Winter Trivia Contest 2013 Results

Although I originally planned on having several rounds in our Winter Trivia Contest of 2013, I have decided to save the questions of the other rounds for later.  For now, here are the winners, followed by the answers to the trivia questions!  In first place, we have Carla, who got a 46/50!  As promised, her reward is a blog post with a topic of her choice, which is Top Ten Extinct Prehistoric Crocodilians: look for that post this week!  Second place goes to Alex Lambrecht, with 40/50!  And finally, we have Aidan Cook, who got 24/50!  Here are the answers to the questions!  See you guys for the next contest!

1.  Which of the following is NOT an archosaur? 

A.     American Alligator

B.     Tyrannosaurus rex

C.     Pteranodon

D.    Komodo dragon

E.     Stegosaurus

2.  Though they are called the “Buffaloes,” what is really the mascot of the University of Colorado in Boulder?

American Bison

3.  In terms of their names, name the odd one out:

A.     Dracorex

B.     Guanlong

C.     Triceratops

D.     Hippodraco

4.  What dinosaur is pictured here?  (1 point for a relatively close answer, 2 points for the correct answer.)

Amargasaurus

5.   Is Megalodon still alive today?  Should we trust Discovery Channel?

No, it most certainly is not, and no, we most certainly should not.

6.  Which of the following birds is made up? 

A.     Hammerkop

B.     Screwdriver-bill

C.     Helmeted Hornbill

D.     Shoe-bill

E.      Spoon-bill

7.  Which of the following species of snake is most closely related to the milk snake, Lampropeltis triangulatum?

A.     Corn Snake

B.     Anaconda

C.     Rattlesnake

D.    Kingsnake

E.     Pit Viper

8.  Which of the following is NOT a textbook case of convergent evolution:

A.     Thylacosmilus/Smilodon

B.     Musk Deer/Chinese Water Deer

C.     Mammoth/Mastodon

D.     Gray Wolf/Thylacine

9.  What in the world is THAT!  (1 point for a relatively close answer, 2 points for the correct answer.)

Binturong/Bear Cat

10.  For almost every single constellation that we recognize here on Earth, the stars that make up that constellation almost always have no physical relationship with each other, and just appear to be close together from here on Earth. Name the one major exception, known to the Japanese as “Subaru.”

The Pleiades

11. What shape is wombat poop? 

Cubic

12.  True or False: On average, hyenas scavenge more than lions.

False

13.  Some people think that the discovery of fossilized Protoceratops bones in the Gobi Desert was the inspiration behind what mythical creature?

A.     Dragon

B.     Griffin

C.     Mermaid

D.     Cyclops

E.      Centaur

14.  What’s wrong with this story: “As the giant man used his pocketknife to help him circumnavigate the great jungles of the Amazon Basin, he was startled by the abundant diversity of life.  He saw everything from piranha, macaws, and anaconda, and even saw a black leopard attack a javelina!”

Leopards don't live in South America.

15.  Dermal armor is a feature seen by all of the following except:

A.     Giant ground sloths

B.     Armadillos

C.     Pangolins

D.    Glyptodonts

E.     Ankylosaurs

F.     Clouded leopard

16.  All of the following dinosaurs have been discovered in the Morrison Formation, which has outcrops in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and several other states.  All, that is, except for which one? 

A.     Utahraptor

B.     Apatosaurus

C.     Stegosaurus

D.    Camptosaurus

E.     Allosaurus

F.     Gargoyleosaurus

17.  What is pictured here?

A.     Mosasaur

B.     Dinosaur

C.     Pterosaur

D.    Ichthyosaur

E.     Plesiosaur

F.     Dolphin

18.  What strange feature seen in the young hoatzin sets it apart from any other living birds, and forges a resemblance with its extinct ancestors like Archaeopteryx?

A.     Tentacles

B.     Claws on wings

C.     Teeth in mouth

D.     Marshmallows

E.      Flightlessness

19.  How many species of penguin live and breed in the Northern Hemisphere, above the Equator?

A.     Two, the African and Galápagos Penguin

B.     None, everyone knows penguins live at the South Pole

C.     None, everyone knows penguins live at the North Pole

D.    One, the African Penguin

E.     None, everyone knows penguins live in Antarctica

F.     One, the Galápagos Penguin

G.    None, penguins don’t exist

20.  What Triassic animal is pictured here, courtesy of Sam Lippincott?  (1 point for a relatively close answer, 2 points for the correct answer.)

