an extinct hominid that lived between 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago.^[1] A. afarensis was slenderly built, like the younger Australopithecus africanus. It is thought that A. afarensis was more closely related to the genus Homo

A. africanus

means “Egyptian Ape”, first ape ever discovered, found in the Oligocene

possible cause of glaciations in the Pleistocene, only not really; if there is some glaciation, the higher albedo will cause more glaciation to occur, and if glaciers are receding then the lower albedo will cause more recession; so this just helps along the glaciation rather than causing it. Called a positive feedback effect. 

a crocodile like mammal that lived in the water, was a tetrapod, and had fur, it lived in the Eocene

quadripedal ornithischian dinosaurs that were related to stegosaurs, lived mostly in the late Jurassic & Cretaceous, had either an armored or spiked back with a club tail

type of insect that first appeared in the Cretaceous along with bees and wasps

cretaceous- the very first flowering plant (angiosperm), if you peeled away all of the petals then the center of the flower looks rather similar to a cone; angiosperms likely coevolved with insects; flowers encourage insects to get pollen and take it to other flowers to pollinate them

the first bird, appeared in the Jurassic; found in the Solnhofn lagerstatten, a lithographic limestone from Austria (platy limestones that can be separated into the plates), an impression of a modern looking feather was found, it was asymmetrical with one broad and one narrow side, it had little spiky teeth in its little dinosaur like skull but had wings that had flight feathers (which were on the forelimbs and tails)

Jurassic- an embarrassing hoax, part of a bird fossil glued to a fossil of velociraptor by a Chinese farmer that wanted a lot of money

Triassic- ruling reptiles, such as dinosaurs, crocodiles, and birds

the first bat is found in the Eocene in a lagerstatten

show up for the first time in the Cretaceous period likely because of the development of flowering plants, found only in lagerstattens

Jurassic- also one of the possible (but highly unlikely) ways of determining warm or cold bloodedness; parental care, herding, and migration are thought to be characteristics of warm blooded animals, however, these are only characteristics, animals don’t do these things because they are warm blooded; but dinosaurs do have parental care (6 mo- 1 yr old dinosaurs found in a nest waiting for their mother to bring food), they also have herding, the herbivores commonly herded in order to protect the young and the elderly, and many ectothermic creatures migrate: turtles, fish, etc.

there is a possibility that the haversian canals found in some animals could suggest warm bloodedness, these are small canals in the bones that are evidence of constant use and the addition of calcium to and from the bones, which indicates rapid growth which generally requires a high metabolism; but some small mammals don’t have these, and some turtles do; it just depends on how active the animal is

herbivorous animals that live in forests and eat leaves off of trees and bushes, these organisms are usually small and when being hunted can get behind a tree or a bush and just stand still to hide

in the Neogene the grasses of the world are beginning to change, C3 grasses start to give way to C4 grasses that are more adapted to drier conditions and have a slightly different way of photosynthesizing, in that C-12 and C-13 are treated differently, because of this, we can tell what kind of grasses horses ate through the isotope ratios in their bones

a crater found in the Yucatan Peninsula that dates fairly closely to the end of the Cretaceous, but did this cause the extinction or was it just the icing on the cake?, there is a lot of evidence of a huge asteroid impact, some notable ones are: shocked

quartz which is quartz that’s had its structure altered by a large shock wave, and tektites which are droplets of molten crustal material that quickly cooled and became natural glass beads; an impact like this would have caused nuclear winter, tsunamis, terrestrial fires, and a change in atmospheric composition

shocked

quartz

platelets from golden algae, possibly calcite lenses used to focus light for photosynthesis, these platelets are what make up chalk; they make excellent index fossils because they evolve quickly, live all over the oceans and are deposited constantly

earliest conifers in the fossil record date to the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) period (about 300 million years ago), possibly arising from Cordaites, a seed-bearing plant with cone-like fertile structures

the crocodile solution to the need to be able to move quickly which could not be done with two ankle joints, ended up with a ball and socket ankle joint that allows for rotation of the feet and relatively fast movement

type of gymnosperm that dates back to the Carboniferous, still exists, but now angiosperms are more prevalent, dispersed during Pangaea. 

huge flood basalt flows in western India that occurred in the late Cretaceous that are a very likely cause of the KT extinction, the timing is right and the size of the eruption is on the correct scale; also, it is impossible to distinguish iridium from extraterrestrial sources from volcanic sources; also this is a more parsiminous explanation for the events, and it seems likely that there should be flood basalt eruptions every 20-30 million years

a type of tree that was dominant during and after the Neogene climatic deterioration, they shed their leaves in the late fall in order to conserve water through the cold dry winter

quadripedal ornithischian dinosaurs, end of the snout developed into a beak for shearing off vegetation, crests on their heads possibly for producing noises, used for species recognition, variety of crests because there was no evolutionary control, no one is better than any other

