Evidence of Vertebrate Life Flashcards
What is our closest non chordate relative
Sea star
Does carbon dating date the fossil itself?
No, dates rocks around it
Oldest living vertebrates
Cyclostomata (round mouth)
Lamprey and hagfishes (jawless fishes=Agnatha)
Have rudimentary vertebrae made of cartilage, not bone. Vertebrae only in embryo in hagfish.
Tetrapods
What is important about their limb bones
Vertebrate with four limbs or- like snakes, birds and whales are descended from vertebrate with four limbs
Limb bones of tetrapods are HOMOLOGOUS
Ray-finned fishes represent _____ of all fished today
95%
Coelacanth
Lobe-finned fish
Only 8 species live today
Our closest relative among fish
Have humerus!!
We last shared a common ancestor with coelacanth _____
400mya
Intermediate fossils of Tiktaalik
Lobe-finned fish (Eusthenopteron)
-385mya
Early tetrapod (acanthostega)
-365 mya
Between fish and tetrapod was needed
How to look for a specific fossil
- Use distribution of known fossils to determine when there was a gap in the fossil record
- Predict where rocks of that age (375mya) are exposed on earths surface
-type of rock
-age of Rock
-location of rock
Narrow range of conditions needed for a fossil to form
-most are consumed, trampled or beaten by weather that nothing is left to fossilize
-soft tissue organism are unlikely to fossilize
-fossil record can never be complete
-have to die in the right place (stream, lake or muddy area)
-fossils usually form when an organism is immediately cover by water (create sedimentary rocks)
-fossils in sedimentary rock are quickly worn away when exposed to the surface (sun, wind, rain)
What percent of dinosaur species is estimated to be known
<1%
Type of rock with most fossils
Sedimentary
High temp of igneous and pressures of metamorphic destroy animal remains
Radiometeic dating: carbon dating
Carbon dating can be used to directly date fossils or sedimentary rock
-carbon daring only works for fossils and rock less than -50,000years (carbon decays quickly)
Other radiometric dating isotopes
Potassium-argon 50,000-4.6Bya
Uranium-lead: 10m-4.6b
How palaeontologists predict where to find fossils
- Type of rock: sedimentary
- Age of rock: geological layer (time)
3.Location of rock exposed on Earths surface: disconnect between past and present (changing lane forms: mountains rise, erode). Need rock exposed on the planets surface, continental drift
Ellesmere Island and continental drift
365 mya during the Devonian period, island was on equator. Now it is 80.7°N
Home of Tiktaalik
Tiktaalik fish and tetrapod features
Large freshwater fish
Fish: scales, fills, delicate ray-finned tail
Tetrapod: flat head, eyes on top, neck moves (head free of shoulders), two wrist bones (Ulnare and intermedium) enable it to do a push up
What does Tiktaalik tell us about why limbs evolved
Anatomical features suggest Tiktaalik lived in water: gills, rays on tail, paddle shaped limbs probably used to pull itself along the shallow water.
Infer: bones that later formed a limb originated for life in water, not because they were useful to animals that already lived on land.
Cambrian explosion
541-515mya
-Sudden diversification of life early in the Cambrian
Pre Cambrian includes which eons
Archean and proterozoic eons
Hadean Eon
4.6bya to 4.0bya
-water present (4.0)
-earth forms; collisions with debris in solar system (4-3.8)
Volcanic eruptions, frequent collisions with other solar system bodies, extreme heat
Archean Eon
4.0-2.5bya
-single celled organism arise
-earth crust cooled
-prokaryotes only
-stromatolites, thermal microorganism
-oldest known bio markers
Stromatolites and when they appeared
Microbial mats; layers of Cyanobacteria and sediments.
-single celled but colonial
-first form of life visible to naked eye
-appeared in archean Eon 3.5bya
-prokaryotes we’re earths sole inhabitants
Deep sea thermal vent microorganisms date back to
3.8bya
-tubular microfossils
Archean
Bio markers
When are earliest found
Molecules produced by biological processes
Ex: DNA traces, lipids, carbon isotopes, oxygen, methane
3.7bya
When was an increase in oxygen found
Ancient rocks show sudden rise in O2 at 2.6by probably result of photosynthesis by Cyanobacteria
Proterozoic Eon
“Earlier life”
2.5bya-541mya (Cambrian)
-life in ocean dominated by microbes (free floating bacteria, hydrothermal vent single celled organisms, microbial mats)
-photosynthetic eukaryotes (algae) at oceans surface (1.6bya)
Eukaryotes arrive!
