Archived Invertebrate Paleontology course

The last week! Good luck finishing your research papers (due 12/7, 7:30 a.m., Dropbox) and getting ready for next week’s final examination (12/11, 7-10 p.m.). Now, on to our last topics:

Graptolites are disparate, fussy, and a bit strange, but they have significant biostratigraphic value. Our graptolite specimens for the most part look like little black hacksaw blades painted on black shale, so you may appreciate the better images on the Web. The Wikipedia graptolite article is short but informative. An amateur collector has put together a good presentation of Ordovician graptolites from the Athens Shale of Alabama.

Here are some useful links for the annelid worms. The group that we cover systematically is the Family Serpulidae of the Class Polychaeta. You’ve seen twisty white serpulid worm tubes for awhile in the laboratory. They encrust virtually any marine hard substrate, from rocks to corals to boat hulls.

The Class Tentaculita is incertae sedis, meaning it has “uncertain placement” in life’s catalog. We think they are related to the brachiopods and bryozoans (as lophophorates), but their systematic position is still debated. In this course you will be working with the cornulitids, tentaculitids and microconchids. (The latter are close to my heart!)

Let’s start with the Wikipedia page for trace fossils. Wooster has an excellent collection of hardgrounds, especially from the calcite seas of the Ordovician and Jurassic, on which we will see many borings. We also have a good soft-sediment trace fossil set, much of it inherited from the late Professor Richard G. Osgood, Jr.

Final Lab & Lecture Exam: December 11 (Monday), 7:00 – 10:00 p.m.

Encrusting graptolite (Thallograptus sphaericola) on the rhombiferan cystoid Echinosphaerites aurantium (Middle Ordovician, northeastern Estonia).

Geology in the News –

Here’s a great article on the eyes of scallops. They are much more sophisticated than I thought.

Another amazing paleontological discover in China: Hundreds of pterosaur eggs, including embryos. What we know about pterosaur biology has just increased an order of magnitude. From the abstract: “Fossil eggs and embryos that provide unique information about the reproduction and early growth of vertebrates are exceedingly rare, particularly for pterosaurs. Here we report on hundreds of three-dimensional (3D) eggs of the species Hamipterus tianshanensis from a Lower Cretaceous site in China, 16 of which contain embryonic remains.”

A new bird species is appearing in the Galapagos, and it is a hybrid. “In the past, it was thought that two different species must be unable to produce fertile offspring in order to be defined as such. But in more recent years, it has been established that many birds and other animals that we consider to be unique species are in fact able to interbreed with others to produce fertile young.” The Species Concept is in considerable flux right now.

What distinguishes humans from the other great apes? The brain, my friends, the brain. Tiny genetic changes made for massive differences in brain form and function. They’ll never catch up to us.

It’s not often we get a new genus of fossil vertebrate, especially among Pleistocene horses. Meet Haringtonhippus from Ice Age North America.

The Phylum Echinodermata continued! Please see the links for last week.

Your final two quizzes (#11 and #12) will be “superquizzes” with lots of extra credit. Quiz #11 will be fill-in-the-blank questions from the first half of the course (through bryozoans); quiz #12 from the second.

Pentremites godoni, a blastoid from the Lower Carboniferous of Illinois.

Geology in the News –

How to read a scientific paper? Here are some useful ideas.

Here’s a cool look at the surface under an Antarctic ice sheet. There is more topography than previously thought, which may be good news as it may be retarding overall melting.

There was once a view that liquid water, even if a salty brine, still flowed on Mars. Geologists put an end to that speculation.

The Phylum Echinodermata is upon us. These organisms could be from Mars if we didn’t know better. You will first want to visit the fantastic echinoderm page of the Tree of Life Project. (Friend of the department Bill Ausich of OSU is a member of the Tree of Life echinoderm team.) I find the images on the Animal Diversity Web for echinoderms page (University of Michigan) to be useful. There are numerous websites for specific echinoderm groups. The best I’ve found include ophiuroids, echinoids, the crown-of-thorns starfish, and the Wikipedia page on crinoids. Also check out this nice page on the Carboniferous Crawfordsville crinoids — some of the best in the world. This echinoderm webpage by Teresa Zubi is a lot of fun. (Well, OK, some fun.) This clip of a “sea pig” (Scotoplanes — a holothurian) in deposit-feeding action is a classic. And as a preview of what you are going to do in the lab next week, a video of a sea star dissection! Great music, I must say. And you won’t see echinoderms the same ever again after watching this time-lapse video from Antarctica. Creepy, but they get their own from the Icicle of Death. And why are all these sea urchins going to the same place with such grim determination? Jonathan Bird’s Blue World has a video on sea stars that is entertaining. Here’s a nice Japanese clip on sand dollar moving and feeding, and here’s a hauntingly beautiful Brazilian production on the reproduction and development of a sea biscuit.

