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, and sometimes including, 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 all the way 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

Fossil of Opabinia regalis from the Burgess shale on display at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC..

Opabinia is an extinct stem-arthropod genus found in Cambrian fossil deposits. The only known species, O. regalis, is known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale Lagerstätte of British Columbia, Canada. Fewer than twenty good specimens have been described. Opabinia was a soft-bodied animal of modest size, and its segmented body had lobes along the sides and a fan-shaped tail. The head shows unusual features: five eyes, a mouth under the head and facing backwards, and a proboscis that probably passed food to the mouth. Opabinia probably lived on the seafloor, using the proboscis to seek out small, soft food.

When the first thorough examination of Opabinia in 1975 revealed its unusual features, it was thought to be unrelated to any known phylum, although possibly related to a hypothetical ancestor of arthropods and of annelid worms. However other finds, most notably Anomalocaris, suggested that it belonged to a group of animals that were closely related to the ancestors of arthropods and of which the living animals onychophorans and tardigrades may also be members.(see more...)

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Did you know?

... that the fossil genus Astreptolabis (pictured) is one of four described Burmese amber earwigs?
... that Xinjiangtitan is a 32-metre sauropod dinosaur from Xinjiang in China?
... that a fossil of the extinct sea scorpion Eurypterus (restoration pictured) was once thought to be a catfish?
... that the extinct brown lacewing Cretomerobius is known from both the Cretaceous and Eocene?
... that the 45,000-year-old remains of Ust'-Ishim man are the oldest modern human genome to be fully sequenced to date?

... that the Devonian stem tetrapod Tinirau clackae, transitional between fish and land vertebrates, was named after the half-human half-fish character Tinirau in Polynesian legend?
... that the extinct wasp Deinodryinus areolatus is one of two Deinodryinus species known from Baltic amber?
... that the pterosaur genus Carniadactylus was originally classified under the species name Eudimorphodon rosenfeldi?
... that Leptofoenus pittfieldae is the only species of Leptofoenus documented from the West Indies and the only member of Leptofoenus in the fossil record?
... that the ammonite Hildoceras bifrons (pictured) has been used as an index fossil to help identify the age of rocks?

More did you know facts

General images - load new batch

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

Image 1Stephan Endlicher (from List of paleontologists)
Image 2Duria 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 3A Spriggina fossil from the Ediacaran (from History of paleontology)
Image 4Geologic time scale from an 1861 book by Richard Owen shows the appearance of major animal types. (from History of paleontology)
Image 5Fossil of the Taung child discovered in South Africa in 1924 (from History of paleontology)
Image 6Illustration of fossil Iguanodon teeth with a modern iguana jaw for comparison from Mantell's 1825 paper describing Iguanodon (from History of paleontology)
Image 7Philippe-Charles Schmerling (from List of paleontologists)
Image 8Illustration from Steno's 1667 paper shows a shark head and its teeth along with a fossil tooth for comparison. (from History of paleontology)
Image 9Illustration from William Smith's Strata by Organized Fossils (1817) (from History of paleontology)
Image 10Elmer Riggs and H.W. Menke in Field Columbian Museum's paleontology lab, 1899 (from History of paleontology)
Image 11Photograph of the second Archaeopteryx skeleton to be found, taken in 1881 at the Natural History Museum, Berlin (from History of paleontology)
Image 12A complete Anomalocaris fossil from the Burgess shale (from History of paleontology)
Image 13First 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 14A drawing comparing jaws was added in 1799 when Cuvier's 1796 presentation on living and fossil elephants was published. (from History of paleontology)
Image 15Illustration of the fossil jaw of the Stonesfield mammal from Gideon Mantell's 1848 Wonders of Geology (from History of paleontology)
Image 16Diagram 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 17Johann Jakob Scheuchzer tried to explain fossils using Biblical floods in his Herbarium of the Deluge (1709). (from History of paleontology)

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Selected article on paleontology in human science, culture and economics

Paleontology or palaeontology (/ˌpeɪliɒnˈtɒlədʒi, ˌpæli-, -ən-/) is the scientific study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments (their paleoecology). As a "historical science" it attempts to explain causes rather than conduct experiments to observe effects. 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 itself originates from Greek: παλαιός (palaios) meaning "old, ancient," ὄν, ὀντ- (on, ont-), meaning "being, creature" and λόγος (logos), meaning "speech, thought, study".

Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology. 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 all the way back to when Earth became capable of supporting life, about 3,800 million years ago. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialized sub-divisions, some of which focus on different types of fossil organisms while others study ecology and environmental history, such as ancient climates. Body fossils and trace fossils are the principal types of evidence about ancient life, and geochemical evidence has helped to decipher the evolution of life before there were organisms large enough to leave fossils. (see more...)

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On this day...

May 19:

1845 - Jean Jacques Nicolas Huot died in Versaille, France.
1876 - William King Gregory was born in Greenwich Village, New York, USA.
1940 - Farish Jenkins was born in New York City, New York, USA.
2006 - Ginny Kasparson was sentenced to 16 years in prison after pleading guilty to being accessory to the 2005 murder of Charles Repenning in Lakewood, Colorado, USA.
2010 - Hans J. Hofmann died in Montreal, Canada.

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Selected image

The middle of a polished 15.34 cm × 18.04 cm slice of a petrified tree from Arizona, USA. After the enlargement of the image it is possible to see insect borings in the wood. The tree lived approximately 230 million years ago during the Late Triassic.
Photo credit: Michael Gäbler