Daniel Fisher (paleontologist)

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Daniel Fisher is a paleontologist who studies paleobiology and the extinction of mastodons. [1] He received his Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from Harvard University in 1975 and is the Claude W. Hibbard Collegiate Professor of Paleontology and the Director of the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Michigan. [2] His research on mammoth tusks has helped to shape the common understanding of mammoth life. [3] [4]

He worked as a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Rochester until 1979 when he moved to the University of Michigan to join the Department of Geological Sciences. [5] In 2015, he led the dig in of a gigantic mammoth from a farmer’s field in Michigan which is helping researchers to conclude about when humans first came to the Americans. [6] [7] He was on a NET Television-produced segment for the PBS series “NOVA scienceNOW” about Ice Age mammoths. [8]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mammoth</span> Extinct genus of mammals

A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus Mammuthus. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks. They lived from the late Miocene epoch into the Holocene about 4,000 years ago, and various species existed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. Mammoths are more closely related to living Asian elephants than African elephants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proboscidea</span> Order of elephant-like mammals

Proboscidea is a taxonomic order of afrotherian mammals containing one living family (Elephantidae) and several extinct families. First described by J. Illiger in 1811, it encompasses the elephants and their close relatives. Proboscideans include some of the largest known land mammals. The largest land mammal of all time may have been a proboscidean; the elephant Palaeoloxodon namadicus has been estimated to be up to 5.2 m (17.1 ft) at the shoulder and may have weighed up to 22 t, surpassing the paraceratheres, the otherwise largest known land mammals, though this estimate was made based on a single fragmentary femur and is speculative. The largest extant proboscidean is the African bush elephant, with a record of size of 4 m (13.1 ft) at the shoulder and 10.4 t. In addition to their enormous size, later proboscideans are distinguished by tusks and long, muscular trunks, which were less developed or absent in early proboscideans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mastodon</span> Extinct genus of proboscideans

A mastodon is a member of the genus Mammut, which strictly defined, was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to the early Holocene. Mastodons belong to the order Proboscidea, the same order as elephants and mammoths. Mammut is the type genus of the extinct family Mammutidae, which diverged from the ancestors of modern elephants at least 25 million years ago, during the Oligocene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elephantidae</span> Family of mammals

Elephantidae is a family of large, herbivorous proboscidean mammals collectively called elephants and mammoths. These are large terrestrial mammals with a snout modified into a trunk and teeth modified into tusks. Most genera and species in the family are extinct. Only two genera, Loxodonta and Elephas, are living.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big Bone Lick State Park</span> Geographical object

Big Bone Lick State Park is located at Big Bone in Boone County, Kentucky. The name of the park comes from the Pleistocene megafauna fossils found there. Mammoths are believed to have been drawn to this location by a salt lick deposited around the sulfur springs. Other animals including forms of bison, caribou, deer, elk, horse, mastodon, moose, musk ox, peccary, ground sloths, wolves, black bears, stag moose, saber-toothed cats, and possibly tapir also grazed the vegetation and salty earth around the springs that the animals relied on for their diet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pygmy mammoth</span> Species of mammoth

The pygmy mammoth or Channel Islands mammoth is an extinct species of dwarf elephant native to the northern Channel Islands off the coast of California. It was descended from the Columbian mammoth of mainland North America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Columbian mammoth</span> Extinct species of mammoth that inhabited North America

The Columbian mammoth is an extinct species of mammoth that inhabited the Americas from southern Canada to Costa Rica during the Pleistocene epoch. The Columbian mammoth descended from Eurasian mammoths that colonised North America during the Early Pleistocene around 1.5–1.3 million years ago, and later experienced hybridisation with the woolly mammoth lineage. The Columbian mammoth was among the last mammoth species, and the pygmy mammoths evolved from them on the Channel Islands of California. The closest extant relative of the Columbian and other mammoths is the Asian elephant.

The Chibanian, widely known as the Middle Pleistocene, is an age in the international geologic timescale or a stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. The Chibanian name was officially ratified in January 2020. It is currently estimated to span the time between 0.770 Ma and 0.126 Ma, also expressed as 770–126 ka. It includes the transition in palaeoanthropology from the Lower to the Middle Paleolithic over 300 ka.

<i>Mammuthus meridionalis</i> Extinct species of mammal

Mammuthus meridionalis, sometimes called the southern mammoth, is an extinct species of mammoth native to Eurasia, including Europe, during the Early Pleistocene, living from around 2.5 million years ago to 800,000 years ago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steppe mammoth</span> Extinct species of mammal

Mammuthus trogontherii, sometimes called the steppe mammoth, is an extinct species of mammoth that ranged over most of northern Eurasia during the Early and Middle Pleistocene, approximately 1.7 million-200,000 years ago. One of the largest mammoth species, it evolved in East Asia during the Early Pleistocene, around 1.8 million years ago, before migrating into North America around 1.5 million years ago, and into Europe during the Early/Middle Pleistocene transition, around 1 to 0.7 million years ago. It was the ancestor of the woolly mammoth and Columbian mammoth of the later Pleistocene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woolly mammoth</span> Extinct species of mammoth from the Quaternary period

The woolly mammoth is an extinct species of mammoth that lived from the Middle Pleistocene until its extinction in the Holocene epoch. It was one of the last in a line of mammoth species, beginning with the African Mammuthus subplanifrons in the early Pliocene. The woolly mammoth began to diverge from the steppe mammoth about 800,000 years ago in Siberia. Its closest extant relative is the Asian elephant. The Columbian mammoth lived alongside the woolly mammoth in North America, and DNA studies show that the two hybridised with each other.

