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121 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Late Proterozoic supercontinent |
Rodinia |
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The group of mammals that returned to the sea as the top marine carnivores of the Eocene |
Basilosaurus |
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a genus of Permian diapsids that lived in lakes on Gondwana |
Mesosaurus |
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A general term fro ecological strategies that evolved repeatedly (e.g. browsers, top carnivores) |
Guilds |
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the oldest of Sepkoski's three marine faunas characterized by ambush predators and tiers of armoured filter-feeders |
Paleozoic |
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most important group of flying vertebrates in the Jurassic |
Pterosaurs |
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a sea-side section in Nova Scotia where early reptiles are preserved inside the trunks of lycopod trees |
Joggins |
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the result of a test tube experiment in which a QB virus was given a constant supply of nucleotides and replicase enzyme |
Spiegelman Monster |
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the biotic event triggered by the docking of North and South America in the Pliocene |
The Great American Interchange |
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the large flightless bird from New Zealand that went extinct 500 years ago |
Moa |
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the continent whose breakaway from Antarctica 38 million years ago isolated a marsupial fauna and led to a global change in climate |
Australia |
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a term to refer to solar output during the Archean |
Faint Young Sun |
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a keystone ecological role of elephants, rhinos and mammoths |
megaherbivores |
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what agnathans lacked |
jaws |
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the major early Paleozoic diversification event caused by the emergence of skeletons and brains |
Cambrian Explosion |
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the now discredited view that brontosaurs spent their lives nearly totally submerged in water to support their bulk |
Snorkeling Brontosaur |
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an extinct group of mainly Paleocene arboreal mammals that may represent early primates or an evolutionary branch just before the primates |
plesiadiapsids |
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the continent that represented the cradle of evolution for the horses |
North America |
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why reptiles could completely leave the water |
cleidoic egg |
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First (oldest) period of the Mesozoic |
Triassic |
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the first (oldest) epoch of the Cenozoic |
Paleocene |
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the first epoch of the neogene commonly known as "The Age of Horses" |
Miocene |
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the warmest epoch in the Cenozoic marked by the "Fossil Forest" on Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian Arctic |
Eocene |
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the period in which oxygen levels may have greatly exceeded modern levels |
Carboniferous |
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the period in which collision between NA and Europe produced the complex terrestrial, fresh water, and marginal marine environments in which early vertebrates and pants evolved |
Devonian |
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the period in which shelly organisms teemed in the epeiric seas that covered the present day location of Kingston |
Ordovician |
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the period marked by the super predator Anomalocaris the strange five eyed creature Opabinia and the worlds oldest trilobites and chordates |
Cambrian |
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the "Age of Crocodiles" |
Triassic |
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the period of giant coal swamps and the early diversification of reptiles |
Carboniferous |
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the period when life got big after three billion years of mostly microbial evolution |
Ediacaran |
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the epoch that marked the beginning of the Neogene Icehouse |
Eocene |
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the age of stromatolites |
Proterozoic |
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the age range of Pangea |
200-300Ma |
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age of earth in Ma |
4600Ma |
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the geological period from 200-145 Ma that marks the age of the Solnhofen Limestone, the origin of birds and tyrannosaurs and the name of a major motion picture released last summer |
Jurassic |
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A Mesozoic group of small agile dolphin like marine reptiles that give birth to live young at sea |
Ichtheosaurus |
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the oldest of sepkoski's three marine faunas that are characterized by trilobites and other mud grubbers |
Cambrian |
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why it is unlikely that life could not exist on the surface of the earth prior to 3.8 Ga |
the great bombardment |
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the highest level, suspension feeder amongst the fossils in the Kingston area |
Crinoids? |
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a general name for biotas that immediately follow mass extinctions (characterized by stromatolites in the marine realm, ferns and weeds on land |
Disaster Biotas |
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the most important group of flying vertebrates in the Jurassic |
