Turtles Disappearing millions of years ago?

Around 71 million years ago, there was a climate change in Alberta's Drumheller area. Turtles are considered to be climate sensitive organisms, so it was believed that the climate change caused them to leave this area. However, a discovery has been made that suggests the turtles left before the climate change. Now it seems as if a habitat change caused the turtles to leave rather than the climate change.

The habitat in which the turtles were living in was a subtropical forest, near an inland sea, which leads to many wetlands. The wetlands are believed to be the homes of these ancient turtles. The new discoveries being made suggest that the wetlands started to disappear in this time period. The departure of the turtles from the area seems to correspond directly with the destruction of their habitat rather than the cooling period due to climate change.

Before this discovery it was believed that climate change had a greater impact on the turtles than the habitat changes. Now, its is believe that overall the habitat changes had a greater impact. It was surprising to most scientists to learn that even if a climate is "ideal" if the habitat isn't right for the organism it could die out or choose to leave. Before this I, like the scientists would've believed that the climate would have a larger effect. This could do with watching the movie Ice Age too frequently when I was younger (although the climate obviously changed then too), or just assumption. I definitely learned something new by reading this article.

This discovery about how the habitat rather than the climate change effected the turtles could lead to a different way of thinking about other organisms too. Perhaps this could change beliefs about other organisms too. This small discovery could potentially change the way things have been considered to be for decades now. I hope that this discovery would open up possibilities of taking a second look at the way things are now. The migration of animals over the years due to what was beleive to be climate change could end up being due to habitat change instead.

I'm not sure why but when reading this article humans popped into my mind. If you think about it, its not necessarily climate change that would cause us to move or "migrate" but rather habitat change. If it gets really cold out, you buy heavier jackets to wear, if it gets really warm out, tank tops and shorts suffice. However, if your house catches on fire, or is deemed unfit to live in due to mold or faulty building, you move. That in a way is habitat change. So when it comes to humans, it seems as if habitat change would have a greater impact overall in comparison to climate change. Obviously all organisms are not the same as humans, but it is an easy way of thinking about this issue.

I found this article to be unbiased, and I definitely learned  a lot and have a new outlook on the situation after reading it. However, there is the possibility that I am over thinking the issue, maybe it was just these turtles this one time, but it would be interesting to go back and double check previous discoveries and find out for sure.

Spiral-Toothed Mystery

For a while now scientists have been trying to piece together what the body of an ancient species looked like. This species had an odd trait, spiral saw like teeth. Scientists debated back and forth whether the  species, Helicoprion, was more closely related to a shark or other organisms. It was with the use of fossils of the Helicoprion and CT scans to finally discover which organism the Helicoprion was more closely related too.
Ends up it is not the shark as many scientists believed for a long time, but instead the modern chimaeras, or ratfish. The fossil record helped the scientists to discover more about this organism. It lived 270 million years ago, and was made up of mostly cartilage, not a substance that leaves behind particularly good fossils because it is easily crushed. However, one of the fossils found of the organism had preserved some of the cartilage, thus allowing the scientists who used the CT scans to better develope what the organism looked like way back then. Because they were able to go so in depth with the fossil they were able to figure out what organism was related to the Helicoprion. It does have similar traits to a shark, such as having cartilage and rather than bone, but it is the way the upper jaw is connected to the rest of the body that actually determines which current day organism it is more closely related too. In this case its upper jaw seemed to fuse to the brain tip, this characteristic is well known for being in chimareas and ratfish. The computers helped the scientists to focus in on these minute details that can mean serious differences.
We recently learned about fossil record in class, so it is very interesting to see it applied in the real world. If not for fossils the scientists would have been stuck, they would not have been able to discover much more about this organism. Clearly fossils are very important. Also, the computer technology played a big role in this discovery. This technology helped to build a 3D replica of the organism based off the fossil. The fact that we are now capable of doing this is amazing. It has allowed us to learn more about that specific organism, but also about the evolutionary history between the Helicoprion and the modern day ratfish/chimaeras.
The technology used in this event, at least to me seems to be very important. If we can use CT scans to form 3D images from this fossil, why wouldn't we be able to do this with other fossils? I could see this being very important in current day science. We are alwalys trying to discover things about the past in science, and with this technology it would become easier to picture how the world was millions of years ago.
For the most part this article seemed to be pure facts, no biases present. While reading this article I was very interested in it. What other organisms can we discover more about using this technology? We could easily expand what we know about certain adaptations and traits passed down from ancestors millions of years ago. It really does relate easily to what we are doing in class, which is a pleasant surprise because it makes everything a lot more interesting, it gives it a real world meaning, instead of just one of those things you learn in class. I am interested to see if the technology used on the Helicoprion fossils will continue to be used with other fossils we have.