Stony Brook Medicine’s Cardio-Oncology program is the first on Long Island to be recognized as an IC-OS Center of Excellence and awarded an IC-OS Gold Medal by the International Cardio-Oncology Society (IC-OS).
An IC-OS Center of Excellence is a program within a healthcare institution that is assembled to supply an exceptionally high concentration of expertise and related resources centered on a particular area of medicine, delivering associated care in a comprehensive, interdisciplinary fashion to afford the best patient outcomes possible.
The gold medal designation recognizes a commitment to multidisciplinary patient care, research and publications relevant to cardio-oncology, educational program, quality improvement, program building and cardio-oncology committee involvement.
According to the IC-OS, cancer and cardiovascular disease are the two most common causes of death and disease worldwide. The incidence of both cancer and cardiovascular disease increases with age. Stony Brook’s Cardio-Oncology Program is co-directed by Michelle Bloom, MD, (cardiology) and Lea Baer, MD, (breast oncology), with state-of-the-art cardiac imaging directed by Smadar Kort, MD, and just added cardio-oncologist Kristine Yang, MD.
Stony Brook is the only program in the region to have a team of IC-OS-certified cardio-oncologists who closely observe and care for patients with cancer who have an existing cardiovascular (CV) condition or who may be at risk for developing a CV-related problem during or after the start of cancer treatment.
Victoria Greening at the Grotte Mandrin site in France. Photo by Svenya Drees
By Daniel Dunaief
Last summer, the Anthropology Department at Stony Brook University brought 13 students to the south of France to help gather information from a rich archaeological site called the Grotte Mandrin.
Asa Wong-Gómez at the Grotte Mandrin site in France. Photo by Nicholas Gonzalez
The trip with the Field School through SBU Study Abroad enabled the students to work in the field and gather information from a site that has provided a treasure trove of information about Neanderthals and Homo sapiens from 54,000 years ago.
The students found the trip successful, inspirational and, at times, exhausting.
“I did archeology all summer,” said Asa Wong-Gómez, a senior anthropology major at Stony Brook, who spent time in Kenya before joining the team in France. “It was really cool.”
Wong-Gómez recalled the thrill of finding teeth and stones in the dirt. “The first day, everyone’s first find was super exciting,” he said.
The field expedition, which was the first Stony Brook ran at this site, enabled students to forge connections with each other and with the site’s leaders, including Stony Brook Lecturer Jason Lewis, Ludovic Slimak, cultural anthropologist at the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, and Laure Metz, an archaeologist at Aix-Marseille University.
Victoria Greening at the Zooarcheological Training and Research Laboratory. Photo by Nicholas Gonzalez
“Working with everyone so closely for that month definitely builds really strong connections that have lasted since,” said Victoria Greening, who graduated from Stony Brook in the winter and is planning to start a Master’s program in the fall at the University of Oxford.
She appreciated the opportunity to be a part of new discoveries.
“Working with something that’s not in the written records and discovering it yourself was a privileged feeling,” said Greening, who grew up in Yaphank.
A happy grown up
Echoing Gollum from the “Lord of the Rings” series, Slimak would look at something a student found and say, “my precious, this goes in a special bag,” Wong-Gómez recalled.
Slimak reflected the joy he took in discovering compelling finds. “It was amusing, watching a grown adult be so happy,” Wong-Gomez said.
Eva Marsh, who is a senior at Stony Brook in the anthropology department, appreciated the excitement of finding flint. A couple of students, she recalled, also found teeth, including a horse’s tooth. The group discovered a massive core, from which early Homo sapiens would chip off pieces to construct arrows they would shoot from a bow to bring down buffalo or horses.
On the first night gathering at their summer accommodations, Marsh said the group looked up at a star-filled sky.
“There was not a lot of pollution there” or other lights, which was “really amazing,” Marsh said.
Marsh was nervous on her first day, as she didn’t know what to expect. The team played games for the first few nights and discussed why they all signed up for the field experience. Each night at dinner, they discussed the events of the day, Marsh recalled.
