1.
Glyptodon
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Glyptodon was a genus of large, armored mammal of the subfamily Glyptodontinae – relatives of armadillos – that lived during the Pleistocene epoch. It was roughly the size and weight as a Volkswagen Beetle. In 2016 an analysis of Doedicurus mtDNA found it was, in fact, for this reason, glyptodonts and all armadillos but Dasypus were relocated to a new family, Chlamyphoridae. Although Darwin is said to have found the first fossils of glyptodontines, the then unnamed Glyptodon was briefly mentioned in a letter from Don Damsio Laranaga. It was about seven pounds, and maybe six or eight inches wide, at the time, the discovery was believed to have belonged to Megatherium, a type of giant ground sloth. A man named Sellow found some carapace plates in three-foot deep clay in Uruguay four years later, although some believed that the armor resembled that of the modern armadillo, the popular opinion was the Megatherium theory. It was not until Professor E. D’Alton said that all the peculiarities of the former may be paralleled to the latter He concluded that the fossils belonged to some version of an armadillo. However, since a full skeleton was not available at the time and this uncertainty in the fossil remains continued until a man named Dr. Lund identified the remains as a new genus in his 1837 memoir. When scholars first acknowledged the genus Glyptodon, there was not a consensus on its name, in 1837 Dr. Lund, a professor who wrote a memoir on Brazil’s ancient fauna, suggested these creatures be recognized as the new genus Hoplophorus. In 1838, another scientist, Professor Bronn, published in the edition of his book Lethaea Geognostica a proposal for the new genus to be called Chlamydotherium. In Professor D’Alton’s 1839 memoir, it was called Pachypus, the director at the Museum of Natural History in Dijon at the time, M. L. Nodot, had named the genus Schistopleuron and it was finally given a single name when English scholar Richard Owen noticed the similarities of the genera his colleagues were describing in their publications. Owen realized they were all the genus from their depictions. He decided on Glyptodon, which means grooved or carved tooth, the name was originally coined by Sir Woodbine Parish, the man who had sent some Glyptodon fossils to Europe. Those fragments of carapace and bones he sent had been studied at the time and had assisted in the recognition of the new genus. After unifying the name of genus, Owen continued working on its taxonomy. In 1845, after analyzing the fossils of his colleagues, he named four species within the genus, G. clavipes, G. reticulatus, G. ornatus, Glyptodon is part of the superorder of placental mammals known as Xenarthra. This clade of mammals also includes anteaters, tree sloths, armadillos and their remains have been found in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina
2.
Precambrian
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The Precambrian is the earliest period of Earths history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is a supereon that is subdivided into three eons of the time scale. It spans from the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about 541 million years ago, the Precambrian accounts for 89% of geologic time. Relatively little is known about the Precambrian, despite it making up roughly seven-eighths of the Earths history, the Precambrian fossil record is poorer than that of the succeeding Phanerozoic, and fossils from that time are of limited biostratigraphic use. This is because many Precambrian rocks have been metamorphosed, obscuring their origins, while others have been destroyed by erosion. A stable crust was apparently in place by 4,412 Ma, the term Precambrian is recognized by the International Commission on Stratigraphy as a general term including the Archean and Proterozoic eons. It is still used by geologists and paleontologists for general discussions not requiring the more specific eon names and it was briefly called the Cryptozoic eon. A specific date for the origin of life has not been determined, carbon found in 3.8 billion year old rocks from islands off western Greenland may be of organic origin. Well-preserved microscopic fossils of bacteria older than 3.46 billion years have found in Western Australia. Probable fossils 100 million years older have been found in the same area, there is a fairly solid record of bacterial life throughout the remainder of the Precambrian. The oldest fossil evidence from that era of such complex life comes from the Lantian formation of the Ediacarian period, a very diverse collection of soft-bodied forms is found in a variety of locations worldwide and date to between 635 and 542 Ma. These are referred to as Ediacaran or Vendian biota, hard-shelled creatures appeared toward the end of that time span, marking the beginning of the Phanerozoic era. By the middle of the following Cambrian period, a diverse fauna is recorded in the Burgess Shale. The explosion in diversity of lifeforms during the early Cambrian is called the Cambrian explosion of life, while land seems to have been devoid of plants and animals, cyanobacteria and other microbes formed prokaryotic mats that covered terrestrial areas. Evidence of the details of plate motions and other activity in the Precambrian has been poorly preserved. It is generally believed that small proto-continents existed prior to 4280 Ma, the supercontinent, known as Rodinia, broke up around 750 Ma. A number of glacial periods have been identified going as far back as the Huronian epoch, one of the best studied is the Sturtian-Varangian glaciation, around 850–635 Ma, which may have brought glacial conditions all the way to the equator, resulting in a Snowball Earth. The atmosphere of the early Earth is not well understood, most geologists believe it was composed primarily of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other relatively inert gases, and was lacking in free oxygen
3.
Cambrian
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The Cambrian Period was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 55.6 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 541 million years ago to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 mya and its subdivisions, and its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latinised form of Cymru, the Welsh name for Wales, as a result, our understanding of the Cambrian biology surpasses that of some later periods. The rapid diversification of lifeforms in the Cambrian, known as the Cambrian explosion, most of the continents were probably dry and rocky due to a lack of vegetation. Shallow seas flanked the margins of several continents created during the breakup of the supercontinent Pannotia, the seas were relatively warm, and polar ice was absent for much of the period. The United States Federal Geographic Data Committee uses a barred capital C ⟨Є⟩ character similar to the capital letter Ukrainian Ye ⟨Є⟩ to represent the Cambrian Period, the proper Unicode character is U+A792 Ꞓ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH BAR. Despite the long recognition of its distinction from younger Ordovician Period rocks and older Supereon Precambrian rocks, the base of the Cambrian lies atop a complex assemblage of trace fossils known as the Treptichnus pedum assemblage. Pedum in Namibia, Spain and Newfoundland, and possibly, in the western USA, the stratigraphic range of T. pedum overlaps the range of the Ediacaran fossils in Namibia, and probably in Spain. The Cambrian Period followed the Ediacaran Period and was followed by the Ordovician Period, the Cambrian is divided into four epochs and ten ages. Currently only two series and five stages are named and have a GSSP, because the international stratigraphic subdivision is not yet complete, many local subdivisions are still widely used. In some of these subdivisions the Cambrian is divided into three epochs with locally differing names – the Early Cambrian, Middle Cambrian and Furongian, rocks of these epochs are referred to as belonging to the Lower, Middle, or Upper Cambrian. Trilobite zones allow biostratigraphic correlation in the Cambrian, each of the local epochs is divided into several stages. The International Commission on Stratigraphy list the Cambrian period as beginning at 541 million years ago, the lower boundary of the Cambrian was originally held to represent the first appearance of complex life, represented by trilobites. The recognition of small shelly fossils before the first trilobites, and Ediacara biota substantially earlier and this formal designation allowed radiometric dates to be obtained from samples across the globe that corresponded to the base of the Cambrian. Early dates of 570 million years ago quickly gained favour, though the used to obtain this number are now considered to be unsuitable. A more precise date using modern radiometric dating yield a date of 541 ±0.3 million years ago, most continental land was clustered in the Southern Hemisphere at this time, but was drifting north. Large, high-velocity rotational movement of Gondwana appears to have occurred in the Early Cambrian, the sea levels fluctuated somewhat, suggesting there were ice ages, associated with pulses of expansion and contraction of a south polar ice cap. In Baltoscandia a Lower Cambrian transgression transformed large swathes of the Sub-Cambrian peneplain into a epicontinental sea, the Earth was generally cold during the early Cambrian, probably due to the ancient continent of Gondwana covering the South Pole and cutting off polar ocean currents
4.
Ordovician
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The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.2 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period 485.4 million years ago to the start of the Silurian Period 443.8 Mya. Lapworth recognized that the fauna in the disputed strata were different from those of either the Cambrian or the Silurian periods. It received international sanction in 1960, when it was adopted as a period of the Paleozoic Era by the International Geological Congress. Life continued to flourish during the Ordovician as it did in the earlier Cambrian period, invertebrates, namely molluscs and arthropods, dominated the oceans. The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event considerably increased the diversity of life, fish, the worlds first true vertebrates, continued to evolve, and those with jaws may have first appeared late in the period. Life had yet to diversify on land, about 100 times as many meteorites struck the Earth during the Ordovician compared with today. The Ordovician Period began with a major extinction called the Cambrian–Ordovician extinction event and it lasted for about 42 million years and ended with the Ordovician–Silurian extinction event, about 443.8 Mya which wiped out 60% of marine genera. The dates given are recent radiometric dates and vary slightly from those found in other sources and this second period of the Paleozoic era created abundant fossils that became major petroleum and gas reservoirs. The boundary chosen for the beginning of both the Ordovician Period and the Tremadocian stage is highly significant and it correlates well with the occurrence of widespread graptolite, conodont, and trilobite species. The base of the Tremadocian allows scientists to relate these species not only to each other and this makes it easier to place many more species in time relative to the beginning of the Ordovician Period. A number of terms have been used to subdivide the Ordovician Period. In 2008, the ICS erected an international system of subdivisions. There exist Baltoscandic, British, Siberian, North American, Australian, the Ordovician Period in Britain was traditionally broken into Early, Middle and Late epochs. The corresponding rocks of the Ordovician System are referred to as coming from the Lower, Middle, the Floian corresponds to the lower Arenig, the Arenig continues until the early Darriwilian, subsuming the Dapingian. The Llanvirn occupies the rest of the Darriwilian, and terminates with it at the base of the Late Ordovician. The Sandbian represents the first half of the Caradoc, the Caradoc ends in the mid-Katian, during the Ordovician, the southern continents were collected into Gondwana. Gondwana started the period in equatorial latitudes and, as the period progressed, drifted toward the South Pole, the small continent Avalonia separated from Gondwana and began to move north towards Baltica and Laurentia, opening the Rheic Ocean between Gondwana and Avalonia
5.
