A recently discovered mammalian fossil dating to 145 million years ago belonged to, if not the earliest, certainly one of the earliest mammal species. Called Durlstotherium newmani, the little critter lived in the Jurassic Period. Bearing the name of an amateur paleontologist and landlord of a pub near Durlston Bay, Dorset, southern England, “shrew-like” D. newmani lived contemporaneously with dinosaurs, but apparently avoided them by its nocturnality. In this lifestyle, the ancient animal certainly foreshadowed the lives of many of its bar-hopping current descendants. Check the night scene for those descendants, and ask yourself whether or not their—and almost everyone’s—penchant to party at night doesn’t stem from D. newmani’s lifestyle. Naming the fossil after a barkeep seems fitting. It also begs a question about how far we haven’t come.
D. newmani might have been a nocturnal animal because of daytime dangers posed by dinosaurs. If so, then it and similar mammals probably remained nocturnal until the end of the Cretaceous Period and its famous dinosaur extinction event 65 million years ago. That’s the conclusion of a paper in Nature: Ecology & Evolution by Roi Maor and others. “We find strong support for the nocturnal origin of mammals and the Cenozoic appearance of diurnality….” By the way, you’re a Cenozoic mammal and a descendant of nocturnal mammals like D. newmani. And so are the young people staying awake for the nightlife of Dhaka in Bangladesh.
Sleeplessness. Restless nights. Thought that belonged to nocturnal animals and to really old people. No. Today’s young are also restless in the dark hours when they go on the prowl for companionship and entertainment. At least, that’s what the November 1, 2015, edition of NewAge Youth reports. Their survey suggests that “71.7 per cent of urban youths have difficulties falling asleep and 69.9% deliberately resist sleeping at night.”**
Three-wheel CNGs, trucks, and cars and not, nowadays, dinosaurs. The youth of Dhaka have purposefully changed their circadian rhythm because, they say, the daytime confusion, traffic, and danger is a bit overwhelming. Pull up pictures of Dhaka on the Web if you like. You’ll get some idea. Not that the city can do much to change its population and traffic. It is what it is, just as Jurassic life was what it was. There are dangers. But, of course, there are also Dhaka’s nighttime dangers, muggers and their lot, for example. And there’s even the problem that there’s not much to do in Dhaka at night.
So, here we are 145 million years after D. newmani became extinct, and we’re still somewhat nocturnal—and on purpose! How far haven’t we come? We’re still living much of lives as night creatures, watching late-night TV, playing with an IPad or smart phone, or sneaking out among the dangerous trucks, cars, CNGs, tuk-tuks, ricks, and auto rickshaws of our cities, hoping not to be attacked by one of these modern dinosaurs that prowl the night among self-driving Uber cars.
You know that expression “I’ve become my mother (or father)”? The next time you’re in Newman’s pub late at night, look around at your bar-mates, and ask yourself, “Why after 65 million years of learning to live in the daylight, am I staying up at night?” You’ve become your ancient shrew-like ancestor D. newmani.
*BBC News Online. Fossil of ‘our earliest ancestors’ found in Dorset by Helen Briggs, Nov. 7, 2017 at http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41889633
**NewAge Youth. November 1, 2015. Online at http://youth.newagebd.net/1352/a-nocturnal-generation/
D. newmani might have been a nocturnal animal because of daytime dangers posed by dinosaurs. If so, then it and similar mammals probably remained nocturnal until the end of the Cretaceous Period and its famous dinosaur extinction event 65 million years ago. That’s the conclusion of a paper in Nature: Ecology & Evolution by Roi Maor and others. “We find strong support for the nocturnal origin of mammals and the Cenozoic appearance of diurnality….” By the way, you’re a Cenozoic mammal and a descendant of nocturnal mammals like D. newmani. And so are the young people staying awake for the nightlife of Dhaka in Bangladesh.
Sleeplessness. Restless nights. Thought that belonged to nocturnal animals and to really old people. No. Today’s young are also restless in the dark hours when they go on the prowl for companionship and entertainment. At least, that’s what the November 1, 2015, edition of NewAge Youth reports. Their survey suggests that “71.7 per cent of urban youths have difficulties falling asleep and 69.9% deliberately resist sleeping at night.”**
Three-wheel CNGs, trucks, and cars and not, nowadays, dinosaurs. The youth of Dhaka have purposefully changed their circadian rhythm because, they say, the daytime confusion, traffic, and danger is a bit overwhelming. Pull up pictures of Dhaka on the Web if you like. You’ll get some idea. Not that the city can do much to change its population and traffic. It is what it is, just as Jurassic life was what it was. There are dangers. But, of course, there are also Dhaka’s nighttime dangers, muggers and their lot, for example. And there’s even the problem that there’s not much to do in Dhaka at night.
So, here we are 145 million years after D. newmani became extinct, and we’re still somewhat nocturnal—and on purpose! How far haven’t we come? We’re still living much of lives as night creatures, watching late-night TV, playing with an IPad or smart phone, or sneaking out among the dangerous trucks, cars, CNGs, tuk-tuks, ricks, and auto rickshaws of our cities, hoping not to be attacked by one of these modern dinosaurs that prowl the night among self-driving Uber cars.
You know that expression “I’ve become my mother (or father)”? The next time you’re in Newman’s pub late at night, look around at your bar-mates, and ask yourself, “Why after 65 million years of learning to live in the daylight, am I staying up at night?” You’ve become your ancient shrew-like ancestor D. newmani.
*BBC News Online. Fossil of ‘our earliest ancestors’ found in Dorset by Helen Briggs, Nov. 7, 2017 at http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41889633
**NewAge Youth. November 1, 2015. Online at http://youth.newagebd.net/1352/a-nocturnal-generation/
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