Svenya Drees at the Grotte Mandrin site. Photo by Victoria Greening
For Svenya Drees, who grew up in Port Jefferson and is a Master’s Student in Lewis’s lab, the experience was familiar, as she had conducted field work during the summer of 2021. “I knew what to expect,” she said. Still, she found the discovery of pebbles from a distant river intriguing.
“There’s this whole mystery at the site about pebbles that made it into the assemblage,” Drees said. “These rocks were brought there from the local river. I thought that was pretty awesome.”
The theory about the pebbles is that Neanderthals or Homo sapiens, who had lived in the cave at different times, deployed the pebbles to help remove flakes from the rock cores these ancient ancestors used to create weapons.
Some challenges
While the students enjoyed the experience, with many of them planning to continue in their anthropological studies, the summer included some challenges.
The students stayed in a house at the top of a hill. At the same time, the cave was also on a hill. Each morning, they walked down the hill to a car that drove them to the bottom of the Grotte Mandrin site, where they walked about 15 minutes up to the field station. At the end of the day, they had to climb back up to their temporary home.
“After digging holes all day, walking up the hill was not my favorite part,” Wong-Gómez said. Greening suggested that future participants in the program, which will also run this summer, bring sturdy shoes.
The students also sometimes carried heavy containers filled with sand. The physical challenges notwithstanding, most of the students eagerly anticipate future such explorations.
“It’s definitely the right field for me,” said Greening. “Working at Mandrin solidified that for me.”
Wong-Gómez hopes to continue his field work at the University of Florida. The university has accepted him as a PhD student, although he is awaiting word on whether he gets funding.
“When I got the email that I was accepted, it didn’t feel real,” Wong-Gómez said. “I really want to do this.”
A reconstruction by Ludovic Slimak of the arrows Homo sapiens likely used 54,000 years ago in France.
Credit: Ludovic Slimak
By Daniel Dunaief
Have bow and arrow, will travel, even in Eurasia 54,000 years ago.
An archaeological site in the south of France that’s 70 miles from the coastline called Grotte Mandrin not only provided evidence that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals lived in this area around the same time, but also offered proof that early humans used bow and arrows to hunt for prey like bison and wild horses.
Jason Lewis. Photo from SBU
In research published in the journal Science Advances, Jason Lewis, a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Stony Brook University; Ludovic Slimak, cultural anthropologist at the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès; and Laure Metz, an archaeologist at Aix-Marseille University, shared an extensive analysis of stone artifacts that demonstrated the use of bows and arrows.
These hunting tools, which inhabitants of the cave could use to pursue herd animals migrating between the Mediterranean region and the plains of Northern Europe, provide the earliest evidence of mechanically propelled projectile technology from Eurasia.
“We looked for diagnostic evidence of a very powerful impact once the stone tip hits something,” said Lewis. “We can see experimentally what type of damage” is produced on the tips of the arrows. The damage to these arrows is in line with everything that modern archers are doing because the tools human ancestors used were so light, Lewis added.
The collaborative effort to study these arrows in labs across two continents involved an extensive analysis of the flaking pattern around the tips of the arrows. The researchers didn’t find any of the organic materials that the early hunters would have used to create the bow.
This technology, which likely took about an hour to make, likely enabled Homo sapiens to bring down prey. Effective hunting from about 10 to 20 yards likely would have required more than one arrow, particularly with the size and strength of the targets.
At an archaeological site in the Middle East, scientists described stone tools around the same time that look similar to the bows and arrows humans in Eurasia used.
“The evolving modern humans were developing and using projectile technology,” Lewis said.
Cultural differences
Lewis, Slimak and Metz showed in a seminal paper last year that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals had lived in the same cave, sometimes separated by a year or even a season.
While these two types of humans lived around the same time and in the same place, they didn’t share the same technology or have the type of cultural exchange that would enable Neanderthals, who typically hunted with hand-thrown spears, to use the same hunting tools.