On Tuesday, November 21, by 8:00 a.m., your field trip reports are due on paper to me. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten.

Your final two quizzes (#11 and #12) will be “superquizzes” with lots of extra credit. Quiz #11 will be fill-in-the-blank questions from the first half of the course (through bryozoans); quiz #12 from the second.

Eucalyptocrinites calyx; Kaugatuma Formation (Upper Silurian, Pridoli), Saaremaa, Estonia. Specimen found by Nick Fedorchuk.

Geology in the News –

There is a new and interesting argument that the Late Cretaceous asteroid hit just the right spot to cause the global extinctions. The hypothesis is that striking an area rich in petroleum injected massive amounts of soot into the atmosphere that further cooled climate. There will be debates soon over this.

The end-Cretaceous Chicxulub Crater is in the news as scientists publish the results of a drilling expedition into it. They have supporting evidence for why this crater has a peak ring that is unique on Earth but common elsewhere in the Solar System. There are cool images in the version of the story from The New York Times.

The BBC has a separate story on the drilling results that includes a cool animated model of how the Chicxulub Crater was formed. There were for a few minutes mountains as high as the Himalayas!

How long did it take for life to recover from the Cretaceous extinctions? New studies suggest about four million years, but up to nine million years in North America, which was hit hardest.

This week we continue our work with the magnificent arthropods. Please review the links from last week.

Remember that your Essay #2 is due in your Dropbox folder by 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, November 14. Your field studies report is due on paper by 8:00 a.m. on Tuesday, November 21. Your final research paper is due in your Dropbox folder by 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 7. Your final lab and lecture exam is scheduled for Monday, December 11, 7:00-10:00 p.m.

Your last two quizzes (#11 and #12) will be “superquizzes” with lots of extra credit. Quiz #11 will be questions from the first half of the course (through bryozoans); quiz #12 from the second.

Geology in the News –

The end-Cretaceous asteroid impact may have had an even more dramatic effect on climate than we thought (and that was pretty bad). I notice here that the asteroid is now expanded from 10 to 12 km in diameter. Here’s a BBC account of the same research.

A new great ape species has been identified in Indonesia. This doesn’t happen often!

Here’s a good article on the problems inherent in defining biological species. Evolution is at the species level, but we have difficulty grasping a concept of species.

We’ll spend Tuesday talking about scaphopods, rostroconchs, bivalves, and the hyolithids. Please review the past links. On Thursday we’ll have an introduction to the arthropods.

The Phylum Arthropoda is extraordinarily diverse. These are the animals that will inherit the world, if they haven’t already. Let’s first visit the wonderful and arthropod-rich Burgess Shale, courtesy of the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation. (Eight years ago I had my own visit to the Burgess Shale at the Walcott Quarry. Magnificent!) For serious work we hardly need to stray from the arthropod pages at Berkeley and the arthropod Wikipedia page. Please visit the  Berkeley onychophoran page for a look at primitive arthropod characters. The trilobite pages are especially well organized. Concentrate on the agnostids and the polymerids (the redlichiids and phacopids being important here for us) An amateur paleontologist (Sam Gon III) has an excellent Guide to the Orders of Trilobites. We will not recognize all the orders, but the images and descriptions here are tremendous. You will also find excellent images of trilobites on the Wikipedia trilobite page. The most comprehensive set of trilobite images is courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History. We now have excellent evidence for trilobite eggs.

Take a look at this impressive eurypterid from the Mazon Creek Pennsylvanian. An excellent “eurypteridology” website is maintained by Samuel J. Ciurca, Jr. Katherine Marenco at Bryn Mawr (and a Wooster geology alumna) found this Eurypterid Tumblr page. To complete your set, please visit websites for the crustaceans, insects and arachnids.

You’re too young to remember the bizarre Sea Monkeys craze. It was based on the real science of brine shrimp and cryptobiosis. Who knew the story also involves racism and the KKK?