Photo Credit: Sam Lippincott

Tanystropheus

21.  Why is it ironic when people kill bull snakes, mistaking them for rattlesnakes?

A.     Because bull snakes ARE rattlesnakes

B.     Because bull snakes kill and eat rattlesnakes

C.     Because bull snakes are more venomous than rattlesnakes

D.     Because rattlesnakes and bull snakes live on different continents

E.     Because bull snakes don’t exist

22.  A blast from the past: having been around for hundreds of millions of years, what is the name of this “living fossil?”  (1 point for a relatively close answer, 2 points for the correct answer.)

Horseshoe crab

23.  Which of the following is a habitat that you would NOT expect to find a kangaroo in?

A.     The Australian Outback

B.     In the forest canopy of New Guinea rainforests, 60 feet above the ground

C.     Swimming in the shallows of the Great Barrier Reef, consuming kelp and other             oceanic plants

D.    The Australia Zoo

E.    Oh, kangaroos definitely exist, I would just expect to find them in all of these                   locations.  After all, they ARE kangaroos.

24.  Which of the following is NOT a term used in reference to a past mass extinction? 

A.     K/T Event

B.     Cambrian Explosion

C.     The Great Dying

D.     Deccan Traps

25.  Scientific names too hard to remember?  That’s not the case for this “river horse.”

Hippopotamus

Thanks again for participating everyone, and see you next time!

Eyes on Ears and Mouth on Toes

Despite the clever if misleading title, we will not be talking about mouths on toes today (although many creatures such as butterflies can taste with their feet).  I just said that to make it sound like the line from the classic song "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" by Bob Dylan.  Instead, we are going to be talking about eyes on ears: eyespots, at least!

A picture of one of the Amur tigers at the Denver Zoo.  See those white bars surrounded by dark fur on the ears of the cat?  Those are the topic of today's discussion.

On the cover of the August/September issue of the National Wildlife magazine, there was a picture of a drinking bobcat, its ears folded back in the posture that some refer to as "airplane ears."  On both of its ears were two white bars that made the ears look a lot like eyes.  I never really paid attention to this pattern on the coat, but once my friend Aidan Cook pointed it out, it got the proverbial gears going.  I remembered that servals also had the eyespot-like patterns as well, but did other cats?  Turns out a lot of them do, with just a few shared throughout the post.  Notice how defined the eyespot is in both the bobcat (top) and the serval, below.

To learn more, I consulted my "Wild Cats of the World" book by Mel and Fiona Sunquist.  The authors state that many cats have this pattern on their ears, "almost as many species" have the ear eyespots that are "poorly defined or absent."  One of the many examples that they include is the lion.  As you can see in the pictures below, lions do have this pattern to a certain degree, but nowhere near as derived as in the serval or the bobcat.  Below we have pictures of a young adult male lion, two of females, and one of a cub, and you can see that none of them have a very well defined eyespot.

Mountain lions also generally don't have it as well defined.  It seems like some mountain lions really don't have that much black on their ears at all, and some have a higher degree of black and white.  Presumably, whatever the function the eyespot serves in other species, it is not as important for the mountain lion, and natural selection therefore does not favor it highly one way or another.

It's a little tough to tell in the picture below, but the sand cat is another one of those cats that has a poorly defined eyespot.

Cheetahs also don't have terribly well defined eyespots.

Yet another cat that does not have very well defined eyespots, the ever fantastic Pallas cat!

I thought I had read somewhere that the eyespots served to help communicate between individuals when they were hunting.  This doesn't make that much sense, though, because most cats are solitary individuals, with the main exception being lions, and we already noted that their eyespots are not quite as specialized.  The Sunquists state in their book that the exact function of the eyespots is unknown, although some scientists believe that they serve as a "follow me" signal to their young, which "may be especially important in low-light conditions."  I assumed that this might mean that the young cats wouldn't have the eyespots, but this is clearly not true, as you can see the photograph of Sochi, the new male Amur leopard cub at the Denver Zoo.  There, you can see that Sochi (named after the Russian city that is holding this years Olympics) also has the ear spots.  So while this doesn't necessarily support the idea of a "follow me" signal to the young, it doesn't really not support it either: it's just something interesting that I wanted to point out.

