Midterm 1 Flashcards
The age of the Earth has been estimated to be approximately:
4.6 BYA
The Paleozoic Era began approximately how many years ago?
550 MYA
The primary mechanism of Darwinian evolutionary theory is which of the following?
Natural selection based on inherent morphological variation.
Bone is unique to vertebrates. In which of the following vertebrate taxa did bone first evolve?
Agnathan (jawless) fishes
Franz Baron Nopsca, the eccentric Transylvanian aristocrat and pioneering paleontologist, is well known for which specific fossil finds?
His discovery and descriptions of miniature sauropods that lived on islands.
The major taxon of amniote vertebrates that includes mammals and their direct ancestors is/are known as the _ .
Synapsids
Living/extant archosaurs include which of the following vertebrate taxa?
Crocodilians & birds
The Mesozoic vertebrate is an animal less than 1 meter long.
Terrestrisuchus, a basal Triassic crocodilian.
The DIAPSID pattern of skull fenestration:
Sauropsids
Identify the correct dinosaurian species discovered in the Mongolian desert by Roy Chapman Andrew’s during the Central Asian Expeditions of the 1920’s.
Protoceratops
The bones that form the wrist of dinosaurs (and humans) are referred to as the
Carpal bones
Trackway evidence of sauropod (e.g., Brontosaurus, Brachiosaurus) dinosaurs that
Many sauropods were highly social and travelled in herds.
The evolutionary importance of nodes on this phylogeny of vertebrates is that those nodes represent a common ancestor that possessed a new character present in all the descendants of that organism.
True
The main driving force of Darwinian evolutionary theory is
Natural Selection
The chemical structure of bone is primarily composed of calcium carbonate
False
