Portal:Paleontology/DYK/7
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![A fossil microbial mat dating back to the Silurian](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Kinneyia_Grimsby_Silurian_Niagara_Gorge.jpg/100px-Kinneyia_Grimsby_Silurian_Niagara_Gorge.jpg)
- ... that microbial mats increase our understanding of evolution by helping to preserve soft-bodied organisms and soft parts of hard-shelled animals?
- ... that the fossil bee Anthophorula persephone is named for a Greek goddess?
- ...that the discovery of Icadyptes salasi, a prehistoric five-foot-tall penguin in Peru, has caused scientists to reconsider the timeline of penguin evolution?
- ... that the Cretaceous snakefly Necroraphidia arcuata takes its name, in part, from the Latin word for "bent" and the Greek word for "dead"?
- ... that the fossil maple Acer taurocursum is named for its type locality, the "Bull Run flora"?
![An Aphaenogaster sommerfeldti preserved in amber](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8f/Aphaenogaster_sommerfeldti_MBIGB001_01.jpg/100px-Aphaenogaster_sommerfeldti_MBIGB001_01.jpg)
- ... that the extinct ant Aphaenogaster sommerfeldti was first described in 1868?
- ... that the late Miocene whale Joumocetus shimizui is the third oldest Cetotheriid known?
- ... that paleontologist Gerta Keller theorizes that dinosaurs did not become extinct until 300,000 years after the Chicxulub meteor, though she agrees that "I'm sure the day after, they had a headache"?
- ... that a petroleum geologist named William Warren Orcutt began collecting fossils from the La Brea Tar Pits in 1901, bringing the site to the attention of the scientific community?
- ... that the extinct maple Acer ivanofense is known from four Alaskan fossils?