“There’s no evidence of learning exchange,” Lewis said. Neanderthals did not start using the smaller points typical of the arrows or that would have been used as projectiles.
“It doesn’t look like there was a cultural exchange between the two groups,” Lewis said, as the artifacts from the time Neanderthals occupied the cave didn’t include any arrows.
Cultures sometimes develop identities that preclude using technology from other groups. Such cultural differences existed in the Maale and neighboring Tsamai people in Southwestern Ethiopia.
“Even though [bows and arrows] might be logically or objectively advantageous, some cultures suggest that ‘that’s not what we do,’” Lewis said.
Indeed, cultural differences have occurred in other areas that groups haven’t bridged, despite the availability of similar resources and the chance to learn the technology.
At the cave in Grotte Mandrin, researchers found a large collection of stone tools in Layer E of the cave.
The scientists believe the numerous arrows could have been the early equivalent of a munitions dump.
While bows and arrows would have provided a hunting advantage to Homo sapiens, the technology doesn’t explain why the two groups of early humans occupied the cave or dominated the area at different times.
“I doubt it comes down strictly to stone tool technology,” Lewis said. “There’s not a continuous march of occupation and expansion” as the interactions between the two populations were long lasting and complex.
Homo sapiens and Neanderthals moved up into a region and then moved back. This is akin to the way European settlers interacted with Native Americans when ships first crossed the Atlantic.
The Europeans moved into the region, interacted with people who already in the country, returned home, and then, at a later point crossed the ocean again.
Arrow studies
To understand the technology used to create these arrows, Metz and Slimak have spent years studying the way rocks flake off or get damaged in response to contact with animals or objects they hit when shot through the air.
Working for over a decade, Metz has been conducting experimental replication of the effect of use on these stone tools.
Scientists who shoot these stone arrows into carcasses from butcher shops can see the flaking pattern and scratches on the arrows.
Lewis explained that the flaking on the arrow heads could not have been made during the creation of the arrows themselves.
“Only high velocity strikes” could produce such markings, Lewis said.
These kinds of studies combine geology, physics and natural science. Lewis said John Shea, Anthropology Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook University, has pioneered the study of such technology during the Pleistocene Ice Ages.
Lewis explained that his primary role is to bring the contextual understanding about how various types of early humans were using the landscape and interacting with the animals.
He also brings the context of work he does in Africa around the same time period as a comparator.
Lewis explained that more research would be forthcoming from this site.
“This is part of a larger modern human ability to conceptualize the world,” Lewis said. Early humans were trying to change their environment to match their needs, with boats, clothing, dwelling structures and other elements of their lives.
Such tool use could reduce hunting time and could enable a greater division of labor, suggesting that “each person didn’t have to do everything” to meet basic needs.
The team celebrates their win last Friday. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics
The No. 5/6 Stony Brook women’s lacrosse team (4-0) used a second half surge to come out on top and earn its third ranked win of the season against No.17 Stanford University (2-3) on March 3 at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, California.
The Seawolves were paced by CAA Preseason Midfielder of the Year, Ellie Masera, who tallied a season-high five goals. Graduate attacker Jolie Creo, senior attackers Kailyn Har and Morgan Mitchell and senior midfielder Erin MacQuarrie all added a pair of goals each in the contest.
Stony Brook got off to a slow start as the squad was not able to find the back of the cage in the first quarter and trailed the Cardinal 4-0 heading into the quarter break. Stanford would go on to tally two more goals within the first two minutes of the second quarter from Ashley Humphrey and Annabel Frist.
With 9:35 remaining in the second quarter, Masera got the Seawolves on the board off an assist from junior midfielder Jaden Hampel. Stony Brook added three more goals in the quarter to cut the deficit to 7-4 heading into halftime.
The Seawolves came back on to the field with vengeance, scoring within the first 30 seconds of the third quarter courtesy of Morgan Mitchell who finished a free position shot. The squad tallied five more goals in the quarter, including a go-ahead man-down goal by Masera with four seconds remaining to give Stony Brook its first lead of the game, 10-9.
