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BSC Final
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What is a paleontologist? | Someone who studies ancient organisms |
| Paleobiology is _____? | the study of ancient life |
| In what year were dinosaur remains given formal scientific recognition? | 1842 |
| What did the Chinese believe that the dinosaur remains were? | Bones of dragons |
| What was discovered in 1676? | The broken end of a dinosaur femur. However, they believed it was a giant's scrotum. |
| What was the first proper scientific name given to a dinosaur? | Scrotum humanum |
| True or false: Some people consider Thomas Jefferson the "Founding Father" of Paleobiology? | TRUE |
| What is Reverend William Buckland famous for? | Credited with describing the first scientifically valid dinosaur in 1824. |
| Who named the first scientifically valid dinosaur as "Megalosaurus"? | Reverend William Buckland |
| Who described the first herbivorous dinosaur as "Iguandon"? | Gideon Mantell |
| What did Sir Richard Owen do? | He named the reptile-esque creatures "Dinosauria." |
| How did Sir Richard Owen characterize the "Dinosauria?" | (1) giant (2) possessing upright stances (3) non-aquatic (4) having more than two sacral vertebrae |
| Archosaurians are distinguished by what attribute? | (a) hands with three main fingers (b) large teeth (c) teeth in sockets that are replaced throughout life |
| What are the three key features of dinosaurs? | (1) three or more sacral vertebrae (2) hands with three main fingers (3) perforate acetabulae: the hole where the thighbone attached goes all the way through the hip |
| What are the two major groupings of dinosaurs? | Ornithischians and Saurischians |
| What does Ornithischians mean? | Bird hips |
| True or False: Saurischians have crocodile hips? | False; because they have lizard hips |
| What was the "fossil feud" between Othniel Marsh and Edward Cope? | Rivalry between two paleobiologists to find the most dinosaur specimens. |
| Who was the first person we considered a dinosaur paleobiologist? | Louis Dollo |
| When did the Dinosaur Renaissance begin? | 1964 |
| What dinosaur marked the start of the Dinosaur Renaissance? | Deionychus |
| Who was Robert Bakker? | He was a student of John Ostrom's and began to question many of our beliefs about dinosaurs after the discovery of Deionychus. He believed dinosaurs were more physiologically similar to birds. |
| Who first proposed that dinosaurs had been killed off by a meteorite 65.54 million years ago? | Walter Alvarez in 1980 |
| When was Cladistics finally brought to fruition? | In the 1990s |
| What is Cladistics? | Technique that uses computers to organize enormous lists of physical characteristics about animals and establish shared attributes from which genealogical relationships can be determined. |
| What are the three divisions of the Mesozoic Era? | Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous |
| How old is the oldest dinosaur fossil? | Dates back to 238 million years ago. |
| In what era do we know that dinosaurs first showed up? | The Mesozoic Era |
| What is important to note about the Triassic Period? | The oldest dinosaurs showed up midway through this period. |
| What is important to note about the Jurassic Period? | This was the time of the largest dinosaurs. |
| What is important to note about the Cretaceous Period? | The dinosaurs went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period 65.54 million years ago. |
| What is Uranium 235? | Isotope used to date rocks. It breaks down into Lead 207. It has a half-life of 704 million years. |
| What is a half-life? | It is the amount of time it takes for half of an original substance, such as Uranium 235, to break down. |
| What was the climate like in the time of the dinosaurs? | Arid in equatorial areas, like Florida in middle latitudes, and cool and went and rainy at the poles. |
| True or False: During the Cretaceous Period, it is known that all of the continents were adjoined into one super continent called Pangea? | False because that was during the Triassic Period. |
| True or False: A greater portion of the continents were covered by water during the Age of Dinosaurs? | True because since there were no ice caps at the poles, there was more free water in the oceans than there is today. |
| True or False: Turtles existed during the Age of Dinosaurs? | True |
| What were crocodiles like during the Age of Dinosaurs? | The earliest were small, agile, and terrestrial predators. |
| What were ichthyosaurs? | They were reptiles that looked and swam like dolphins. Some were 40-feet-long with gigantic eyes. They gave live birth. |
| What did plesiosaurs look like? | They had bodies like sea turtles, but had necks that were long and snake-like with up to 80-90 vertebrae. |
| What was the largest known pterosaur? | Quetzalcoatalus |
