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Mysterious 80million-year-old shark species caught

Mysterious 80million-year-old shark species caught off Portuguese coast




80 million year old species

Snake Shark

 

A REAL life sea monster “from the age of the dinosaurs” has caused waves in the scientific world after being caught off the Algarve coast.

The ultra-rare frilled shark — which has a body like a snake but the jaws of a terrifying sea predator — was hauled out of the water by EU fish stock researchers, reports The Sun.

The Portuguese Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere have now dubbed the shark a “living fossil” as the species dates back 80 million years.

This makes it one of very few creatures from the dinosaur times that are still around, with the shark discovered off the coast of Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

The male fish measured 1.5 metres in length and was captured at a depth of 701 metres off the resort of Portimao.

Another ‘snake shark’ was caught in Australia. Check out the video below.




Ever Hear of Megaladon?

It was the biggest shark ever to have swum the oceans of the world.

Some people believe it’s still out there.

Check out this story and say what you think.

Is this fearsome monster still out there?





Animal X Files Opened For All To See Check Them Out!

Animal X UnCut

After months of waiting at last the Animal X Files are opened and are being made available for all to see. In a new Web based series called Animal X UnCut.

We have started with the San Francisco Bay Monsters as featured in Animal X Natural Mystery Unit – Monsters of the Deep.

Where Bill and Bob Clark describe the mysterious creatures they have seen and video taped in San Francisco Bay. Both interviews are now available to watch UNCUT. Also the video is available in its original form and UNCUT.




You’ll be surprised at what one of the brothers thinks these monsters are.

Check out Bob and Bill Clark’s UnCut interview and video recording of the mysterious Monsters of San Francisco Bay here:

Monster of San Francisco Bay

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Minnesota Iceman

The Animal X Files are opened for all to see. The Animal X Files are an archive of the middle to late 20th and 21st century’s most important international cryptozoology and mysterious nature’s oral and video history of stories, events and happenings.

With this new series of Animal X UnCut video clips, we are trying to preserve this unique collection; to create an online museum, if you like, of some of the world’s most well known cryptozoological and mysterious nature stories.

Chupacabra

If you are interested in cryptozoology, mysterious nature, paranormal, folklore the supernatural and monsters then you are invited to be part of this project by supporting the preservation of this collection. Watch out for more details. Subscribe to be notified.

Animal X UnCut is a unique new web based series where you can watch interviews and sightings from Animal X and Animal X Natural Mystery Unit – uncut, and make up your own mind.
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Evidence of God

Has science proven that God does exist and created the universe and everything? This video clip says yes there is strong scientific evidence of God.

Evidence of God

This YouTube video clip posted by Scripture and Science has some sound scientific background backing up it’s claim that there is strong evidence for God. It seems that today many scientists are struck by the parallel of a one time creation event from nothing with the Biblical event in Genesis 1:1. Agnostic scientist Robert Jastrow admits ‘Now we see how the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origins of the world’. Add to that the latest discoveries in DNA science and there is a compelling argument for a creator. Check out the video for the full story. Enjoy.

 

 

 
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Obama to Reveal Aliens Exist Before Trump Takes Over

Obama to Reveal Aliens Exist Before Trump Takes Over

Obama to Reveal Truth about Aliens & UFOs

According to the Inquisitr (Inquisitr.com) Obama and Clinton are going to make a major Alien and UFO disclosure before the Trump Administration takes over the White House.

the Inquisitr says Paradigm Research Group (PRG), a UFO disclosure advocacy, claimed in a recent statement that it has been contacted by a government whistle-blower who revealed that the U.S. intelligence community is ready to make alien and UFO disclosure.

Paradigm Research Group and its executive director Stephen Bassett, have been at the forefront of the UFO disclosure movement in the past two decades, lobbying members of Congress and the executive branch for declassification of all files relating to UFOs and extraterrestrial life.

