Portal:Paleontology

The Palaeontology Portal

Introduction

Paleontology (/ˌpeɪliɒnˈtɒlədʒi, ˌpæli-, -ən-/ PAY-lee-on-TOL-ə-jee, PAL-ee-, -⁠ən-), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossils to classify organisms and study their interactions with each other and their environments (their paleoecology). Paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuvier's work on comparative anatomy, and developed rapidly in the 19th century. The term has been used since 1822 formed from Greek παλαιός ('palaios', "old, ancient"), ὄν ('on', (gen. 'ontos'), "being, creature"), and λόγος ('logos', "speech, thought, study").

Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology, but it differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of anatomically modern humans. It now uses techniques drawn from a wide range of sciences, including biochemistry, mathematics, and engineering. Use of all these techniques has enabled paleontologists to discover much of the evolutionary history of life, almost back to when Earth became capable of supporting life, nearly 4 billion years ago. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised sub-divisions, some of which focus on different types of fossil organisms while others study ecology and environmental history, such as ancient climates. (Full article...)

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Selected article on the prehistoric world and its legacies

Artist's restoration of Nigersaurus taqueti.

Nigersaurus (meaning "Niger reptile") is a genus of rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur that lived during the middle Cretaceous period, about 115 to 105 million years ago. It was discovered in the Elrhaz Formation in an area called Gadoufaoua, in the Republic of Niger. Fossils of this dinosaur were first described in 1976, but it was only named in 1999 after further and more complete remains were found and described. The genus contains a single species, Nigersaurus taqueti.

Nigersaurus was 9 m (30 ft) long, which is small for a sauropod, and had a short neck. It weighed around four tonnes, comparable to a modern elephant. Its skeleton was filled with air spaces connected to air sacs, but the limbs were robustly built. Its skull was very specialised for feeding, with a wide muzzle filled with more than 500 teeth. The jaws may have borne a keratinous sheath. Unlike other tetrapods, the tooth-bearing bones of its jaws were rotated transversely relative to the rest of the skull, so that all of its teeth were located far to the front.

Nigersaurus was probably a browser, and fed with its head close to the ground. It lived in a riparian habitat, and its diet probably consisted of soft plants, such as ferns, horsetails, and angiosperms. It is one of the most common fossil vertebrates found in the area, and shared its habitat with other dinosaurian megaherbivores, as well as large theropods and crocodylomorphs. (see more...)

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Did you know?

A life restoration of stag-moose with a human to scale

...that the Stag-moose (Cervalces scotti) went extinct about 11,500 years ago, part of a mass extinction of large North American mammals toward the end of the most recent ice age?
... that the only known specimen of the extinct planthopper Glisachaemus jonasdamzeni is preserved with a parasitic mite?
... that the plesiosaur Bathyspondylus was first described in 1982 from a specimen collected in 1774?
... that the dinosaur Wendiceratops (pictured) was named for fossil hunter Wendy Sloboda, who then had it tattooed on her arm in celebration?
... that the extinct Miocene hickory Carya washingtonensis is known from over 50 nuts found as a rodent cache within a petrified stump?

... that the bioluminescent crustacean Vargula hilgendorfii, named after Franz Hilgendorf, was used as a light source by Japanese soldiers in World War II?
... that unusual archosauromorph reptile Teraterpeton from the Late Triassic of Nova Scotia had nostril openings in its skull that were longer than its eye sockets?
... that Stephen Jay Gould once called Donald Prothero "the best punctuated equilibrium researcher on the West Coast"?
... that the only known specimen of the early crocodile relative Stegomosuchus was kept in the discoverer's yard for several years before being given over for study?
...that the discovery of the dinosauromorph Dromomeron, from the Late Triassic of New Mexico, indicates that dinosaurs did not rapidly replace their close relatives?

