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Vertebrate paleontology

April 13, 2024

For the book by Michael Benton, see Vertebrate Palaeontology (book). For the book by Alfred Romer, see Vertebrate Paleontology (book).

Vertebrate paleontology is the subfield of paleontology that seeks to discover, through the study of fossilized remains, the behavior, reproduction and appearance of extinct vertebrates (animals with vertebrae and their descendants). It also tries to connect, by using the evolutionary timeline, the animals of the past and their modern-day relatives.

Paleontologists at work at the dinosaur site of Lo Hueco (Cuenca, Spain)

The fossil record shows aspects of the meandering evolutionary path from early aquatic vertebrates to modern fish as well as mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, with a host of transitional fossils, though there are still large blank areas. The earliest known fossil vertebrates were heavily armored fish discovered in rocks from the Ordovician period about 485 to 444 Ma (megaannum, million years ago), with jawed vertebrates emerging in the following Silurian period (444 to 419 Ma) with the placoderms and acanthodians. The Devonian period (419 to 359 Ma) saw primitive air-breathing fish to develop limbs allowing them to walk on land, thus becoming the first terrestrial vertebrates, the stegocephalians.

Romer's gap in the early Carboniferous period (359 to 299 Ma) left little of the early stegocephalians, but allowed vertebrates more adapted to life on land to flourish in their wake. Crown-group tetrapods appeared in the early Carboniferous, with temnospondyls dominating the ecosystem and becoming the first land vertebrate megafauna. A lineage of reptiliomorphs developed a metabolism better suited for life exclusively on land, as well as a novel form of reproduction freeing them from the water: the amniotic egg, with full-fledged amniotes appearing in the mid-Carboniferous. Sharks and their holocephalian relatives flourished in the seas, while rivers were dominated by lobe-finned fish like rhizodonts.

During the Permian period (299 to 252 Ma), one of the two major branches of amniotes, the synapsids, flourished, with derived therapsids taking over in the middle of the period. The Great Dying wiped out most of the synapsid diversity, with archosaurs, emerging from the other sauropsid branch, replacing many of them in the Triassic period (252 to 201 Ma). Lissamphibians, modern amphibians, likely arose around that time from temnospondyls. True mammals, derived from cynodont therapsids, showed up in the Middle Triassic around the same time as the dinosaurs, who emerged from a clade of archosaurs. At the same time, ray-finned fish diversified, leading to teleost fish dominating the seas.

Ancestral birds (Avialae) like Archaeopteryx[1] first evolved from dinosaurs during the Jurassic, with crown-group birds (Neornithes) emerging in the Cretaceous between 100 Ma and 60 Ma.[2]

The K-Pg mass extinction wiped out many vertebrate clades, including the pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, mosasaurs and nearly all dinosaurs, leaving many ecological niches open. While therian mammals had already evolved in the Late Jurassic, they would rise to prominence in the Paleogene following the mass extinction and remain to this day, although squamates and birds still lead in diversity.

History edit

One of the people who helped figure out the vertebrate progression was French zoologist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832), who realized that fossils found in older rock strata differed greatly from more recent fossils or modern animals. He published his findings in 1812 and, although he steadfastly refuted evolution, his work proved the (at the time) contested theory of extinction of species.[3]

Thomas Jefferson is credited with initiating the science of vertebrate paleontology in the United States with the reading of a paper to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia in 1797. Jefferson presented fossil bones of a ground sloth found in a cave in western Virginia and named the genus (Megalonyx). The species was ultimately named Megalonyx jeffersonii in his honor.[4][5][6] Jefferson corresponded with Cuvier, including sending him a shipment of highly desirable bones of the American mastodon and the woolly mammoth.[7]

Paleontology really got started though, with the publication of Recherches sur les poissons fossiles (1833–1843) by Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz (1807–1873). He studied, described and listed hundreds of species of fossil fish, beginning the serious study into the lives of extinct animals. With the publication of the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859, the field got a theoretical framework. Much of the subsequent work has been to map the relationship between fossil and extant organisms, as well as their history through time.

