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More incredible finds from the Messel Pit:More Adaptive Complexity articles
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"These 49 million-year-old freshwater turtle fossils are believed to have died of poisoning during copulation."
(Photograph: Jonathan Blair/Corbis, published at The Guardian Online.)














They find a lot of interesting stuff in Messel, I just remain more skeptical when I see something from there because they block access to all but employees of one museum - and totalitarianism goes badly even in science. Just since our existence we've had Ida with a rather suspect lineage, supposedly South American cashews from 47 million years ago in the ground there, and a thousand other things that claim to up end something or another.
You'd think if it were this treasure trove of science, and if the Senckenberg cares about science, they'd let people see/verify all this stuff before the book and TV specials come out declaring them the greatest things ever.
/Rant
That's a cool fossil!