Eukaryotes
Nucleus surrounded by a membrane
Plants, animals, fungi and protists (single celled eukaryotes)
Toward the end of the Proterozoic eon, we see fossils of ______ and ______
Sponges and cnidarians (jellyfish)
Sponges are earliest evidence of animals (650mya)
When was the oldest evidence of animal tracks found (eon)
Proterozoic
585mya
Ediacaran period
635-541mya
First explosion of complex life
-invertebrates (probably)
-most were sedentary
-
Cambrian period
-eon
-date
-purpose
-explosion timeline
Phanerozoic eon
541-485mya
-moving animals, predators, decrease in ediacaran species
541mya -new life forms that we recognize today
When most of the phyla of animals that are still alive today appear! Include us the chordates!
Phanerozoic Eon
Visible life
541 mya-present
4 Eons
Hadean
Archean
Proterozoic
Phanerozoic
Animals that appeared during the Cambrian had a body plan similar to that of many invertebrates and vertebrates living today… including…
Bilateral symmetry
Heads and tails
Segmentation
Mobility
The first major excavation site for the Cambrian fauna was at…..
Burgess Shale, BC (Rockies)
Sea bed pushed upwards into mountains
Possible reasons for Cambrian explosion
-genetic revolution and movement (HOX)
-increase O2 permitted animals to be bigger
-arms race (predator-prey)
-increased nutrients due to sea level rise
Colonization of lane over time
Step by step
1bya-Cyanobacteria and photosynthetic prokaryotes in damp terrestrial locations
500mya-fungi, moss-like plants
450mya-arthropods were the first animal group
365mya-early tetrapods (first vertebrates on land
3 eras in the Phanerozoic era
Paleozoic
Mesozoic
Cenozoic
Paleozoic era
-cambrian explosion
-chordates and vertebrates appear
-Devonian: vertebrates move to land
-Permian mass extinction (252mya)
541mya-252mya
Mesozoic era
-k-pg mass extinction: 65.5mya, dinosaurs die (except birds)
-mammals live in shadows of dinosaurs
252-65.5mya
Cenozoic era
Recent
Mammals diversify
65.5mya-present
Mass extinctions
Catastrophes that influenced vertebrate evolution
Eliminate certain groups
Enable other groups to survive and diversify
5 identified since start of the Cambrian
End of Devonian extinctions
Extinction led to explosion of which groups
Two extinctions near the end of the Devonian (Paleozoic)
-last extinction eliminated 44% of jawed vertebrates, many lobed-finned fishes, and most of initial tetrapods
Expansion of ray-finned fishes and cartilaginous fishes
Permian extinction
Eliminated the largest proportion of species of any extinction to date. Referred to as “the day when life nearly died”
-during the last period of the Paleozoic era, with the Triassic periods of the Mesozoic era beginning. (252my)
-eliminated 57% of marine invertebrates (trilobites too), 95% of Marine vertebrates.
-massive volcanic activity led to runaway greenhouse gas effect with global warming and ocean acidification
Took 5 million years to recover
After recovery from the Permian extinction, what group took over
Dinosaurs
K-pg (KT) extinction
Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction
During end of Cretaceous period (end of Mesozoic era)
-most famous extinction
-large asteroid hitting earth (Yucatan peninsula)
-extinguished all non-again dinosaurs and other large vertebrates
-volcanic activity contributed
65.5mya
Following the K-pg extinction, what group took over
Mammals
Are we in the middle of the 6th mass extinction?
-habitat loss
-over hunting
-pollution
-increase co2 and green house gases
-ocean chemistry
Most current vertebrates are above the background extinction rate
Anthropocene
Present world
How humans have altered the world
Chordates share which important aspects of their body plan with bilateral invertebrates (clade Bilateria)
Bilateral symmetry
Anterior-posterior axis
Cephalization (anterior head, posterior anus)
Mobility
3 germ layers
Types of symmetry
-asymmetry (sponges)
-spherical symmetry (divide body in equal halves by any cut through center)
- radial symmetry (symmetry around central axis-hydras, jellyfish)
-bilateral symmetry (Sagittal cut makes mirror image-buts, fish)
LCA
Last common ancestor
When did the bilaterians arrive
600mya
Bilaterians have ____ germ layers
This means they are called ______
3
Triploblastic
Coelom
Body cavity within mesoderm
Do flatworms, nematodes, mollusks or annelids start the coelom
Nematodes
Which groups have a true coelom
Do molluscs count?
Annelids, arthropods, chordates
No, reduced coelom