PRG claimed that two days after the presidential election defeat of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it received a message from a known source “within the military/intelligence community” that top officials within the intelligence community responsible for managing information relating to UFOs and extraterrestrials were ready for disclosure to occur under President Barack Obama. They were also ready to work toward disclosure in collaboration with the secretary of defence if he approaches them.




 

“Persons who are directly involved in the management of the extraterrestrial issues want disclosure to take place under President Obama and are ready to work with the SecDef (Secretary of Defence) if approached,” the emailed statement said.

The Inquisitr had reported in January that the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton promised during an interview with The Conway Daily Sun in December, while campaigning in New Hampshire, that if elected as president she would “get to the bottom” of questions about what the government knows about aliens and UFOs.

Clinton, who said she realized that ETs may have visited Earth, promised to set up a task force to investigate Area 51, the top-secret USAF base in Nevada where UFO researchers believe the authorities are secretly keeping alien technology recovered from UFO crash sites, including the alleged 1947 Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash site.

The Inquisitr also reported in May that following the promises made during election campaign by former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Stephen Bassett, executive director of PRG and the only registered UFO and alien disclosure lobbyist in the U.S., stated that President Obama was about to cave-in to pressure by announcing before the end of his presidency that intelligent extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth before.




Bassett expressed conviction in an interview with the Daily Express that before Obama leaves office he would make the historic announcement that “we are not alone” and that the U.S. government has information about aliens and UFOs.

“This [UFO Disclosure] will be a reality this year and across the front pages of newspapers across the world. The most significant news story that has ever been broken,” Bassett said.

But PRG had hoped that in the event that President Obama failed to make the disclosure then Mrs. Clinton would fulfill her campaign promise that if she wins the election she would reveal the truth about aliens and UFOs allegedly kept secret by the government.
But after Clinton lost the presidential election to the Republican candidate Donald Trump, hope that she could become the disclosure president was lost.

But now, according to PRG, Clinton could still influence the Obama administration to make the disclosure announcement before Obama leaves office as president in January.

“What is going on here? PRG has publicly stated the agenda of the Clinton team has been to disclose the extraterrestrial presence to the American people (and the world) if and when she became president of the United States. That option is removed,” the emailed statement by PRG said.
“The Clintons now have a choice to make of historic proportions,” the statement continued.

“Should they immediately take interviews with top journalists and discuss in greater detail what they know about the ET issue and what transpired during the Rockefeller Initiative (1993-1996), the resulting media storm will force the Pentagon and the White House to reach the necessary understanding allowing Barack Obama to be the Disclosure president.”

[Note: The Rockefeller Initiative refers to efforts embarked upon beginning in 1993, under the administration of President Bill Clinton, by the billionaire Laurance Rockefeller to have all UFO files released.]

The PRG statement went on to state that because neither the President nor the Secretary of Defence is briefed by intelligence officials managing relevant ET information under the Unacknowledged Special Access Programs (USAPS), the Secretary of Defence would have to obtain the relevant information from the intelligence complex.

With intelligence officials managing relevant ET information having signaled their willingness to work with the Secretary of Defence toward disclosure, both parties could then approach President Obama with the relevant information.

“In order for the Secretary of Defence to approach the White House regarding disclosure, he must reach down into the military/intelligence complex for the needed information to proceed,” the statement said.

“Although the managers of the ET issues are constrained by the highest level of classification, PRG is now convinced they are ready to provide that information because there is a growing internal consensus disclosure must take place under President Obama.”
“This process is time sensitive,” the PRG statement continued.

“Disclosure would need to happen early enough for the nation to absorb such extraordinary information and settle down prior to the inauguration. There would also be time to prepare various government agencies for the engagement of the media and the public going forward. Then the new president would be stepping into a relatively stable and organized post-Disclosure status.”

The statement then went on to suggest that for the new president to step into “relatively stable and organized post-Disclosure status,” the disclosure would have to occur by January 6, 2017, ahead of the inauguration of the Trump administration on January 20.
“This means the Clintons have a choice to make and a few weeks to reach a decision,” the statement concluded.

Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/3727853/ufo-disclosure-obama-and-clinton-to-reveal-aliens-and-ufos-exist-before-trump-enters-white-house-advocacy-group-claims/#zh0XywFqo8oL00gh.99

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Alien Invasion: Humans are Not Ready

 

 

Alien Invasion: Humans are Not Ready

From Nature World News By Alixandra Caole Vila

French UFO

 




The science fiction movie “Arrival” has fueled people’s interest in the search for intelligent life and has left many wondering — are we truly ready to meet intelligent life? Are we ready for an alien invasion?

Seth Shostak, an expert from Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, who has been leading its efforts to detect radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, said yes, but not quite.

“There are some protocols, but I think that’s an unfortunate name, and it makes them sound more important than they are,” Shostak told Live Science.

Shostak revealed that the government has devised “post-detection protocols” for researchers who are working on detecting and monitoring possible alien transmissions. However, Shostak said that the said protocols are rules rather than plans as to how they would deal with extraterrestrials once contact is confirmed.

“They say, ‘If you pick up a signal, check it out … tell everybody … and don’t broadcast any replies without international consultation,’ whatever that means,” he said. “But that’s all that the protocols say, and they have no force of law. The United Nations took a copy of the early protocols and put them in a file drawer somewhere, and that’s as official as they ever got.”

Researchers or scientists are required to report signals from aliens but there is no government policy stating the plans and establishing procedures in case there is contact, as far as he knows.

In a separate interview with Space.com, Shostak said that if there is a “secret plan” with regards to E.T. arrival, it would not be enough if the E.T.’s arrive in a hostile or predatory manner.

“It would be like taking on the Roman legions with the U.S. Air Force,” Shostak said.

According to Shostak, aliens are likely the form of super intelligent machines that is impossible to outwit. Because of their intellect, they have managed to shed off their biological body to transform into formidable machines to survive the treacherous conditions of the outer space.

As such, Daily Mail notes that while we are spending our time looking for aliens or planets flourishing with biological components, we must focus on planets that would serve their digital existence.

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An Unidentified Flying Object in the sky over Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia.
(Photo : Barney Wayne/Keystone/Getty Images)

 

Taken by Aliens

Here’s a clip from an interview we did with two Alien Abductees. These people have no doubt they were abducted. The question is are these ‘Aliens’, space aliens or something altogether more sinister like demons masquerading as Aliens?

 


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Top 6 mysterious animal sightings. What do you think they are?

The world is full of mysteries, but none like the mysterious animals that live in the world’s oceans, rivers and lakes. Here’s 6 of the top mysterious animal sighting. What do you think they are?

Top 6 mysterious animal sightings

 

From the Bloop, a mysterious creature that lives in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, to the San Fransisco Bay monster to the monster of Lake Van in Turkey. There are hundreds of stories from all over the world about mysterious monsters of the deep.

These creatures have been seen by hundreds of people but no one knows what these creatures are.

This video clip looks at six of the most mysterious creatures seen by humans.

  • Caddy from Cadboro Bay near Vancouver Canada. Sightings go back centuries.
  • Morgawr from Cornwall in England – said to have been conjured by by a Wizard.
  • New England Sea Serpent. With links to Indigenous American culture
  • Swedish Lake Monster. One of Europe’s most mysterious. It even has ‘protected’ status.
  • Howick Falls monster. The Inkanyumba a deadly giant snake like creature
  • The Monster of Lake Van. Another lake monster that has been around for centuries.

Top 6 mysterious animal sightings.


 

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If you don’t believe in Darwinism and evolution, then you should watch this clip.

OK Crypto fans. How far do you want to blow your mind?

This one deals with our actual existence as a menagerie of animals occupying a planet. In a galaxy. In a universe. In space somewhere.

Does all life come from goo? Spontaneously coming into existence? Or God – some kind of amazing alien creator who designed the whole box and dice.

If you don’t believe in Darwinism and evolution, then you should watch this clip. It’s from a documentary called  Unlocking the Mystery of Life (Illustra Media) and looks at the basics science of molecular biology and the validity of Darwinism in the 21st century.