Dick "Sir Mammoth" Mol is a Dutch paleontologist - a specialist in the field of mammoths for almost three decades. He is a research associate of several museums. Mol's primary focus is on mammals of the Quaternary period, including mammoths and extinct rhinoceros species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuka (mammoth)</span> Mummified mammoth carcass

Yuka is the best-preserved woolly mammoth carcass ever found. It was discovered by local Siberian tusk hunters in August 2010. They turned it over to local scientists, who made an initial assessment of the carcass in 2012. It is displayed in Moscow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleontology in Michigan</span>

Paleontology in Michigan refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Michigan. During the Precambrian, the Upper Peninsula was home to filamentous algae. The remains it left behind are among the oldest known fossils in the world. During the early part of the Paleozoic Michigan was covered by a shallow tropical sea which was home to a rich invertebrate fauna including brachiopods, corals, crinoids, and trilobites. Primitive armored fishes and sharks were also present. Swamps covered the state during the Carboniferous. There are little to no sedimentary deposits in the state for an interval spanning from the Permian to the end of the Neogene. Deposition resumed as glaciers transformed the state's landscape during the Pleistocene. Michigan was home to large mammals like mammoths and mastodons at that time. The Holocene American mastodon, Mammut americanum, is the Michigan state fossil. The Petoskey stone, which is made of fossil coral, is the state stone of Michigan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleontology in Nebraska</span>

Paleontology in Nebraska refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Nebraska. Nebraska is world-famous as a source of fossils. During the early Paleozoic, Nebraska was covered by a shallow sea that was probably home to creatures like brachiopods, corals, and trilobites. During the Carboniferous, a swampy system of river deltas expanded westward across the state. During the Permian period, the state continued to be mostly dry land. The Triassic and Jurassic are missing from the local rock record, but evidence suggests that during the Cretaceous the state was covered by the Western Interior Seaway, where ammonites, fish, sea turtles, and plesiosaurs swam. The coasts of this sea were home to flowers and dinosaurs. During the early Cenozoic, the sea withdrew and the state was home to mammals like camels and rhinoceros. Ice Age Nebraska was subject to glacial activity and home to creatures like the giant bear Arctodus, horses, mammoths, mastodon, shovel-tusked proboscideans, and Saber-toothed cats. Local Native Americans devised mythical explanations for fossils like attributing them to water monsters killed by their enemies, the thunderbirds. After formally trained scientists began investigating local fossils, major finds like the Agate Springs mammal bone beds occurred. The Pleistocene mammoths Mammuthus primigenius, Mammuthus columbi, and Mammuthus imperator are the Nebraska state fossils.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleontology in Alaska</span> Overview of research on ancient fossils in Alaska

Paleontology in Alaska refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Alaska. During the Late Precambrian, Alaska was covered by a shallow sea that was home to stromatolite-forming bacteria. Alaska remained submerged into the Paleozoic era and the sea came to be home to creatures including ammonites, brachiopods, and reef-forming corals. An island chain formed in the eastern part of the state. Alaska remained covered in seawater during the Triassic and Jurassic. Local wildlife included ammonites, belemnites, bony fish and ichthyosaurs. Alaska was a more terrestrial environment during the Cretaceous, with a rich flora and dinosaur fauna.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleontology in the United States</span>

Paleontology in the United States refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the United States. Paleontologists have found that at the start of the Paleozoic era, what is now "North" America was actually in the southern hemisphere. Marine life flourished in the country's many seas. Later the seas were largely replaced by swamps, home to amphibians and early reptiles. When the continents had assembled into Pangaea drier conditions prevailed. The evolutionary precursors to mammals dominated the country until a mass extinction event ended their reign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology</span> Natural history museum in Claremont, California

The Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology is a paleontology museum in Claremont, California, that is part of The Webb Schools. It is the only nationally accredited museum on a secondary school campus in the United States. The museum has two circular 4,000 sq. ft. exhibition halls and 20,000 unique annual visitors. The collections number about 140,000 specimens, 95% of which were found by Webb students on fossil-collecting trips called “Peccary Trips,” expeditions usually centered in California, Utah, and Montana. The collections consist primarily of vertebrate, invertebrate, and track fossils and the museum's large track collection is widely recognized as one of the most diverse in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trailside Museum of Natural History</span> United States historic place

The Trailside Museum of Natural History is located in the historic Army Theatre at Fort Robinson State Park, three miles west of Crawford, Nebraska on U.S. Route 20.

References

  1. Kesler, Stephen E. (2019). Great Lakes Rocks: 4 Billion Years of Geologic History in the Great Lakes Region. University of Michigan Press. ISBN   9780472053803.
  2. "Daniel Fisher | U-M LSA Earth and Environmental Sciences". lsa.umich.edu. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
  3. "Paleontologists Study A Remarkably Well-preserved Baby Siberian Mammoth". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
  4. Dance, Amber (2018-11-17). "If mammoth tusks could talk". Knowable Magazine. doi: 10.1146/knowable-111718-2 . S2CID   165934408.
  5. Mammuthus (2015-05-26). "Daniel Fisher | Mammuthus Team" . Retrieved 2019-09-10.
  6. UK, Lindsay Dodgson, Business Insider. "Newly-unearthed Mammoth remains could help reveal when humans first arrived in the Americas". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-09-10.{{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. May 2019, Susan Cosier / 16 (2019-05-16). "Could Mammoth Bones Reveal When Humans First Arrived in North America?". SAPIENS. Retrieved 2019-09-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. "Mammoth Mystery on NET | Trailside Museum of Natural History". trailside.unl.edu. Retrieved 2019-09-10.