We already talked about how tigers have a pretty well developed eyespot, but here are two more pictures of tigers to drive the point home.

I can't remember for certain if the picture below was a bobcat or a lynx, but I am pretty certain it is a bobcat, looking at the size of the feet.  (Lynx spend a lot more time in the snow, and therefore have larger feet, a snowshoe-like adaptation to keep them from sinking in.)  This cat, one of many at the Wild Animal Sanctuary, seems to have much smaller feet in proportion to the rest of the body.  Regardless, you can see the well defined eyespots.

The snow leopard, one of my favorite cats, has well defined eyespots as well, which you can kind of see in both of these pictures.

Photo Credit: Masaki Kleinkopf 

The fishing cat is another cat that has these well defined eyespots.

And finally, the Canadian lynx, much like its bobcat relative, also has pretty well defined eyespots!

Works Cited:

The Big Dipper and Orion: Naked Eye Astronomy Lesson II

IN OUR LAST POST, I gave you guys a brief introduction to naked eye astronomy by showing you a bit about how the heavens move every night.  Now, I'm going to have you guys actually apply what you've learned, and go out into the night and try and find a few basic constellations and stars!  We will start with one of the most famous: the Big Dipper!*  But first, pull up the video supplement by clicking HERE, or clicking it below.  We will be consulting it several times throughout this post, so make sure that you have this pulled up!

The Big Dipper is officially an asterism within the official constellation of Ursa Major, or the "Big Bear."  In this case, an asterism is when a portion of a constellation is more famous than the official constellation.  We will talk about another important asterism, Orion's Belt, in just a few minutes!  In the meantime, below is a picture of the constellation Ursa Major.  The Big Dipper appears to be seven very bright stars that make up the tail of the bear.  Besides being an obvious and easily recognizable constellation, the Big Dipper is important for another reason: two of its stars point the way to Polaris, or the North Star!  We talked about Polaris in the last post, so to refresh yourself on the importance of this star, make sure to check out the link I provided above.

At this point, consult Part I of the video supplement, a link to which I have provided at the top of this post.  Part I shows you not only where to look for the Big Dipper in the night sky, but also outlines the constellation, and shows how to use the stars Merak and Dubhe as "Pointer Stars," as guides to locate the North Star.  Below you can see a picture of the same thing.  The constellation of the Big Dipper is outlined in red, with the yellow line being drawn from Merak and Dubhe to Polaris, which has a blue circle around it.

At this time of year, the Big Dipper rests on the horizon at sunset, and not all of it is visible.  It isn't until around 21:00 (9:00 PM) that the entire constellation completely clears the horizon, and doesn't get high in the sky until after midnight.  As we get closer to summer, watch for the position of the Big Dipper at sunset: it will continue to rise high in the sky, and in several months will be at the same position at sunset as it is at midnight tonight.  Furthermore, for the most part, the Big Dipper does not drop below the horizon here in Boulder.  This is because for this latitude, the Big Dipper is a circumpolar constellation, meaning it never sets.  (To learn a little more about what it means to be circumpolar, make sure to check out the last post.)

Next, we will use another constellation to locate two more objects of interest in the night sky.  The constellation is the very famous constellation of Orion.  These days, Orion has already risen in the east by sunset, and is instantly recognizable.  Even in the brightness of many cities, the most prominent stars are still visible.  Below is a picture of Orion, with art of the constellation depiction overlaying the stars.

Now we refer to Part II of the video supplement.  Part II shows us where to see Orion, and also shows us how to use the asterism of Orion's Belt to locate two objects of celestial significance: the bright star Sirius, and the star cluster called the Pleiades.  Just as with the Big Dipper and Polaris, the constellation itself is outlined in red, and the yellow line points the way to Sirius and the Pleiades, which are both circled in blue.

Sirius will not have risen immediately after sunset at this time of year, and you will have to wait for 20:00 or 21:00 to get a nice view of it.  Despite the fact that, at a mere 8.6 light-years, it is only the 5th closest star to the Earth (not including the Sun), it is the brightest star in the night sky when viewed from Earth.  Sirius is a part of the constellation Canis Major, which we will discuss in a future lesson.

You can see Orion in the center of the photograph.  The bright star in the bottom of the photograph a bit to the left is Sirius.