Sounds a bit too deep? Don’t you believe it. If I get it, then you will get it. It’ll stimulate you intellect and excite your soul.

It won’t change your mind but it will make you think. Trigger that basic question in your head. Why?

Basically this video is looking at the very basics of what life is. The chemistry. The mechanics. The mathematics but in a very simply and exciting way. Looking how bio-chemistry works with Darwinism.

No really, I mean exciting. Get you’re mind around what they are saying. Whether their take on it is right or wrong. It’s certainly arguable in my book.


“The science is solid and the computer animations are superb. This is a great film.”

Philip S. Skell, Ph.D. Member, National Academy of Sciences



This next clip is much simpler but you really need to have watched the other clip (above) to give you full understanding of their argument.

You could watch this clip first but it will leave you with questions the other clip will have answered.

Nevertheless enjoy this brain food and please leave a comment.

Click here to go to their website for more information.

 

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Want to know what this is? Then click here to find out.

 
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2016 International Bigfoot Conference

2016 International Bigfoot Conference

Minnesota Iceman




 In October of 2015, at a conference in Hot Springs Montana, Author Russell Acord, and Ed Brown sat down and started planning the first International Bigfoot Conference.  While they didn’t agree on everything, the one thing they all agreed on was; they had to create a conference with a purpose, and that purpose was to provide an opportunity for up and coming researchers to share the stage with some of the biggest names in the world of Bigfoot research. 

They knew that if we could pull our resources together; they could create an event to rival the best ones out there.  So they set out to bring in some top respected speakers to share the platform with some that have earned recognition for their own research.  they started with three outstanding up and comers; Kirk Brown from California, Misty Allabaugh from Montana, and Becky Cook from Idaho.  While it is hard to call any of the “Up and Comers”, they were confident they have chosen three candidates who are soon to be stars. 

Now came the task of looking for the big names that could schedule the time to join them on the stage in Kennewick Washington.  Ed first talked to Stacy Brown Jr, and was delighted that he was ‘all in’.  Then, on the Derek Randles, Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Todd and Diane Neiss, Mitchel Townsend, Shane Corson and Gunnar Monson.  But they weren’t done yet; they wanted to add world renowned cryptologists, Adam Davies and Ken Gerhard who confirmed that they were both ‘completely on board’.  And while we won’t give their names just yet, they are awaiting response from a few more legends in community to round out our list of esteemed speakers and guests.

2016 International Bigfoot Conference

 For more information check out their website and if you are down that way definitely join the conference. It sounds great.

Here’s some great stories of Bigfoot featuring at least one of their guests Dr Jeff Meldrum.   This is the famous Skookum Cast Expedition. 






A Wasp That Turns a Spider Into the Walking Dead

A Wasp That Turns a Spider Into the Walking Dead

by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell from AnswersinGenisis.org

 

A parasitoid wasp (Pteromalus puparum) (Credit: John Abbott/NPL)

 
Spiders turned into zombies by parasitic wasps modify their webs to serve their new masters.
When a parasitic wasp skewers an orb spider and glues an egg to its back, she sets off a chain of events that soon alters the behavior and destiny of the spider. A new study from the host-parasite pair’s Japanese homeland shows that, some time after the egg hatches, the spider abruptly abandons its former lifestyle and follows a precisely choreographed sequence of actions that modify its normal web-building activities to produce the best possible home for a developing wasp.

zombie spider

Zombie Web Design

Transformed by the ichneumonid wasp Reclinervellus nielseni’s sting into an obedient zombie, the orb-weaving spider Cyclosa argenteoalba does more than nourish the wasp’s larva with its own inward parts. The zombie spider serves its new master by modifying its web design to make a stronger-than-normal web devoted to the protection of the wasp’s pupal cocoon. No longer concerned with catching prey for itself, the spider reworks its web to build a hammock of extra-strong non-sticky silks that will ultimately cradle the cocoon.