Jurassic-  the size of an animal’s brain in relation to its body size, dinosaurs are compared based on the size of crocodiles brains in relation to their size (giving that a 1 in the ratio); using this as a standard, several groups of dinosaurs have relatively tiny brains such as the stegosaurs, anklyosaurs, ceratopsians, sauropods, and sauropodomorphas, whereas many of the carnivorous dinosaurs had much larger sized brains in comparison to body size like the carnosaurs, dromaeosaurids, and troodontids; but having a large brain doesn’t necessarily mean you are warm blooded, sure they take a lot of energy, but what if you don’t use them at all unless your hunting?

Neogene- refers to huge salt deposits in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea both of which were at times unattached to the Atlantic and dried up leaving behind huge amounts of rock salt and rock gypsum

Paleogene- a lagerstatten in Colorado that is made up of lake sediments interbedded with volcanic ash layers from a nearby active volcano; preserved all sorts of soft bodied things like bugs and leaves

zooplankton that evolved during the Jurassic and are still alive today, have calcite shells which contribute to deep sea limestones

the place where all of the Coelophysis fossils were found buried together, not named after dinosaur ghosts but after the Holy Ghost Monastery. Prserves Triassic dinosaurs.  

Extinxt ape. Largest ape that ever lived. 

type of gymnosperm that has existed since the Carboniferous, has slowly been pushed to the side by angiosperm plants

first real elephant like animal from the Oligocene (Paleogene) 

Neogene Climate deterioration- herbivorous animals that eat grasses from near the ground in grasslands, they are generally large and have long legs, in order to be able to get away from predators they must be able to run quickly

took place in the Pliocene (Neogene) as North and South America were connected by a land bridge allowing the flora and fauna of the two continents to intermingle and coexist for a short period of time; for whatever reason, many of the faunal species from South America became extinct shortly after this exchange happened, possibly they were out competed? (placentals vs. marsupials) or it’s a possibility that there were so few species in South America that a few species going extinct looked huge, whereas a few extinctions in North America would be like nothing

played a role in the glacial and interglacial cycles in the Pleistocene, but likely the glaciation was driving the changes in green house gases rather than the other way around

began to form in the Triassic period as the North Atlantic Ocean began to open up between Europe and North America, was filled with sea water and dried out several times before becoming a stable feature, as a result huge salt diapirs can be found all across the western portion of the Gulf of Mexico

the genus that includes modern humans and species closely related to them. The genus is estimated to be about 2.3 to 2.4 million years old

bi-/quadri- pedal ornithischian dinosaurs, had thumb spikes for stripping bark; lived in the Jurassic

a group of four short glacial cycles in the late Pleistocene that happened before the Illinoisan and after the Nebraskan

terrestrial (up to 57% of plant species died, all pterosaurs, all non-feathered dinosaurs, many mammals, esp the marsupials and the multituberculates); marine (most coccoliths and forams die but not the radiolarians, most corals, cephalopods, bivalves, all mososaurs, plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs); many possible causes, leading ideas are the Deccan Traps or the Chicxulub impact

the location where the foot prints of A. afarensis were found in cooled volcanic ash

large tusked mammal species which inhabited Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and Central America from the Oligocene through Pleistocene, 33.9 mya to 11,000 years ago

a horse ancestor that evolved in the late Eocene, it was very small, smaller than a Shetland pony

2-8% warmer temperatures than what we see today in the middle and high latitudes

Shetland pony sized horse ancestors that are starting to actually look like horses, lived in the Oligocene

the first mammal that appeared in the Triassic; had hair, gave live birth, was warm blooded, looks like a little shrew or rat; as it turns out there are not a lot of things that are simply mammal specific, the jaw articulation was what actually determines if it was mammalian or not, mammals just have one bone in the lower jaw that pivots against the rest of the skull; also had differentiated dentition because of a need to chew food: because of high metabolism chewing food allows for faster metabolization of food; the rigidity of the jaw allows for good occlusion of the teeth

a type of mammal that evolved in the Triassic or Jurassic and went extinct in the Oligocene; differentiated from other mammals by how their teeth look they have multitubercles on one of their molars, they are known mostly from continents in the Northern Hemisphere such as Laurasia and Baltica, they had life habits similar to modern day rodents and may have become extinct do to being out competed

the earliest Pleistocene glaciation for which there is ample evidence for, it occurred about 650,000 years ago before the Kansan glaciations

island arcs being plastered onto the west coast of North America in the late Jurassic