Most constellations are composed of stars that have little to no physical relation to each other.  To see what I mean, refer to Part III of the video supplement.  In Part III, we take a virtual voyage to Alnilam, the center star in the belt of Orion.  As you can see as we get closer and the constellation becomes more and more warped, it is only on Earth and in the nearby Solar System that these stars appear to have any relation to each other.  There are notable exceptions, however, and when it comes to these exceptions, the Pleiades shine brighter than all the rest.  This is where we travel to in Part IV of the video supplement, to Alcyone, the brightest star in the Pleiades.

Another picture of Orion that I took in my backyard.  Alnilam is the center star in the Belt.

Called "Subaru" by the Japanese (yes, just like the car company), the Pleiades is actually an open star cluster, composed of many more stars than can be easily viewed here on Earth, possibly as many as 500!  Located in the classical constellation of Taurus the Bull, almost every culture that could see the Pleiades created some sort of story about them.  Although the stars that are visible within it are not very bright compared to the main stars of Orion or the Big Dipper, it is their close proximity to one another that make the Pleiades instantly recognizable.  You might even be able to see them in the city, but you will have to know where to look, which is covered in Part II of the video supplement.

The Pleiades are the cluster of stars in the center of the photograph.

Next time, we will look at some more of the major constellations in the vicinity of Orion, including the aforementioned Canis Major and Taurus, as well as Auriga and Gemini.  We will also learn a bit about the current location of Jupiter, and the possibility of viewing some of Jupiter's moons!

**I am writing from a latitude of about 40 degrees North, in Boulder, Colorado. The information in this post can apply to anyone within that belt around the world. For example, people in Beijing and Baltimore, both cities around 40 degree North latitude, will see the same thing every night as people in Bursa and Boulder.

Works Cited:

The video and some of the pictures in this post were made using the Stellarium app or the Celestia app.

Chiidax the Northern Fur Seal and the Evolution of the Otariids

Late last year, the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts received Chiidax, an orphaned northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus).  However, it was last July that Alaska SeaLife Center first took in Chiidax, after he was left outside the Alaska Department of Fish and Game offices.  A note which was included on the outside of the box that the pup came in said that the pup's mother had died while she was giving birth.  Notice how in the first two pictures of Chiidax below, the pup is covered in an all black coat, a mark of his young age.

After the pups are weaned at around four months old, they molt into their next coat, the cream and brown color of the young juvenile northern fur seal.  Look for those in these next four pictures, taken sometime last fall.  The post on ZooBorns (read that HERE) doesn't say exactly when the pictures were taken, but given that the post was published late last November, these last photos were presumably taken around then.  

When the first post on Chiidax was written on November 23rd of 2013, he weighed 18 pounds, but when he's full grown, he will definitely be a bit bigger: the males, or bulls, of the species can weigh nearly 600 pounds, which is several times more than the females weigh!  The males have to be so large because they create harems of thirty to forty females, and defend them from other males.  The seals are native to the Pacific Coast of the United States, as well as the coast of the Bering Sea in Canada, Alaska, and Russia.  

The last report on Chiidax was in late December, on the 29th.  Below are several pictures that were shared then.  You can see how smooth he looks, and how perfectly adapted for a life beneath the waves this creature is!  

The northern fur seal is the sole extant member of the genus Callorhinus, but there is also a fossil species of Callorhinus.  C. gilmorei is known from the Pliocene Epoch of southern California and Mexico, as you can see in this paper HERE.  Other sources cite another paper, linked HERE, as stating that this genus is also known from Japan, but I was unwilling to pay the fee to read the paper, so that fact remains unconfirmed.  If you have a subscription to this online journal, let me know what you find!

According to the first paper, the eared seals, or the members of the family Otariidae, can be traced back at least to the Mid to Late Miocene Epoch, approximately 11-12 MYA in California, in the form of Pithanotaria starri.  Another taxon, Thalassoleon mexicanus, is known from Mexico during the Late Miocene, approximately 5-8 MYA.  The authors of the paper suggest that between 5 MYA and today, between our time and the time of Thalassoleon, was when fur seal diversification took off, resulting in the eight extant species of Arctocephalus and the extant Callorhinus ursinus, which includes little Chiidax!  The genus Arctocephalus, along with the genus Callorhinus, comprise the extant members of the eared fur seals.  The writers of the paper also suspect that it is during this 5 million year period that the sea lions developed as well.

