Portal:Paleontology

The Palaeontology Portal

Introduction

Bust of the paleontologist Georges Cuvier (left) and a cast skeleton of *Palaeotherium magnum* (named by Cuvier in 1804, right), Cuvier Museum of Montbéliard

Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geologic time, and assess the interactions between prehistoric organisms and their natural environment. While paleontological observations are known from at least the 6th century BC, the foundation of paleontology as a science dates back to the work of Georges Cuvier in 1796. Cuvier demonstrated evidence for the concept of extinction and how life of the past was not necessarily the same as that of the present. The field developed rapidly over the course of the following decades, and the French word paléontologie was introduced for the study in 1822, which was derived from the Ancient Greek word for "ancient" and words describing relatedness and a field of study. Further advances in the field accompanied the work of Charles Darwin who popularized the concept of evolution. Together, evolution and extinction can be understood as complementary processes which shaped the history of life.

Paleontology overlaps the most with the fields of geology and biology. It draws on technology and analysis of a wide range of sciences to apply them to the study of life and environments of the past, particularly for the subdisciplines of paleobiology and paleoecology that are analogous to biology and ecology. Paleontology also contributes to other sciences, being utilized for biostratigraphy to reconstruct the geologic time scale of Earth, or in studies on extinction to establish both external and internal factors that can lead to the disappearance of a species. Much of the history of life is now better understood because of advances in paleontology and the increase of interdisciplinary studies. Several improvements in understanding have occurred from the introduction of theoretical analysis to paleontology in the 1950s and 1960s that led to the rise of more focused fields of paleontology that assess the changing geography and climate of Earth, the phylogenetic relationships between different species, and the analysis of how fossilization occurs and what biases can impact the quality of the fossil record. (Full article...)

Selected article on the prehistoric world and its legacies

Artist's restoration of Gryposaurus. — Artist's restoration of *Gryposaurus*.

Gryposaurus (meaning "hooked-nosed (Greek grypos) lizard"; sometimes incorrectly translated as "griffin (Latin gryphus) lizard") was a genus of duckbilled dinosaur that lived about 83 to 75.5 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous (late Santonian to late Campanian stages) of North America. Named species of Gryposaurus are known from the Dinosaur Park Formation in Alberta, Canada and the Lower Two Medicine Formation in Montana and the Kaiparowits Formation of Utah in the United States.

Gryposaurus is similar to Kritosaurus, and for many years was regarded as the same genus. It is known from numerous skulls, some skeletons, and even some skin impressions that show it to have had pyramidal scales pointing out along the midline of the back. It is most easily distinguished from other duckbills by its narrow arching nasal hump, sometimes described as similar to a "Roman nose," and which may have been used for species or sexual identification, and/or combat with individuals of the same species. A large bipedal/quadrupedal herbivore around 9 meters long (30 ft), it may have preferred river settings. (see more...)

Did you know?

A fossilized forewing of Hydriomena? protrita

... that the extinct Hydriomena? protrita was the first geometer moth to be described from the American fossil record?
... that the moth lacewing genus Principiala is known for three, possibly four, fossils?
... that the discovery of 189 fossils of the mid-Cambrian Odontogriphus thrust it into the centre of a heated debate about the evolution of molluscs, annelids and brachiopods?
... that the paleobotanists David P. Penhallow and Chester A. Arnold both published studies on the extinct water-fern Azolla primaeva?
... that fossils of extinct giant cicadas (pictured) were once misidentified as the oldest known butterflies?

... that the large prehistoric amphibian Cyclotosaurus had a skull up to 70 cm long?
... that the extinct Canadian redwood Metasequoia foxii was described from over 10,000 fossils?
... that siltstone deposits have allowed three-dimensional fossils of the extinct mushroom crinoid to be excavated from Indiana?
... that highlights from the history of tyrannosaur research include the first carnivorous dinosaur known to walk bipedally, the giant Tyrannosaurus rex, and feathered taxa from China like Yutyrannus?
... that the extinct Eocene maple Acer republicense is known from only one fossil seed?

General images -

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

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

Selected article on paleontology in human science, culture and economics

Holotype material of Creosaurus atrox, more recently known as Allosaurus atrox. — Holotype material of *Creosaurus atrox*, more recently known as *Allosaurus atrox*.

There have been a number of potential species assigned to the carnosaurian dinosaur genus Allosaurus since its description in 1877 by Othniel Charles Marsh, but only a handful are still regarded as valid. Allosaurus was originally described from material from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of the western United States of America; the type species A. fragilis became one of the best-known species of dinosaur.

The genus Allosaurus was part of the Marsh/Cope "Bone Wars" of the late 19th century, and its taxonomy became increasingly confused due to the competition, with several genera and species named by Cope and Marsh now regarded as synonyms of Allosaurus or A. fragilis. Since the description of Allosaurus, scientists have proposed additional species from such far-flung locales as Portugal, Siberia, Switzerland, and Tanzania, and unnamed remains from Australia and China have also been assigned to the genus at one time or another. (see more...)

On this day...

August 19:

2015 - Aude Cincotta and others published the results of two censuses of the French Velaux-La Bastide Neuve fossil site in PLoS ONE. They reconstructed it as a late Campanian floodplain home to creatures like Atsinganosaurus, crocodilians, pterosaurs, hybodonts, and bony fish.