Silurian
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The Silurian is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at 443.8 million years ago, to the beginning of the Devonian Period,419.2 Mya. As with other periods, the rock beds that define the periods start and end are well identified. The base of the Silurian is set at a major Ordovician-Silurian extinction event when 60% of marine species were wiped out, a significant evolutionary milestone during the Silurian was the diversification of jawed and bony fish. However, terrestrial life would not greatly diversify and affect the landscape until the Devonian, the Silurian system was first identified by British geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, who was examining fossil-bearing sedimentary rock strata in south Wales in the early 1830s. He named the sequences for a Celtic tribe of Wales, the Silures, inspired by his friend Adam Sedgwick and this naming does not indicate any correlation between the occurrence of the Silurian rocks and the land inhabited by the Silures. As it was first identified, the Silurian series when traced farther afield quickly came to overlap Sedgwicks Cambrian sequence, however, charles Lapworth resolved the conflict by defining a new Ordovician system including the contested beds. An early alternative name for the Silurian was Gotlandian after the strata of the Baltic island of Gotland, the French geologist Joachim Barrande, building on Murchisons work, used the term Silurian in a more comprehensive sense than was justified by subsequent knowledge. He divided the Silurian rocks of Bohemia into eight stages and his interpretation was questioned in 1854 by Edward Forbes, and the later stages of Barrande, F, G and H, have since been shown to be Devonian. Despite these modifications in the groupings of the strata, it is recognized that Barrande established Bohemia as a classic ground for the study of the earliest fossils. The epoch is named for the town of Llandovery in Carmarthenshire, the Wenlock, which lasted from 433.4 ±1.5 to 427.4 ±2.8 mya, is subdivided into the Sheinwoodian and Homerian ages. It is named after Wenlock Edge in Shropshire, England, during the Wenlock, the oldest known tracheophytes of the genus Cooksonia, appear. The first terrestrial animals also appear in the Wenlock, represented by air-breathing millipedes from Scotland. The Ludlow, lasting from 427.4 ±1.5 to 423 ±2.8 mya, comprises the Gorstian stage, lasting until 425.6 million years ago, and it is named for the town of Ludlow in Shropshire, England. The Pridoli, lasting from 423 ±1.5 to 419.2 ±2.8 mya, is the final and it is named after one locality at the Homolka a Přídolí nature reserve near the Prague suburb Slivenec in the Czech Republic. Přídolí is the old name of a field area. The high sea levels of the Silurian and the flat land resulted in a number of island chains. The southern continents remained united during this period, the melting of icecaps and glaciers contributed to a rise in sea level, recognizable from the fact that Silurian sediments overlie eroded Ordovician sediments, forming an unconformity. The continents of Avalonia, Baltica, and Laurentia drifted together near the equator and this event is the Caledonian orogeny, a spate of mountain building that stretched from New York State through conjoined Europe and Greenland to Norway
6.
Devonian
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The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic, spanning 60 million years from the end of the Silurian,419.2 million years ago, to the beginning of the Carboniferous,358.9 Mya. It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied, the first significant adaptive radiation of life on dry land occurred during the Devonian. Free-sporing vascular plants began to spread across dry land, forming extensive forests which covered the continents, by the middle of the Devonian, several groups of plants had evolved leaves and true roots, and by the end of the period the first seed-bearing plants appeared. Various terrestrial arthropods also became well-established, Fish reached substantial diversity during this time, leading the Devonian to often be dubbed the Age of Fish. The first ray-finned and lobe-finned bony fish appeared, while the placodermi began dominating almost every aquatic environment. The ancestors of all four-limbed vertebrates began adapting to walking on land, as their strong pectoral, in the oceans, primitive sharks became more numerous than in the Silurian and Late Ordovician. The first ammonites, species of molluscs, appeared, trilobites, the mollusk-like brachiopods and the great coral reefs, were still common. The Late Devonian extinction which started about 375 million years ago severely affected marine life, killing off all placodermi, and all trilobites, save for a few species of the order Proetida. The palaeogeography was dominated by the supercontinent of Gondwana to the south, the continent of Siberia to the north, while the rock beds that define the start and end of the Devonian period are well identified, the exact dates are uncertain. According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the Devonian extends from the end of the Silurian 419.2 Mya, another common term is Age of the Fishes, referring to the evolution of several major groups of fish that took place during the period. Older literature on the Anglo-Welsh basin divides it into the Downtonian, Dittonian, Breconian and Farlovian stages, in the Late Devonian, by contrast, arid conditions were less prevalent across the world and temperate climates were more common. The Devonian Period is formally broken into Early, Middle and Late subdivisions, the rocks corresponding to those epochs are referred to as belonging to the Lower, Middle and Upper parts of the Devonian System. Early Devonian The Early Devonian lasted from 419.2 ±2.8 to 393.3 ±2.5 and began with the Lochkovian stage, which lasted until the Pragian. It spanned from 410.8 ±2.8 to 407.6 ±2.5, and was followed by the Emsian, which lasted until the Middle Devonian began,393. 3±2.7 million years ago. Middle Devonian The Middle Devonian comprised two subdivisions, first the Eifelian, which gave way to the Givetian 387. 7±2.7 million years ago. Late Devonian Finally, the Late Devonian started with the Frasnian,382.7 ±2.8 to 372.2 ±2.5, during which the first forests took shape on land. The first tetrapods appeared in the record in the ensuing Famennian subdivision. This lasted until the end of the Devonian,358. 9±2.5 million years ago, the Devonian was a relatively warm period, and probably lacked any glaciers
7.
Carboniferous
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The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period 358.9 million years ago, to the beginning of the Permian Period,298.9 Mya. The name Carboniferous means coal-bearing and derives from the Latin words carbō and ferō, and was coined by geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822. Based on a study of the British rock succession, it was the first of the system names to be employed. The Carboniferous is often treated in North America as two periods, the earlier Mississippian and the later Pennsylvanian. Terrestrial life was established by the Carboniferous period. Amphibians were the dominant land vertebrates, of one branch would eventually evolve into amniotes. Arthropods were also common, and many were much larger than those of today. Vast swaths of forest covered the land, which would eventually be laid down, the atmospheric content of oxygen also reached their highest levels in geological history during the period, 35% compared with 21% today, allowing terrestrial invertebrates to evolve to great size. A major marine and terrestrial extinction event, the Carboniferous rainforest collapse, occurred in the middle of the period, the later half of the period experienced glaciations, low sea level, and mountain building as the continents collided to form Pangaea. In the United States the Carboniferous is usually broken into Mississippian and Pennsylvanian subperiods, the Silesian is roughly contemporaneous with the late Mississippian Serpukhovian plus the Pennsylvanian. In Britain the Dinantian is traditionally known as the Carboniferous Limestone, the Namurian as the Millstone Grit, and the Westphalian as the Coal Measures and Pennant Sandstone. There was also a drop in south polar temperatures, southern Gondwanaland was glaciated throughout the period and these conditions apparently had little effect in the deep tropics, where lush swamps, later to become coal, flourished to within 30 degrees of the northernmost glaciers. Mid-Carboniferous, a drop in sea level precipitated a major extinction, one that hit crinoids. This sea level drop and the unconformity in North America separate the Mississippian subperiod from the Pennsylvanian subperiod. This happened about 323 million years ago, at the onset of the Permo-Carboniferous Glaciation, the Carboniferous was a time of active mountain-building, as the supercontinent Pangaea came together. The southern continents remained tied together in the supercontinent Gondwana, which collided with North America–Europe along the present line of eastern North America, in the same time frame, much of present eastern Eurasian plate welded itself to Europe along the line of the Ural mountains. Most of the Mesozoic supercontinent of Pangea was now assembled, although North China, the Late Carboniferous Pangaea was shaped like an O. There were two major oceans in the Carboniferous—Panthalassa and Paleo-Tethys, which was inside the O in the Carboniferous Pangaea, other minor oceans were shrinking and eventually closed - Rheic Ocean, the small, shallow Ural Ocean and Proto-Tethys Ocean
8.