Things have probably changed a lot in this area of paleontology since this paper was published in 1986, but unfortunately I can't seem to access most of these papers.  Callorhinus gilmorei still seems to be a valid taxon, however, as do Thalassoleon and Pithanotaria.  Hopefully, new fossils will yield more interesting results regarding these creatures very soon!  

Unless otherwise noted, the photo credit for all of these pictures in the post go to ZooBorns, either this post HERE or HERE.  

Boston on Dwellable

Works Cited:

The Shark-Like Edestus: An Interview With Wayne Itano

We've heard from Wayne Itano before, when he told us about the Kremmling Cretaceous Ammonite Locality in Colorado. (To read the post, click HERE.) A physicist at NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) in Boulder, Colorado, Wayne also has a hobby interest in paleontology, and is a curator adjoint at the Natural History Museum of the University of Colorado. He has also been doing some very interesting work with a shark-like animal called Edestus, and he graciously agreed to answer a few questions for me regarding this creature! So please join me in welcoming Wayne Itano, as he tell us about this fascinating prehistoric creature!

Scissor-tooth model for Edestus.  Credit Ray Troll, www.trollart.com

The Natural World:  You've been doing some work with an ancient shark-like creature called Edestus. What can you tell us about it?

Wayne Itano:  Edestus is my candidate for the strangest shark of all time. In my opinion, it is even stranger than the better-known spiral-toothed Helicoprion, since it is harder to imagine how the teeth might have been used.  (Read more about Helicoprion HERE.)  Almost the only fossil remains of Edestus are its symphyseal (midline) tooth whorls, which consist of triangular, serrated teeth, joined together at the bases (roots).

Edestus had one tooth whorl in the upper jaw and one in the lower jaw. Since the whorls are bilaterally symmetric (same on the left side as on the right side), they must have been located in the middle of the jaws.

This is a photograph of a specimen of a species called Edestus mirus. It was found in Pennsylvanian-aged deposits (about 300 million years old) of Iowa.

Smithsonian Institution Specimen USNM V 7255. Scale in cm.  To see a better resolution of the picture, click HERE.  Photo Credit: http://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?view=&dsort=&date.slider=&q=Edestus+mirus+holotype&tag.cstype=all

This is a rare specimen, since it shows both the upper and lower tooth whorls.

The curvature of the tooth whorls makes it difficult to understand how they could have been used.

According to the conventional reconstruction, the two tooth whorls were used as scissors, to cut prey between the two whorls, as in this drawing by Ray Troll.

Scissor-tooth model for Edestus.  Credit Ray Troll, www.trollart.com

To me, this model seems unlikely, given the curvature of the tooth whorls. It seems that the outer teeth are nonfunctional, since they can’t come together, so there would be no reason to retain them.

It seems to me that the teeth would be more efficiently used if the entire head was moved up and down, with jaws fixed, to slash large prey. This is a radically new idea. I have submitted an article for publication elaborating on this idea, but I expect that it may be some time before it gets into print.

New vertical-slashing model for Edestus. Drawing by Gary Raham, www.biostration.com, reproduced with permission of Wayne Itano

My new reconstruction of Edestus, showing the pair of symphyseal tooth whorls, in front, used for slashing prey, and flat teeth in the rear for crushing prey. Drawing by Gary Raham, www.biostration.com, reproduced with permission of Wayne Itano.

TNW: I noticed that you referred to Edestus as being a candidate for the "strangest shark of all time." Is Edestus truly a shark? If not, how do you classify it?

WI: I was using "shark" in an informal sense, as the term is not well-defined for many extinct fish. Edestus certainly falls within the class Chondrichthyes, which today comprises 2 subclasses - Elasmobranchii (sharks, including rays) and Holocephali (ratfish). There is some evidence that Edestus (and also Helicoprion) belong to an extinct line that is closer to the Holocephali than to the Elasmobranchii, but this is a matter of debate. It is safe to call Edestus a chondrichthyan, and I try to avoid the word "shark" when I write a technical paper, or maybe keep it in quotes.

TNW:  Tell us a little bit about your research.

