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(This was supposed to appear Monday morning. Yet here it is Thursday evening. I have no explanation for this, other than that I have been unable to post to this blog for the past three days, as I have been trapped on a New York City subway car by a menacing marsupial. I am sure this is only a coincidence. As our own gentle Dr. Possum would never be capable of such an act. Just sayin’.)

The time has arrived once again for science talk. New discoveries, new takes on old knowledge, and other bits of news are all available for the perusing in today’s information world. Over the fold are selections from the past week from a few of the many excellent science news sites around the world. Today’s tidbits include a dinosaur is named three decades after discovery, the dark side of the moon revealed, when galaxy clusters collide, a tiny frog is the world’s very smallest vertebrate, rare ultra-blue stars found in neighboring galaxy’s hub, planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception, and in ancient Pompeii trash and tombs went hand in hand. Pull up that comfy chair and grab a spot near the fireside. There is always plenty of room for everyone. Another session of Dr. Possum’s science education, entertainment, and potluck discussion is set to begin.

After waiting for three decades Fruitachampsa gets its name at last.

This animal was not like the alligators, caimans, gharials, and crocodiles we know today. (In technical terms, all those living lineages are crocodylians—a remaining portion of the larger and more varied group called Crocodyliformes to which Fruitachampsa also belonged.) Informally referred to as the “Fruita Form” in publications for years, this roughly three-foot-long archosaur had slender legs, a short skull, and rows of flat teeth with wrinkled, horizontal cusps socketed behind a small set of pointed teeth at the front of the jaws. As Jurassic expert John Foster dubbed the animal in his book Jurassic West, Fruitachampsa was “the house cat of the Morrison Formation.”

Yet the long wait for the description of the Fruita croc carried an advantage. Around the time of the animal’s discovery, there was nothing quite like Fruitachampsa. How the animal related to other crocodyliforms was unclear. Since 1975, however, additional discoveries of previously-unknown crocs have put Fruitachampsa in context. These discoveries have not been made elsewhere in the fossil-rich deserts of the American west. The closest relatives of Fruitachampsa—called shartegosuchids—have been found in the Mesozoic sediments of Mongolia, China, and Siberia.

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