Thought you might like to see this YouTube video on the fossils below the Creation Museum in northern Kentucky. They will be familiar! You may want to see the related videos, like this one on Cincinnatian fossils. You can watch people digging for trilobites for fun and, apparently, profit. You get to do it for free!

Your next lab test is on Thursday, November 9. It will go through the scaphopods and rostroconchs.

Anomalocaridid “arm” from the Burgess Shale (Middle Cambrian), Walcott Quarry, British Columbia, Canada.

Geology in the News –

Here’s a nice octopus-like fossil from the Jurassic. It’s not often invertebrate paleontology makes the BBC news!

It’s not often I cite the Daily Mail here, but this is a good popular account of how volcanoes change climate, and why warmer oceans may increase the effects.

A 200-million-year-old “megacarnivore” new theropod dinosaur found, sort of. We only know its footprints, so Kayentapus is a trace fossil, not the actual dinosaur. Impressive nonetheless.

A new pterosaur was found (in part) in Mongolia. It is Late Cretaceous and had a wingspan of about 10 meters. It may have eaten baby dinosaurs!

The Wikipedia pages on bivalves and oysters are good, and there is a Wooster touch on each. Here is a nice webpage with some simple anatomical diagrams of bivalves. (A useful page for our dissections in lab this week.) Don’t miss this site on Ohio’s favorite bivalve, the Zebra Mussel. This is a simple index to the common bivalve families, with images which will be helpful in lab. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute has some good photographs of deep-sea bivalves and other marine invertebrates.

Hyoliths are mysterious and inconveniently extinct. We are not considering them mollusks here, but an outgroup to which we can compare mollusks for evolutionary purposes. We don’t know much about them, as you can see from that brief Wikipedia page (but with great images you’ll recognize!). We have some specimens, though, for your entertainment in lab. [Update! Hyoliths are now placed among the lophophorates.]

The evolution of mollusks is a much larger story, of course, and there are some very new studies in the field. Note that the linked article has a classic line: “The results from the genetic analysis show the paleontologists were right.” This means what I have been teaching for decades, for once, I don’t have to modify (much). The Wikipedia section on molluscan evolution is still pretty sketchy (literally), but there are some useful diagrams. You will want to meet the odd aplacomorphan mollusks before our lecture. They have virtually no fossil record, but are critical to the evolutionary scenario.

Here again is a short and good video summary of some molluscan adaptations. It is well done.

Your second lecture test is on Thursday, November 2. Here is an example: the 2016 second paleo test.

Hyoliths from the Middle Ordovician of northern Estonia.

Geology in the News –

Geological processes on Mars! Check out how the annual freeze-thaw cycles on Mars produce changes in sand dunes. Mars is not nearly as dynamic as Earth when it comes to modern processes, but it was back in the day. No fossils on Mars, though. Yet.

Back on Earth, three scary new studies show that sea levels may be rising faster and higher than we thought. Hold off on buying that cute little cottage on the shore — a new shore is coming. (And I’d avoid moving to Miami.)

Here’s a good analysis in The New York Times on concepts of skin color, race and genetics. You know some of the basic principles here.

Please see last week’s web discussion of the magnificent cephalopods. Apparently the minor molluscan groups the scaphopods and rostroconchs haven’t caught on enough in the public consciousness to produce many webpages, so Wikipedia will do fine.  Ron Shimek has a nice webpage introducing the scaphopods. Here’s one of the few videos of living scaphopods in a laboratory.

Here’s a short and good video summary of some molluscan adaptations. It is well done.

Your second lecture test is on Thursday, November 2. Here is an example: the 2016 second paleo test.

A scaphopod from the Pliocene of Cyprus.

Geology in the News –

Have we been reconstructing Dimetrodon incorrectly all these years? I’m certain the answer is yes, but the real question is how off have we been. Unfortunately this article does not give a new image of the beast, but we may have one soon.

Half of the Universe’s missing matter has been found! This is not as exciting as it sounds because this is not “dark matter”. Apparently we have had an undercount of the ordinary matter in the Universe that is now rectified with new observations of tenuous gas tendrils.

Creatures with brains (more or less) are upon us! The polyplacophorans and monoplacophorans are usually covered early in a mollusk series because they have the least derived characters. Not much online about them for us. Gastropods, though, have their web fans. Read through this description of the poisonous gastropod Conus, its biology, and the medical aspects of its toxins. See how many people have been killed by this vicious snail. (“Vicious snail”, you say? Who would guess? Here’s an excellent National Geographic video of Conus catching and eating a fish.) You will be amazed by this website loaded with photos of gastropods in systematic order.