In modern times, Alfred Romer (1894–1973) wrote what has been termed the definitive textbook on the subject, called Vertebrate Paleontology.[8] It shows the progression of evolution in fossil fish, and amphibians and reptiles through comparative anatomy, including a list of all the (then) known fossil vertebrate genera. Romer became the first president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 1940, alongside co-founder Howard Chiu. An updated work that largely carried on the tradition from Romer, and by many considered definitive book on the subject was written by Robert L. Carroll of McGill University, the 1988 text Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. Carroll was president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 1983. The Society keeps its members informed on the latest discoveries through newsletters and the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Classification edit

 
Classical spindle diagram of the evolution of the vertebrates at class level

The "traditional" vertebrate classification scheme employ evolutionary taxonomy where several of the taxa listed are paraphyletic, i.e. have given rise to another taxa that have been given the same rank. For instance, birds are generally considered to be the descendants of reptiles (Saurischian dinosaurs to be precise), but in this system both are listed as separate classes. Under phylogenetic nomenclature, such an arrangement is unacceptable, though it offers excellent overview.

This classical scheme is still used in works where systematic overview is essential, e.g. Benton (1998), Hildebrand and Goslow (2001) and Knobill and Neill (2006).[9][10][11] While mostly seen in general works, it is also still used in some specialist works like Fortuny & al. (2011).[12]

Kingdom Animalia

The oVert Thematic Collections Network edit

The oVert (openVertebrate) Thematic Collection Network (TCN) is a project that aims to generate and distribute high-resolution digital three-dimensional data for internal anatomy across vertebrate diversity. The project will CT-scan over 20,000 fluid-preserved specimens, representing more than 80% of the living genera of vertebrates, at a network of digitization centers across the US. This collection of digital imagery and three-dimensional volumes will be open for exploration, download, and use to address questions related to the discovery of new species, documenting patterns of anatomical diversity and growth, and testing hypotheses of function and evolution.[13]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Kundrát, Martin; Nudds, John; Kear, Benjamin P.; Lü, Junchang; Ahlberg, Per (24 October 2018). "The first specimen of Archaeopteryx from the Upper Jurassic Mörnsheim Formation of Germany". Historical Biology. 31: 3–63. doi:10.1080/08912963.2018.1518443. S2CID 91497638. Retrieved 13 August 2022.
  2. ^ Hackett, S.J., Kimball, R.T., Reddy, S., Bowie, R.C.K., Braun, E.L., Braun, M.J., Chojnowski, J.L., Cox, W.A., Han, K-L., Harshman, J., Huddleston, C.J., Marks, B.D., Miglia, K.J., Moore, W.S., Sheldon, F.H., Steadman, D.W., Witt, C.C. and Yuri T. (2008) A phylogenomic study of birds reveals their evolutionary history. Science. 320: 1763-1768.
  3. ^ Rudwick, Martin. Georges Cuvier, Fossil Bones, and Geological Catastrophes, (Chicago: Chicago University Press), 1997.
  4. ^ Jefferson, Thomas, "A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia", Read before the American Philosophical Society, March 10, 1797. The "certain bones" consisted of three large claws and associated smaller bones. He theorized that they were the remains of an extinct lion which he named Megalonyx ("giant claw"). In 1799, Dr. Caspar Wistar correctly identified the remains as belonging to a giant ground sloth. In 1822 Wistar officially named it Megalonyx jeffersonii.
  5. ^ Jefferson, Thomas (1799), "A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia", Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 4 pp. 246-260.
  6. ^ Wistar, Caspar (1799), "A Description of the Bones Deposited, by the President, in the Museum of the Society, and Represented in the Annexed Plates", Transactions, pp. 526-531, plates.
  7. ^ Rice, Howard C, Jr., "Jefferson's Gift of Fossils to the Museum of Natural History in Paris," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 95 (1958): 597-627.
  8. ^ Smith, C.H. (2005): Romer, Alfred Sherwood (United States 1894-1973), homepage from Western Kentucky University
  9. ^ Benton, M. J. (1998). "The quality of the fossil record of vertebrates". In Donovan, S. K.; Paul, C. R. C. (eds.). The adequacy of the fossil record. New York: Wiley. Fig. 2.
  10. ^ Hildebrand, M.; Goslow, G. E. Jr. (2001). Analysis of vertebrate structure. Principal ill. Viola Hildebrand. New York: Wiley. p. 429. ISBN 0-471-29505-1.
  11. ^ Neill, J.D., ed. (2006). Knobil and Neill’s Physiology of Reproduction. Vol. 2 (3rd ed.). Academic Press. p. 2177.
  12. ^ Fortuny J, Bolet A, Sellés AG, Cartanyà J, Galobart À (2011). (PDF). Journal of Iberian Geology. 37 (1): 65–86. doi:10.5209/rev_JIGE.2011.v37.n1.5. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 17, 2011.
  13. ^ "The oVert Thematic Collections Network // MorphoSource". www.morphosource.org. Retrieved 2024-03-12.