Masera, Hampel, Creo and Hart all registered goals in the fourth quarter secure the lead for the Seawolves and ultimately the 14-10 comeback victory.
Senior Robert Becker is only the 5th athlete in the history of the IC4A Championships to win the mile race three different times. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics
The Stony Brook University men’s track and field team finished day two of the IC4A Championships in ninth-place overall out of 42 teams on Sunday at Boston University.
Senior Robert Becker added another IC4A title to his collection as he became only the 5th athlete in the history of the IC4A Championships (101 years) to win the mile race three different times.
In 2020, Becker earned his first IC4A title with a final time of 4:02.45. Last season, the graduate student crossed the finish line at 4:01.67. At the championship race today, Becker earned his triple title after finishing at 4:02.18.
Also in the mile race was senior Aiden Smyth. Smyth finished right-behind Becker in third-place, as he crossed the finish line at 4:04.30.
Stony Brook had another student-athlete who created history for the program. Senior Shane Henderson became the first athlete to get under the 8:00 minute barrier in the 3000m, as the Connecticut native crossed the finish line at 7:59.30, giving himself the new program record.
Becker earned a first-place finish in the mile with his final time of 4:02.18, securing his third career IC4A win. The fastest pace Becker ran at was at the end of the race, as he tallied 29.19 and 27.52 to finish at 4:02.18.
Smyth avenged his 4:09.12 finish that earned him ninth-place overall last season at the IC4A Championships with the time of 4:04.30.
Senior Colin Ross earned a 19th-place finish in the 3000 meter by finishing at 8:18.92.
“We are really happy with how everyone competed today. It was a great performance by Becker and Henderson in their last indoor meet as Seawolves. Extremely proud of the way our guys performed,” said head coach Andy Ronan.
India Pagan greets fans after a game in Marburg, Germany. Photo by Stefan Tschersich
India Pagan. Photo by Stefan Tschersich
India Pagan. Photo by Stefan Tschersich
India Pagan. Photo by Stefan Tschersich
India Pagan. Photo by Stefan Tschersich
India Pagan. Photo by Stefan Tschersich
By Daniel Dunaief
Learning a new basketball system was challenging: learning German was even harder.
For India Pagan, who speaks English and Spanish, communicating with her coach and fans in her first experience in professional basketball after graduating with a Master’s from Stony Brook University proved difficult.
Early in the season, playing for BC Pharmaserv in Marburg, Germany, head coach Patrick Unger spoke to her in English, but he’s “translating it in his head in German,” Pagan said. Sometimes, she took what he said the wrong way.
When Unger said something, Pagan recalled that she “took it in a personal way, which make me get in my head,” she said.
After speaking with Unger, she cleared the air, which helped her understand more of what he wanted.
Pagan lived and worked a continent away from her family in New London, Connecticut, who had been regular visitors and supporters during her college playing days as a member of the Seawolves.
Moises Pagan, India’s father, was grateful for the opportunity to connect with his daughter electronically. “Thank God for FaceTime,” he said. “That helped.”
Off the court, Pagan adjusted to life in a different culture while living in an apartment with three teammates. She and her teammates had some of the typical issues that affect college students who move in with strangers when they first start living life apart from their families.
Some of her teammates were more attentive to cleaning their dishes or buying necessities.
One of Pagan’s biggest frustrations was that she likes to sleep late. Some of her teammates would knock on doors and ask for something in the morning.
“One thing I learned is that when I get another roommate, I’m really going to set boundaries” so that she can get the rest she feels she needs, Pagan said.
In addition, Pagan, whose parents grew up in Puerto Rico and who has a strong cultural and national identity tied to the island territory, found it difficult to purchase the kind of foods she knows she enjoys eating.
Pagan’s parents Moises and Carmen sent their daughter a care package filled with spices and packaged foods. The only problem: it took 28 days to arrive. The parcel “sat in Frankfurt for eight days,” Moises Pagan said. He called the post office in the United States, and representatives said they also saw that the package wasn’t moving, but that there was “nothing they could do.” When the food items finally arrived, India brought a teammate who spoke German with her, to translate.