As a preview to cephalopods, check out The Cephalopod Page. It is a joy to read. This website contains numerous links to other equally enthusiastic cephalopod pages. The Tree of Life Project has an excellent page on cephalopods; it concentrates on their systematics, but also has good information on cephalopod biology. We don’t want to miss the excitement of the Search for the Giant Squid, which we don’t have to if we visit this Smithsonian page. The Smithsonian also has a cephalopod page for professionals and others interested in these creatures. There are many pages devoted to fossil cephalopods, such as this one on ammonites of the Fox Hills Formation in north-central North America. TONMO (The Octopus News Magazine Online — who knew?) has an informative page on nautiloids. Here’s a reference page for coleoids. As a bonus, watch a short video of baby cuttlefish hatching. This very cool video of a blue-ringed octopus was posted on the Scientific American site. Cephalopods — gotta love ‘em.

Research paper titles are due in class on Thursday

A limpet gastropod from the Pliocene of Cyprus.

Geology in the News –

Here’s a nice summary of the latest ideas on the evolution of modern birds. It appears that the Cretaceous extinctions may have sped up their evolution, primarily by selecting for small body sizes which have higher rates of evolution.

Nice rotating globe showing earthquake locations and magnitudes from 2001 through 2015. Note the dramatic activity along the “Ring of Fire” (the Pacific Rim.)

More museum science: A paleontologist studying old ichthyosaur specimens discovered one with remnants of its last meal still preserved. Squid!

Bryozoans! Everyone’s favorite fossils. When I took this course my professor mumbled at the start of this section, “I hate bryozoans. When I find them, and no one’s looking, I smash them with my hammer!” Bad form. I hope you learn to love the little critters. They can tell us much about evolution and paleoecology. You can start your browsing with the Bryozoa Home Page. Many links here, including sites on both recent and fossil bryozoans. SUNY Cortland also has a good tutorial on bryozoans. Here is the useful Wikipedia page on bryozoans. You also want to be sure to visit the page of my friend Paul Taylor, who is one of the top bryozoologists in the world. Here’s a page from The Netherlands on freshwater bryozoans. Some are huge. YouTube has bryozoan movies (of course!), like this one showing the action of cilia in feeding and a double feature of a bryozoan and Hydra. The Bryozoan Fossils of Kentucky page has some types you’ll find familiar, as will this page of bryozoan specimen images, most without adequate scales (a mistake you will never make). In the Paleozoic, especially the Ordovician, bryozoans are very common on carbonate hardgrounds.

I hope you’re keeping up with Wooster’s Fossil of the Week!

The bryozoan Esthoniopora from the Upper Ordovician (Kukruse) of Estonia.

Geology in the News –

Another important lesson from genetic research: physical appearance does not always track evolutionary relationships. The example here is the genetic heritage of living nautiloids. Turns out even in this relatively small group we thought we understood, there is plenty of evolutionary convergence going on.

Here’s a cool video of the Earth’s surface evolution projected over the next 250 million years. The Wilson Cycle continues!

Giant wombats (that alone should bring some clicks) apparently had mass migrations in Australia during the Pleistocene. The clues to these journeys are carbon isotopes found in their fossilized teeth.

Please see the text and links in last week’s web entry. You’ll all learn soon that there are problems with homeomorphy among brachiopods. (A product of evolutionary convergence.) The linked paper provides one example of many. Remember that many brachiopod taxa are distinguished by internal features we don’t always see.

I hope you’re keeping up with Wooster’s Fossil of the Week!

Ordovician strophomenid brachiopod encrusted with bryozoans and craniid brachiopods.

Geology in the News –

You may have heard that mammoths are about to be cloned. Fake news!

Great music video on evo-devo. Starts with hox genes. “This is how we go from single cells to people.” The channel A Capella Science is highly recommended!

Cnidarians in the news! Sleeping jellyfish, even though they have no brains. It is also a great example of how science is really done.

Could an impact have caused the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)? There is new evidence of glass fragments and charcoal in sediments 56 million years old. This could solve a mystery about the 5-8 degree centigrade rise in global temperatures then, but we’ll see how this evidence survives later testing.