Kobe University’s Keizo Takasuka and colleagues, who published their work in The Journal of Experimental Biology, painstakingly searched for spiders already parasitized by the wasp and then observed how the spiders’ behavior was affected. They also collected and observed the behavior of normal spiders.

This modified web design is actually an enhanced version of the resting web the orb spider normally builds to protect itself when molting. A spider sheds its exoskeleton in order to grow and is helpless during this time. A normal spider molts nestled in its resting web for just two days, but to accommodate the 10-day period wasps require to pupate in their cocoons, the parasitized spider builds an unusually durable web. It spends 10 hours repeating certain web-building steps over and over, reinforcing the web with additional threads until it produces a web of large-diameter silks with increased tensile strength. It leaves out the sticky stuff. Once its construction operation is complete, the zombie spider sits in the center of the web until the larva consumes the rest of its body fluids and kills it. Then the larva morphs into a pupa and emerges 10 days later as a mature wasp

Shining in the Light

The zombie spider decorates this specialized resting web with ultraviolet-reflecting silks. These deter web-destroying collisions with birds. Scientists used to think that the ultraviolet-reflecting silks in spider webs attracted prey, but their routine inclusion in resting webs of molting spiders and the webs of nocturnal spiders suggests otherwise. The fact that these particular zombie spiders, following their detailed and very pragmatic altered programming, include UV-reflecting décor in their cocoon webs while leaving out sticky fibers altogether is consistent with this view. So is the fact that the prey-capture regions of the normal orb webs studied by this Japanese team were unadorned with UV-reflecting fibers.

It appears the UV-reflecting webs are God’s design to protect spider webs from being destroyed by bird collisions. Studies have shown the UV-reflecting silks really do deter bird collisions. At least one company is now manufacturing glass incorporating a web of UV-reflecting strips to prevent birds from crashing into windows. This example of biomimicry—technology based on designs found in nature—now protects birds soaring around the observation tower on the Holy Island of Lindesfarne, a center for Celtic Christianity off the coast of England dating back to the 6th century.

Biomimicry

UV-reflecting silk is just one of many biomimetic applications the study of spiders has provided. For instance, spiders produce several different kinds of silk. A gene that produces a protein in the dragline silk of one species of orb spider has been used to produce transgenic goats that produce recoverable silk in their milk, a protein that can be used to produce fibers stronger than steel for use in artificial joints, bulletproof vests, and parachutes. Biomimetic breakthroughs in technology are imitations of God’s designs. Zombie-creating parasites like this wasp and its parasitized partner can reveal much about the common designs created by God and how even their variations and derangement can work together to perpetuate species in this sin-cursed world.



World Gone Wrong

The fallen world we live in since man sinned supplies an endless variety of examples illustrating what can go wrong. Or, from the point of view of parasitic wasps fulfilling their instinct to multiply using the best available resources, what can go right! How do such parasitic relationships develop?

Parasites survive at the expense of their victims, ordinarily sparing the life of the victim until it is no longer needed.Parasites that manipulate host behavior do so in a way to enhance their own growth or dispersion. Ichneumonid wasps ensure their larvae will be fed by recruiting insects or spiders to donate their bodily fluids to nourish wasp larvae. And the Reclinervellus wasp is not the only ichneumonid that reproduces by providing its larvae with living meals while also manipulating the spider’s web-building behavior to provide each pupa a haven. A Costa Rican wasp, for instance, Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga, follows a similar strategy utilizing the orb-weaving spider Plesiometa argyra.

In fact it was to the Ichneumonidae family of wasps that Charles Darwin referred when he wrote to botanist Asa Gray, questioning how a good God could create such a cruel system. Darwin wrote, “There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.”5

God created a perfectly good world (Genesis 1:31) and presented it to man (Genesis 1:26–28). Darwin failed to recognize that God’s good world went wrong because of man’s sinful rebellion. The New Testament reinforces this Old Testament truth, Romans 8:19–23 confirming that that the whole of creation groans in slavery to corruption in the wake of man’s sin. (Read more about this in “The Fall and the Problem of Millions of Years of Natural Evil.”) Thedeath and suffering that afflict not only people but also animals are consequences of human rebellion against God.