Amid local and global health concerns, Pagan said the team had its share of illnesses. In her first week in Germany, she was sick. “You have to be kidding me,” she recalled thinking. “I’m sick already and we weren’t even playing games.”
Pagan got the first week off. After that, she said, players on her team passed along a few colds, which weren’t Covid but were still unpleasant.
On the court
While Pagan had an opportunity to play and continue to develop her game, the team didn’t make the playoffs and was heading into the final few weeks of the season with a losing record. “We know we’re a good team,” Pagan said. “The majority of games, we lost by a couple of points. We never found our rhythm this season.”
Pagan went from helping lead the Stony Brook women’s basketball team through successful seasons to debuting on a professional team that struggled to put wins together. “Basketball will always be fun, but losing so many games by five points got really frustrating and obviously isn’t for anyone,” she said.
In addition to receiving ongoing and positive support from her parents, India Pagan also remained in touch with Ashley Langford, who coached Pagan during her final year at Stony Brook.
“It’s always great hearing from [Coach Langford],” said Pagan. Langford reminded Pagan that she’s a great player, that she should attack and play her game, and should believe in herself. “Small phrases like that” really helped, Pagan said.
Langford said she tries to remind all first-year professional players that there’s a learning curve and that there will be moments they don’t enjoy. “What I tried to tell India, too, is that it’ll get better and stick with it,” she said.
Langford also highlighted how the officiating is different. Players might get called for travels more or less often in one league. She urged Pagan to dominate, which, the coach said, would make it difficult to take her out of the lineup.
“You’ve got to make him play you,” Langford urged.
Personal growth
Pagan felt she grew as a basketball player and as a person. She described the German style of play as “quicker and more physical.”
When a shot went up, her coach wanted everyone to go for a rebound, rather than sending one or two guards back to protect against a fast break on the other end.
“In some respects, I am a better basketball player,” she explained. “I learned some new moves and learned a lot about my game.”
During the season, Pagan and two of her teammates couldn’t go home for Christmas. They visited with their head coach and his family, which included three children. “I was thankful for the family I got to spend time with over here,” Pagan said. She also visited bigger cities, which were over an hour and a half from where she lived, as often as she could.
When she returns home, Pagan is looking forward to visiting with family, eating crab legs and taking a trip to Dunkin’ Donuts.
She has not decided where she’ll play next year and is exploring various options, including joining a Puerto Rican league.
The Stony Brook men’s lacrosse team (2-2) secured its second consecutive victory within three days as it defeated Sacred Heart (0-4), 15-12, at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium on Feb. 26. The Seawolves also defeated Air Force, 15-8, on the Island on Feb. 24.
Not only did graduate attacker Jonathan Huber record the first goal of the contest to give Stony Brook a 1-0 lead, but he also added two more goals throughout the game, tallying his 100th career goal with his second make. Huber found the back of the cage off an assist from graduate midfielder Matt Anderson to give the Seawolves a 12-7 lead with 2:36 left to play in the third quarter.
Senior attacker Dylan Pallonetti added four more goals to his stellar weekend. The Stony Brook native also registered a career-high tying six goals against Air Force on Friday. Senior attacker Blake Behlen and junior midfielder Noah Armitage followed behind Pallonetti, recording three goals and two goals, respectively.
The Seawolves jumped ahead early, recording the first goal of the contest. However, the Pioneers would answer back with two more. Sacred Heart took a hold of the lead, 2-1, courtesy of back-to-back goals from Carson Spooner and Jake Garb. Stony Brook would fall behind two more times in the first quarter and two more times the squad battled its way back.
The Seawolves took sole possession of the lead, 4-3, with 2:16 remaining in the first quarter when Armitage found the back of the cage off a helper from senior attacker Will Button. Stony Brook would not look back as it would control the lead for the remainder of the game and ultimately take the 15-12 victory.