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General images - load new batch

The following are images from various paleontology-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Illustration from William Smith's Strata by Organized Fossils (1817) (from History of paleontology)
Image 2Diagram by O.C. Marsh of the evolution of horse feet and teeth, reproduced in T. H. Huxley's 1876 book, Professor Huxley in America (from History of paleontology)
Image 3First mention of the word palæontologie, as coined in January 1822 by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in his Journal de physique (from History of paleontology)
Image 4A drawing comparing jaws was added in 1799 when Cuvier's 1796 presentation on living and fossil elephants was published. (from History of paleontology)
Image 5Illustration from Steno's 1667 paper shows a shark head and its teeth along with a fossil tooth for comparison. (from History of paleontology)
Image 6Johann Jakob Scheuchzer tried to explain fossils using Biblical floods in his Herbarium of the Deluge (1709). (from History of paleontology)
Image 7Photograph of the second Archaeopteryx skeleton to be found, taken in 1881 at the Natural History Museum, Berlin (from History of paleontology)
Image 8Illustration of fossil Iguanodon teeth with a modern iguana jaw for comparison from Mantell's 1825 paper describing Iguanodon (from History of paleontology)
Image 9Duria Antiquior – A more Ancient Dorset is a watercolor painted in 1830 by the geologist Henry De la Beche based on fossils found by Mary Anning. The late 18th and early 19th century was a time of rapid and dramatic changes in ideas about the history of life on earth. (from History of paleontology)
Image 10Stephan Endlicher (from List of paleontologists)
Image 11Fossil of the Taung child discovered in South Africa in 1924 (from History of paleontology)
Image 12A Spriggina fossil from the Ediacaran (from History of paleontology)
Image 13Philippe-Charles Schmerling (from List of paleontologists)
Image 14Geologic time scale from an 1861 book by Richard Owen shows the appearance of major animal types. (from History of paleontology)
Image 15A complete Anomalocaris fossil from the Burgess shale (from History of paleontology)
Image 16Elmer Riggs and H.W. Menke in Field Columbian Museum's paleontology lab, 1899 (from History of paleontology)
Image 17Illustration of the fossil jaw of the Stonesfield mammal from Gideon Mantell's 1848 Wonders of Geology (from History of paleontology)

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Selected article on paleontology in human science, culture and economics

Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. It is the first installment of the Jurassic Park franchise. It is based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton, with a screenplay written by Crichton and David Koepp. The film centers on the fictional Isla Nublar, an islet located off Central America's Pacific Coast, near Costa Rica Nicaragua border, where a billionaire philanthropist and a small team of genetic scientists have created a wildlife park of cloned dinosaurs.

Following an extensive $65 million marketing campaign, which included licensing deals with 100 companies, Jurassic Park grossed over $900 million worldwide in its original theatrical run. It surpassed Spielberg's 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to become the highest-grossing film until Titanic (1997). Jurassic Park was well received by critics, who praised its special effects and Spielberg's direction but criticized the script. The film won more than 20 awards (including 3 Academy Awards), mostly for its visual effects. Jurassic Park is considered by many to be one of the greatest films of the 1990s and in some cases of all time, as well as a landmark in the vector of visual effects regarding its computer-generated imagery and animatronics.

Jurassic Park was followed by two sequels, The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III, both of which were box office successes but received mixed critical responses. A third sequel, Jurassic World, is set for release on June 12, 2015. (see more...)

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On this day...

June 9:

1843 - Wilhelm Dames was born in Stolp, Poland.
1904 - William Joscelyn Arkell was born in Highworth, Wiltshire.
1947 - Jaroslav Perner died in Prague.

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Selected image

A 95-million-year-old slab of fossiliferous rock from Hakel, Lebanon measuring 24 cm in width. The specimen prominently preserves a member of the lobster genus Pseudostacus as well as the fish Diplomystus birdii A fragmentary specimen of an additional fish, Dercetis triqueter, is visible in the lower right-hand corner of the specimen.
Photo credit: Brocken Inaglory