Pterosaurs |
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a Chinese fossil Lagerstatte that has yielded numerous critical fossils including feathered dinos and the oldest marsupials and placentals |
Jehol (Liaoning) |
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the simplest living mammals represented by the living platypus and fossil representives back to the Jurassic that have milk and fur but reproduce by laying eggs |
monotremes |
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a method of classification that directly measures the degree of genetic difference between two taxa |
Molecular Phylogeny |
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a general term for a concentration of platinum group elements in a thin layer |
Iridium Anomaly |
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the name for a partially arboreal biped that lived 4.4 million years ago and represents the beginning of the transition to modern, ground-dwelling, bipedal hominids |
Ardi |
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the hominid genus believed to gave made the tracks at Laetoli 3.6 Ma |
Australopithicus |
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the informal name of a 2.5 million year old skull of a juvenile Australopithicus from South Africa that significantly extended the hominid fossil record when it was found in the early 20th century |
Taung Child |
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the species of homo that utilized Acheulian tools |
Homo Erectus |
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the atmospheric/ oceanographic event that let life get big 580 million years ago |
Oxygen Revolution |
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a dino that may have hunted in a manner similar to that of the modern Komodo dragon |
T-Rex |
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the period marked by widespread forests of lycopods and seed ferns in which the first reptiles lived |
Carboniferous |
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the epoch in which savannah ecosystems dominated western NA |
Miocene |
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the period that marks the greatest evolutionary radiation ('Explosion") of animals |
Cambrian |
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the "Age of Fishes" and first true forests |
Devonian |
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the age of the end of the Ediacaran and the beginning of the Phanerozoic |
540Ma |
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the age of the first appearance of the genus Homo |
2.5Ma |
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a continent twhose mammalian carnivores were predominantly marsupials but whose large herbivores were mainly placentals |
South America |
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the continent that represented the cradle of evolution of early placental mammals |
Asia |
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an early super continent whose assembly 2 billion years ago provided the stable base for the proliferation of oxygen-producing cyanobacterial stromatolites |
Nuna |
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the continent that represented the cradle of evolution for early hominids |
Africa |
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the paleogeographic home of Mesosaurus and Glossopteris |
Gondwana |
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the common name for the "monogenesis" theory of human origins |
Out of Africa |
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the scientific name of the world's first bird, from the Jurassic of Germany |
Archeopteryx |
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a layered colony of cyanobacteria, typical of Proterozoic shallow water deposits |
Stromatolites |
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A Cambrian Lagerstatte from BC with Marella, Opabinia and Anomalocaris |
Burgress Shale |
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a method of dating the origin of a lineage by comparing changes in DNA with those determined from a well-dated part of its lineage |
Relative Dating? |
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the term that refers to the odd-toe ungulates including horses and rhinos |
perissodactyis |
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an isotope of carbon that is especially useful for dating organic materials less than 50000 years old |
Carbon 14 |
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a general term for shallow seas that covered the continents during times of high sea level, including the ordovician of the Kingston area |
epeiric |
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the evolutionary event that lead to the first animal predators and scavengers in earth history |
Cambrian Explosion |
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A clade of placental mammals that includes morphologically disparate creatures (e.g elephants, hyraxes, aardvarks, and manatees) that are united in their african origins and by similarities in their DNA |
Afrotheria |
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the period that ended with the greatest mass extinction in earth history |
Permian |
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the epoch that ended with "La Grande Coupure" |
Eocene |
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the period that ended with a very bad day on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico 65 million years ago |
Cretaceous |
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age range of the great oxygen event |
600ma |
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marine top carnivore of Ediacaran |
None |
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marine top carnivore of the Ordovician |
cephalopod |
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cat to dog sized mammals that were top carnivores in the Eocene |
Creodonts |
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a small permian diapsid that lived in streams and ponds in SA and south Africa an came to epitomise the wildlife in Gondwana |
Mesosaurus |
