New BioLogos Post on Hominin Taxonomic Variability in the Early to Middle Pliocene

I have a new post on hominin taxonomic variability in the early to middle Pliocene in light of the new Australopithecus deriyemeda find from Burtele that establishes that at least two very different hominin adaptations were occurring at the same time, around three to four million years ago.  There is a lengthy intro by Brad Kramer, the content editor, warning people that there are “technical terms” and that the article is a “black diamond” article, which suggests that they keep a glossary or dictionary handy.

It seems that, when I wasn't paying attention, I  turned into a cladist.  This comes from reading too many papers on Pseudosuchia and Avemetarsalia and trying to explain evolutionary theory to people.

The one thing that is missing from Brad's intro is an effort to explain how this fits into the grand Christian scheme of things, which would probably not have been appropriate in this setting, in any event, since it is a separate, but related topic.  I sometimes suffer from a slightly reductionist mindset in that I take these discoveries to be self-evident and just another part of God's creation (Brad does allude to that) without really taking the time to reflect on how this information comes across to your average Christian who likely is not familiar with it and how it might challenge their scriptural interpretations.  To this end, I probably need to make a better effort to work that in, somehow. 

Crocodile From Hell, Part II

And I thought this guy was bad.  Now a 9-foot tall “walking crocodile” has been found from late Triassic deposits, around 230 million years ago.  Jeanna Bryner reports:

A 9-foot-tall beast with bladelike teeth once stalked the warm and wet environs of what is now North Carolina some 230 million years ago, before dinosaurs came onto the scene there, scientists have found.

Now called Carnufex carolinensis, the crocodile ancestor likely walked on its hind legs, preying on armored reptiles and early mammal relatives in its ecosystem, the researchers say.

They named it Carnufex, meaning "butcher" in Latin, because of its long skull, which resembles a knife, and its bladelike teeth, which it likely used to slice flesh off the bones of prey, said lead study author Lindsay Zanno, of NC State University and the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. "'Butcher' seemed a very appropriate way to get that into the minds of people," Zanno told Live Science in an interview.

This is a part of the early Pseudosuchians, which are largely included in the archosaurs. The big forms, as with the large dinosaurs, did not survive the K-T extinction