WI:  I am interested in many aspects of paleontology, but for the last 22 years I have focused on fossil sharks, particularly ones from the Paleozoic (older than about 250 million years ago). My interest in Paleozoic sharks dates from 1991, when I found a finspine of a Pennsylvanian-aged shark called Ctenacanthus in a roadcut near the town of McCoy, in Eagle County, Colorado. I wrote an article about this find for the newsletter of the Western Interior Paleontological Society (WIPS) in 1992, which you can read by clicking HERE.

Ctenacanthus finspine found near McCoy, Colorado. Scale in cm.  Photo Credit: Wayne Itano

In trying to identify this finspine, I read everything I could find about Paleozoic sharks. Knowing of my interest in the topic, Professor Martin Lockley of the University of Colorado at Denver loaned me a large collection of shark teeth and finspines from McCoy that he and Karen Houck, also of CU Denver, had found in the 1980s. His paleontological interests had by then switched entirely to ichnology (footprints and other fossil traces), and he gave me the opportunity to write up the fossil shark specimens. I published an article on the finspines in 2003 with Houck and Lockley, which you can read HERE, but I haven’t finished with the teeth yet.

My interest in Edestus started when an amateur fossil collector showed me an unusual shark tooth that he had found at McCoy. After a bit of study, I realized that it was a tooth of Edestus, the first known from the entire Rocky Mountain region. This eventually led to my publishing a rather long paper on Edestus in 2012, again with Houck and Lockley, which you can read HERE.

Recently, I have also published three short papers related to Edestus: one on an Edestus tooth from England, one on an Edestus tooth with abnormal serrations, and one on a tooth from China that had mistakenly been identified as Edestus, but which actually belonged to a more “normal” shark called Carcharopsis.

TNW:  Do you have any future expeditions or research papers in the works?

WI:  Lately most of my “field work” has been in museum collections. In the last few years I have been able to view specimens in the collections of the Yale Peabody Museum, the Natural History Museum (London), the British Geological Society, the American Museum of Natural History (New York), and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. I have several publications in the works, largely based on fossil shark specimens I have seen in those collections.

One area is the taxonomy (classification) of Edestus species. About 15 species of Edestus have been named, but I think that many of these are synonymous. For example, people have named new species based on unusually small or large teeth, but I think they are just teeth of the same species of Edestus but of different ages. There may be as few as 3 valid species of Edestus.

I have another project where I am examining microscopic scratches on Edestus teeth. I am hoping that I can find feeding-related scratches and that their orientation will provide some clues as to whether the scissors-model or the up-down-slashing model is correct.

-Thank you so much, Wayne, for answering some of my questions!  I look forward to hearing more about Edestus in the future!  Thanks again!-

An Introduction to Naked Eye Astronomy: Annual and Daily Motion

At the beginning of the semester, just a few months ago, I paid very little attention to the night sky.  That all changed when I took the awesome Ancient Astronomies course at CU with professor John Stocke.  Although I'm definitely not an expert, I've learned a lot, and I love sharing it with you guys.  However, sometimes it can be tough to tell what exactly you are looking at, where you should look for something, or even how the sky changes throughout the day or year.  Hopefully this post, as well as any others I make, can help you figure things out.*

To further assist you in your understanding, I made a video supplement to this post.  Below is the video embedded within the post, but if for whatever reason that is not working, click HERE to check it out.  I refer to it several times later on in the post, and it just makes things easier to understand.  You can watch it as you read along.

First off, look at the picture below.  In it, we see the Earth encased in a plastic globe with the constellations printed on it.  For our purposes, that plastic globe with the constellations printed on it is called the celestial sphere.  Inside the celestial sphere, you can see a tiny little yellow ball: the Sun.  (I can't actually see it in this picture, but the Moon is probably inside the ball as well.)  Is that how the universe looks then?  Of course not.  We've known for many, many years that the sun is neither that close in size or distance to the Earth.  However, this model is how we can think of the night sky, especially when it comes to naked eye astronomy.  It shows, from where you are on the Earth's surface, what constellations the Sun and the Moon are in, and what constellations you can see from your specific point on the planet.

A lot of the time in naked eye astronomy, we say things that mean one thing while they sound like another.  Like what I just said: "what constellations the Sun and the Moon are in."  If we were to look up at the night sky and see the Moon smack-dab in the middle of a constellation, we realize that the distance between the moon and the stars is actually much greater than what it initially appears.  However, for our intents and purposes and to make things simpler, we just say "the Moon is in the constellation of...."  Just like when we talk about the daily motion of the Sun.  When we say that the Sun sets or rises, we realize that the Earth is the celestial body that is moving.  But from an Earth-bound perspective, it doesn't look that way.