Triassic- marine reptiles with elongate slender necks and small heads, ate mostly fish, was a tetropod; also known as plesiosaurs, lived during the Mesozoic (euryapsid)

one of the first angiosperm, or flowering, plants, appeared in the Cretaceous period

theropod (bipedal saurischian) dinosaurs which bore a superficial resemblance to modern ostriches, they were fast, omnivorous or herbivorous dinosaurs from the CretaceousPeriod of Laurasia

the supercontinent that formed during the Carboniferous and Permian periods was already beginning to break apart by the Triassic, it was a C shaped continent surrounded by the Panthalassic Ocean and inside of the C is the Tethys Sea; by the Jurassic, the North Atlantic had begun to open up and Antarctica, India, and Australia had broken off from the rest of Gondwana; by the late Cretaceous the South Atlantic had also begun to open up and Eurasia had been connected, India was still down in the Tethys Sea moving north and Antarctica and Australia were still connected; by the Paleocene, India was almost up by Asia, the Atlantic Ocean was completely opened up, and the Tethys Sea was closing, Australia had also separated from Antarctica and the supercontinent had broken up completely.

neogene- the Black, Caspian, and Aral seas make up Paratethys after Africa has closed in on Europe and the Tethys Sea has been closed in completely on the east side leaving only these three small portions

the earth went through a spike of warming at the very end of the Paleocene and the very beginning of the Eocene and then began to cool rapidly; the spike of warming was likely caused by a methane burp at the end of the Paleocene

marine reptiles, shellfish eater, tetrapod, large head and body, from the Triassic period (euryapsid)

 a way of walking in which an organism walks on the palms of its feet, most organisms walk this way, including people

marine reptiles with elongate slender necks and small heads, ate mostly fish, was a tetropod; also known as nothosaurs; lived during the Mesozoic –triassic- (euryapsid) 

super cold water from around Antarctica sinks down below other waters because it is colder and more dense, because this water is surface water from the Antarctic, it oxygenates and cycles nutrients through the deep water ocean environments as it snakes across the bottom of the ocean

ventral and anterior of three principal bones composing  either half of the pelvis. 

 Jurassic- a type of saurischian dinosaur that was quadripedal; most were large multi-ton dinosaurs, with elongate slender necks and rather small heads and brains; herbivores, most had longer hind limbs than forelimbs, indicating a bipedal ancestor; they might not have been able to lift their heads straight up because their hearts would have had a hard time pumping blood to their brains; long neck might have been used for eating with as little muscle movement as possible; also, how could they have breathed through essentially 20-30 feet of hose, air could have made a circuit rather than going in and out

ancestor to orangutans and gigantopithecus, lived in the Miocene (Neogene), approx 4’11’’, face like an orangutan and body like a chimp

Cretaceous- very complex systems that will build themselves up so much and interlink to such a degree that any small change can easily topple the whole system, kind of like the key organism concept

the Pleistocene glaciations acted as a species pump in that it pushes all of the species into a narrow area around the equator and competition goes up causing things to go extinct then glaciers recede and species are allowed to expand their ranges and speciation and adaptation happens causing rapid turnover of species and rapid evolution

Jurassic- large quadripedal ornithischian dinosaurs with pentagonal plates on their backs that developed from spikes that may have been used for defensive armor on the back since it’s the only part of the animal that the spiked tail can’t protect; had a nerve ganglion near the but that allowed for quick reflex actions

Neogene- marsupial saber-toothed tiger, apparently their saber teeth were fragile enough that they needed bony support that hung down from the jaw, so apparently it slobbered a lot

large bipedal saurischian dinosaurs, carnivores with small forearms and large heads, the adolescent t-rexes likely had some sort of feathery covering for warmth, had large sharp teeth, ate pretty much everything

in the Cretaceous Laurentia was divided into two land masses: Appalachia and Laramidia and an inland sea way stretched from the Gulf of Mexico up to the Arctic Sea

the way evolution works, every step in the development of wings must have given the organism some sort of evolutionary

advantage, the question is, did wings develop from the ground up or the trees down; if it was from the trees down, they could have been useful to aboreal organisms for getting from tree to tree or from tree to ground, the wings would have been extensions of the body; from the ground up wings could have developed as a means of aerodynamic stability for extremely fast movement, like modern road runners that need wings to stay upright when turning at high speeds, if the forelimbs were used to grab prey, this might have helped to develop flight muscles