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

Babakotia is an extinct genus of medium-sized lemur, or strepsirrhine primate, from Madagascar that contains a single species, Babakotia radofilai. Together with Palaeopropithecus, Archaeoindris, and Mesopropithecus, it forms the family Palaeopropithecidae, commonly known as the sloth lemurs. Due to its mix of morphological traits that show intermediate stages between the slow-moving smaller sloth lemurs and the suspensory large sloth lemurs, it has helped determine the relationship between both groups and the closely related and extinct monkey lemurs.

Babakotia radofilai and all other sloth lemurs share many traits with living sloths, demonstrating convergent evolution. It had long forearms, curved digits, and highly mobile hip and ankle joints. Its skull was more heavily built than that of indriids, but not as much as in the larger sloth lemurs. Its dentition is similar to that of all other indriids and sloth lemurs. It lived in the northern part of Madagascar and shared its range with at least two other sloth lemur species, Palaeopropithecus ingens and Mesopropithecus dolichobrachion. Babakotia radofilai was primarily a leaf-eater (folivore), though it also ate fruit and hard seeds. It is known only from subfossil remains and may have died out shortly after the arrival of humans on the island, but not enough radiocarbon dating has been done with this species to know for certain. (see more...)

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Did you know?

... that the extinct sweat bee genus Oligochlora contains six species all known from the Dominican amber deposits on Hispaniola?
... that Riojasuchus was an ornithosuchid that is known from four skeletons and lived about 217 to 215 million years ago?
... that the extinct ant Pristomyrmex rasnitsyni is the first member of its genus found in Europe?
... that the extinct species Agulla mineralensis is the first North American snakefly to be described from Neogene fossils?
... that the amber entombing the extinct ant Haidoterminus cippus (pictured) was preserved in a lagoon or saltwater marsh?

...that the largest sea turtles ever to have swum the oceans belonged to the family Protostegidae?
... that the extinct ant-like stone beetle Kachinus, found in Cretaceous amber, is similar in appearance to the modern genus Paraneseuthia?
... that at just over 18 millimetres (0.71 in), Fibla carpenteri is the largest species of snakefly known from amber?
... that Aenigmastacus, a fossil crayfish from Canada, belongs to a family only otherwise known from the Southern Hemisphere?
... that the extinct pseudoscorpion Pseudogarypus synchrotron is named for the synchrotron imaging equipment?

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General images - load new batch

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

Image 1A drawing comparing jaws was added in 1799 when Cuvier's 1796 presentation on living and fossil elephants was published. (from History of paleontology)
Image 2Elmer Riggs and H.W. Menke in Field Columbian Museum's paleontology lab, 1899 (from History of paleontology)
Image 3Illustration from Steno's 1667 paper shows a shark head and its teeth along with a fossil tooth for comparison. (from History of paleontology)
Image 4Illustration of fossil Iguanodon teeth with a modern iguana jaw for comparison from Mantell's 1825 paper describing Iguanodon (from History of paleontology)
Image 5Diagram 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 6A complete Anomalocaris fossil from the Burgess shale (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 8A Spriggina fossil from the Ediacaran (from History of paleontology)
Image 9Geologic time scale from an 1861 book by Richard Owen shows the appearance of major animal types. (from History of paleontology)
Image 10Johann Jakob Scheuchzer tried to explain fossils using Biblical floods in his Herbarium of the Deluge (1709). (from History of paleontology)
Image 11Illustration from William Smith's Strata by Organized Fossils (1817) (from History of paleontology)
Image 12Fossil of the Taung child discovered in South Africa in 1924 (from History of paleontology)
Image 13Stephan Endlicher (from List of paleontologists)
Image 14Illustration of the fossil jaw of the Stonesfield mammal from Gideon Mantell's 1848 Wonders of Geology (from History of paleontology)
Image 15Duria 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 16Philippe-Charles Schmerling (from List of paleontologists)
Image 17First 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)

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Selected article on paleontology in human science, culture and economics

The history of paleontology traces the history of the effort to study the fossil record left behind by ancient life forms. Although fossils had been studied by scholars since ancient times, the nature of fossils and their relationship to life in the past became better understood during the 17th and 18th centuries. At the end of the 18th century the work of Georges Cuvier ended a long running debate about the reality of extinction and led to the emergence of paleontology as a scientific discipline.

The first half of the 19th century saw paleontological activity become increasingly well organized. This contributed to a rapid increase in knowledge about the history of life on Earth, and progress towards definition of the geologic time scale. As knowledge of life's history continued to improve, it became increasingly obvious that there had been some kind of successive order to the development of life. After Charles Darwin published Origin of Species in 1859, much of the focus of paleontology shifted to understanding evolutionary paths.

The last half of the 19th century saw a tremendous expansion in paleontological activity, especially in North America. The trend continued in the 20th century with additional regions of the Earth being opened to systematic fossil collection, as demonstrated by a series of important discoveries in China near the end of the 20th century. There was also a renewed interest in the Cambrian explosion that saw the development of the body plans of most animal phyla. (see more...)

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On this day...

November 10:

1852 - Gideon Mantell died of an opium overdose in London, England at age 62.

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Selected image

Mounted skull and neck of the 150-million-year-old Late Jurassic theropod Allosaurus fragilis. The specimen was discovered in the U.S. state of Utah and is exhibited in the Galerie de paléontologie et d'anatomie comparée of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France.
Photo credit: Jebulon