Before we go any further, it's time to meet a very important star: Polaris, the North Star.  As you probably know, Polaris is called the North Star because it is situated directly to the north.  This star sits almost exactly on something that is called the North Celestial Pole.  Look back up at that globe for a second.  See that metal bar that sticks right through the middle of the Earth?  That's the Earth's axis of rotation, or how the Earth spins around.  And see how that pole intersects with the celestial sphere?  Those are the North and South Celestial Poles.

Confused?  I thought you might be.  I know I definitely was.  Stand up, find someplace where you can safely spin around, and start to spin, looking straight out in front of you.  After doing that a few times, look straight up.  Notice how when you looked straight in front of you, everything seemed to move, and move pretty fast too.  Now, when you look up at the ceiling, you can still see everything moving, but there is a single point that doesn't move at its center.  That single point is the equivalent of the North Celestial Pole.

Now, let's look at the video that I made to accompany this post.  We will start with "Part I: Polaris in Boulder".  Part 1 shows how the celestial sphere spins around Polaris over the course of a single night.  This part of the video takes place at 40° N, and is facing north.  "Part II: The Equator" shows the spinning celestial sphere from the point of view of someone standing slightly north of the Equator, just far enough that they can still see Polaris.  They are still facing north.  "Part III: The North Pole" tracks the daily motion of the celestial sphere from the perspective of someone who is lying on their back and looking straight up, situated at the North Pole.  Try and draw comparisons between what you see at the Equator and the North Pole; and what you saw while you were spinning and looking straight in front of you, and straight up.  While you watch all three clips, notice how in each one there are some stars and constellations that never set, with the fewest being at the Equator and the most being at the North Pole.  These stars and constellations are called "circumpolar."

So now it's time to introduce two different types of celestial motion: daily, and annual.  Daily motion can really apply to anything in the night sky, and is what we've just been looking at.  The three parts of the video taking place in Boulder, the Equator, and the North Pole were three views of daily motion at different locations on the planet.  Even with the video to help guide you, it can be difficult to absorb, so this might be a good place to stop and absorb what you have learned.

Excellent.  Now, on to the other main type of motion that we will discuss today: annual motion!  Annual motion applies to the celestial objects that move over shorts amount of time (i.e. not thousands or millions of years) against the backdrop of the celestial sphere: the planets, including the Sun and the Moon.  The motion of the moon amongst the heavens is arguably the most easily observed, as it changes constantly, and you can compare its relative position with that of the sun.  A discussion of the moon and its phases will take up an entire post though, so we can do that later.  For now, it's just important to recognize that the main objects that we see moving through the sky from night to night are the planets.  

There are two such planets easily observable in the night sky right now, and I fear that as I am writing this it might already be too late for one.  Venus and Jupiter are typically the brightest planets in the sky, with the former being quite variable in its brightest and degree of visibility throughout its journey around the sun.  Again, a topic for another time.  If it can still be seen in the night sky, however, look for Venus right after the Sun sets in the west.

I think I've used this picture like four times or something now, but it's the best one I've got.  The Moon is in a waxing crescent phase above Venus as the Evening Star, the bright object between the Moon and the mountains.  We will talk more about Venus and its varied locations in the morning and evening sky some other time.  This picture was taken in early November here in Boulder.  

So what did you hopefully learn in this post?  This post was really just a rudimentary introduction to how the sky moves each night, also called daily motion.  You should remember the term "North Celestial Pole," and remember that that is where Polaris is located.  You also briefly learned about what it means to be a circumpolar stars or constellation.  We just barely touched on annual motion, a topic we will delve into deeper later, as well as the phases of the moon.  In the next Intro to Astronomy post, I will show you how to locate several celestial objects and constellations, including The Big Dipper, Polaris, Orion, and Jupiter.  Until then, clear skies!

*I am writing from a latitude of about 40 degrees North, in Boulder, Colorado.  The information in this post can apply to anyone within that belt around the world.  For example, people in Beijing and Baltimore, both cities around 40 degree North latitude, will see the same thing every night as people in Bursa and Boulder.


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All of the videos here were made using footage from the excellent Stellarium app.  Check it out, it's free!

