Fossil bone diseases found, according to reports in Science (AAAS) News, PLoS ONE doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185338, 21 September 2017 and ResearchGate conference papers June 2017.
Scientists from Poland and USA have found the fossil of a mesosaur, an extinct marine reptile, with a spinal deformity that caused an abnormal curvature of its spine. The deformity is known as a ‘hemi-vertebra’, where one side of a bone in the spine fails to develop, resulting in a kink in the spine. This would alter the biomechanics of the spine, but since the mesosaur was an adult when it died, the deformity seemingly didn’t prevent it from swimming well enough to find food and avoid predators.
The fossil is dated as 300 million years old, making this the oldest record of a spinal deformity in a marine reptile.
The scientists also carried out a survey of palaeopathology (fossil diseases) in other aquatic reptiles and found avascular necrosis (death of bone caused by damage to blood vessels) in multiple bones, septic arthritis in a thigh bone of a creature named Pistosaurus longaevus and “the oldest record of multi-seasonal tuberculosis-like infection” in the ribs of a fossil named Proneusticosourus silesiacus.
Editorial Comment: These are not the first fossils with diseased bones to be found. Some dinosaurs have been found with signs of arthritis, bone cancer and bacterial infections. These diseased fossils could not have been formed until after the world started to degenerate when human sin came into the world. Until then everything God made was very good, and no creature would have suffered with any diseased or deformed bones.
Fossil diseases bring up an interesting challenge to all those who claim to believe that Genesis is true, but want to have long ages of evolution before man came on the earth. Evolution is a process of death, disease, and destruction – definitely not very good
Photo of mesosaur from: Szczygielski T, Surmik D, Kapuścińska A, Rothschild BM (2017) The oldest record of aquatic amniote congenital scoliosis. PLoS ONE 12(9): e0185338. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185338. Reproduced under Creative Commons License CC BY 4.0
Evidence New vol. 17, No. 19 11 October 2017 Creation Research Australia
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