Cruelty and the Curse

Darwin complained that he could not envision the cruelty of nature as part of a good God’s design, yet in order for the living things in this sin-cursed world to endure for the past 6,000 years, variations and even derangements of God’s designs have allowed life to go on. Many organisms have adapted by developing defense and attack structures. (Read more about these in “How Did Defense/Attack Structures Come About?” and entomologist Dr. Gordon Wilson’s article on “Divinely Designed Defenses.”) The study of parasites like the ichneumonid wasps will help answer Darwin’s concern by helping us understand what good purposes these organisms were designed to serve in the pre-Fall world as well as the changes that led to the development of parasitic lifestyles after the Fall. Be sure to read more about this in Dr. Matthew Ingle’s article “Parasitology and Creation.”

Spiders today are carnivores, most paralyzing prey caught in their webs and enzymatically digesting and consuming them. (It is curious that most news articles about these zombie spiders paint a horrific image of the spiders’ fate but fail to mention the daily dietary practices of spiders, which are certainly no kinder.) Carnivory and parasitism are both consequences of sin’s curse. We know from God’s Word (Genesis 1:29–30) that animals did not originally eat other animals.

So what did spiders eat? We cannot be dogmatic about the behavior of pre-Fall animals 6,000 years removed from our ability to observe them, but we can reasonably speculate that they could have subsisted on pollen grains caught in their webs. This is not idle speculation. While spiders today are not generally herbivorous, a mostly herbivorous spider living on the Bullhorn acacia tree feeds on the tree’s Beltian bodies.6 And a 2013 study found that 25% of the diet of the juvenile orb-weaving spiders analyzed consisted of pollen grains caught in their webs. The pollen grains in the study were large enough to require active digestion by the spiders’ extraoral enzymes and were likely consumed while the spiders were recycling their webs.7 Thus it is no stretch to propose that before the Fall spiders wereherbivorous, and spider webs may have originally functioned as pollen catchers.

But what about parasites like the ichneumonid wasps? If God did not originally design these wasps to turn their hosts into zombies, how did they get to be that way? While we cannot go back and observe the process by which an animal, plant, or fungus became a parasite, we can be confident that all the original created kinds of organisms fulfilled helpful, not harmful, roles in the good world God made. Since the Fall, a combination of mutations and other genetic mechanisms, phenotypic plasticity, natural selection, and environmental changes that have altered available resources have produced many harmful varieties of organisms as well as created both symbiotic and parasiticrelationships that ultimately ensure the survival of many species that might otherwise become extinct.

And if the incidence of parasitism in this Japanese pair is any indication, the spider population is not exactly being decimated by the predations of parasitic wasps. It took Keizo Takasuka’s team many days to find 23 parasitized spiders among the 1,615 spiders they inspected.8 Similarly, in a study of zombie ants last year, scientists found that a parasitic fungus infected only a small percentage of the carpenter ants in its ecosystem in order to survive. (Read more about it in “Zombie Ants and Genesis.”) Thus in the post-Fall world in which we live, carpenter ant populations survive to decompose dead wood, wasps survive to continue their valuable pollinating activities, and plenty of spiders survive to continue controlling insect populations.

Usurping the Normal, Not Evolving the New

Further research is needed to discover the chemical agent(s) the wasp or its larva uses to induce the spider’s zombification, causing it to repeat various steps in the normal web-building process over and over while eliminating others. However, a spider’s hormones normally trigger the molting process for which the spider builds a resting web. Therefore, Takasuka and colleagues suspect the wasp is injecting a chemical that mimics the hormone that normally directs the spider to molt.

The same is true of a behavior-altering virus that induces zombie-like behavior in gypsy moth caterpillars. It deactivates their molting hormone, prompting infected caterpillars to climb to treetops where they die and rain their viral load over a wide area. (See “Parasites Affect Behavior of Moths.”)

