Paleontology terms Flashcards
Amniote
A tetrapod vertebrate that has eggs that can be laid on land removing the need to return to the water for spawning. Also the young hatch out formed like if not the same as the parents, bypassing the larval stage commonly seen in amphibians.
Amphibian
A creature that can exist in both land and water and will often share its time between the two.
Amphibious
Displaying the ability to live both in water and on the land, although this term is not exclusive to amphibians.
Ankylosaur
Any of the members of ankylosauria, the armored group of ornithiscian dinosaurs that appeared from the Jurassic to the Cretaceous.
Apex Predator
One that appears at the top of the food chain. Usually, they have no predators except possibly other and larger members of their own species.
Bipedal
A creature that primarily walks on two legs.
Cannibalism
The act of one creature eating another of its own species.
Ceratopsian
A group of dinosaurs that are characterized by having frills around their necks. They include dinosaurs such as Einiosaurus, Protoceratops and Zuniceratops.
Cetacean
A group of mammals that include dolphins, porpoises and whales.
Chordata
The phylum that all vertebrates belong too. A small number of invertebrates also belong to this group.
Coprolite
Coprolites are fossilised dung. They offer valuable insights into the diets of ancient animals, and can even come up with the fossilised remains of animals that had been eaten by predators.
Crocodilian
A term used to describe features that are similar to crocodiles, such as skin or jaws.
Diapsid
Reptiles that have two holes that form the temporal fenestra in their skulls. Diapsid means ‘two arches’. They first appeared 300 million years ago and today they include the birds, crocodiles, lizards, snakes and tuatara.
Digitigrade
This is where the metatarsals (foot bones) are arranged in a way to extend the length of the lower leg, providing more spring and a faster running gait. This is the opposite of plantigrade.
Dorsal
A descriptive word used when in reference to the back of an animal. For example, Dimetrodon had dorsal spines that formed a sail on its back.
Fenestrae
The openings inside of a skull that generally allow for the placement of soft tissues and organs such as eyes. There can be great variety in size and proportion from one species to another depending upon evolutional adaptations.
Gastrolith
Gastroliths are stones swallowed by animals to aid with the digestive process. They work by grinding plant matter inside of the stomach and are often found in animals that lack the ability to chew their food in their mouths.
Genus
A word used to describe an animal species, but can be further broken down to sub-species. Example; A Stegosaurus Stenops and a Stegosaurus ungulatus are slightly different to one another, but are both classed as Stegosaurus, and as such fall under the same genus. A Kentrosaurus on the other hand is a stegosaur, but different from Stegosaurus itself and as such is given its own genus that is different from Stegosaurus.
Gigantothermy
Gigantothermy is a term which is used to describe animals that are for lack of a better term cold blooded, but are more easily able to maintain a high body temperature due to the fact that they have a smaller body surface area to volume ratio. This is often seen in larger cold blooded animals today, and is thought by many to be applicable to extinct animals such as the larger dinosaurs, giving them a metabolism approaching that of a warm blooded creature. Gigantothermy is also referred to as ectothermic homeothermy.
Gondwana
A supercontinent that was formed from the southern half of the Pangaea supercontinent. It was composed of modern day, South America, Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Indian sub-continent, Australia, and Antarctica.
