Ptilodontier

Dear Friends
the small rodent Ptilodont / Ptilodontier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptilodontidae of the extinct Multituberculates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multituberculata who lived in the today Montana (USA) about 100 Mio ago concludes our ideal jump in the turbulent Cretaceous through MS-01. Of interest the long roots and the absence of pathologies of his three black well preserved teeth. In particular see the curious fan molar certainly appropriate for the cutting and shredding of vegetable fibres and seeds constituting the main components of his diet.
Salutations
Giancarlo

  

Didelphoidea

Dear Friends
if with Hemiacodon it was possible to reach the Middle Eocene about forty Mio years ago, with Didelphoidea it is possible to jump far more deep in time and life up to about 100 Mio years ago in the Upper Cretaceous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous time in which Pterosaurs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur , Ceratopsids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceratopsidae
and Tyrannosaurids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrannosauridae populated sky and land. It was certainly a difficult period in which survive for this Didelphoidea small mammal herb-insectivore. Of interest is the black fossilisation of this tooth, his only remain, with the cuspids perfectly preserved and roots seriously degraded. Any comment from you is welcomed
Salutations
Giancarlo

Hemiacodon

Dear Friends
I am grateful to our Gianni for having provided me with some further specimen from his palaeontological collection, by means of which and thanks to MS.01 it has been possible to jump far deep in the time and life up to this exemplar of Hemiacodon https://paleobiodb.org/cgi-bin/bridge.pl?a=basicTaxonInfo&taxon_no=160771 who lived about forty Mio years ago in the Middle Eocene http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene. Of this mammal, ancestor of modern primates only a small portion of a mandible with two of his teeth is arrived up to us. His diet based on vegetables and insects can be already guessed by the shape and the dimension of said teeth although modern analysis of the enamel could reveal precisely how herbivore and carnivore he was.
Salutations
Giancarlo

    

740-451 Italian Locomotive - P-Vescovo Verona

Dear Friends
I knew that not far from my house in Verona, connected with the Porta Vescovo station, there is the Officina di Grande Riparazione
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officina_di_Grande_Riparazione_di_Verona_Porta_Vescovo
(in Italian) of the Italian State Raylways
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrovie_dello_Stato_Italiane . I never paid particular attention to the Officina and, normally, I don't use the Porta Vescovo station because it is a secondary station and not all the trains stop there. But, coming back from Venice (see the posts on this blog:
http://m-polo.blogspot.de/2015/04/visiting-venice.html
http://m-polo.blogspot.de/2015/04/le-douanier.html
http://m-polo.blogspot.de/2015/04/moleche-and-bizanine-art.html
http://m-polo.blogspot.de/2015/04/vivaldi-e-il-suo-tempo.html )
my train stopped there and I decided to disembark and go home by walking. Emerging from the "Buso del Gato" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ms3SOEH2c , I remarked that a portion of the wall of the Officina was dismantled for showing the superb exemplar 451 of the Italian locomotive type 740  http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locomotiva_FS_740
(in Italian). To me it is clear that the blue-jellow flag on the front of the boiler is not the Sweden flag but rather the flag of Verona, but the device on the side of the boiler and its function remain, at least for me, mysterious. Any feedback from you is welcomed.
Salutations
Giancarlo

==>Thank you very much for your rapid and various replies. I am especially grateful to Christophe PC for his image of the pump Westinghouse and to Vincent LB for his feedback:
"Il s'agit vraisemblablement d'un compresseur d'air (pour le système de freinage). Dans la littérature française, tu trouveras souvent, pour en parler, l'expression "petit cheval" en raison de son bruit caractéristique évoquant un galop…"
==> More details under: http://www.keimsteampump.com/uploads/Product_Offering.pdf

Tuthankamun back in Munich - II - life passage

Dear Friends
Tuthankamun, contrary to the common opinion, cannot be considered a minor Pharaoh. Incontestably, he was a great and wise ruler who put an end to a period of aggressive confrontations in Egypt generated after the religious reform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hymn_to_the_Aten of his father Amenhotep IV / Akhenaton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten . His lot of golden artefacts testify for him in this sense and let perceive the magnificence that surrounded him during his passage on the Earth. This magnificence let only imagine the magnificence that have certainly surrounded Pharaohs greater than him.
Salutations
Giancarlo