None of these parasitic relationships or zombie-generating species result from molecules-to-man evolution. This parasitic partnership is an example of an extended phenotype—all the effects a wasp’s gene has, including its effects on another organism (the spider). Parasitic wasps are still wasps, just a family of wasps that now depends on a rather elaborate form of carnivory to reproduce. The spider is still a spider, and even its behavior is a modification of an existing one. Indeed, if these wasps are able to supply a biochemical mimic of the spider’s own hormone, as the authors suggest, such a biochemical similarity exists because all creatures share a common Designer. These and other extraordinary variations were designed by our wise God to be somehow manifested after the Fall. Even though these insidious lifecycles highlight the ugliness of death due to sin’s curse, they still allow the created kinds to reproduce in a fallen world.

Learn more about the beneficial pre-Fall roles today’s parasites likely played in the pre-Fall world in “The Genesis of Malaria: The Origin of Mosquitos and Their Protistan Cargo, Plasmodium falciparum,” how parasitology helps us understand the changes in nature after the Fall in “Parasitology and Creation,” and how deadly venom seems to have developed from harmless but essential biochemicals in “Evolution of Snake Venom: A New Use for Old Genes?” and “Mamba Venom Derives from Gene Duplication.” You can find out more about real-life zombies and parasitic host manipulation in “Zombie Ants and Genesis,” “Parasites Affect Behavior of Moths,” “Brain Chemistry In Rats Altered By Parasite,” and “Zombies Existing in Nature.”

 

 

Fossils shed light on ‘bizarre’ reptile

Bizarre Reptile

Fossils shed light on ‘bizarre’ reptile



Fossils shed light on bizarre reptile. A crocodile-sized creature that lived 242 million years ago was the first known vegetarian marine reptile, according to new fossil evidence.

Two specimens unearthed in China reveal details of the animal’s skull and how it fed.

Named Atopodentatus, scientists say its hammer-shaped skull helped it to feed on underwater plants.

Only a handful of marine reptiles, living or extinct, are known to be herbivores.

Dr Nick Fraser of National Museums Scotland, who worked on the fossil, said it belongs in the pages of a children’s storybook by Dr Seuss, which depicts animals with a strange jumble of features.

The reptile was “a bizarre, bizarre animal”, he explained.

“We envisage it scraping algae and the like off rocks underwater.

“Herbivorous marine reptiles are very rare – this is the oldest record that we know of.”

Strangely toothed

The first fossils of the creature were discovered a few years ago.

It was named Atopodentatus unicus, which is Latin for “unique strangely toothed”.

A reconstruction of the animal’s head

New fossils unearthed in China’s Yunnan Province by Chun Li of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing give a detailed picture of the animal’s skull.

The discoveries, unveiled in the journal, Science Advances, show that rather than having a zipper-like snout as previously thought, the animal had a wide hammer-headed jaw filled with peg-like front teeth.

Play-Doh

Scientists used clay to make a model of the jaw to work out how the animal fed.

“To figure out how the jaw fit together and how the animal actually fed, we bought some children’s clay, kind of like Play-Doh, and rebuilt it with toothpicks to represent the teeth,” said co-researcher Olivier Rieppel of the Field Museum in Chicago.

“We looked at how the upper and lower jaw locked together, and that’s how we proceeded and described it.”

He said Atopodentatus also helps tell a bigger story about the world’s largest mass extinction 252 million years ago.

It lived at a time when the Earth was recovering from the loss of 90% of all marine mammals.

“The existence of specialised animals like Atopodentatus unicus shows us that life recovered and diversified more quickly than previously thought,” he said.

“And it’s definitely a reptile that no one would have thought to exist – look at it, it’s crazy!”

What you can make with clay and toothpicks

Other bizarre sea and river monsters

There are still many strange creatures lurking in the waters around the world. From the Monster of Lake Van in Turkey to the various unidentified creatures that live off the west of of Britain, the Golden Gate San Fransisco Bay monster to the Altamaha-ha river monster of Georgia in the USA.

Here’s a video from Animal X Natural Mystery Unit that looks at sea and river monsters.



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