| What mammals existed during the Age of Dinosaurs? | They were intially rat or weasel-like, mouse or opossum sized, and remained so for the most throughout the Age of Dinosaurs. |
| What are trace fossils? | Traces of ancient life that include tracks, eggs, skin impressions, etc. They are the primary means by which we learn about dinosaur biology. |
| What are sedimentary rocks? | Rocks formed from sediments, or sandstones and shales |
| What are igneous rocks? | Rocks from volcanoes |
| What are metamorphic rocks? | Sedimentary or igneous rocks that have been deformed by the pressures of the earth. |
| True or False: Metamorphic rocks rarely have discernible dinosaur remains in them? | True |
| Are badlands good places to look for dinosaur fossils? | Yes they are |
| What are the attributes special to the Ornithischia? | (1) bird-shaped hips (2) a beak (3) a "nutcracker" jaw-joint |
| What were the Thyreophora? | Their name meant shield-bearers. They were an early offshoot of the Ornithischia. Their distinguishing features is the armor in their skin, which are called osteoderms. |
| What are the two major groups of Thyreophora? | Ankylosaurs and stegosaurs |
| What were the stegosaurs? | the "plated lizards" that had plates and spikes along or beside its backbone |
| What was the most famous stegosaur? | Stegosaurus |
| What is the "plate debate"? | The plate debate is a debate about the function and arrangement of the plates on the back of the stegosaurs. |
| What dinosaur is the source for the saying "dumb as a dinosaur"? | The Stegosaurus because its brain lacked complexity because of a small cerebellum, but had large olfactory lobes (suggesting a great sense of smell) |
| What were the ankylosaurs? | the "fuzed lizards" that had extensive armor extending over the sides of its body and neck |
| What are the Cerapoda? | The other major ornithischian group which includes the iguanodonts, the duck bills, the bone heads, and the horned dinosaurs. |
| What is the main characteristic of the cerapodans? | The gap between the front and back teeth called the diastema. |
| What are the two major subgroupings of the Cerapoda? | Ornithopoda and Marginocephalia |
| What are the ornithopods? | They are the "bird feet." Their distinguishing feature us the front teeth are well below the cheek teeth. Include iguanodonts and the duck bills. |
| True or False: heterodontosaurs were an early ornithopod group? | True. Their name means "different sized-teeth lizards" |
| What are the key features of the advanced ornithopods? | (1) criss-crossed back and tail tendons (2) forward prong on the pubis |
| True or False: Heterodontosaurs were the first advanced ornithopods? | False, because the Hypsilophodonts were the first advanced ornithopods. |
| True or False: Hypsilophodonts had a very precise slicing/chopping dentition? | True |
| What is the distinguishing feature of the extremely advanced ornithopods? | A flared-out snout with no front teeth that presumably enabled browsing on ground plants |
| What were the iguanodonts? | They were extremely advanced ornithopods that were unique in their possession of thumb spikes. |
| What were the features of the hadrosaurs? | (1) very broad, duck-like bills (2) dental batteries composed of hundreds of tightly adjoining teeth. |
| Were Hadrosaurs very common? | Yes they were. We know more about them than any other dinosaur group. |
| Who was Jack Horner? | He was a paleontologist from Montana State University who found a site in NW Montana where 10000 Maiasaura were flattened by volcanic ash. He was the person on which Alan Grant in the movie Jurassic Park was based. |
| What is the distinguishing feature of the marginocephalia? | A rim of bone protruding from the back of the skull to shielf the neck |
| What are the two subgroupings of marginocephalia? | Pachycephalosauria and Ceratopsia |
| What were the Pachycephalosauria? | the "bone heads" with thickened skull bones that had knobby protuberances. They are said to have had "bowling ball heads" |
| What were the Ceratopsia? | the "horned dinosaurs" |
| What was the distinguishing feature of the ceratopsians? | A beak shaped like that of a parrot. They were also the most common and diverse herbivores of their time. |
| What dinosaur was the earliest ceratopsian? | Psittacosaur: parrot lizard |
| Who was the real Indiana Jones? | scientist Ralph Chapman Andrews from the American Museum of New York |
| What was the largest ceratopsian? | Triceratops: three-horned face |
| What dinosaur had the largest head of any land animal? | Torosaurus: bull lizard |
| True or False: Triceratops is considered one of the advanced ceratopsians? | True |
| What characterizes the advanced neoceratopsians? | (1) presence of horns (2) large neck frills (3) dental batteries like those of hadrosaurs |
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