Permian
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The Permian is a geologic period and system which spans 46.7 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period 298.9 million years ago, to the beginning of the Triassic Period 252.2 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era, the following Triassic Period belongs to the Mesozoic Era, the concept of the Permian was introduced in 1841 by geologist Sir Roderick Murchison, who named it after the city of Perm. The Permian witnessed the diversification of the early amniotes into the groups of the mammals, turtles, lepidosaurs. The world at the time was dominated by two known as Pangaea and Siberia, surrounded by a global ocean called Panthalassa. The Carboniferous rainforest collapse left behind vast regions of desert within the continental interior, amniotes, who could better cope with these drier conditions, rose to dominance in place of their amphibian ancestors. The Permian ended with the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the largest mass extinction in Earths history, in which nearly 90% of marine species and it would take well into the Triassic for life to recover from this catastrophe. Recovery from the Permian-Triassic extinction event was protracted, on land, the term Permian was introduced into geology in 1841 by Sir R. I. Murchison, president of the Geological Society of London, who identified typical strata in extensive Russian explorations undertaken with Edouard de Verneuil, the region now lies in the Perm Krai of Russia. This could have in part caused the extinctions of marine species at the end of the period by severely reducing shallow coastal areas preferred by many marine organisms. During the Permian, all the Earths major landmasses were collected into a supercontinent known as Pangaea. The Cimmeria continent rifted away from Gondwana and drifted north to Laurasia, a new ocean was growing on its southern end, the Tethys Ocean, an ocean that would dominate much of the Mesozoic Era. Large continental landmass interiors experience climates with extreme variations of heat and cold, deserts seem to have been widespread on Pangaea. Such dry conditions favored gymnosperms, plants with seeds enclosed in a cover, over plants such as ferns that disperse spores in a wetter environment. The first modern trees appeared in the Permian, the climate in the Permian was quite varied. At the start of the Permian, the Earth was still in an Ice Age, glaciers receded around the mid-Permian period as the climate gradually warmed, drying the continents interiors. In the late Permian period, the drying continued although the temperature cycled between warm and cool cycles, Permian marine deposits are rich in fossil mollusks, echinoderms, and brachiopods. By the close of the Permian, trilobites and a host of other groups became extinct. Terrestrial life in the Permian included diverse plants, fungi, arthropods, the period saw a massive desert covering the interior of Pangaea
9.
Triassic
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The Triassic is a geologic period and system which spans 50.9 million years from the end of the Permian Period 252.17 million years ago, to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.3 Mya. The Triassic is the first period of the Mesozoic Era, both the start and end of the period are marked by major extinction events. Therapsids and archosaurs were the terrestrial vertebrates during this time. A specialized subgroup of archosaurs, called dinosaurs, first appeared in the Late Triassic, the vast supercontinent of Pangaea existed until the mid-Triassic, after which it began to gradually rift into two separate landmasses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south. The global climate during the Triassic was mostly hot and dry, however, the climate shifted and became more humid as Pangaea began to drift apart. The end of the period was marked by yet another mass extinction, the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. The Triassic is usually separated into Early, Middle, and Late Triassic Epochs, from the east, along the equator, the Tethys sea penetrated Pangaea, causing the Paleo-Tethys Ocean to be closed. Later in the mid-Triassic a similar sea penetrated along the equator from the west, the remaining shores were surrounded by the world-ocean known as Panthalassa. All the deep-ocean sediments laid down during the Triassic have disappeared through subduction of oceanic plates, thus, the supercontinent Pangaea was rifting during the Triassic—especially late in that period—but had not yet separated. In North America, for example, marine deposits are limited to a few exposures in the west, thus Triassic stratigraphy is mostly based on organisms that lived in lagoons and hypersaline environments, such as Estheria crustaceans. At the beginning of the Mesozoic Era, Africa was joined with Earths other continents in Pangaea, Africa shared the supercontinents relatively uniform fauna which was dominated by theropods, prosauropods and primitive ornithischians by the close of the Triassic period. Late Triassic fossils are found throughout Africa, but are common in the south than north. The time boundary separating the Permian and Triassic marks the advent of an event with global impact. At Paleorrota geopark, located in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in these formations, one of the earliest dinosaurs, Staurikosaurus, as well as the mammal ancestors Brasilitherium and Brasilodon have been discovered. The Triassic continental interior climate was hot and dry, so that typical deposits are red bed sandstones and evaporites. Pangaeas large size limited the effect of the global ocean, its continental climate was highly seasonal, with very hot summers. The strong contrast between the Pangea supercontinent and the global ocean triggered intense cross-equatorial monsoons, the best studied of such episodes of humid climate, and probably the most intense and widespread, was the Carnian Pluvial Event. On land, the vascular plants included the lycophytes, the dominant cycadophytes, ginkgophyta, ferns, horsetails
10.
Jurassic
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The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that spans 56.3 million years from the end of the Triassic Period 201.3 million years ago to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period 145 Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic Era, also known as the Age of Reptiles, the start of the period is marked by the major Triassic–Jurassic extinction event. The Jurassic is named after the Jura Mountains within the European Alps, by the beginning of the Jurassic, the supercontinent Pangaea had begun rifting into two landmasses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south. This created more coastlines and shifted the continental climate from dry to humid, on land, the fauna transitioned from the Triassic fauna, dominated by both dinosauromorph and crocodylomorph archosaurs, to one dominated by dinosaurs alone. The first birds also appeared during the Jurassic, having evolved from a branch of theropod dinosaurs, other major events include the appearance of the earliest lizards, and the evolution of therian mammals, including primitive placentals. Crocodilians made the transition from a terrestrial to a mode of life. The oceans were inhabited by marine reptiles such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, the chronostratigraphic term Jurassic is directly linked to the Jura Mountains. The name Jura is derived from the Celtic root jor, which was Latinised into juria, the Jurassic period is divided into the Early Jurassic, Middle, and Late Jurassic epochs. The Jurassic System, in stratigraphy, is divided into the Lower Jurassic, Middle, the separation of the term Jurassic into three sections goes back to Leopold von Buch. The Jurassic North Atlantic Ocean was relatively narrow, while the South Atlantic did not open until the following Cretaceous period, the Tethys Sea closed, and the Neotethys basin appeared. Climates were warm, with no evidence of glaciation, as in the Triassic, there was apparently no land over either pole, and no extensive ice caps existed. In contrast, the North American Jurassic record is the poorest of the Mesozoic, the Jurassic was a time of calcite sea geochemistry in which low-magnesium calcite was the primary inorganic marine precipitate of calcium carbonate. Carbonate hardgrounds were thus very common, along with calcitic ooids, calcitic cements, the first of several massive batholiths were emplaced in the northern American cordillera beginning in the mid-Jurassic, marking the Nevadan orogeny. Important Jurassic exposures are found in Russia, India, South America, Japan, Australasia. As the Jurassic proceeded, larger and more groups of dinosaurs like sauropods and ornithopods proliferated in Africa. Middle Jurassic strata are well represented nor well studied in Africa. Late Jurassic strata are also poorly represented apart from the spectacular Tendaguru fauna in Tanzania, the Late Jurassic life of Tendaguru is very similar to that found in western North Americas Morrison Formation. During the Jurassic period, the primary living in the sea were fish
11.
Cretaceous
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The Cretaceous is a geologic period and system that spans 79 million years from the end of the Jurassic Period 145 million years ago to the beginning of the Paleogene Period 66 Mya. It is the last period of the Mesozoic Era, the Cretaceous Period is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation Kreide. The Cretaceous was a period with a warm climate, resulting in high eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now-extinct marine reptiles, ammonites and rudists, during this time, new groups of mammals and birds, as well as flowering plants, appeared. The Cretaceous ended with a mass extinction, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, in which many groups, including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs. The end of the Cretaceous is defined by the abrupt Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, the name Cretaceous was derived from Latin creta, meaning chalk. The Cretaceous is divided into Early and Late Cretaceous epochs, or Lower and Upper Cretaceous series, in older literature the Cretaceous is sometimes divided into three series, Neocomian, Gallic and Senonian. A subdivision in eleven stages, all originating from European stratigraphy, is now used worldwide, in many parts of the world, alternative local subdivisions are still in use. As with other geologic periods, the rock beds of the Cretaceous are well identified. No great extinction or burst of diversity separates the Cretaceous from the Jurassic and this layer has been dated at 66.043 Ma. A140 Ma age for the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary instead of the usually accepted 145 Ma was proposed in 2014 based on a study of Vaca Muerta Formation in Neuquén Basin. Víctor Ramos, one of the authors of the study proposing the 140 Ma boundary age sees the study as a first step toward formally changing the age in the International Union of Geological Sciences, due to the high sea level there was extensive space for such sedimentation. Because of the young age and great thickness of the system. Chalk is a type characteristic for the Cretaceous. It consists of coccoliths, microscopically small calcite skeletons of coccolithophores, the group is found in England, northern France, the low countries, northern Germany, Denmark and in the subsurface of the southern part of the North Sea. Chalk is not easily consolidated and the Chalk Group still consists of sediments in many places. The group also has other limestones and arenites, among the fossils it contains are sea urchins, belemnites, ammonites and sea reptiles such as Mosasaurus. In southern Europe, the Cretaceous is usually a marine system consisting of competent limestone beds or incompetent marls
12.
