed into middle ear bones in mammals. Caron said that this development of the arches into jaw bones made a great impact on how backbones appear and function today.

    Image via YouTube

  • Maui Shark Attack Kills Fisherman

    Maui Shark Attack Kills Fisherman

    A shark attack in Maui resulted in the death of a kayak fisherman whose foot was severed in the attack. The fisherman, who has been identified by the Maui County Police Department as Patrick Briney Stevenson, was reported to have been fishing with a partner at the time of his attack.

    Briney’s fishing partner allegedly spotted a nearby boat from which he sought help. Briney was taken ashore by the boat and then to a hospital where he was later pronounced dead.  According to CNN,  William Dunaway was one of the passengers of the boat that helped to transport Briney’s body. Dunaway reported what he says he witnessed of the incident:

    “We noticed in the distance there was a man in a kayak that was waving to us, and he started paddling over to us. We saw that he was tethered to another kayak. And as he got closer we saw that there was a body lying flat out in the kayak and the body didn’t look good. It had a very odd tint to it, and I think we all realized that there was something wrong.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VacKx9s7q4w

    While shark attacks have been greatly feared (especially since the production of Jaws), marine scientists have always worked hard to assure the public that shark attacks are typically rare and few in number.

    But little consolation comes to those who frequent the waters as well as those who do not, due to the highly televised stories of the most grizzly shark attacks, such as the attack suffered by pro-surfer Bethany Hamilton back in 2003. Hamilton was only 13 years old when she lost her arm to a tiger shark during a morning surf at Tunnels Beach in Kauai.

    And this year, Hawaii has been more shark-infested than usual with a total of 13 shark attacks recorded. Of the 13 incidents, Maui makes up the majority of these attacks with what is being counted now as its eighth attack this year.

    The chairman of the Department of Land and Natural Resources William J. Aila has announced measures toward finding the reason for the increase in shark attacks happening around Hawaii:

    “We are not sure why these bites are occurring more frequently than normal, especially around Maui. That’s why we are conducting a two-year study of shark behavior around Maui that may give us better insights.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

    Video and via Youtube

  • Pacifica Shark Attacks Fisherman In Kayak

    A great white shark attacked a fisherman off the coast of California Tuesday afternoon. Micah Flanaburg was fishing in a kayak with his father-in-law at Pacifica State Beach near Linda Mar when the shark attacked his boat. According to Flanaburg’s father-in-law, Ross Webber, the attack took place only about 200 yards from shore.

    Flanaburg told San Francisco’s KPIX that the shark came up from underneath and began shaking his boat back and forth violently. After shaking the boat for a few seconds, Flanaburg says the shark let go, circled his kayak, and left.

    Though the attack lasted only a few seconds, Flanaburg said that it felt much longer, and that the scariest moment was when the shark was circling after the initial attack, “’cause it swam back around and I thought he was going to come back and take another bite, right where my legs were.”

    Flanaburg says that the shark was roughly three-quarters the length of his kayak, making it about twelve feet long. Fortunately the only damage was to Flanaburg’s boat, which received several scratches from the shark’s teeth and a missing strap.

    Beach authorities are taking the attack seriously and have placed signs warning visitors of the recent attack. Nevertheless it is important to remember that shark attacks against humans are exceedingly rare. Only 80 people in the entire world were attacked by sharks in 2012, and only 7 of those attacks resulted in fatalities.

    There is no word on whether Flanaburg intends to come back with a bigger boat.

  • Reimagined Poster Art For Classic Spielberg Films

    Who doesn’t love going to the movies? The smell of popcorn, the sticky floors, the $8 candy……love it! If you are like me and you love everything the movies has to offer, then you will love these movie posters. These reimagined movie posters were redesigned by Alain Bossuyt and feature a couple summer blockbusters and a few cult classics.

    Some of the films included in this series are Jaws, Psycho, Raider of the Lost Ark, The Birds, Them, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and a James Bond movie.

    Raiders Of The Lost Ark

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    Jaws

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    Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

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    1941

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    Psycho

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    The Birds

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    Them

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    The Spy Who Loved Me

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