Midterm 1 Flashcards
When did Dinosaurs live?
The Late Triassic to the early Cretaceous. About 230 million years ago to 66 million years ago.
Where did Dinosaurs live?
EVERYWHEREEEEE!
What years did the Triassic time period cover?
From about 250 - 213 million years ago-ish
When were Dinosaurs the dominant land animals?
The Jurassic
Why are animals mistaken for dinosaurs?
Because there were many reptilian species at the time from other family groups that shared similar features and characteristics.
How do paleontologists find new dinosaurs?
Finding bones themselves in the wild, using reports of amateurs, combing through bones in museums that have been found but not sorted, and using reports from other scientists about where bones have been found.
What factors need to be considered to find dinosaurs out in the wild?
Age of the rock, type of environment the rock was in (prehistorically), and type of rock that it is.
Why wouldn’t a paleontologist collect bones that they’ve found?
Because they may be damaged, may not be relevant to their research, or may be too common of a dinosaur (not significant enough).
They may also be too difficult to collect.
How do paleontologists expose dinosaur bones?
Explosions and stuff. Bulldozers. Hand digging with shovels and picks.
Usually dinosaur bones are not brushed off and carefully excavated from the rock until they’re back in the lab.
What is a scribe tool?
A small jackhammer used to remove rock from bones in the lab.
How are bones extracted from rock without doing damage?
Sometimes put in a burlap/plaster wrap until they can be carefully extracted in a lab.
Define ‘Curation’
Collecting and preserving dinosaur bones in a museum as well as the data associated with them. DATA collection of dinosaur bones.
What are some examples of data that a curator may collect?
Maps of where the bones were found, who found them, location of dig site info, who the bones were sold to, what type of bone it is, whether it was broken or intact, if it WAS broken they give information about HOW and WHEN that happened, etc.
What makes a specimen significant to the scientific community?
PUBLICATION. It means nothing unless research is done and published.
What is Geology?
The study of the earth and planets of a solar system (in any solar system).
What is Paleontology?
The study of ancient life. Any life, including plants and bugs.
What is another name for Paleontology?
Paleobiology.
Who coined the term “Dinosauria”?
Sir Richard Owen
When was the term “Dinosauria” first used?
1842
What three species did Dinosauria describe?
Megolosaurus, Iguanodon, Hylaesaurus
What does Dinosauria mean?
Terrible lizard/reptile.
Characteristics of a Dinosaur:
Reptiles, walk upright, walk on toes, land animals, open hip, large deltosomething crest, ankles only go forward and backward
Dinosaur Cladogram
Ancestral amniote - Reptiles - Diapsids - Archosaurs - Dinosaurs - Sauriscians - Saurischian dinosaurs other than birds
What two main groups does the Dinosaur clade split into?
Saurischians and Ornithischian
What clade do birds belong to?
Saurischians
What are some examples of Ornithiscians?
Triceratops, Duck-billed Dinosaur, Stegosaurus
What are some examples of Saurischians other than birds?
T-REX, Brontosaurus?
What is unique about the pubis in a Saurischian?
It sticks FORWARDDD
What are the main clade groups underneath the Archosaur line?
Crocodilians, Pterosaurs, and Dinosaurs
What are the main clade groups underneath the Diapsid line of a cladogram?
Lepidosaurs and Archosaurs
True or False: Ornithischian dinosaurs are related to birds.
False
True or False: Dinosaurs are Diapsids.
True, but not all Diapsids are dinosaurs
What drives evolution according to Darwin?
The environment!
Who were the two competing paleontologists of the 19th century?
Cope and Marsh
What led Darwin to think species changed over time as they adapted to their environments?
Similarities of English rats and Australian platypi, stuff found on Galapagos islands, and similarities of fossil sloths (a culmination of his own research on the Galapagos islands and the work of others he had read).
Where does oil and natural gas come from?
Algea and carbon that is preserved in rocks. It gets heated up and turns into oil and natural gas. I think. Unclear in class.
What was the first named dinosaur?
Megolosaurus - but the term ‘dinosaur’ didn’t exist yet.
Who named the first dinosaur?
William Buckland in 1824
Who discovered the Iguanodon and when?
Gideon Mantell in 1825
Why did Iguanodon get its name?
Because its teeth were very similar to a modern Iguana’s teeth.
Was an Iguanodon an Ornithischian or Saurischian dinosaur?
Ornithischian
Who was the famous dinosaur artist in the 19th century?
Hawkins
Who found Hylaesaurus and when?
Gideon Mantell in 1833
What characteristics did Richard Owen use to identify Dinosaurs?
Mammal-like feet, teeth set in sockets, 5 fused vertebrae in the pelvis, two headed ribs, complex shoulders, hollow limb-bones.
Overall, he felt they were mammal-like with similar hearts and lungs.
What Dinosaur did Hawkins create a life-size concrete statue of?
Iguanodon
What was the primary dinosaur artist of the 20th century?
Charles Knight
Who was Joseph Leidy?
A North American paleontologist (one of the first) that lived from 1823-1891. May have discovered the first dinosaur bones on that continent.
Deinodon teeth, trachodon teeth, etc.
What were the first dinosaur fragments found in North America, and by whom?
Deinodon teeth and trachodon teeth in Montana by Joseph Leidy.
What was the first dinosaur found in North America
Hadrosaurus in 1865 by Leidy.
What was the significance of Hadrosaurus?