Paleogene
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The Paleogene is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago to the beginning of the Neogene Period 23.03 Mya. It is the beginning of the Cenozoic Era of the present Phanerozoic Eon and this period consists of the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene epochs. The terms Paleogene System and lower Tertiary System are applied to the rocks deposited during the Paleogene Period. By dividing the Tertiary Period into two periods instead of directly into five epochs, the periods are more comparable to the duration of periods of the preceding Mesozoic and Paleozoic Eras. The trend was caused by the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. During the Paleogene, the continued to drift closer to their current positions. India was in the process of colliding with Asia, subsequently forming the Himalayas, the Atlantic Ocean continued to widen by a few centimeters each year. Africa was moving north to meet with Europe and form the Mediterranean, inland seas retreated from North America early in the period. Australia had also separated from Antarctica and was drifting towards Southeast Asia, mammals began a rapid diversification during this period. Some of these mammals would evolve into forms that would dominate the land, while others would become capable of living in marine, specialized terrestrial. Those that took to the oceans became modern cetaceans, while those that took to the trees became primates, the group to which humans belong. Birds, which were well established by the end of the Cretaceous. In comparison to birds and mammals, most other branches of life remained unchanged during this period. As the Earth cooled, tropical plants became less numerous and were now restricted to equatorial regions, deciduous plants, which could survive through the seasonal climates the world was now experiencing, became more common. The Paleogene is notable in the context of offshore oil drilling, and especially in Gulf of Mexico oil exploration and these rock formations represent the current cutting edge of deep-water oil discovery. Lower Tertiary explorations to date include, Kaskida Oil Field Tiber Oil Field Jack 2 Paleogene Microfossils, 180+ images of Foraminifera
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Neogene
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The Neogene is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period 23.03 million years ago to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period 2.58 Mya. The Neogene is sub-divided into two epochs, the earlier Miocene and the later Pliocene, some geologists assert that the Neogene cannot be clearly delineated from the modern geological period, the Quaternary. During this period, mammals and birds continued to evolve into modern forms. Early hominids, the ancestors of humans, appeared in Africa near the end of the period, some continental movement took place, the most significant event being the connection of North and South America at the Isthmus of Panama, late in the Pliocene. This cut off the ocean currents from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean. The global climate cooled considerably over the course of the Neogene, the terms Neogene System and upper Tertiary System describe the rocks deposited during the Neogene Period. The continents in the Neogene were very close to their current positions, the Isthmus of Panama formed, connecting North and South America. The Indian subcontinent continued to collide with Asia, forming the Himalayas, sea levels fell, creating land bridges between Africa and Eurasia and between Eurasia and North America. The global climate became seasonal and continued an overall drying and cooling trend which began at the start of the Paleogene. The ice caps on both poles began to grow and thicken, and by the end of the period the first of a series of glaciations of the current Ice Age began, marine and continental flora and fauna have a modern appearance. The reptile group Choristodera became extinct in the part of the period. Mammals and birds continued to be the dominant terrestrial vertebrates, the first hominids, the ancestors of humans, appeared in Africa and spread into Eurasia. In response to the cooler, seasonal climate, tropical plant species gave way to deciduous ones, grasses therefore greatly diversified, and herbivorous mammals evolved alongside it, creating the many grazing animals of today such as horses, antelope, and bison. The Neogene traditionally ended at the end of the Pliocene Epoch, just before the definition of the beginning of the Quaternary Period. However, there was a movement amongst geologists to also include ongoing geological time in the Neogene, by dividing the Cenozoic Era into three periods instead of seven epochs, the periods are more closely comparable to the duration of periods in the Mesozoic and Paleozoic eras. The International Commission on Stratigraphy once proposed that the Quaternary be considered a sub-era of the Neogene, with a date of 2.58 Ma. In the 2004 proposal of the ICS, the Neogene would have consisted of the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, thus the Neogene Period ends bounding the succeeding Quaternary Period at 2.58 Mya. Digital Atlas of Neogene Life for the Southeastern United States — by San Jose State University via Web Archive
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Natural History Museum, Vienna
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The Natural History Museum is a large natural history museum located in Vienna, Austria. The museums website provides an overview in the form of a virtual tour, the museums earliest collections of artifacts were begun over 250 years ago. Today, its collections on display cover 8,700 square metres, as of 2011, the museum houses approximately 30 million objects and the number is growing. Behind the scenes, collections comprising some 25 million specimens and artefacts are the basis for the work of over 60 staff scientists. The museum building opened in 1889 at the time as the Kunsthistorisches Museum. The two museums have identical exteriors and face each other across Maria-Theresien-Platz, the Museum was built to house the huge collection of the Habsburgs. Both buildings were built between 1872 and 1891 on the Ringstraße according to plans drawn up by Gottfried Semper and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer, the insect collections date from 1793 when Franz I of Austria purchased the scientific collections of Joseph Natterer, Sr. In 1806 the museum purchased a collection of European insects made by Johann Carl Megerle von Mühlfeld and he organised the purchase of the Gundian collection of European butterflies. In 1859, the frigate SMS Novara returned from a voyage with Georg Ritter von Frauenfeld and Johann Zelebor. These were worked on by Ludwig Redtenbacher, Friedrich Moritz Brauer, Henri Louis Frederic de Saussure, Gustav Mayr, Ignaz Rudolph Schiner, C Felder, R. Felder, the present museum organization dates from 1876. The main building of the museum is a palace that has accommodated these constantly growing collections. However, some of the collections had been moved from older buildings, such as the Austrian National Library. The interaction of the building, its decoration, furniture. A contemporary presentation of the exhibits, using modern technology, has been possible without any destruction of the buildings historical structures. The first floor displays the variety of the animal world. Note that some signs and explanations in the museum are in German, while much of the museum is in German, Imperial Natural History Museum, the current museums predecessor. Other major museums in Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Museum of Fine Art sitting opposite the Vienna Museum of Natural History, lobkowitz Palace, housing the Kunsthistorisches Museums theatrical department and the Austrian National Library. Technisches Museum Wien, the Museum of Technology, Museum of Ethnology Official website Annals, an early history of the museum
15.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
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Animal
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Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
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Chordate
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Chordates are deuterostomes, as during the embryo development stage the anus forms before the mouth. They are also bilaterally symmetric coelomates, in the case of vertebrate chordates, the notochord is usually replaced by a vertebral column during development, and they may have body plans organized via segmentation. There are also additional extinct taxa, the Vertebrata are sometimes considered as a subgroup of the clade Craniata, consisting of chordates with a skull, the Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, the worlds largest and fastest animals, the blue whale and peregrine falcon respectively, are chordates, as are humans. Fossil chordates are known from at least as early as the Cambrian explosion, Hemichordata, which includes the acorn worms, has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but it now is usually treated as a separate phylum. The Hemichordata, along with the Echinodermata, form the Ambulacraria, the Chordata and Ambulacraria form the superphylum Deuterostomia, composed of the deuterostomes. Attempts to work out the relationships of the chordates have produced several hypotheses. All of the earliest chordate fossils have found in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna. Because the fossil record of early chordates is poor, only molecular phylogenetics offers a prospect of dating their emergence. However, the use of molecular phylogenetics for dating evolutionary transitions is controversial and it has also proved difficult to produce a detailed classification within the living chordates. Attempts to produce family trees shows that many of the traditional classes are paraphyletic. While this has been known since the 19th century, an insistence on only monophyletic taxa has resulted in vertebrate classification being in a state of flux. Although the name Chordata is attributed to William Bateson, it was already in prevalent use by 1880, ernst Haeckel described a taxon comprising tunicates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates in 1866. Though he used the German vernacular form, it is allowed under the ICZN code because of its subsequent latinization, among the vertebrate sub-group of chordates the notochord develops into the spine, and in wholly aquatic species this helps the animal to swim by flexing its tail. In fish and other vertebrates, this develops into the spinal cord, the pharynx is the part of the throat immediately behind the mouth. In fish, the slits are modified to form gills, a muscular tail that extends backwards behind the anus. This is a groove in the wall of the pharynx. In filter-feeding species it produces mucus to gather food particles, which helps in transporting food to the esophagus and it also stores iodine, and may be a precursor of the vertebrate thyroid gland
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Mammal
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Mammals are any vertebrates within the class Mammalia, a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles by the possession of a neocortex, hair, three middle ear bones and mammary glands. All female mammals nurse their young with milk, secreted from the mammary glands, Mammals include the largest animals on the planet, the great whales. The basic body type is a quadruped, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in trees. The largest group of mammals, the placentals, have a placenta, Mammals range in size from the 30–40 mm bumblebee bat to the 30-meter blue whale. With the exception of the five species of monotreme, all modern mammals give birth to live young, most mammals, including the six most species-rich orders, belong to the placental group. The largest orders are the rodents, bats and Soricomorpha, the next three biggest orders, depending on the biological classification scheme used, are the Primates, the Cetartiodactyla, and the Carnivora. Living mammals are divided into the Yinotheria and Theriiformes There are around 5450 species of mammal, in some classifications, extant mammals are divided into two subclasses, the Prototheria, that is, the order Monotremata, and the Theria, or the infraclasses Metatheria and Eutheria. The marsupials constitute the group of the Metatheria, and include all living metatherians as well as many extinct ones. Much of the changes reflect the advances of cladistic analysis and molecular genetics, findings from molecular genetics, for example, have prompted adopting new groups, such as the Afrotheria, and abandoning traditional groups, such as the Insectivora. The mammals represent the only living Synapsida, which together with the Sauropsida form the Amniota clade, the early synapsid mammalian ancestors were sphenacodont pelycosaurs, a group that produced the non-mammalian Dimetrodon. At the end of the Carboniferous period, this group diverged from the line that led to todays reptiles. Some mammals are intelligent, with some possessing large brains, self-awareness, Mammals can communicate and vocalize in several different ways, including the production of ultrasound, scent-marking, alarm signals, singing, and echolocation. Mammals can organize themselves into fission-fusion societies, harems, and hierarchies, most mammals are polygynous, but some can be monogamous or polyandrous. They provided, and continue to provide, power for transport and agriculture, as well as commodities such as meat, dairy products, wool. Mammals are hunted or raced for sport, and are used as model organisms in science, Mammals have been depicted in art since Palaeolithic times, and appear in literature, film, mythology, and religion. Defaunation of mammals is primarily driven by anthropogenic factors, such as poaching and habitat destruction, Mammal classification has been through several iterations since Carl Linnaeus initially defined the class. No classification system is accepted, McKenna & Bell and Wilson & Reader provide useful recent compendiums. Though field work gradually made Simpsons classification outdated, it remains the closest thing to a classification of mammals
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Cingulata
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Cingulata, part of the superorder Xenarthra, is an order of armored New World placental mammals. Dasypodids and chlamyphorids, the armadillos, are the surviving families in the order. The cingulate order originated in South America during the Paleocene epoch, however, the formation of a land bridge allowed members of all three families to migrate to southern North America during the Pliocene or early Pleistocene as part of the Great American Interchange. Armadillos have dorsal armor that is formed by osteoderms, plates of bone covered in relatively small. Most species have rigid shields over the shoulders and hips, with three to nine bands separated by flexible skin covering the back and flanks, pampatheres also had shells that were flexible due to three movable lateral bands of osteoderms. The osteoderms of pampatheres were each covered by a single scute, unlike those of armadillos, glyptodonts, on the other hand, had rigid, turtle-like shells of fused osteoderms. Both groups have or had a cap of armor atop their heads, most armadillos eat insects and other invertebrates, some are more omnivorous and may also eat small vertebrates and vegetable matter. Pampatheres are thought to have been specialized for grazing, and isotopic analysis indicates the diet of glyptodonts was dominated by C4 grasses, euphractinae is unique for speciations towards carnivory, culminating in the macropredatory genus Macroeuphractus. The taxonomic table below follows the results of an analysis published by Delsuc et al.2016
20.