“It’s pretty exhilarating and I am happy to do it as a Seawolf as well,” said graduate attacker Jonathan Huber on scoring his 100th career goal. “We are all playing to our strengths and playing well together and getting into a flow on offense,” said Huber.
“Men’s lacrosse is a very physical game, and we have a lot of guys banged up and when you play a quick turnaround game like this it is just about finding a way. I think we made enough plays there in the first half, specifically, to guide us through here. We knew it was going to be tough and I think these guys have to continue to have the mindset of this is what it is going to be like at the end of the year; we have to play good lacrosse,” said head coach Anthony Gilardi.
#8 Alyssa Costella scored a three-run home run during last Sunday's game. Photo from Stony Brook Athletics
The Stony Brook softball team (4-4, 0-0 CAA) slugged its way past the Central Connecticut State Blue Devils, 8-3, on Feb. 26 in the final day of the Battle at the Bay in Norfolk, VA.
The Seawolves hit two home runs, for a combined five runs, to roll past the Blue Devils. Senior catcher Corinne Badger started the scoring for Stony Brook by slugging her second home run of the weekend. In the top of the first inning, Badger blasted a two-run shot, which drove home junior shortstop Kyra McFarland to make it 2-0.
Stony Brook poured onto its lead in the top of the third inning. Junior center fielder Alicia Orosco led off the inning with bunt single. McFarland followed with a four-pitch walk and the Seawolves had runners on first and second base with no outs. Sophomore left fielder Alyssa Costello stepped up to the plate and smashed a three-run home run to right center to extend the lead to 5-0.
The Seawolves continued their success offensively in the top of the fourth. Senior right fielder Shauna Nuss led off the inning with a walk and Orosco dropped down a sacrifice bunt to move Nuss into scoring position. Then, McFarland came up and singled through the right side, driving in Nuss to extend the Seawolves’ lead to 6-0.
Central Connecticut State scored three-straight runs to cut the Stony Brook lead to three runs, but the Seawolves would tack on insurance in the top of the seventh. Costello scored on a wild pitch and senior third baseman Brooke Dye drew a walk to drive in Badger. Stony Brook led 8-3, and the score would hold. The Seawolves went 2-1 in the Battle at the Bay.
“I’m proud of our team for our effort today … We played well in all facets of our game and competed. It’s a good team win as we continue our progress,” said head coach Megan T. Bryant.
Nature plays a slow game, drawn out over millions of years, of hide and seek. First, spectacular and elaborate creatures lived hunted, reproduced, and avoided predators millions of years ago. After they died in places like Dorset in the United Kingdom, their bodies became preserved in the muddy, shallow marine environment. The sediment was then covered over by rock layers and safely preserved.
Eric Wilberg in Coyote Buttes, Utah in 2018
Fast forward about 185 million years, after waves crashing upon the shore erode those rocks on a beach and expose those fossils.
Indeed, in 2017, in a UNESCO World Heritage site where scientists and fossil hunters and paleontologists like 19th century star Mary Anning made key discoveries, archeology enthusiasts Paul Turner and Lizzie Hingley found the head, backbone and limbs of a creature scientists had imagined, but hadn’t, until then, discovered.
Called a thalattosuchian, which is an ancient sister of modern day crocodile ancestors, this finding extended the timeline of when these coastal marine crocodiles lived.
In late 2019, Dr. Roger Benson, who was then at the University of Oxford, reached out to Pedro Godoy, a postdoctoral researcher at Stony Brook who Benson co-supervised during his PhD, and Eric Wilberg, Assistant Professor at the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University. The team, which included Alan Turner, Professor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook, planned to describe and characterize the fossil.
Benson said he had never met Wilberg before but had “read his work on croc evolution and really admired his systematic approach.”
This ancient crocodilian creature, which was about six feet long and was likely either a sub adult or an adult, is the first “thalattosuchian fossil complete enough to definitively identify as a member of the group of rocks older than about 180 million years ago,” Wilberg explained.
