Portal:Paleontology

The Palaeontology Portal

Introduction

Paleontology (/ˌpeɪliɒnˈtɒlədʒi, ˌpæli-, -ən-/ PAY-lee-on-TOL-ə-jee, PAL-ee-, -⁠ən-), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossils to classify organisms and study their interactions with each other and their environments (their paleoecology). Paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuvier's work on comparative anatomy, and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term has been used since 1822 formed from Greek παλαιός ('palaios', "old, ancient"), ὄν ('on', (gen. 'ontos'), "being, creature"), and λόγος ('logos', "speech, thought, study").

Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology, but it differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of anatomically modern humans. It now uses techniques drawn from a wide range of sciences, including biochemistry, mathematics, and engineering. Use of all these techniques has enabled paleontologists to discover much of the evolutionary history of life, almost all the way back to when Earth became capable of supporting life, nearly 4 billion years ago. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised sub-divisions, some of which focus on different types of fossil organisms while others study ecology and environmental history, such as ancient climates. (Full article...)

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Selected article on the prehistoric world and its legacies

Chitinozoa (singular: chitinozoan, plural: chitinozoans) are a taxon of flask-shaped, organic walled marine microfossils produced by an as yet unknown animal. Common from the Ordovician to Devonian periods (i.e. the mid-Paleozoic), the millimetre-scale organisms are abundant in almost all types of marine sediment across the globe. This wide distribution, and their rapid pace of evolution, makes them valuable biostratigraphic markers.

Their bizarre form has made classification and ecological reconstruction difficult. Since their discovery in 1931, suggestions of protist, plant, and fungalaffinities have all been entertained. The organisms have been better understood as improvements in microscopy facilitated the study of their fine structure, and there is mounting evidence to suggest that they represent either the eggs or juvenile stage of a marine animal.

The ecology of chitinozoa is also open to speculation; some may have floated in the water column, where others may have attached themselves to other organisms. Most species were particular about their living conditions, and tend to be most common in specific paleoenvironments. Their abundance also varied with the seasons.(see more...)

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Did you know?

... that biological anthropologist David Tab Rasmussen enjoyed working in the Neotropics because it allowed him to study both primates and birds, his two favorite subjects?
...that naturalist Remington Kellogg used his time serving in France during World War I to collect specimens for universities in the United States?
... that the extinct buthid scorpion Uintascorpio was first placed in the family Vaejovidae?
...that Cetartiodactyla is a hypothesis based on DNA that suggests whales and hippos are related?
... that the fossil maple species Acer kenaicum was suggested to be an ancestor of silver maples?

...that Archiinocellia is noted to be the only snakefly fossil genus from British Columbia and one of only two from Canada?
... that the extinct wasps Dryinus grimaldii and Dryinus rasnitsyni are distinguishable by the modified claws on their front legs?
... that the cat gap is a period in the fossil record (cat illustration pictured) of approximately 25 to 17 million years ago in which there were few cats or cat-like species?
... that the extinct horsetail Equisetum thermale grew in Jurassic hot springs?
... that Lepidotus was a genus of prehistoric fish that existed from the Late Triassic (Rhaetic) to the middle Cretaceous (Cenomanian)?

More did you know facts

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various paleontology-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Elmer Riggs and H.W. Menke in Field Columbian Museum's paleontology lab, 1899 (from History of paleontology)
Image 2Johann Jakob Scheuchzer tried to explain fossils using Biblical floods in his Herbarium of the Deluge (1709). (from History of paleontology)
Image 3Diagram by O.C. Marsh of the evolution of horse feet and teeth, reproduced in T. H. Huxley's 1876 book, Professor Huxley in America (from History of paleontology)
Image 4A complete Anomalocaris fossil from the Burgess shale (from History of paleontology)
Image 5Duria Antiquior – A more Ancient Dorset is a watercolor painted in 1830 by the geologist Henry De la Beche based on fossils found by Mary Anning. The late 18th and early 19th century was a time of rapid and dramatic changes in ideas about the history of life on earth. (from History of paleontology)
Image 6Illustration from William Smith's Strata by Organized Fossils (1817) (from History of paleontology)
Image 7A drawing comparing jaws was added in 1799 when Cuvier's 1796 presentation on living and fossil elephants was published. (from History of paleontology)
Image 8Fossil of the Taung child discovered in South Africa in 1924 (from History of paleontology)
Image 9First mention of the word palæontologie, as coined in January 1822 by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in his Journal de physique (from History of paleontology)
Image 10A Spriggina fossil from the Ediacaran (from History of paleontology)
Image 11Geologic time scale from an 1861 book by Richard Owen shows the appearance of major animal types. (from History of paleontology)
Image 12Photograph of the second Archaeopteryx skeleton to be found, taken in 1881 at the Natural History Museum, Berlin (from History of paleontology)
Image 13Illustration of fossil Iguanodon teeth with a modern iguana jaw for comparison from Mantell's 1825 paper describing Iguanodon (from History of paleontology)
Image 14Stephan Endlicher (from List of paleontologists)
Image 15Philippe-Charles Schmerling (from List of paleontologists)
Image 16Illustration from Steno's 1667 paper shows a shark head and its teeth along with a fossil tooth for comparison. (from History of paleontology)
Image 17Illustration of the fossil jaw of the Stonesfield mammal from Gideon Mantell's 1848 Wonders of Geology (from History of paleontology)

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Selected article on paleontology in human science, culture and economics

Holotype material of Creosaurus atrox, more recently known as Allosaurus atrox. — Holotype material of *Creosaurus atrox*, more recently known as *Allosaurus atrox*.

There have been a number of potential species assigned to the carnosaurian dinosaur genus Allosaurus since its description in 1877 by Othniel Charles Marsh, but only a handful are still regarded as valid. Allosaurus was originally described from material from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of the western United States of America; the type species A. fragilis became one of the best-known species of dinosaur.

The genus Allosaurus was part of the Marsh/Cope "Bone Wars" of the late 19th century, and its taxonomy became increasingly confused due to the competition, with several genera and species named by Cope and Marsh now regarded as synonyms of Allosaurus or A. fragilis. Since the description of Allosaurus, scientists have proposed additional species from such far-flung locales as Portugal, Siberia, Switzerland, and Tanzania, and unnamed remains from Australia and China have also been assigned to the genus at one time or another. (see more...)

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On this day...

May 20:

1902 - Oliver Bulman was born in London, England.
2002 - Stephen Jay Gould died of cancer in New York City, New York, USA at age 60.
2015 - Brandon R. Peecook and Christian A. Sidor reported the first non-avian dinosaur fossil discovered in the US state of Washington, a large theropod from the Campanian Cedar District Formation.
Lida Xing and others reinterpreted the Early Cretaceous small non-avian theropod ichnospecies Wupus agilis from China as the tracks of a heron-like bird.

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Selected image

Excavations at a fossil site called Gran Dolina, in Atapuerca, Spain, during 2008. The horizon receiving primary attention of this excavation is called TD-10, which is all that remains of a Homo heidelbergensis camp. Under the plank, a woman in a red sweatshirt is excavating the TD-6 horizon, where the first documented remains of Homo antecessor were discovered.
Photo credit: User:Mario modesto