Further reading edit

  • Anderson, Jason S.; Sues, Hans-Dieter, eds. (2007). Major Transitions in Vertebrate Evolution. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253349262.
  • Carroll, Robert L. (1997). Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521478090.

April 13, 2024
vertebrate, paleontology, book, michael, benton, vertebrate, palaeontology, book, book, alfred, romer, vertebrate, paleontology, book, subfield, paleontology, that, seeks, discover, through, study, fossilized, remains, behavior, reproduction, appearance, extin. For the book by Michael Benton see Vertebrate Palaeontology book For the book by Alfred Romer see Vertebrate Paleontology book Vertebrate paleontology is the subfield of paleontology that seeks to discover through the study of fossilized remains the behavior reproduction and appearance of extinct vertebrates animals with vertebrae and their descendants It also tries to connect by using the evolutionary timeline the animals of the past and their modern day relatives Paleontologists at work at the dinosaur site of Lo Hueco Cuenca Spain The fossil record shows aspects of the meandering evolutionary path from early aquatic vertebrates to modern fish as well as mammals birds reptiles and amphibians with a host of transitional fossils though there are still large blank areas The earliest known fossil vertebrates were heavily armored fish discovered in rocks from the Ordovician period about 485 to 444 Ma megaannum million years ago with jawed vertebrates emerging in the following Silurian period 444 to 419 Ma with the placoderms and acanthodians The Devonian period 419 to 359 Ma saw primitive air breathing fish to develop limbs allowing them to walk on land thus becoming the first terrestrial vertebrates the stegocephalians Romer s gap in the early Carboniferous period 359 to 299 Ma left little of the early stegocephalians but allowed vertebrates more adapted to life on land to flourish in their wake Crown group tetrapods appeared in the early Carboniferous with temnospondyls dominating the ecosystem and becoming the first land vertebrate megafauna A lineage of reptiliomorphs developed a metabolism better suited for life exclusively on land as well as a novel form of reproduction freeing them from the water the amniotic egg with full fledged amniotes appearing in the mid Carboniferous Sharks and their holocephalian relatives flourished in the seas while rivers were dominated by lobe finned fish like rhizodonts During the Permian period 299 to 252 Ma one of the two major branches of amniotes the synapsids flourished with derived therapsids taking over in the middle of the period The Great Dying wiped out most of the synapsid diversity with archosaurs emerging from the other sauropsid branch replacing many of them in the Triassic period 252 to 201 Ma Lissamphibians modern amphibians likely arose around that time from temnospondyls True mammals derived from cynodont therapsids showed up in the Middle Triassic around the same time as the dinosaurs who emerged from a clade of archosaurs At the same time ray finned fish diversified leading to teleost fish dominating the seas Ancestral birds Avialae like Archaeopteryx 1 first evolved from dinosaurs during the Jurassic with crown group birds Neornithes emerging in the Cretaceous between 100 Ma and 60 Ma 2 The K Pg mass extinction wiped out many vertebrate clades including the pterosaurs plesiosaurs mosasaurs and nearly all dinosaurs leaving many ecological niches open While therian mammals had already evolved in the Late Jurassic they would rise to prominence in the Paleogene following the mass extinction and remain to this day although squamates and birds still lead in diversity Contents 1 History 2 Classification 3 The oVert Thematic Collections Network 4 See also 5 References 6 Further readingHistory editOne of the people who helped figure out the vertebrate progression was French zoologist Georges Cuvier 1769 1832 who realized that fossils found in older rock strata differed greatly from more recent fossils or modern animals He published his findings in 1812 and although he steadfastly refuted evolution his work proved the at the time contested theory of extinction of species 3 