Researchers have discovered the first amber deposit in the province to have insects preserved in it.
Ryan McKellar, curator of palaeontology for the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, says a new major discovery provides the opportunity to look back in time — around a million years before dinosaurs went extinct.
After leading a research team made up of graduate students and curatorial assistant Elyssa Loewen for around five years, McKellar is excited their work has led to the discovery of the first amber deposit in the province to have insects preserved in it.
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“It’s important for palaeontologists or people who are interested in fossil insects because it helps fill in this gap in the fossil records that we’re unsure about 78 million years ago up to about 50 million years ago,” he said during an interview Wednesday.
According to McKeller, the new fossil records are closer than ever before to sampling a diverse set of insects near the extinction event, helping researches fill in a 17-million-year gap in insect fossil records.
McKeller said the amber deposit — which was found in the Big Muddy Badlands — was formed around 67 million years ago, preserving insects that lived around a million years before the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. He added there aren’t many deposits from that time period, meaning there isn’t a lot of information on insects.
The research team took an interest in the Big Muddy Badlands because the rocks are around the right age to look at the end of the Cretaceous period, which began 145 million years ago and ended 66 million years ago with the extinction of the dinosaurs. McKeller said the rock layers that recorded the extinction event are exposed in places like the Big Muddy Badlands, around Shaunavon and Grasslands National Park.
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“It looks like we’re seeing a change in the groups of insects that are in this deposit compared to older deposits from the Cretaceous in places like Alberta,” he said, adding that deposits found in Alberta, Europe and Asia tend to contain insects that are characteristic of the Cretaceous.
“The cool part about Big Muddy amber is that we’re not seeing these groups of insects. Instead, we’re seeing groups of insects that tend to have modern relatives. They basically replaced some of these really characteristic Cretaceous insect groups with groups that we’re familiar with today.”
McKeller uses a three-pronged approach to study amber, which means his lab will look at it from three points of view.
They will look at the chemistry of the amber, comparing the fossil resin to modern resin in order to determine which group of trees produced the deposits. They will also look at the amber’s geochemistry to determine which types of carbon and hydrogen it’s composed of, and they will look at the insects trapped inside of the amber.
McKeller believes the preserved insects found in Big Muddy are more closely related to modern insects due to the rise in flowering plants at that time. While the plants were fairly new around 125 million years ago, he said they became more widespread by the end of the Cretaceous period and started taking over for cone bearing plants.
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The research, which was featured in the scientific journal Current Biology, shows an insect turnover might have helped set the stage for the extinction of the dinosaurs.
McKeller also worked on an international team that discovered three new species of ants that didn’t survive past the Cretaceous period in North Carolina amber formed around 77 million years ago.
“It allows us to see that somewhere between North Carolina amber forming about 77 million years ago and Big Muddy amber forming about 67 million years ago, there’s a really big change that happened in the insects in North America and it seems to be showing up in places like Asia as well.”
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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Kenya’s high rates of violence against women have prompted marches by ordinary citizens in towns and cities this year.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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