Hermann Burmeister
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Karl Hermann Konrad Burmeister was a German Argentine zoologist, entomologist, herpetologist, and botanist. He was born in Stralsund and died in Buenos Aires, a brief biography, with particular reference to his work on phasmids was published by Bragg in 2007. He studied medicine at Greifswald and Halle, and in 1830 went to Berlin to qualify himself to be a teacher of natural history and he was soon after appointed an instructor in the gymnasium at Cologne. He later became a professor of zoology at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg from 1837 to 1861. In 1848, during the excitement, he was sent by the city of Halle as deputy to the national assembly. He traveled to Brazil from 1850 to 1852 and Argentina from 1857 to 1860, in 1861 he went to live in Argentina, founding the Institute at the Museo Nacional in Buenos Aires. He also headed the Academy of Sciences, formed from the faculty of Argentinas National University of Córdoba. In the field of herpetology he described new species of amphibians. 1832 Handbuch der Entomologie Vol.1, xvi+696 + pp. Reimer, bericht über die Fortschritte der Entomologie 1834-35. Bio Anales Museum of Natural History in Buenos Aires,4, bio Anales de la Sociedad Argentina Science,41, 97-107. Buenos Aires, Argentina Anonymous Germán Burmeister,25 † anniversary of his death Physis,3, houssay The personality of German Burmeister Physis,19, 279-283. Buenos Aires, Argentina WITNESS Mendilaharzu Burmeister unpublished Deutsche Lehrerzeitung für Argentinien, memorias del Museo de Entre Rios. Parana Province of Entre Rios, Argentina G. Araoz Alfaro A wise German in the service of Argentina, German Burmeister Argentine-German cultural institutions, Buenos Aires, Argentina R. Ardissone Homage to Burmeister. Burmeister contribution to geography Bulletin EAG, 9-10, Buenos Aires, Argentina A. Burkart Burmeister as botanical Revista de la Universidad Nacional de la Plata,4, 89-95. La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina M. Buraben Germán Burmeister, his life, his work Cultural issues Argentinas, Buenos Aires, Argentina K. Müller Hermann Burmeister Die Natur,36, 136-138. Halle M. Asua Official support for the Physics Description de la République Argentine H. Burmeister Quipu,6, méxico NT Auza Germán Burmeister and Paleontological Society 1866-1868 Investigations and Trials,46, 137-155. Iconibus illustravit et descripsit Hermannus Burmeister, grundiss der Naturgeschichte, Für Gymnasien und höhere Bürgerschulen A Manual of entomology, / tr. from the German of Dr. Herman Burmeister by W. E. Jens Andermannn-Relics and Selves Cooper, Thompson. Gaedike, R. Groll, E. K. & Taeger, A.2012, Bibliography of the literature from the beginning until 1863
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Genus
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A genus is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms in biology. In the hierarchy of classification, genus comes above species. In binomial nomenclature, the name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. Felis catus and Felis silvestris are two species within the genus Felis, Felis is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by a taxonomist, the standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. Moreover, genera should be composed of units of the same kind as other genera. The term comes from the Latin genus, a noun form cognate with gignere, linnaeus popularized its use in his 1753 Species Plantarum, but the French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort is considered the founder of the modern concept of genera. The scientific name of a genus may be called the name or generic epithet. It plays a role in binomial nomenclature, the system of naming organisms. The rules for the names of organisms are laid down in the Nomenclature Codes. The standard way of scientifically describing species and other lower-ranked taxa is by binomial nomenclature, the generic name forms its first half. For example, the gray wolfs binomial name is Canis lupus, with Canis being the name shared by the wolfs close relatives. The specific name is written in lower-case and may be followed by names in zoology or a variety of infraspecific names in botany. Especially with these names, when the generic name is known from context. Because animals are typically only grouped within subspecies, it is written as a trinomen with a third name. Dog breeds, meanwhile, are not scientifically distinguished, there are several divisions of plant species and therefore their infraspecific names generally include contractions explaining the relation. For example, the genus Hibiscus includes hundreds of other species apart from the Rose of Sharon or common garden hibiscus, Rose of Sharon doesnt have subspecies but has cultivars that carry desired traits, such as the bright white H. syriaca Diana. Hawaiian hibiscus, meanwhile, includes several separate species, since not all botanists agree on the divisions or names between species, it is common to specify the source of the name using author abbreviations
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Doedicurus
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Doedicurus clavicaudatus was a prehistoric glyptodont, living during the Pleistocene until the end of the last glacial period, some 11,000 years ago. This was the largest known glyptodont, and one of the members of the New World Pleistocene megafauna, with a height of 1.5 metres. Doedicurus could reach a mass of 1,910 to 2,370 kg and it had a huge domed carapace that was made of many tightly fitted scutes, somewhat similar to that of its modern-day relative, the armadillos. Its tail was surrounded by a sheath of bone and had long spikes or knobs on the end. D. clavicaudatus inhabited woodlands and grasslands and was herbivorous, for one thing, the latter use would have been difficult since the animals field of vision was so limited that it would essentially have had to blindly thrash the tail club. In addition, carapaces have been found which show fractures that were produced by roughly the amount of energy as could be produced by the tail muscles. Its name means pestle tail, referring to how, if the spikes were removed, the carapace was firmly anchored to the pelvis but loose around the shoulder. Its front bore a smaller dome. This has been interpreted as a space, similar to a camels hump. Fossils of D. clavicaudatus are found in South America, especially the Ensenada Formation in Argentina, other fossil remains have been found in Uruguay and Brazil. Given the late date of its disappearance, it was encountered and probably also hunted by the first human settlers of South America
23.
Glyptotherium
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Glyptotherium is an extinct genus of glyptodont, a group of extinct mammals related to the armadillos living from 4.1 to 1.5 million years ago. The genus is considered an example of North American megafauna, of which most have become extinct, Glyptotherium may have been wiped out by climate change or human interference. Like its living relative, the armadillo, Glyptotherium had a shell which covered its entire body, however, unlike a turtles shell, the Glyptotherium shell was made up of hundreds of small six-sided scales. Some species grew up to six long and its armor weighed up to a ton. Remains of Glyptotherium species have found in tropical and subtropical regions of Venezuela, Central America, Mexico. There is no evidence of humans preying on the North American glyptodont. The Glyptotherium in question was a juvenile, with a head shield. Glyptotherium was named by Osborn in 1903, assigned to Glyptodontinae by Downing and White in 1995 and to Glyptodontidae by Osborn, Brown, Carroll, Cisneros and Mead et al
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Extinction
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In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms, normally a species. The moment of extinction is considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed. Because a species range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult. This difficulty leads to such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly reappears after a period of apparent absence. More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to five billion species. Estimates on the number of Earths current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. More recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described, the relationship between animals and their ecological niches has been firmly established. Mass extinctions are relatively rare events, however, isolated extinctions are quite common, only recently have extinctions been recorded and scientists have become alarmed at the current high rate of extinctions. Most species that become extinct are never scientifically documented, some scientists estimate that up to half of presently existing plant and animal species may become extinct by 2100. A dagger symbol next to a name is often used to indicate its extinction. A species is extinct when the last existing member dies, Extinction therefore becomes a certainty when there are no surviving individuals that can reproduce and create a new generation. Pinpointing the extinction of a species requires a definition of that species. If it is to be declared extinct, the species in question must be distinguishable from any ancestor or daughter species. Extinction of a plays a key role in the punctuated equilibrium hypothesis of Stephen Jay Gould. In ecology, extinction is often used informally to refer to local extinction, in which a species ceases to exist in the area of study. This phenomenon is known as extirpation. Local extinctions may be followed by a replacement of the species taken from other locations, species which are not extinct are termed extant. Those that are extant but threatened by extinction are referred to as threatened or endangered species, currently an important aspect of extinction is human attempts to preserve critically endangered species
25.