Thomas Jefferson is credited with initiating the science of vertebrate paleontology in the United States with the reading of a paper to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia in 1797 Jefferson presented fossil bones of a ground sloth found in a cave in western Virginia and named the genus Megalonyx The species was ultimately named Megalonyx jeffersonii in his honor 4 5 6 Jefferson corresponded with Cuvier including sending him a shipment of highly desirable bones of the American mastodon and the woolly mammoth 7 Paleontology really got started though with the publication of Recherches sur les poissons fossiles 1833 1843 by Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz 1807 1873 He studied described and listed hundreds of species of fossil fish beginning the serious study into the lives of extinct animals With the publication of the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859 the field got a theoretical framework Much of the subsequent work has been to map the relationship between fossil and extant organisms as well as their history through time In modern times Alfred Romer 1894 1973 wrote what has been termed the definitive textbook on the subject called Vertebrate Paleontology 8 It shows the progression of evolution in fossil fish and amphibians and reptiles through comparative anatomy including a list of all the then known fossil vertebrate genera Romer became the first president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 1940 alongside co founder Howard Chiu An updated work that largely carried on the tradition from Romer and by many considered definitive book on the subject was written by Robert L Carroll of McGill University the 1988 text Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution Carroll was president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 1983 The Society keeps its members informed on the latest discoveries through newsletters and the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology Classification edit nbsp Classical spindle diagram of the evolution of the vertebrates at class levelThe traditional vertebrate classification scheme employ evolutionary taxonomy where several of the taxa listed are paraphyletic i e have given rise to another taxa that have been given the same rank For instance birds are generally considered to be the descendants of reptiles Saurischian dinosaurs to be precise but in this system both are listed as separate classes Under phylogenetic nomenclature such an arrangement is unacceptable though it offers excellent overview This classical scheme is still used in works where systematic overview is essential e g Benton 1998 Hildebrand and Goslow 2001 and Knobill and Neill 2006 9 10 11 While mostly seen in general works it is also still used in some specialist works like Fortuny amp al 2011 12 Kingdom Animalia Phylum Chordata vertebrates Class Agnatha jawless fish Subclass Cyclostomata hagfish and lampreys Subclass Ostracodermi armoured jawless fish Class Chondrichthyes cartilaginous fish Subclass Elasmobranchii sharks and rayes Subclass Holocephali chimaeras and extinct relatives Class Placodermi armoured fish Class Acanthodii spiny sharks sometimes classified under bony fishes Class Osteichthyes bony fish Subclass Actinopterygii Subclass Sarcopterygii Class Amphibia Subclass Labyrinthodontia Subclass Lepospondyli Subclass Lissamphibia Class Reptilia Subclass Anapsida Order Cotylosauria Order Testudines Subclass Synapsida Order Pelycosauria Order Therapsida Subclass Euryapsida Order Sauropterygia Order Ichthyosauria Subclass Diapsida lizards amp snakes too Order Crocodilia crocodiles alligators etc Order Sphenodontia Tuatara and relatives Order Squamata Lizards and snakes Order Thecodonts Order Pterosauria Order Saurischia dinosaurs Order Ornithischia dinosaurs Class Aves Subclass Archaeornithes primitive dinosaur like birds like Archaeopteryx Subclass Neornithes modern birds and some advanced Cretaceous forms Superorder Odontognathae Cretaceous toothed birds Superorder Palaeognathae ratites Superorder Neognathae All other extant birds Class Mammalia Subclass Prototheria Order Monotremata platypus and the echidnas Subclass Theria Infraclass Metatheria Order