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a group of fish that is believed to have given rise to the tetrapods |
Rhipidistians |
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A genus that contains "Lucy" and "Taung Child" |
Australopithicus |
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Van Valen's Law that evolution in a species forces the evolution of all species that interact with it |
Red Queens Effect |
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an extinct elephant that characterized the Pliestocene of Europe, Asia and NA |
wooly mammoth |
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the common name for fossilized tree resin, in which soft bodied animals and even DNA can be preserved |
Amber |
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an experiment that led to the inorganic synthesis of most of the organic molecules essential to life |
Miller-Urey |
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a general term to refer to ancestors that lack some of the apomorphies of the crown group |
plesiomorphy |
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the period of giant coal swamps and the early diversification of reptiles |
Carboniferous |
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the period that mark the initial radiation of shelly animals and complex burrowers |
Cambrian? |
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the breakthrough period that marked the apperaence of frogs, turtles, crocodiles, mammals and dinos |
Triassic |
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the period that ended with the mass extinction of trilobites, rugose corals and tabulate corals |
Permian |
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climate cycle/regime that characterized the Ordovician and Jurassic |
Greenhouse |
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a predominant plant group eaten by Stegosaurus, Apatosaurus and other Jurassic dinosaurs |
mesophytic flora |
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a general term to refer to the amniotes that lacked fenestrae behind the orbits in their skulls |
Anapsid |
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the morphological feature that is used to distinguish dinosaurs fro more primitive archosaurs |
Erect-Posture |
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a term used to refer to a monohyletic group that includes and ancestor and all of its descendants |
clade |
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diapsids that were top terrestrial carnivores in the paleocene and the eocene worldwide and lingered into the Pliestocene in South America |
terror bird |
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the most common arthropod group in the Cambrian fossil assemblages |
trilobites |
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early vascular plants that grew to half a meter in the late Silurian |
Rhyniophytes |
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the most important group of vascular plants in the late Paleozoic of Gondwana typified by the genus Glossopteris |
seed fern |
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the most important group of vascular plants in the Cenozoic |
angiosperms |
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a site in Africa if the world's oldest hominid trackway |
Laetoli |
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the carnosaur group that gave rise to the terrestrial top carnivores in Cretaceous eco-systems of SA and Africa |
Tyrannosaur |
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water absorbing structures in the nostrils of modern mammals and birds that are absent in dinosaur fossils |
Nasal Turbinates |
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the phase immediately following a mass extinction, during which biomass, numbers of organisms and diversity are all low |
lag phase |
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the topographic feature that is formed where ocean floor is created between two spreading plates |
Mid ocean ridge |
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general term for organisms with organelles and their DNA in a nucleus |
Eukaryotes |
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the ecological role (guild) of elephants in modern and ancient savannah ecosystems |
megaherbivore |
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typical ambling speed of a sauropod |
2-5 km/hour |
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the period that contains the oldest marsupials, placentals and angiosperms |
Cretaceous |
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a synapsid group that achieved flight in the Eocene |
bats |
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the climatic cycle/regime that characterized the Cambrian, Carboniferous and Neogene |
Icehouse |
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the cyclic creation/destruction of oceans as mega/super continents disperse then reform |
Wilson Cycle |
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the ecological role of nautiliods, Devonian Dunkleosteus and cretaceous mososaurs |
Top Carnivores |
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LCA of chimps and humans |
-palmigrade arborealist - Forest frugivore (fruit) |
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Ardipithecus |
- Faculative Biped (upright capable) - woodland omnivore |
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Australopithicus |
-obligate biped (fully upright) - high-roughage vegetarian |
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Homo Habilis |
- athletic (with barrel-shaped chest) - butchering of scavenged carcasses - Oldowan tools |
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Homo Erectus |
-Acheulian tools - controlled use of fire - first hominid to leave Africa |
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Homo Neanderthalensis |
-Mousterian tools -fire in hearths -evidence of clothes -speech -differentiated living spaces in caves - hunting large animals -simple burials |
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Homo Sapiens |
- art and music -global distribution - deliberate burial with gifts - religion -tents and shelters - |