Wilberg, Godoy (who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sao Paolo), Turner and Benson (who is currently Macaulay Curator of Dinosaur Paleobiology at the American Museum of Natural History), recently published their study on this fossil in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Godoy said that Wilberg is “an expert in this group of animals and it was great working with him on this.” Godoy added that this was an “important finding, which helps us fill a gap in the evolution of thalattosuchians.”
Benson suggested that this fossil provides a glimpse into the origin of thalattosuchians, indicating that the group originated before this fossil. The particular organism is the first discovered in a new species gathered by the two fossil hunters (see related story on right).
The Thalattosuchian group lived until the Early Cretaceous period, about 130 million years ago. These predators likely fed on fish or cephalopods like ancient octopi or squid.
Recently, another team of scientists discovered a thalattosuchian skull in Morocco, which is about five to 10 million years older than the Turnersuchus Wilberg described.
The discoveries “support our prediction that thalattosuchians evolved millions of years earlier —probably in the late Triassic” around 200 million or more years ago, Wilberg added. His analysis determined that the thalattosuchian lineage diverged from its last common ancestor with crocodile-relatives during the Triassic period.
Wilberg and other researchers will be on the lookout for additional specimens which can add details to the understanding of this species. This specimen was missing most of the front of the skull, all of the hindlimb and pelvis and most of the tail.
Specific features
By examining the spinal column and part of the forelimb, Wilberg explained that this species did not have forelimbs that evolved into flippers, like later descendants in the group. It would have been similar in overall body form to living crocodiles, which means that it likely had similar swimming capabilities.
The specimen included a couple of partial teeth. Like all living crocodiles, it likely continually replaced its teeth throughout its life. Its bite force would have been less than a similar sized modern crocodile. The modern crocodylian skull evolved structural reinforcements to allow it to withstand the massive bite forces it generated.
Thalattosuchians skulls were “not as well reinforced, so they were probably not able to bite as hard,” Wilberg wrote. It seems likely that the “muscles that generate fast bites were large in this group, so they may have evolved for fast bites to capture small-moving prey.”
The Turnersuchus probably lived close to the coast in relatively shallow water. Like living crocodiles, it also likely spent time out of the water to bask in the sun (it was also cold blooded) and lay eggs. The climate of the region when this species lived would have been warmer than the current climate of the United Kingdom.
This creature was likely not an apex predator, with larger hunters like ichthyosaurs, pleiosaurs and probably sharks likely preying on it.
“We don’t have any direct evidence of predation from these groups on thalattosuchians, but it probably happened,” Wilberg added.
This particular fossil, like many other discoveries, has numerous unknowns. The gender of the individual (which scientists often determine by comparing body sizes) is unclear.
This particular find will “continue to be important moving forward in determining how thalattosuchians are related to other fossil crocodiles — every new species discovered is a chance to test existing hypotheses of how they are related to one another” which is important in determining how evolution occurred in the group, Wilberg explained.
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The fossil hunters who lent their names to an ancient crocodile
By Daniel Dunaief
The beaches along the southern shore of the United Kingdom have rich and ancient stories to share.
Lizzie Hingley and Paul Turner. Photo from Lizzie Hingley
Lizzie Hingley and Paul Turner — friends who met on the beach and started working together in 2016 — are eager to gather clues about the past. Fossil hunters at the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Charmouth in the United Kingdom, which is about a three-hour drive southwest from London, Hingley and Turner discovered fragments of an unusual fossil starting in 2017. “Initially, we just saw random bones,” explained Hingley, who finds, prepares and sells some of the fossils on her website. Some fragments appeared to be a jaw in the clay next to an initial stone block containing multiple bones.
Hingley, who lives a ten minute walk from a beach that is also referred to as the Jurassic Coast, said that it’s “very unusual to come across anything with lots of bones in it on the beaches.” She took the find to her workshop, where she used an air abrasive and pneumatic chisel. She noticed it was semi-articulated, which means the bones were arranged in something resembling a natural order.