Armadillo
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Armadillos are New World placental mammals in the order Cingulata with a leathery armour shell. The Chlamyphoridae and Dasypodidae are the surviving families in the order. The word armadillo means little armoured one in Spanish, the Aztecs called them āyōtōchtli, Nahuatl for turtle-rabbit, āyōtl and tōchtli. The Portuguese word for armadillo is tatu which derives from the Tupi language, similar names are also found in other, especially European, languages. About nine extant genera and 21 extant species of armadillo have been described and their average length is about 75 cm, including tail. The giant armadillo grows up to 150 cm and weighs up to 54 kg, while the pink fairy armadillo is a diminutive species, all species are native to the Americas, where they inhabit a variety of different environments. Like all of the Xenarthra lineages, armadillos originated in South America, due to the continents former isolation, they were confined there for most of the Cenozoic. The recent formation of the Isthmus of Panama allowed a few members of the family to migrate northward into southern North America by the early Pleistocene, today, all extant armadillo species are still present in South America. They are particularly diverse in Paraguay and surrounding areas, some, including four species of Dasypus, are widely distributed over the Americas, whereas others, such as Yepess mulita, are restricted to small ranges. Their range has expanded in North America over the last century due to a lack of natural predators. Armadillos are small to medium-sized mammals, the smallest species, the pink fairy armadillo, is roughly chipmunk-sized at 85 g and 13–15 cm in total length. The largest species, the giant armadillo, can be the size of a pig and weigh up to 54 kg. Many species use their claws to dig for food, such as grubs. The nine-banded armadillo prefers to build burrows in moist soil near the creeks, streams, the diets of different armadillo species vary, but consist mainly of insects, grubs, and other invertebrates. Some species, however, feed almost entirely on ants and termites, in common with other xenarthrans, armadillos, in general, have low body temperatures of 33–36 °C and low basal metabolic rates. This is particularly true of types that specialize in using termites as their food source. The armour is formed by plates of bone covered in relatively small, overlapping epidermal scales called scutes. Most species have rigid shields over the shoulders and hips, with a number of bands separated by flexible skin covering the back, additional armour covers the top of the head, the upper parts of the limbs, and the tail
26.
Robert Bruce Horsfall
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Robert Bruce Horsfall was an American wildlife illustrator. His paintings were included in works from the early 20th century. American Land Birds by Alice E. Ball, illustrated by Robert Bruce Horsfall, bird and Animal Paintings by R. Bruce Horsfall, text by Carra E. Horsfall. Birds of North Carolina, by Thomas Gilbert Pearson, Clement Samuel Brimley and Herbert Hutchinson Brimley, illustrations by Rex Brasher, Robert Bruce Horsfall, North Carolina Department of Agriculture, State Museum Division. Putnums Sons,1923 Familiar Birds of the Northwest, Covering Birds Commonly Found in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Northern California, nehls, with paintings by R. Bruce Horsfall et al. A Year with the Birds by Alice E. Ball, illustrated by Robert Bruce Horsfall, new York, Gibbs & Van Vleck,1916,1917. Songs of the Open, words and music by Grace Keir with illustrations by Robert Bruce Horsfall, Carl Fischer, Works by Robert Bruce Horsfall at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Robert Bruce Horsfall at Internet Archive
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Miocene
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The Miocene is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about 23.03 to 5.333 million years ago. The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell and its name comes from the Greek words μείων and καινός and means less recent because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene Epoch and is followed by the Pliocene Epoch, the earth went from the Oligocene through the Miocene and into the Pliocene, with the climate slowly cooling towards a series of ice ages. The Miocene boundaries are not marked by a single distinct global event, the apes arose and diversified during the Miocene, becoming widespread in the Old World. By the end of this epoch, the ancestors of humans had split away from the ancestors of the chimpanzees to follow their own evolutionary path, as in the Oligocene before it, grasslands continued to expand and forests to dwindle in extent. In the Miocene seas, kelp forests made their first appearance, the plants and animals of the Miocene were fairly modern. The Miocene faunal stages from youngest to oldest are typically named according to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, Two subdivisions each form the lower, middle, continents continued to drift toward their present positions. Mountain building took place in western North America, Europe, both continental and marine Miocene deposits are common worldwide with marine outcrops common near modern shorelines. Well studied continental exposures occur in the North American Great Plains, India continued to collide with Asia, creating dramatic new mountain ranges. The Tethys Seaway continued to shrink and then disappeared as Africa collided with Eurasia in the Turkish–Arabian region between 19 and 12 Ma. The subsequent uplift of mountains in the western Mediterranean region and a fall in sea levels combined to cause a temporary drying up of the Mediterranean Sea near the end of the Miocene. The global trend was towards increasing aridity caused primarily by global cooling reducing the ability of the atmosphere to absorb moisture, climates remained moderately warm, although the slow global cooling that eventually led to the Pleistocene glaciations continued. Although a long-term cooling trend was well underway, there is evidence of a period during the Miocene when the global climate rivalled that of the Oligocene. The Miocene warming began 21 million years ago and continued until 14 million years ago, by 8 million years ago, temperatures dropped sharply once again, and the Antarctic ice sheet was already approaching its present-day size and thickness. Greenland may have begun to have large glaciers as early as 7 to 8 million years ago, life during the Miocene Epoch was mostly supported by the two newly formed biomes, kelp forests and grasslands. This allows for more grazers, such as horses, rhinoceroses, ninety five percent of modern plants existed by the end of this epoch. The higher organic content and water retention of the deeper and richer grassland soils, with long term burial of carbon in sediments, produced a carbon and this, combined with higher surface albedo and lower evapotranspiration of grassland, contributed to a cooler, drier climate. The expansion of grasslands and radiations among terrestrial herbivores correlates to fluctuations in CO2
28.
South America
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South America is a continent located in the western hemisphere, mostly in the southern hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the northern hemisphere. It may also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas, which is the used in nations that speak Romance languages. The reference to South America instead of other regions has increased in the last decades due to changing geopolitical dynamics. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean, North America and it includes twelve sovereign states, a part of France, and a non-sovereign area. In addition to this, the ABC islands of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Trinidad and Tobago, South America has an area of 17,840,000 square kilometers. Its population as of 2005 has been estimated at more than 371,090,000, South America ranks fourth in area and fifth in population. Brazil is by far the most populous South American country, with more than half of the population, followed by Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela. In recent decades Brazil has also concentrated half of the regions GDP and has become a first regional power, most of the population lives near the continents western or eastern coasts while the interior and the far south are sparsely populated. Most of the continent lies in the tropics, the continents cultural and ethnic outlook has its origin with the interaction of indigenous peoples with European conquerors and immigrants and, more locally, with African slaves. Given a long history of colonialism, the majority of South Americans speak Portuguese or Spanish. South America occupies the portion of the Americas. The continent is delimited on the northwest by the Darién watershed along the Colombia–Panama border. Almost all of mainland South America sits on the South American Plate, South Americas major mineral resources are gold, silver, copper, iron ore, tin, and petroleum. These resources found in South America have brought high income to its countries especially in times of war or of rapid growth by industrialized countries elsewhere. However, the concentration in producing one major export commodity often has hindered the development of diversified economies and this is leading to efforts to diversify production to drive away from staying as economies dedicated to one major export. South America is one of the most biodiverse continents on earth, South America is home to many interesting and unique species of animals including the llama, anaconda, piranha, jaguar, vicuña, and tapir. The Amazon rainforests possess high biodiversity, containing a proportion of the Earths species. Brazil is the largest country in South America, encompassing around half of the land area
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Species diversity
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Species diversity is the number of different species that are represented in a given community. The effective number of species refers to the number of equally abundant species needed to obtain the mean proportional species abundance as that observed in the dataset of interest. Species diversity consists of two components, species richness and species evenness, species richness is a simple count of species, whereas species evenness quantifies how equal the abundances of the species are. Species diversity in a dataset can be calculated by first taking the average of species proportional abundances in the dataset. In the equation, S is the number of species in the dataset. The proportional abundances themselves are used as weights, the equation is often written in the equivalent form, q D =1 / The value of q defines which kind of mean is used. Q =0 corresponds to the harmonic mean, which is 1/S because the p i values cancel out. Q =1 is undefined, except that the limit as q approaches 1 is well defined, as q approaches infinity, the generalized mean approaches the maximum p i value. Consequently, large values of q lead to species diversity than small values of q for the same dataset. If all species are abundant in the dataset, changing the value of q has no effect. Negative values of q are not used, because then the number of species would exceed the actual number of species. As q approaches infinity, the generalized mean approaches the minimum p i value. In many real datasets, the least abundant species is represented by a single individual, the same equation can be used to calculate the diversity in relation to any classification, not only species. Often researchers have used the values given by one or more diversity indices to quantify species diversity, such indices include species richness, the Shannon index, the Simpson index, and the complement of the Simpson index. When interpreted in terms, each one of these indices corresponds to a different thing. Species richness quantifies the actual rather than number of species. The Shannon index equals log, and in practice quantifies the uncertainty in the identity of an individual that is taken at random from the dataset. The Simpson index equals 1/qD and quantifies the probability that two individuals taken at random from the dataset represent the same species, the Gini-Simpson index equals 1 - 1/qD and quantifies the probability that the two randomly taken individuals represent different species
30.