Kicking It In Crested Butte and a Little Geology Lesson

Over the summer, my family and I took a driving trip to several sites in Colorado that we hadn't been to before, or at least not in awhile.  I never got around to sharing pictures from that trip, but now that I have some free time on my hands, I've decided to go back and share some of the cooler pictures from that trip!  Let's start in the awesome and beautiful Crested Butte!

First off, a little geology lesson!  According to some of the signs placed along the path near town, Crested Butte* is something called a laccolith.  As you can see on the diagrams below on the sign, laccoliths look kind of like pimples that form at some places on the earth's surface.  First, layers of sedimentary rock were deposited.  Next, igneous rock in the form of magma melted its way through several of the underlying sedimentary layers, as you can see in the second picture.  The presence of more matter caused the overlying sedimentary layers to be pushed up, while the underlying layers remained flat.  

Over time, the magma cooled and crystallized, forming a granite-like igneous rock, with crystals of feldspar mixed in.  By using radiometric dating, geologists have determined that these rocks were formed around 30 million years ago, during the Oligocene Epoch.  Over those last 30 MY, erosion and weathering have broken down those layers of sedimentary rock that once covered the laccolith, and exposed the intrusion.  The intrusion is what makes up what you would walk on and see when you are on the mountain. 

A picture of some of the rocks near the summit of Crested Butte.  You can see a little pika peeking out from behind a rock in the center of the picture!  Interestingly (at least to me), the last time I talked about either pikas or the Oligocene Epoch was in the same post, the "Top Ten Mammals That Look Like Something They Aren't (Part 1)," a fun post if there ever was one!

Crested Butte (the mountain) has been further isolated from the surrounding mountains due to the influence of glacial forces.  Telltale signs of past glaciation are abundant in and around Crested Butte, including the u-shaped valleys, polished bedrock, giant boulders in places where they have no business being, and moraines (defined below), amongst other lines of evidence, all point to past episodes of glaciation.  Geologists have dated most of the moraines as about 22.5 to 16.5 thousand years old, during the last Ice Age, and believe that glacial retreat occurred rapidly about 15,000 years ago.  Even older glacial deposits date back to around 100,000 years ago!  

The scenery was truly spectacular between the town and where we were staying, up near the mountain resort, which in turn was next to the very confusing home rule principality of Mt. Crested Butte.  At times, the path turned into a boardwalk, which helped to preserve the wetlands in the area.  

Towards town, we passed over the Slate River.

A shot of the bridge over the Slate River in the foreground, with Crested Butte in the background.

As you can imagine, the area was populated by numerous birds, several of which I got pictures of.  I am fairly confident that this first one was a female mountain bluebird (Sialia currucoides).

We also saw a ton of killdeer (Charadrius vociferus), a fascinating bird, the adults of which will feign injury to draw predators away from fledlings, nests, eggs, and the like.  I've included a video which shows one of these animals doing its injury feigning!  In case the internal link or whatever it's called isn't working, click HERE to view the video.

Here are the pictures I took of the many killdeer running around!

A few more shots of the amazing scenery!

The next day out the window of the hotel room, we saw a pudgy dog walking by with a neck pillow looking thing around its neck.  A little research revealed that this was a KONG Cloud E-Collar, which pretty much serves the same purpose as the cone that you put on dogs and cats after surgeries or the like.  

Here is another picture of the dog.  This time it is relieving itself.

We ate breakfast at a fun little place along the creek!  I had a pancake that was ridiculously enormous.

There were lots of very pretty flowers all over town, including these yellow or wood poppies (Stylophorum diphyllum).  

I don't remember which building it was exactly, but one of the buildings in town had the mounted head of what is supposedly the world's largest rack of elk antlers, shot in Crested Butte in 1899 by a man named John Plute.  The antlers were certified as the largest in the world in 1961.  They definitely did look pretty large!

We'll be looking at more pictures from Crested Butte later!  See you then!

*Point of interest and possible confusion: Crested Butte can refer both to the town with a population of around 1,000, or the mountain with an elevation of 12,168 feet.  If you hear someone talk about Mt. Crested Butte, then they are most likely referring to the home rule principality by that name.  I don't really know what a home rule principality is, and a little bit of research nearly put me into a deep, trance-like state.  

Crested Butte on Dwellable

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