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China-Fossil Discovery/Hyoid Bones
Liaoning Province, northeast China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Various of fossils discovered by scientists
2. Various of map showing location of excavation site of fossil
3. Various of Zhou Changfu, expert with Paleontological Museum of Liaoning, speaking at academic lecture of Shenyang Normal University
4. Slide demonstration
5. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Zhou Changfu, expert with Paleontological Museum of Liaoning; professor with Shenyang Normal University:
"The fossil was preserved in its original place, that is by the throat. We discovered later that it might be a hyoid bone. After comparing it with contemporary systematic anatomies of mammals, we confirmed that this is indeed a hyoid bone. It has the same structure as of the bones of mammals today."
6. Various of board with information on fossil
7. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Sun Ge, vice president, Palaeontological Society of China:
"The reptiles we've handled before, whether they're dinosaurs or crocodiles or birds, they all have hyoid bones shaped like a rod. Their ways of swallowing is simple and different. But the Microdocodon we just discovered has a hyoid bone with the shape of a saddle, which solves the problem of how the bone functions in the action of swallowing. This is a major breakthrough for the world to understand the evolution of mammals in the earlier days."
8. Board with information on Microdocodon, newly-discovered fossil
A Sino-foreign paleontological team in northeast China's Liaoning Province recently announced a discovery of a small-sized mammal ancestor fossil preserved with a tiny hyoid bone, shedding light on the early evolution of mammal-like hyoid bones.
The paper on the discovery was published on Friday on the Science journal, which commented on the findings of the team "fascinating from a developmental and functional perspective."
The 164-million-year-old Middle Jurassic fossil was first discovered from the city of Ningcheng, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 2013. Believing it to be the smallest Docodonta fossil ever found in China, the researchers named it Microdocodon, which appeared millions of years before the emergence of true mammals.
The Microdocodon is 14.7 cm long with fully grown teeth indicating it was an adult. Its girdle and limb bones are very slender. It has an exceptionally long tail. Based on these characteristics, scientists interpret this to be a scansorial animal.
Back then, the true value of the fossil remained unveiled as the scientists did not gather enough data to identify the bone as a well-preserved hyoid bone, a bone situated in the anterior midline of the neck between the chin and the thyroid cartilage that helps mammals chew and swallow.
To make full research on the fossil, the Shenyang Normal University in northeast China's Liaoning Province organized a research team including scholars from Yale University, the University of Chicago from the United States, and the Institute of Geosciences, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn in Germany.
Zhou Changfu, an expert with the Liaoning Paleontological Museum and a professor with Shenyang Normal University, explained their reasons now for identifying the bone as the hyoid bone.
"The fossil was preserved in its original place, that is by the throat. We discovered later that it might be a hyoid bone. After comparing it with contemporary systematic anatomies of mammals, we confirmed that this is indeed a hyoid bone. It has the same structure as of the bones of mammals today," said Zhou.
Zhou said the hyoid bone is not closely connected to other bones like jaws, so it is easy to fall off or rot after the animal's death and is therefore difficult to preserve. What's more, the hyoid bone of only a few millimeters has mobile joints arranged in a saddle-shaped configuration, which are fundamentally different from the simple hyoid rods of nonmammaliaform cynodonts.
"The reptiles we've handled before, whether they're dinosaurs or crocodiles or birds, all have hyoid bones shaped like a rod. Their ways of swallowing is simple and different. But the Microdocodon we just discovered has a hyoid bone with the shape of a saddle, which solves the problem of how the bone functions in the action of swallowing. This is a major breakthrough for the world to understand the evolution of mammals in the earlier days," said Sun Ge, the vice president with the Palaeontological Society of China.
The discovery site of the Microdocodon located at the junction of Liaoning Province, Inner Mongolia and Hebei Province is a world-famous Mesozoic fossil treasure house, which is of great value to the study of the origin of dinosaurs, birds and angiosperms.
The Shenyang Normal University has built a high-level international palaeontological research team, which in recent years has produced a number of significant scientific discoveries, such as Hirschsprung's Nearbird Dragon.