Chile
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Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a South American country occupying a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, Chilean territory includes the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández, Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island in Oceania. Chile also claims about 1,250,000 square kilometres of Antarctica, the arid Atacama Desert in northern Chile contains great mineral wealth, principally copper. Southern Chile is rich in forests and grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes, the southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands. Spain conquered and colonized Chile in the century, replacing Inca rule in northern and central Chile. After declaring its independence from Spain in 1818, Chile emerged in the 1830s as a relatively stable authoritarian republic, in the 1960s and 1970s the country experienced severe left-right political polarization and turmoil. The regime, headed by Augusto Pinochet, ended in 1990 after it lost a referendum in 1988 and was succeeded by a coalition which ruled through four presidencies until 2010. Chile is today one of South Americas most stable and prosperous nations and it leads Latin American nations in rankings of human development, competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, state of peace, economic freedom, and low perception of corruption. It also ranks high regionally in sustainability of the state, Chile is a founding member of the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. There are various theories about the origin of the word Chile, another theory points to the similarity of the valley of the Aconcagua with that of the Casma Valley in Peru, where there was a town and valley named Chili. Another origin attributed to chilli is the onomatopoeic cheele-cheele—the Mapuche imitation of the warble of a locally known as trile. The Spanish conquistadors heard about this name from the Incas, ultimately, Almagro is credited with the universalization of the name Chile, after naming the Mapocho valley as such. The older spelling Chili was in use in English until at least 1900 before switching over to Chile, stone tool evidence indicates humans sporadically frequented the Monte Verde valley area as long as 18,500 years ago. About 10,000 years ago, migrating Native Americans settled in fertile valleys, settlement sites from very early human habitation include Monte Verde, Cueva del Milodon and the Pali Aike Craters lava tube. They fought against the Sapa Inca Tupac Yupanqui and his army, the result of the bloody three-day confrontation known as the Battle of the Maule was that the Inca conquest of the territories of Chile ended at the Maule river. The next Europeans to reach Chile were Diego de Almagro and his band of Spanish conquistadors, the Spanish encountered various cultures that supported themselves principally through slash-and-burn agriculture and hunting. The conquest of Chile began in earnest in 1540 and was carried out by Pedro de Valdivia, one of Francisco Pizarros lieutenants, who founded the city of Santiago on 12 February 1541. Although the Spanish did not find the gold and silver they sought, they recognized the agricultural potential of Chiles central valley
31.
Isthmus of Panama
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The Isthmus of Panama, also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien, is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It contains the country of Panama and the Panama Canal, like many isthmuses, it is a location of great strategic value. The isthmus was formed 12 to 15 million years ago and this major geological event separated the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and caused the creation of the Gulf Stream. Vasco Núñez de Balboa heard of the South Sea from natives while sailing along the Caribbean coast, on 25 September 1513 he saw the Pacific. In 1519 the town of Panamá was founded near a small settlement on the Pacific coast. After the discovery of Peru, it developed into an important port of trade, in 1671 the Welsh pirate Henry Morgan crossed the Isthmus of Panamá from the Caribbean side and destroyed the city. The town was relocated some kilometers to the west at a small peninsula, the ruins of the old town, Panamá Viejo, are preserved and were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. Silver and gold from the viceroyalty of Peru were transported overland across the isthmus to Porto Bello, Lionel Wafer spent four years between 1680 and 1684 among the Cuna Indians. Scotland tried to establish a settlement in 1698 through the Darien scheme, the California Gold Rush, starting in 1849, brought a large increase in the transportation of people from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Steamships brought gold seekers from eastern US ports who trekked across the isthmus by foot, horse, on the Pacific side, they boarded Pacific Mail Steamship Company vessels headed for San Francisco. Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man behind the Suez Canal, started a Panama Canal Company in 1880 that went bankrupt in 1889 in a scandal. In 1902–4, the United States forced Colombia to grant independence to the department of the isthmus, bought the assets of the Panama Canal Company. A significant body of water separated the continents of North and South America. Beneath the surface, two plates of the Earths crust were slowly colliding, forcing the Cocos Plate to slide under the Caribbean Plate. The pressure and heat caused by this led to the formation of underwater volcanoes. Meanwhile, movement of the two plates was also pushing up the sea floor, eventually forcing some areas above sea level. Over time, massive amounts of sediment from North and South America filled the gaps between the newly forming islands, over millions of years, the sediment deposits added to the islands until the gaps were completely filled. By no later than 4.5 million years ago, an isthmus had formed between North and South America and that warm currents can lead to glacier formation may seem counterintuitive, but heated air flowing over the warm Gulf Stream can hold more moisture
32.
Great American Interchange
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The migration peaked dramatically around three million years ago during the Piacenzian age. It resulted in the joining of the Neotropic and Nearctic ecozones definitively to form the Americas, the interchange is visible from observation of both biostratigraphy and nature. Its most dramatic effect is on the zoogeography of mammals but it gave an opportunity for reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, weak-flying or flightless birds. The occurrence of the interchange was first discussed in 1876 by the father of biogeography, Wallace had spent 1848–1852 exploring and collecting specimens in the Amazon basin. Others who made significant contributions to understanding the event in the century that followed include Florentino Ameghino, W. D. Matthew, scott, Bryan Patterson, George Gaylord Simpson and S. David Webb. Analogous interchanges occurred earlier in the Cenozoic, when the formerly isolated land masses of India and Africa made contact with Eurasia c.50 and 30 Ma ago, respectively. Its endemic mammals initially consisted primarily of metatherians, xenarthrans, and a group of native ungulates, notoungulates, litopterns, astrapotheres. Marsupials appear to have traveled via Gondwanan land connections from South America through Antarctica to Australia in the late Cretaceous or early Tertiary, a 61-Ma-old platypus-like monotreme fossil from Patagonia may represent an Australian immigrant. Paleognath birds may have migrated by this route around the same time, other taxa that may have dispersed by the same route are parrots, chelid turtles and meiolaniid turtles. Marsupials present in South America included didelphimorphs and several small groups, larger predatory relatives of these also existed, like the borhyaenids. Metatherians were the only South American mammals to specialize as carnivores, sparassodonts shared the ecological niches for large predators with fearsome flightless terror birds, whose closest extant relatives are the seriemas. Terrestrial ziphodont sebecid crocodilians were also present at least through the middle Miocene, some of South Americas aquatic crocodilians, such as Gryposuchus, Mourasuchus and Purussaurus, reached monstrous sizes, with lengths up to 12 m. They shared their habitat with one of the largest turtles of all time, xenarthrans are a curious group of mammals that developed morphological adaptations for specialized diets very early in their history. The notoungulates and litopterns had many forms, like Macrauchenia. Both groups started evolving in the Lower Paleocene, possibly from condylarth stock, diversified, dwindled before the great interchange, the pyrotheres and astrapotheres were also strange but were less diverse and disappeared earlier, well before the interchange. The North American fauna was a typical boreoeutherian one, the invasions of South America started about 40 Ma ago, when caviomorph rodents arrived in South America. Their subsequent vigorous diversification displaced some of South Americas small marsupials and gave rise to – among others – capybaras, chinchillas, viscachas and this invasion most likely came from Africa. The crossing from West Africa to the northeast corner of Brazil was much shorter then, due to continental drift, crossings of the ocean were accomplished when at least one fertilised female accidentally floated over on driftwood or mangrove rafts
33.
Tortoise
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Tortoises are a family, Testudinidae, of land-dwelling reptiles in the order Testudines. Tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell, the top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The carapace is fused to both the vertebrae and ribcage, and tortoises are unique among vertebrates in that the pectoral, Tortoises can vary in size from a few centimeters to two meters. They are usually diurnal animals with tendencies to be depending on the ambient temperatures. Tortoises are the longest living animal in the world, although the longest living species of tortoise is a matter of debate. Galapagos tortoises are noted to live over 150 years, but an Aldabra giant tortoise named Adwaita may having been the longest living at an estimated 255 years. It is important to note that tortoises are not the longest living animal, period, with bowhead whales reaching over 200 years, and the ocean quahog clam reaching 500 years old. Differences exist in usage of the common terms turtle, tortoise and these terms are common names and do not reflect precise biological or taxonomic distinctions. In America, for example, the members of the genus Terrapene dwell on land, in Britain, terrapin is used to refer to a larger group of semiaquatic turtles than the restricted meaning in America. Australian usage is different from both American and British usage, land tortoises are not native to Australia, yet traditionally freshwater turtles have been called tortoises in Australia. Female tortoises dig nesting burrows in which lay from one to 30 eggs. Egg-laying typically occurs at night, after which the mother covers her clutch with sand, soil. The eggs are unattended, and depending on the species. The size of the egg depends on the size of the mother, the plastron of a female tortoise often has a noticeable V-shaped notch below the tail which facilitates passing the eggs. Upon completion of the period, a fully formed hatchling uses an egg tooth to break out of its shell. It digs to the surface of the nest and begins a life of survival on its own and they are hatched with an embryonic egg sac which serves as a source of nutrition for the first three to seven days until they have the strength and mobility to find food. Juvenile tortoises often require a different balance of nutrients than adults, for example, the young of a strictly herbivorous species commonly will consume worms or insect larvae for additional protein. Moreover, some tortoises grow more than one ring per season, Tortoises generally have one of the longest lifespans of any animal, and some individuals are known to have lived longer than 150 years
34.
