slime
dr. dolittle | July 29, 2017 Image via NOAA/Flickr
Pacific hagfish (Eptatretus stoutii), aka "slime eels", are primitive fish that occupy burrows on the ocean floor. Like earthworms, they have 5 hearts. They have no true eyes, no jaws, nor do they have a stomach. They locate their meals through great senses of smell and touch. In addition to small invertebrates, they are known for consuming carrion that fall to the ocean floor. By consume, I mean burrow into the decomposing carcasses and eating them from the inside out. Ew. Given their dietary habits, it is no surprise they are regularly exposed to little to no…
grrlscientist | July 30, 2008tags: researchblogging.org, dinosaurian soft tissue, fossils, bacterial biofilms, paleontology, endocasts, formerly pyritic framboids, collagen
Figure 1. EDS spectrum of framboid. EDS spectrum of framboid showing an iron-oxygen signature. Pt is from coating for SEM. Area in red box was scanned for elements. [larger view].
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002808.
Some of you might remember a paper published in Science that rocked the paleontological world by revealing that a broken thigh bone from Tyrannosaurus rex contained soft tissue. When this soft tissue was analyzed, it was identified as…