Leidy determined it was bipedal. This was a first.
When and where were the first complete dinosaur skeletons found?
Belgium in 1878 in a coal mine. Complete skeletons of several Iguanodons.
What were the issues with Hawkins’ renditions of dinosaurs in the 1850’s.
They were based on incomplete skeletons and they were under the assumption that dinosaurs were dumb slow lizards.
What is pseudoscience?
Claims that something is scientific or factual but hasn’t used the scientific method.
What is science?
Science is storytelling. It’s a way of thinking.
What is science rule number 1?
Reproducibility - somebody else must be able to reproduce the results by copying your methods.
What is science rule number 2?
Predictive power - hypotheses that can be tested
What is science rule number 3?
Process for Improvement - Discoveries and research should be up for constant evaluation and review.
What is science rule number 4?
Naturalism - explanations should appeal to natural forces and avoid the supernatural.
What is science rule number 5?
Uniformatarianism - The laws of nature have always been the same and will continue to be the same.
What is science rule number 6?
Simplicity (parsimony) - scientists assume that the natural order of hte universe is simple enough to be understood by humans.
What is science rule number 7?
Harmony - new observations/results should not contradict previous ones.
What is scientism?
The belief that the scientific method is the only way to get truth from the universe (as opposed to revelation or the supernatural).
What is the Church’s official stance on evolution?
We don’t know.
What was the Church’s past view about science?
They were a little averse to it at first, but we’ve become a very “scientific” people with many general authorities becoming scientists in their work life.
Who said that religions should worship a “great God” and not limit him to a simplistic universe?
Carl Sagan
What is the unifying concept of biology?
Organic Evolution
What is the unifying concept of geology?
Currently it’s tectonic plates
What are the two contrasting views of evolution of diversity of species?
- Creation of diverse species in a short period of time (religious based)
- Slow development of species through deep time (evolution)
Who was Georges Cuvier?
He was a French anatomist who developed and centralized the theory of extinction. Before him, people thought God would never destroy a “perfect” creation. Georges found bones of animals that no longer existed and realized that there were destructive events that forced species into extinction and other “creation events” that made species more similar to the ones we have today. 1769 - 1832
What percentage of Earth’s life forms are extinct?
99.9%
What is a mass extinction?
When more than 50% of Earth’s species go extinct in a short geological period of time.
What is “creation science”?
When people try to fit all of scientific discoveries into context of the bible. Also known as Young earthers.
How did we discover that species have become more complex over time?
In younger rock layers, we see species that are similar to species today, in older rock layers, we find fossils that are more simplistic and different.
Who was Jean Baptiste de Lamarcke?
1731 - 1802
French botanist and biologist. Came up with the idea that when organisms used features, those features adapted better to their environment, and disused features were evolved out.
What is the Theory of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics?
Use vs. Disuse. Lamarcke
The force that drives organisms from sipmle to complex
Environment drives adaptation
Each parent passes on only the most useful features to their children
Cumulative improvement through time
What were some of the conflicts of the 1800’s Science vs. Religion debate?
- No evidence of a world-wide flood
- Deep age of earth
- Did man descend from apes?
- Fossil men being found
- Origin of man
What was Charles’ Lyell’s significance?
He influenced Darwin’s way of thinking. Lyell believed in deep time, earth was dynamic, not static
What is Nature’s War?
A theory of Candolle’s that says different species of plants are constantly competing for resources.
Who was Thomas Malthus?
1798 - Principle of Population - basically saying that resources in the area of an environment will determine evolution. Not all animals will live to maturity because of limited resources. Humans can’t make enough food to support themselves -we ‘re all gonna die
When did Natural Selection get coined by Darwin?
1859
What are the two hypotheses of Darwin for how organisms change ove time?
- Descent with modification
- Natural selection
Who was Gregor Mendel?
The pea guy (1834 - 1884)
Heredity and genetics, the way traits are passed down
Who developed the structure of a DNA molecule?
Watson and Crick (stole the work cuz they’re bad people)
What are the 4 basic units of DNA?
Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine, Thymine
Define Sympatric speciation
Change of entire population
Define Allopatric speciation
isolation of part of a population, leading to a new species
Define Divergent
Species that develop from a common ancestor.
ex. Parent group splits into two daughter groups
Define Convergent
Different species that develop similar characteristics like the flight of bats and birds)
What is the cause of convergence?
Adaptation to similar environments by different species.
What is the bane of cladistics?
Convergence - Because similar traits are what is used to define familial groups. Convergence creates similarities where there aren’t any.
What’s another name for Homology?
Synapomorphy
What is homology?
Shared derived structures (features that come from a common ancestor, divergent traits).
What is the opposite of homology?
Analogy or Homoplasy
What is Analogy or homoplasy?
Features that are superficially similar but originated from different origins (convergent traits).
What is Carl Linnaeus known for?
He made the Linnaean system for classifying animals (King Philiip cut off his favorite guard’s skull). Two word-latin names. He was a biologist .
Who created the Phylogenetic system of classification?
Willi Hennig - German
What is the purpose of “scoring” dinosaur characteristics? (what does it relate to?)
It is related to finding out which dinosaurs are related (phylogeny). Basically a computer scores each species to see whether they test positive or negative for a certain trait. The more traits two dinosaur species have in common, the more closely related they are.
True or False: The core taxa for naming dinosaurs are the Genus and Species in the Linnaean system.
True.