China-Fossil Discovery/Hyoid Bones
Dateline : Recent/File
Location : Liaoning,China
Duration : 1'54
Liaoning Province, northeast China - Recent (CCTV - No access Chinese mainland)
1. Various of fossils discovered by scientists
2. Various of map showing location of excavation site of fossil
3. Various of Zhou Changfu, expert with Paleontological Museum of Liaoning, speaking at academic lecture of Shenyang Normal University
4. Slide demonstration
5. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Zhou Changfu, expert with Paleontological Museum of Liaoning; professor with Shenyang Normal University:
"The fossil was preserved in its original place, that is by the throat. We discovered later that it might be a hyoid bone. After comparing it with contemporary systematic anatomies of mammals, we confirmed that this is indeed a hyoid bone. It has the same structure as of the bones of mammals today."
6. Various of board with information on fossil
7. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Sun Ge, vice president, Palaeontological Society of China:
"The reptiles we've handled before, whether they're dinosaurs or crocodiles or birds, they all have hyoid bones shaped like a rod. Their ways of swallowing is simple and different. But the Microdocodon we just discovered has a hyoid bone with the shape of a saddle, which solves the problem of how the bone functions in the action of swallowing. This is a major breakthrough for the world to understand the evolution of mammals in the earlier days."
8. Board with information on Microdocodon, newly-discovered fossil
A Sino-foreign paleontological team in northeast China's Liaoning Province recently announced a discovery of a small-sized mammal ancestor fossil preserved with a tiny hyoid bone, shedding light on the early evolution of mammal-like hyoid bones.
The paper on the discovery was published on Friday on the Science journal, which commented on the findings of the team "fascinating from a developmental and functional perspective."
The 164-million-year-old Middle Jurassic fossil was first discovered from the city of Ningcheng, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 2013. Believing it to be the smallest Docodonta fossil ever found in China, the researchers named it Microdocodon, which appeared millions of years before the emergence of true mammals.
The Microdocodon is 14.7 cm long with fully grown teeth indicating it was an adult. Its girdle and limb bones are very slender. It has an exceptionally long tail. Based on these characteristics, scientists interpret this to be a scansorial animal.
Back then, the true value of the fossil remained unveiled as the scientists did not gather enough data to identify the bone as a well-preserved hyoid bone, a bone situated in the anterior midline of the neck between the chin and the thyroid cartilage that helps mammals chew and swallow.
To make full research on the fossil, the Shenyang Normal University in northeast China's Liaoning Province organized a research team including scholars from Yale University, the University of Chicago from the United States, and the Institute of Geosciences, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn in Germany.
Zhou Changfu, an expert with the Liaoning Paleontological Museum and a professor with Shenyang Normal University, explained their reasons now for identifying the bone as the hyoid bone.
"The fossil was preserved in its original place, that is by the throat. We discovered later that it might be a hyoid bone. After comparing it with contemporary systematic anatomies of mammals, we confirmed that this is indeed a hyoid bone. It has the same structure as of the bones of mammals today," said Zhou.
Zhou said the hyoid bone is not closely connected to other bones like jaws, so it is easy to fall off or rot after the animal's death and is therefore difficult to preserve. What's more, the hyoid bone of only a few millimeters has mobile joints arranged in a saddle-shaped configuration, which are fundamentally different from the simple hyoid rods of nonmammaliaform cynodonts.
"The reptiles we've handled before, whether they're dinosaurs or crocodiles or birds, all have hyoid bones shaped like a rod. Their ways of swallowing is simple and different. But the Microdocodon we just discovered has a hyoid bone with the shape of a saddle, which solves the problem of how the bone functions in the action of swallowing. This is a major breakthrough for the world to understand the evolution of mammals in the earlier days," said Sun Ge, the vice president with the Palaeontological Society of China.
The discovery site of the Microdocodon located at the junction of Liaoning Province, Inner Mongolia and Hebei Province is a world-famous Mesozoic fossil treasure house, which is of great value to the study of the origin of dinosaurs, birds and angiosperms.
The Shenyang Normal University has built a high-level international palaeontological research team, which in recent years has produced a number of significant scientific discoveries, such as Hirschsprung's Nearbird Dragon.
ID : 8116556
Published : 2019-07-20 12:48
Last Modified : 2019-07-20 18:47:00
Source : China Central Television (CCTV)
Restrictions : No access Chinese mainland
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