Finally, a look at horns

18 December 2008. IVPP, Beijing

After wrapping up some loose ends from early 2008 projects, I took some time and finished cleaning all of our fossil finds from the Tibetan Plateau this year.

Now it is time for me to begin identifying and describing all the horned ungulates.

We collected numerous horncores this past season, most of them incomplete. However, the wealth of specimens makes up for their fragmentary nature.

[A relatively complete horncore of Olongbulukia tsaidamensis, the Olongbuluk beast of the Tsaidam Basin]

Equally exciting is a partial mandible of a large mammal that we could not identify in the field; after discussing with my host advisor, we now believe this specimen might belong to an anthracothere. Anthracotheres are a family of early artiodactyls, and people have suggested they provide the link between hippos and more modern terrestrial hoofed mammals. It would indeed be a very important find if we could confirm its identity; late Miocene anthracotheres have not been found on the Tibetan Plateau, or anywhere else in China.

In other news, we are blessed by the visit of my fellow graduate student from the University of Southern California and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Jingmai O'Connor is spending a month in the IVPP studying Mesozoic birds of China. We shared an office in Los Angeles, and now we share an office in the IVPP for the next month.

[Jingmai working next to mammal fossils from the Tibetan Plateau]

Jack

Dragged deeper into winter...

8 December 2008. IVPP, Beijing, China

After a weekend of intense fever, I arrived at my desk this morning feeling a bit wobbly and dehydrated.

Who knew it would be so cold?

[looking southeast from the IVPP, into the rising sun at 0715]

The sky is cloudier today than it has been in the past few days. Perhaps we will get some snow soon. Maybe snow will make it better; at least then I will admit I am not in Los Angeles anymore.

I got some thermals because the infinite layers of T-shirts don't keep me warm anymore.

Jack

That is so 2007

2 December 2008. IVPP, Beijing.

Taking a break from writing a paper, I took some unsorted fossils collected from last year and cleaned them. What I did not realize was that while some of these were recovered from the great flood of Hezheng in 2007, others were from the Inner Mongolia locality Baogeda Ula.

[a rhino wrist bone and a antelope horncore from the late Miocene Shengou locality. These specimens were buried in mud in the Hezheng collection and subsequently recovered along with fish fossils]

These are glimpses of what we hope to find during our 2009 Inner Mongolia excavation project; hopefully everything we collect will be more complete and more diverse.

Other than the occasional interruption by graduate students asking me to help translate their Chinese abstracts, research is going well. However, there are simply too many fossils in this building. There is always something I have not seen before, and is worth a look when I walk by someone's office.