Archived Invertebrate Paleontology course

We will likely have some more to say about cnidarians, so please review last week’s links.

You’re going to like brachiopods. They are considerably more complex than the cnidarians, are diverse in both habits and forms, and are the most common fossils in your field collections (for which you should definitely bookmark this Dry Dredger’s webpage on Cincinnatian brachiopods). I suggest starting your web reading with the Wikipedia page on brachiopods, followed by the brachiopod image page on the Paleontology Portal. (This last one is cool because you can select images from different geological periods.) You can also find an enormous number of brachiopod images and links on BrachNet, based in France. The Tree of Life website has a good section on the taxonomy and evolution of brachiopods. Here is a short video of living terebratulid brachiopods on the floor of Monterey Bay, California, and another of brachiopod larvae in Panama.

Brachiopod embryos are playing a role in our hypotheses about the origin of eyes. This is a good New York Times story, but it is tragically headlined: “In a Marine Worm’s Eyes, the Theory of Evolution”. Worm!! I do, though, like the description of one stage of the embryos called “swimming eyeballs”.

Here is a pdf version of the first 2016 Invertebrate Paleontology test you can use to prepare for the Big Event on Thursday, September 21. Remember that each class is different — there will be some items on this 2016 test that you did not have in your class.

Rhynchonellid brachiopods from the Ordovician of Indiana.

Geology in the News –

The remarkable Cassini spacecraft will have ended its existence with a planned crash into Saturn by the time you read this. What a spectacular project … and dramatic conclusion.

Portuguese Man-of-Wars in the news! Nothing exceptional — I just like these complex and dangerous hydrozoan colonies.

Here’s a good article about the hunt for soft tissue preserved in Cretaceous dinosaur bones. It is a complex story, and the initial findings have not been replicated in other labs. We may see developments here before the end of the year.

The Wikipedia page on cnidarians is an excellent place to visit first for our gelatinous friends. For systematics and descriptions, you can’t beat the Tree of Life page on Phylum Cnidaria. Check out my favorite hydrozoan, the delightfully-named Velella velella. (I saw these gorgeous animals during my visit to Sicily several years ago.) Here is a great jellyfish video from the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. Jellyfish have become an enormous ecological problem because of warming seas and changing fish populations. Time Magazine has a good article about the “stinging season” with links to further stories. The Miami New Times has an article on Ten Things You Need to Know About Jellyfish. (Note that urine is not a particularly helpful treatment for a jellyfish sting!) The BBC has a magazine article describing the strangeness of cnidarians, and why they may hold compounds and genes to improve our health. Finally, Wooster Geologist Macy Conrad poses in this post with a dead jellyfish on a French beach this summer.

In the coming weeks we will identify the fossils we gathered on our field trip, apply to them several paleontological techniques such as cleaning, cutting, polishing and photography, and then put together a grand paleoecological analysis. We will be greatly assisted by two fantastic websites, one by Alycia Stigall at Ohio University called The Digital Atlas of Ordovician Life, and the other by Steve Holland at the University of Georgia titled The Stratigraphy and Fossils of the Upper Ordovician near Cincinnati, Ohio.

Here is a pdf version of the first 2016 Invertebrate Paleontology test you can use to prepare for the Big Event on Thursday, September 21. Remember that each class is different — there will be some items on this 2016 test that you did not have in your class.

An auloporid coral from the Middle Devonian of northwestern Ohio.

Geology in the News –

Interesting article about how some scientists (to use the term broadly) are exploiting the centuries-old system of taxonomy. Essentially they are spamming the system with poorly-supported new names.

In case you’re running out of apocalyptic visions of the future: Box jellyfish are destroying the oceans ecosystems. It starts with us, of course, warming and acidifying the water, and then these cnidarians take over wiping out basic nutrient stocks.

The Wikipedia page on sponges is information-rich and accurate on our simple sponge friends. If you really want to get serious, visit the webpage of the International Association for the Study of Fossil Cnidaria and Porifera. You may also want to see the Fossil Sponges of Kentucky. For that matter, Indiana sponges want equal time! And the Sponges of Kansas! (They use Lincoln pennies for scale, just like I do in the field.) Here is a nice sponge educational page from Cortland. Note the embedded links to images.

Here’s a sad story on the last of the Greek sponge fishermen. Pollution, climate change and over-fishing have done in an industry thousands of years old.

Want to cheer up with a few movies of sponges? Of course you do! Watch a sponge feed, for example. The plots are a little thin, but the scenery is magnificent. And everyone must see the sponge final countdown. Oh yes, you must! Twenty-three million viewers can’t be wrong.

Stromatoporoid in side view showing pillars and laminae. Columbus Limestone (Devonian of Ohio).

Geology in the News –

The largest specimen of Ichthyosaurus has been found in a German museum. It is three meters from snout to tip of tail. It is a pregnant female and a cool specimen. No paleontologist calls them “sea dragons” by the way.

A new Devonian fish found in northern China is challenging the current model for the origin of amphibians (so essentially us as well). I don’t yet fully understand how it fits in, so I’m reserving judgement until I know more.

Good review of a new book on extinctions: The Ends of the Earth. Sounds like it is well-written, up-to-date, and topical seeing how climate change is the root of most of our catastrophes.

Since last week was short, we’ll begin this week with a discussion of taxonomic principles followed by a basic outline of paleoecology. Our goal is to define some basic terms for living environments and life modes. This framework will prove useful later when we begin to slot the organisms we study into their particular ancient ecosystems.

Now our main topic: Microfossils are gorgeous little creatures. Berkeley has a good summary of our main group, the Foraminifera. They also have a cool microfossil type collection to dip into for the wonderful images. Wikipedia also has a good page at our level introducing the Foraminifera, our most important microfossils. The Tree of Life page on diatoms is very good. The Micropaleontological Reference Center for the Ocean Drilling Program is a good example of a well-organized site designed to make paleontological data available to anyone who wants it. The Cushman Foundation, publishers of the Journal of Foraminiferal Research, has a good webpage with lots of subsidiary links. You’ll also want to visit the University College of London MIRACLE website (standing for “Microfossil Image Recovery And Circulation for Learning and Education — they worked hard for that acronym). This may be the best general microfossil site on the web for simple access to information and images. Here is a nice set of SEM images of foraminiferans from Isfjord, Spitsbergen, Norway — a place I visited in 2009. (Ah, good memories!) By the end of the week you should be able to identify the informal groups to which these taxa belong.

Here is a Foraminifera Identification Website found by Sarah McGrath.

Triticites sp. (a fusulinid) from the Plattsmouth Chert, Red Oak, Iowa; Permian.

Geology in the News –

A nice little baby bird was found encased in Cretaceous amber in Burma. The detail of preservation is amazing, even including indications of original colors.

Dodos aren’t quite fossils, since they lived into historical times, but they are extinct and can only be studied indirectly though their bones and remains of eggs and nests. New ideas are emerging from investigations of these funny birds.

Warmer conditions are encouraging algae to grow on the surfaces of Greenland’s ice sheets. This darkens the ice, which causes it to absorb more radiation from sunlight, and thus melts even more ice. More evidence, if you need it, of global climate change.