It took about one and a half years for Hingley and Turner to collect all the pieces of this fossil. Turner found the first main block, Hingley discovered the jaw next to it, Turner uncovered the next two and she found the last piece.
“It was quite difficult to collect as it was coming out of a huge glacial landscape,” said Hingley.It likely fell out of the cliff 50 years earlier and had been traveling to the front of the slip over the years. “This meant that, although we did try to dig for it, the best way to recover it was to wait for nature to uncover it for us,” she added.
Lizzie Hingley holding the ichthyosaur jaw she found when she was eight. Photo by Craig Chivers
Hingley and Turner visited daily to make sure they didn’t miss any pieces. The Charmouth Heritage Centre staff found a few loose vertebrae and reunited them with the rest of the fossil.
Hingley, who is one of about 15 people who regularly search parts of the seven miles of beaches almost daily, wanted to do more than collect this fossil — she wanted to know its history. Through her network, she found Roger Benson, who was a Professor of Paleobiology at the University of Oxford.
“It was great to work with him and see the scans being done,” she said. “He was instrumental” in bringing together a team of researchers who could analyze the finding and put it into historical context.
Indeed, Benson reached out to several researchers at Stony Brook University, including his former postdoctoral researcher Pedro Godoy, Assistant Professor Eric Wilberg and Professor Alan Turner (see related story on left) to gather information.
Close-up of ichthyosaur jaw. Photo by Lizzie Hingley
Their work concluded that this was a new species of marine crocodile. The ancient crocodile relative was named Turnersuchus hingleyae, after the fossil hunters who discovered it.
“It’s wonderful to have my name go down in history,” said Hingley, who also has a gastropod named after her.
Hingley, who is 35, started looking for fossils when she was six in Dorset, first on family holidays and then at every opportunity she could get. Over the years, she has found ichthyosaur skulls, ammonites measuring half a meter across, shark skin and teeth and numerous blocks containing hundreds of ammonites. When she was eight, she found a 20 centimeter ichthyosaur jaw, which is still part of her own collection.
Hingley is thrilled with her job, in which “every day is different and you never know what you are going to find or be working on,” she wrote. “I get to spend a lot of time in nature on the beach; the tide changes the beach every day, too.”
Benson described the beaches where Hingley and Turner search for new fossils as a European “pilgrimage for paleontologists.”
Hingley added that the process of erosion, which reveals fossils hidden in the cliffs along the beach, is something of a double edged sword, revealing fossils and threatening to carry them away.
A storm can decimate a beach and destroy fossils when the tide is too high to collect examples of creatures that lived as many as 185 million years ago. At the same time, erosion along the coast, caused by some of these same storms, reveals new fossils.
Walking along the beach, Hingley explained that it is almost incomprehensible to imagine the time scale separating her from the creatures who died so long ago.
The environment on the Jurassic Coast didn’t change much over those millennia.
“It is odd to think that you are collecting from the sea bed when it’s coming out of the cliff many meters above you,” she wrote. “The distance and time that these fossils have travelled to be found is incredible.”
James Lattimer, distinguished professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook University, has been selected as a 2023 Fellow of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).
AAS Fellows are recognized for their contributions to the Society and its overarching mission – advancing the science that informs humanity’s understanding of the universe. For his part, Professor Lattimer has made formative discoveries about the structure and evolution of neutron stars.
Professor Lattimer has collaborated with other scientists to develop pioneering simulations of proto-neutron stars and their neutrino emissions, and he also helped enable the use of high-performance numerical simulations by creating the first open-source equation-of-state code and tables suitable for their application.
Professor Lattimer is the first Stony Brook faculty member selected as an AAS fellow since the inaugural class of 2019. He is also a fellow of the J.S. Guggenheim Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the American Physical Society (APS).
“I am delighted that Jim has been recognized by the recently established AAS fellowship program,”said Chang Kee Jung, PhD, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.“Jim is an internationally renowned nuclear astrophysicist and has already received the prestigious Hans Bethe Prize given by the APS for truly outstanding work in the areas of astrophysics, nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, or closely related fields.”
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