Marsupialia kangaroos dunnarts opossums wombats etc Infraclass Eutheria placentals Order Insectivora Order Chiroptera bats Order Creodonta Order Carnivora dogs cats Order Perissodactyla horses Order Artiodactyla cattle and other ungulates Order Proboscidea elephants Order Edentata Order Cetacea whales and dolphins Order Rodentia mice rats etc Order Lagomorpha rabbits Order Primates monkeys apes and primates The oVert Thematic Collections Network editThe oVert openVertebrate Thematic Collection Network TCN is a project that aims to generate and distribute high resolution digital three dimensional data for internal anatomy across vertebrate diversity The project will CT scan over 20 000 fluid preserved specimens representing more than 80 of the living genera of vertebrates at a network of digitization centers across the US This collection of digital imagery and three dimensional volumes will be open for exploration download and use to address questions related to the discovery of new species documenting patterns of anatomical diversity and growth and testing hypotheses of function and evolution 13 See also edit nbsp Paleontology portalEvolution of fish Evolution of mammals Evolution of reptilesReferences edit Kundrat Martin Nudds John Kear Benjamin P Lu Junchang Ahlberg Per 24 October 2018 The first specimen of Archaeopteryx from the Upper Jurassic Mornsheim Formation of Germany Historical Biology 31 3 63 doi 10 1080 08912963 2018 1518443 S2CID 91497638 Retrieved 13 August 2022 Hackett S J Kimball R T Reddy S Bowie R C K Braun E L Braun M J Chojnowski J L Cox W A Han K L Harshman J Huddleston C J Marks B D Miglia K J Moore W S Sheldon F H Steadman D W Witt C C and Yuri T 2008 A phylogenomic study of birds reveals their evolutionary history Science 320 1763 1768 Rudwick Martin Georges Cuvier Fossil Bones and Geological Catastrophes Chicago Chicago University Press 1997 Jefferson Thomas A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia Read before the American Philosophical Society March 10 1797 The certain bones consisted of three large claws and associated smaller bones He theorized that they were the remains of an extinct lion which he named Megalonyx giant claw In 1799 Dr Caspar Wistar correctly identified the remains as belonging to a giant ground sloth In 1822 Wistar officially named it Megalonyx jeffersonii Jefferson Thomas 1799 A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia Transactions of the American Philosophical Society Vol 4 pp 246 260 Wistar Caspar 1799 A Description of the Bones Deposited by the President in the Museum of the Society and Represented in the Annexed Plates Transactions pp 526 531 plates Rice Howard C Jr Jefferson s Gift of Fossils to the Museum of Natural History in Paris Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 95 1958 597 627 Smith C H 2005 Romer Alfred Sherwood United States 1894 1973 homepage from Western Kentucky University Benton M J 1998 The quality of the fossil record of vertebrates In Donovan S K Paul C R C eds The adequacy of the fossil record New York Wiley Fig 2 Hildebrand M Goslow G E Jr 2001 Analysis of vertebrate structure Principal ill Viola Hildebrand New York Wiley p 429 ISBN 0 471 29505 1 Neill J D ed 2006 Knobil and Neill s Physiology of Reproduction Vol 2 3rd ed Academic Press p 2177 Fortuny J Bolet A Selles AG Cartanya J Galobart A 2011 New insights on the Permian and Triassic vertebrates from the Iberian Peninsula with emphasis on the Pyrenean and Catalonian basins PDF Journal of Iberian Geology 37 1 65 86 doi 10 5209 rev JIGE 2011 v37 n1 5 Archived from the original PDF on May 17 2011 The oVert Thematic Collections Network MorphoSource www morphosource org Retrieved 2024 03 12 Further reading editAnderson Jason S Sues Hans Dieter eds 2007 Major Transitions in Vertebrate Evolution Bloomington Ind Indiana University Press ISBN 978 0253349262 Carroll Robert L 1997 Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution New York Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0521478090 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Vertebrate paleontology amp oldid 1213349148, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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