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Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)

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Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)

#31

Post by cogman10 »

magneticnorth wrote: post #18

This is an interesting way to think about plants and animals. I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find sources for known age of species - is that information collected somewhere? Or is it something we often just don't know because of how sparse the fossil record is? Wondering because of trying to look up the age of fern species I do eat (no cinnamon fern near me) and I can't find out.

That's because when something becomes a new species is a surprisingly difficult and contentious debate in biology.

That's simply due to the nature of evolution. It's nearly impossible to look at one past generation of chicken to the next to figure out when the ancestor was no longer a chicken. Yet, go back far enough and you'll find T-Rexes in the mix.

Every generation is a new missing link. It's an extremely fuzzy process.

Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)

#32

Post by andrewflnr »

magneticnorth wrote: post #18

This is an interesting way to think about plants and animals. I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find sources for known age of species - is that information collected somewhere? Or is it something we often just don't know because of how sparse the fossil record is? Wondering because of trying to look up the age of fern species I do eat (no cinnamon fern near me) and I can't find out.

It's pretty tricky to find out, yeah. And new evidence is coming in all the time. All the methods are either floors (a fossil at X date proves a species existed then, but lack of fossils found yet might be inconclusive) or estimates (like molecular clock techniques). Dating fossils themselves (or rather the rocks they're buried in) isn't always easy or possible. For more out-of-the-way species, if anyone has bothered trying to figure out the age it's likely buried in scientific sources that are tricky for novices to find or search, and maybe under debate.

Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)

#34

Post by andrewflnr »

neuroelectron wrote: post #29

I thought avocados were where old food eaten by dinosaurs or at least very large ancient rodents. I guess it doesn't meet the 100 million year old age mark.

It was once thought that giant ground sloths were important for spreading avocados, but that seems to have been a mistake. Anyway, that was long after the dinosaurs. Flowering plants in general were still pretty new by the time the dinosaurs died out. I bet an actual dinosaur never saw an avocado. :)

Edit: transcript of a video about the sloth/avocado thing: https://nerdfighteria.info/v/jpcBgYYFS8o

Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)

#35

Post by psychoslave »

andrewflnr wrote: post #32
magneticnorth wrote: post #18

This is an interesting way to think about plants and animals. I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find sources for known age of species - is that information collected somewhere? Or is it something we often just don't know because of how sparse the fossil record is? Wondering because of trying to look up the age of fern species I do eat (no cinnamon fern near me) and I can't find out.

It's pretty tricky to find out, yeah. And new evidence is coming in all the time. All the methods are either floors (a fossil at X date proves a species existed then, but lack of fossils found yet might be inconclusive) or estimates (like molecular clock techniques). Dating fossils themselves (or rather the rocks they're buried in) isn't always easy or possible. For more out-of-the-way species, if anyone has bothered…

That make wonder, how many fossils there might be at total on earth, and with current trend, how much time would humanity should continue to survive before those remaining will approach zero, if fossil formation as a known rate.

Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)

#39

Post by throwup238 »

psychoslave wrote: post #35
andrewflnr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty tricky to find out, yeah. And new evidence is coming in all the time. All the methods are either floors (a fossil at X date proves a species existed then, but lack of fossils found yet might be inconclusive) or estimates (like molecular clock techniques). Dating fossils themselves (or rather the rocks they're buried in) isn't always easy or possible. For more out-of-the-way species, if anyone has bothered…

That make wonder, how many fossils there might be at total on earth, and with current trend, how much time would humanity should continue to survive before those remaining will approach zero, if fossil formation as a known rate.

> how many fossils there might be at total on earth

The number is both incalculable and vague - is a shark tooth enough to count as a fossil? How about diatoms and other microfossils?

Diatomaceous earth alone contains around 10^6-10^7 frustules (the shell of a diatom) per gram. If you count them as fossils then the lower bound is 10^18 fossils per year just in diatomaceous earth production (the fossils are ancient but we produce nearly a million tons a year in diatomaceous earth).

Re: Dinosaur Food: 100M year old foods we still eat today (2022)

#40

Post by b112 »

cogman10 wrote: post #31
magneticnorth wrote: post #18

This is an interesting way to think about plants and animals. I'm finding it surprisingly hard to find sources for known age of species - is that information collected somewhere? Or is it something we often just don't know because of how sparse the fossil record is? Wondering because of trying to look up the age of fern species I do eat (no cinnamon fern near me) and I can't find out.

That's because when something becomes a new species is a surprisingly difficult and contentious debate in biology. That's simply due to the nature of evolution. It's nearly impossible to look at one past generation of chicken to the next to figure out when the ancestor was no longer a chicken. Yet, go back far enough and you'll find T-Rexes in the mix. Every generation is a new missing link. It's an extremely fuzzy p…

Greg Bear and his fancy pants radio says otherwise.
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