Evidence of Vertebrate Life Flashcards
(147 cards)
What is our closest non chordate relative
Sea star
Does carbon dating date the fossil itself?
No, dates rocks around it
Oldest living vertebrates
Cyclostomata (round mouth)
Lamprey and hagfishes (jawless fishes=Agnatha)
Have rudimentary vertebrae made of cartilage, not bone. Vertebrae only in embryo in hagfish.
Tetrapods
What is important about their limb bones
Vertebrate with four limbs or- like snakes, birds and whales are descended from vertebrate with four limbs
Limb bones of tetrapods are HOMOLOGOUS
Ray-finned fishes represent _____ of all fished today
95%
Coelacanth
Lobe-finned fish
Only 8 species live today
Our closest relative among fish
Have humerus!!
We last shared a common ancestor with coelacanth _____
400mya
Intermediate fossils of Tiktaalik
Lobe-finned fish (Eusthenopteron)
-385mya
Early tetrapod (acanthostega)
-365 mya
Between fish and tetrapod was needed
How to look for a specific fossil
- Use distribution of known fossils to determine when there was a gap in the fossil record
- Predict where rocks of that age (375mya) are exposed on earths surface
-type of rock
-age of Rock
-location of rock
Narrow range of conditions needed for a fossil to form
-most are consumed, trampled or beaten by weather that nothing is left to fossilize
-soft tissue organism are unlikely to fossilize
-fossil record can never be complete
-have to die in the right place (stream, lake or muddy area)
-fossils usually form when an organism is immediately cover by water (create sedimentary rocks)
-fossils in sedimentary rock are quickly worn away when exposed to the surface (sun, wind, rain)
What percent of dinosaur species is estimated to be known
<1%
Type of rock with most fossils
Sedimentary
High temp of igneous and pressures of metamorphic destroy animal remains
Radiometeic dating: carbon dating
Carbon dating can be used to directly date fossils or sedimentary rock
-carbon daring only works for fossils and rock less than -50,000years (carbon decays quickly)
Other radiometric dating isotopes
Potassium-argon 50,000-4.6Bya
Uranium-lead: 10m-4.6b
How palaeontologists predict where to find fossils
- Type of rock: sedimentary
- Age of rock: geological layer (time)
3.Location of rock exposed on Earths surface: disconnect between past and present (changing lane forms: mountains rise, erode). Need rock exposed on the planets surface, continental drift
Ellesmere Island and continental drift
365 mya during the Devonian period, island was on equator. Now it is 80.7°N
Home of Tiktaalik
Tiktaalik fish and tetrapod features
Large freshwater fish
Fish: scales, fills, delicate ray-finned tail
Tetrapod: flat head, eyes on top, neck moves (head free of shoulders), two wrist bones (Ulnare and intermedium) enable it to do a push up
What does Tiktaalik tell us about why limbs evolved
Anatomical features suggest Tiktaalik lived in water: gills, rays on tail, paddle shaped limbs probably used to pull itself along the shallow water.
Infer: bones that later formed a limb originated for life in water, not because they were useful to animals that already lived on land.
Cambrian explosion
541-515mya
-Sudden diversification of life early in the Cambrian
Pre Cambrian includes which eons
Archean and proterozoic eons
Hadean Eon
4.6bya to 4.0bya
-water present (4.0)
-earth forms; collisions with debris in solar system (4-3.8)
Volcanic eruptions, frequent collisions with other solar system bodies, extreme heat
Archean Eon
4.0-2.5bya
-single celled organism arise
-earth crust cooled
-prokaryotes only
-stromatolites, thermal microorganism
-oldest known bio markers
Stromatolites and when they appeared
Microbial mats; layers of Cyanobacteria and sediments.
-single celled but colonial
-first form of life visible to naked eye
-appeared in archean Eon 3.5bya
-prokaryotes we’re earths sole inhabitants
Deep sea thermal vent microorganisms date back to
3.8bya
-tubular microfossils
Archean