Paleontology

Paleontology, is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilized feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Paleontology provides much of the physical evidence for the fact of evolution.

Overview

Modern paleontology sets ancient life in its contexts by studying how physical changes of global geography paleogeography and climate paleoclimate have affected life on the planet, how ecosystems have responded to these changes and have changed the planetary environment in turn and how these mutual responses have affected today's patterns of biodiversity. Hence, paleontology overlaps with geology (the study of rocks and rock formations) as well as with botany, biology, zoology and ecology – fields concerned with life forms and how they interact.

The major subdivisions of paleontology include paleozoology (animals), paleobotany (plants) and micropaleontology (microfossils). Paleozoologists may specialise in invertebrate paleontology, which deals with animals without backbones or in vertebrate paleontology, dealing with fossils of animals with backbones, including fossil hominids (paleoanthropology). Micropaleontologists study microscopic fossils, including organic-walled microfossils whose study is called palynology.

There are many developing specialties such as paleobiology, paleoecology, ichnology (the study of tracks and burrows) and taphonomy (the study of what happens to organisms after they expire).

Paleontology utilizes the same classic binomial nomenclature scheme, devised for the biology of living things by the mid-18th century Swedish biologist Carolus Linnaeus and increasingly sets these species in a genealogical framework, showing their degrees of interrelatedness using the still somewhat controversial technique of 'cladistics'.

Fossils were known by primitive humans and were sometimes identified correctly as the remains of ancient lifeforms. The organized study of paleontology dates from the late 18th century.

Notable paleontologists

A paleontologist carefully chips rock from a column of dinosaur vertebrae.

History includes a number of prominent paleontologists. Charles Darwin collected fossils of South American mammals during his trip on the Beagle and examined petrified forests in Patagonia. Mary Anning was a notable early paleontologist. She found several landmark fossils, in her home town of Lyme Regis. Although self-taught, she collected and described them in a very systematic way. William Buckland, Richard Owen, Gideon Mantell, Georges Cuvier and Thomas Huxley were important early pioneers, in the field of paleontology. Thomas Jefferson took a keen interest in mammoth bones. Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh waged a famously fierce competition known as the Bone Wars in the late 19th century that involved some questionable practices, but which significantly advanced the understanding of the natural history of North America and vertebrate paleontology. Besides looking at mammal teeth and unearthing penguin skeletons.

See also

• Biology
• Fossils
• Geology
• Dinosaurs

External links

• Dinosaur News the free dinosaur magazine (very popular site, with the latest international news about dinosaurs).
• International Palaeoentomological Society
• Smithsonian's Paleobiology website: a good introduction
• University of California Museum of Paleontology FAQ About Paleontology
• The Canadian Fossil Discovery Center, biggest collection of marine reptile fossils in Canada, field trips, museum tours