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Issue Date | 20.12.2020 |
ID | Michel: Scott: Stanley Gibbons: Yvert: UPU: Category: pR |
Designer | Rezo Kaishauri from Stamperija design team |
Stamps in set | 8 |
Value |
Four pairs: TJS 6.30 Kansajsuchus extensus and TJS 7.00 Settlement of Konsoy TJS 5.80 Dinosaur footprint and TJS 9.00 Shirkent National Park TJS 5.80 Amonite Cleoniceras and TJS 17.60 Pamir Montains TJS 12.70 Mammuthus meridionalis and 15.00 Kayrakkum reservoir |
Type | commemorative |
Size (width x height) | Stamps : 40 x 30 mm Mini-Sheets: 140 x 210 mm |
Layout | Four sheets of 4 pairs (8 stamps) each |
Products | FDC x1 MS x4 |
Paper | gummed 102gm2 |
Perforation | |
Print Technique | Digital print |
Printed by | Stamperija, Lithuania |
Quantity | 1.000 of every sheet |
Issuing Authority | Markazi Marka State Unitary Enterprise Tajik Post |
Kansajsuchus extensus from Konsoy village
Kansajsuchus extensus is the only species from extinct genus Kansajsuchus from Paraligator family.
Paraligator is an extinct genus of neosuchian crocodile
inhabited vast area of Central Asia during the late Cretaceous Period, about 60-100 million years ago.
Many single bones, including vertebrae and bony armor, but complete skull, found by Soviet paleontologists near the vilage of Konsoy in the Sughd region of Tajikistan.
1964-1967 expeditions of Paleontological Institute (PIN) in Moscow, leaded by A.K. Rozhdestvensky and I.M. Klebanova (Novodvorskaya after her married in 1968).
1968 expedition of Leningrad (nowadays Saint Petersburg) State University , leaded by of L.A. Nesova.
All of these fossils are stored in Moscow and Saint Petersburg to date.
This paraligator was described in 1975 by Soviet paleontologist from Paleontologic Institue in Moscow
- Mikhail Efimov (1947-2017), who assigned the aligantor to Goniopholididae family.
The name Kansajsuchus extensus refers to the village name where fossils of the animal are found and means "large crocodile of Kansaj".
Kansaj is the Russian name of Konsoy village and used in many Russian articles and scentific books
and even in English articles written by Soviet and Russian paleontologists.
In 2018, international team of paleontologists from Vertebrate Zoology Department, Saint Petersburg State University in Russia
and Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution in USA
made phylogenetic analysis of Kansajsuchus extensus fossils Konsoy village in Tajikistan and Shach-Shach village in Kazakhstan.
In total, ober 400 fossils of this prehistoric animal were analyzed.
Result of this analysis allowed reinterpretation of the morphology of the animal and reassignment it to Paralligatoridae family.
This Tajk paraligator, contemporary of dinosaur, was comparable in size to large present-day members of the genus Crocodylus,
with estimated total length of 5–7 meters and a dorsal cranial length of up to 70–80 cm.
One of the cranial bones (an isolated right premaxilla in dorsal) shown on the left side of the stamp with reconstruction of this prehistoric animal.
Kansajsuchus extensus is one of the largest known members of the derived Neosuchia (a clade within that includes all modern extant crocodilians and their closest fossil relatives)
, which were typically small to moderate-sized animals.
Similar to modern alligators Kansajsuchus had special skin ossifications - plates that, like armor, protected the back bone
and belly of reptiles during fierce battles with prey or other crocodiles.
This prehistoric animal was even big enough to even attack some dinosaurs.
Fossils of some hadrosaurid dinosaurs, similar to Bactrosaurus johnsoni from the Iren Dabasu Formation of China,
discovered by the same Soviet expedition of A.K. Rozhdestvensky in 1960s near Konsoy village too.
Dinosaur footprint from Shirkent National Park
Shirkent Valley has been established a Nature Reserve in 1991, to preserve unique natural and geological environment.
The most significant among the geological objects are three locations
of dinosaur traces: "Shirkent-1" , "Shirkent-2" and "Kharkush", with a total of over 400 footprints.
Initially it was planed to build visitor observation stations and staircase to allow easier access to the tourits,
as well as some sheds over the footprints to protect it from erosion and rain.
Unfortunately, to date, since 30 years from establishment of the Park, nothng is done.
The few tourist who visit this area per year have to climb to the tracks and rest on the stones under some trees.
"Shirkent-1" site
discovered in 1963 by two Tajik geologists Sergey Zakharov and Firdavs Khakimov during their study of Cretaceous rocks in the valley.
This site with eight tracks of dinosaur footprints from Late Cretaceous period,
located on one of the right banks of the Shirkent River, slightly above the village of the same name.
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The image is from a book "Nature and Ancients of Shirkent", issued by Academy of Science of Tajik SSR in 1991 |
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The image is from a book "Nature and Ancients of Shirkent", issued by Academy of Science of Tajik SSR in 1991 |
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The image is from a book "Nature and Ancients of Shirkent", issued by Academy of Science of Tajik SSR in 1991 |
Amonite Cleoniceras from Pamir Montains
Ammonites formally Ammonoidea, are subclass of extinct Cephalopoda.
This group of extinct marine mollusc are more closely related to living coleoids such as octopuses, squid, and
cuttlefish, than they are to shelled nautiloids such as the living Nautilus species.
The earliest ammonites appear during the Devonian Period (419 million years ago), and the last species vanished
in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction (66 million years ago) event.
Ammonites are excellent index fossils, because of their wide geographic distribution in shallow marine waters,
rapid evolution, and easily recognizable features, it is often possible to link the rock layer in which a particular species or
genus is found to specific geologic time periods.
Their fossil shells usually take the form of planispirals, although there were some helically spiraled and
nonspiraled forms (known as heteromorphs).
The
Its fossills are can be found in valleys of Pamir, in Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan.
Mammuthus meridionalis from Kayrakkum reservoir
Southern mammoth (Mammuthus meridionalis) is one of the oldest mammoth species that lived in Early Pleistocene (2.6-0.7 million years ago)
in Europe and Central Asia. This prehistric animal was one of the biggest in the Mammoth family and reached 4 meters high in a withers, with
estimated weight of 10 tonnes.
Fossil and teeths ananylis of Mammuthus meridionalis indicates that it does not seem to have specialised in eating
grasses like later species of mammoth, the Woolly Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) for example.
Its teeth were better adapted to eating leaves with the presence of ridges running atop of low crowns
The Southern mammoth was more at home in woodland habitats that had a variety of trees and shrubs that it could browse from.
Some bones and a skull of Mammuthus meridionalis discovered on the shore of the Kayarakkum Reservoir in summer 2013.
Estimated age of the fossil is about 1.5 million years. It was excavated and transported to Sughd Regional Museum where it is on dipslay now.
FDC | Mini Sheets | |
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