Osteoderm
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Osteoderms are bony deposits forming scales, plates or other structures in the dermal layers of the skin. Osteoderms are uncommon in mammals, but have occurred in many xenarthrans, in many cases, osteoderms may function as defensive armor. Osteoderms are composed of bone tissue, and are derived from a scleroblast neural crest cell population during embryonic development of the organism, the scleroblastic neural crest cell population shares some homologous characteristics associated with the dermis. The osteoderms of modern crocodilians are heavily vascularized, and can function as armor and as heat-exchangers, allowing these large reptiles to rapidly raise or lower their temperature. Another function is to neutralize acidosis, caused by being submerged under water for periods of time. The calcium and magnesium in the bone will release alkaline ions into the bloodstream
35.
Scute
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A scute or scutum is a bony external plate or scale overlaid with horn, as on the shell of a turtle, the skin of crocodilians, and the feet of birds. The term is used to describe the anterior portion of the mesonotum in insects. Scutes are similar to scales and serve the same function, unlike the scales of lizards and snakes, which are formed from the epidermis, scutes are formed in the lower vascular layer of the skin and the epidermal element is only the top surface. Forming in the dermis, the scutes produce a horny outer layer that is superficially similar to that of scales. Scutes will usually not overlap as snake scales, the outer keratin layer is shed piecemeal, and not in one continuous layer of skin as seen in snakes or lizards. The dermal base may contain bone and produce dermal armour, scutes with a bony base are properly called osteoderms. Dermal scutes are found in the feet of birds and tails of some mammals. The turtles shell is covered by scutes formed mostly of keratin and they are built similarly to horn, beak, or nail in other species. The tarsometatarsus and toes of most birds are covered in two types of scales, large scutes run along the dorsal side of the tarsometatarsus and toes, whereas smaller scutellae run along the sides. Unblocking the feather suppression program results in growing in place of scales along the tarsometatarsus. The bottoms of feet are covered in small, keeled scale-like structures known as reticulae. Evolutionary developmental studies on these structures have revealed that they are composed entirely of alpha keratin. In some species of Opiliones, fused abdominal segments are referred to as a scutum, osteoderms Scale Snake scales Keratin Skin Skeleton
36.
Turtle
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Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs and acting as a shield. Turtle may refer to the order as a whole or to fresh-water, the order Testudines includes both extant and extinct species. The earliest known members of this date from 157 million years ago, making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups. Of the 327 known species alive today, some are highly endangered, turtles are ectotherms—animals commonly called cold-blooded—meaning that their internal temperature varies according to the ambient environment. However, because of their metabolic rate, leatherback sea turtles have a body temperature that is noticeably higher than that of the surrounding water. Turtles are classified as amniotes, along with reptiles, birds. Like other amniotes, turtles breathe air and do not lay eggs underwater, Chelonia is based on the Greek word χελώνη chelone tortoise, turtle, also denoting armor or interlocking shields, testudines, on the other hand, is based on the Latin word testudo tortoise. Turtle may either refer to the order as a whole, or to particular turtles that make up a form taxon that is not monophyletic, the meaning of the word turtle differs from region to region. In North America, all chelonians are commonly called turtles, including terrapins, in Great Britain, the word turtle is used for sea-dwelling species, but not for tortoises. The term tortoise usually refers to any land-dwelling, non-swimming chelonian, most land-dwelling chelonians are in the Testudinidae family, only one of the 14 extant turtle families. Terrapin is used to describe several species of small, edible, hard-shell turtles, typically found in brackish waters. Some languages do not have this distinction, as all of these are referred to by the same name, for example, in Spanish, the word tortuga is used for turtles, tortoises, and terrapins. A sea-dwelling turtle is tortuga marina, a freshwater species tortuga de río, the largest living chelonian is the leatherback sea turtle, which reaches a shell length of 200 cm and can reach a weight of over 900 kg. Freshwater turtles are generally smaller, but with the largest species, the Asian softshell turtle Pelochelys cantorii, a few individuals have been reported up to 200 cm. This dwarfs even the better-known alligator snapping turtle, the largest chelonian in North America and they became extinct at the same time as the appearance of man, and it is assumed humans hunted them for food. The only surviving giant tortoises are on the Seychelles and Galápagos Islands and can grow to over 130 cm in length, the largest ever chelonian was Archelon ischyros, a Late Cretaceous sea turtle known to have been up to 4.6 m long. The smallest turtle is the speckled padloper tortoise of South Africa and it measures no more than 8 cm in length and weighs about 140 g. Two other species of turtles are the American mud turtles
37.
Sedan (automobile)
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A sedan /sᵻˈdæn/ or saloon is a passenger car in a three-box configuration with A, B & C-pillars and principal volumes articulated in separate compartments for engine, passenger and cargo. The passenger compartment features two rows of seats and adequate passenger space in the compartment for adult passengers. The cargo compartment is typically in the rear, with the exception of some rear-engined models, such as the Renault Dauphine, Tatra T613, Volkswagen Type 3 and it is one of the most common car body styles. A battery electric sedan such as the Tesla Model S has no engine compartment, but a front cargo compartment, the primary purpose of the sedan is to transport people and their baggage on ordinary roads. Sedan versions of the body style have a central pillar that supports the roof and come in two-. Sedans usually have a two-box or three-box body, popular in the U. S. from the 1950s through the 1970s, true hardtop body designs have become increasingly rare. For example,1962 Rambler Classic sedans feature identical windshield, A-pillar, roof, C-pillar, and rear window. A two- or four-door design built on a chassis, but with a shorter roof and interior space. Originating from the car on a Pullman passenger train that was well appointed. A notchback sedan is a sedan, where the passenger volume is clearly distinct from the trunk volume of the vehicle. The roof is on one plane, generally parallel to the ground, the window at a sharp angle to the roof. A fastback sedan is a sedan, with continuous slope from the roof to the base of the decklid. They are not fastbacks because their bodyline changes from the roof to the rear deck and their steeply raked rear windows end with a decklid that does not continue down to the bumper. Instead, their ends are tall — sometimes in a Kammback style — to increase trunk space. Typically this design is chosen for its aerodynamic advantages, automakers can no longer afford the penalty in fuel consumption produced by the traditional notchback three box form. In historic terminology, a sedan will have a frame around the door windows, a true hardtop design also has no center or B pillar for roof support behind the front doors). This pillarless body style offers greater visibility, however, it requires extra underbody strengthening for structural rigidity. The hardtop design can be considered separately, or it can be called a hardtop sedan, during the 1960s and 1970s, hardtop sedans were often sold as sport sedans by several American manufacturers and they were among the top selling body styles
38.
Phorusrhacidae
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They ranged in height from 1–3 metres tall. Their closest modern-day relatives are believed to be the 80 cm-tall seriemas, Titanis walleri, one of the larger species, is also known in North America from Texas and Florida. Still, reports from Uruguay of new findings dating to 450,000 and 17,000 years ago, would imply that some phorusrhacids survived there until very recently, but this claim is debated. Phorusrhacids may have made their way into Africa, the genus Lavocatavis was recently discovered in Algeria. A possible European form, Eleutherornis, has also been identified, the closely related bathornithids occupied a similar ecological niche in North America across the Eocene to Miocene, some, like Paracrax, reached similar sizes to the largest phorusrhacids. Based on Claudia P. Tambussi, Ricardo de Mendoza, Federico J. Degrange, picasso’s work, the phorusrhacids neck can be divided into three main regions. In the higher regions of the neck, the phorusrhacid has bifurcate neural spines and this suggests that the phorusrhacid had a highly flexible and developed neck allowing it to carry its heavy head and strike with terrifying speed and power. Kelenken guillermoi, from the Langhian stage of the Miocene epoch, some 15 million years ago, discovered in Patagonia in 2006, the fossil has been described as being a 71 cm, nearly intact skull. The beak is roughly 46 cm long and curves in a shape that resembles an eagles beak. Most species described as phorusrhacid birds were smaller, 60–90 cm tall, scientists theorize that the large terror birds were extremely nimble and quick runners, able to reach speeds of 48 km/h. Most phorusrhacids were very fast runners, all members possessed a large, sharp beak, a powerful neck and sharp talons. However, even with these attributes, the phorusrhacids are often assumed to have preyed on small animals that could be dispatched with a minimum of struggle. This is due to the fact that with the phorusrhacids beak proportions, generally speaking, it is thought that a terror bird would use its feet to injure prey by kicking it, and to hold the prey down and dispatch by pecking at it with its large beak. Larger prey may also have been attacked by pecking and kicking, all phorusrhacids are thought to have been carnivorous. The strong downwards curve from the tip of this suggests that it ripped the flesh from the body of other animals. Many extant bird species with this feature are carnivorous, CT scans performed on the skull of a phorusrhacid reveal that the species would not have been able to shake its prey side to side, but rather exert significant downward force. The anatomy of the typical phorusrhacid skull shows that it can handle this form of stress the best and this downward force would have allowed the phorusrhacid to shatter bones more easily, stunning its prey and making it easier to swallow whole. Some researchers think that the phorusrhacids closest relative, the seriema, acts much like a phorusrhacid would have, picking up the prey
Ernest Ingersoll (1920). "Glyptodont". Encyclopedia Americana.