Russell Garwood, Author at PALAEONTOLOGY[online]

Feb12019

Perspectives — Palaeontology in 2018

Perspectives

by The Palaeontology [online] editorial board*1 Introduction: At the turn of most years, the some of the editorial board at Palaeontology [online] takes the opportunity to reflect on the past year in palaeontology. Given that we published a wonderful overview of Diploporitans in January, this year we’ve moved our look over our favourite studies from last year to February. Palaeontology and associated disciplines are fast-moving and exciting areas of science — looking back at 2018 lets us highlight just a few of the key developments that really show this. Picking just one article each is difficult, and we have been forced to miss out many of the hundreds of exciting papers published in the past 12 months. Nevertheless, we hope that our choices reflect the breadth and depth of palaeob...

Dec12018

Patterns in Palaeontology — Deducing the tree of life

Patterns in Palaeontology

by Russell Garwood*1 Introduction “Increasing knowledge leads to triumphant loss of clarity” — Palaeontologist Alfred Romer Some areas of life and human endeavour have the luxury of certainty. Along these paths of discovery, there are things we can know to be true or false. In others, it is impossible to assess the concept of truth: it can’t be established, or just isn’t a consideration. And between these extremes is a whole mess of important stuff. Palaeontology almost always lies somewhere on this gradation. Researchers studying past life are often juggling multiple layers of uncertainty. We try to balance the need to say something useful — something with meaning, that moves a field and its consensus closer to the truth — with the risk of over-interpreting our data. If the data is t...

Jun12018

Fossil Focus: Coleoid cephalopods – the squid, cuttlefish and octopus

Fossil Focus

by Thomas Clements*1 What are coleoids? The coleoid cephalopods (Fig. 1), squids, cuttlefish and octopuses2, are an extremely diverse group of molluscs that inhabits every ocean on the planet. Ranging from the tiny but highly venomous blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena) to the largest invertebrates on the planet, the giant and colossal squids (Architeuthis and Mesonychoteuthis respectively), coleoids are the dominant cephalopods in modern oceans. For humans, they are a vital dietary and economic resource and have an important role in our culture. Cephalopods have intrigued and been revered by humans from ancient times and, more recently, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they became part of pop-culture. Stories of gargantuan poulpes attacking the submarine ‘Nautilus’ in Jule...

Mar12018

Patterns in Palaeontology — The earliest skeletons

Patterns in Palaeontology

by Amelia Penny*1 Introduction and background The ability to build and maintain a skeleton is one of the major innovations in the history of life. During the Cambrian explosion, which began around 540 million years ago, diverse animal (metazoan) skeletons appeared suddenly in the fossil record. This is also when we first see evidence for predation, the ability to move around and most of the animal body plans we would recognize today. The ability to grow a resistant skeleton was a major factor in the evolutionary arms races of the Phanerozoic eon — the time since the Cambrian explosion — and it made possible the dizzying variety of shells, bones and teeth scattered throughout the Phanerozoic fossil record. But the origin of skeletons has a much deeper root, in the Proterozoic eon (2,500 m...

Dec12017

Perspectives — Palaeontology in 2017

Perspectives

by The Palaeontology [online] editorial board*1 Introduction Every now and then at Palaeontology [online], we like to take a look at the world of palaeontology and reflect on what is happening in the field. Contrary to stereotypes, we believe that palaeontology and associated disciplines represent a fast-moving and exciting area of science. To highlight this, the members of the editorial board have each chosen a favourite paper from 2017. Picking just one paper was difficult for all of us, and it means that we have highlighted just five articles out of the many hundreds published in the past 12 months. Nevertheless, we hope that our choices reflect the breadth and depth of palaeobiological research in the twenty-first century. The papers include incredibly small and ancient invertebrates...

Nov12017

Fossil Focus: The ecology and evolution of the Lepospondyli

Fossil Focus

by Aodhán O'Gogain*1 Introduction and background During the Pennsylvanian subperiod (roughly 318 million to 299 million years ago), lush tropical rainforests covered much of what is now North America and Europe, but were then near Earth’s Equator. These tropical forests were teeming with animals, from 2-metre-long millipedes that scurried along among the roots to fish with fangs 10 centimetres in length that inhabited the associated rivers and estuaries. Living among these giants was a diverse group of small (less than 1 metre) vertebrates that resembled newts, lizards and snakes. These were the Lepospondyli, a sub-class of tetrapods that are characterized by having hourglass-shaped centrums, the central parts of their vertebrae. They had elongated, small bodies and short limbs, with one...

Aug12017

Fossil Focus: The Archosaur Respiratory System — Or — Breathing Life into Dinosaurs

Fossil Focus

by Robert Brocklehurst*1 Introduction and background Dinosaurs fascinate people more than almost any other group of fossil animals, and the general public is interested in many open questions on dinosaur biology. How fast could dinosaurs run? Were they warm blooded? If they had feathers, does that mean they could fly? These questions focus on dinosaur metabolism and movement, both of which are intimately linked with the respiratory system, because breathing — the ability to take in air, extract oxygen from it and then expel it from the body along with waste carbon dioxide— sets a fundamental upper limit on how much activity an organism is capable of. How did dinosaurs breathe? That’s probably not a question palaeontologists get asked as often as the others. Breathing is something we a...

May12017

Fossil Focus: Hallucigenia and the evolution of animal body plans

Fossil Focus

by Martin Smith*1 Introduction: Five hundred and fifty million years ago, few (if any) organisms on Earth were much more complex than seaweed. But this would not be the case for long: during a profound evolutionary event dubbed the Cambrian Explosion, natural selection generated the raw material of all the body plans we see in the oceans today. Fossil sites from midway through the Cambrian period (541 million to 485 million years ago) preserve organisms that could almost be mistaken for modern eels, jellyfish, shrimp and squid, along with members of most other major animal groupings (phyla) recognized by biologists today. But the exceptional fossil deposits of the Cambrian period, some of which preserve fleshy bodies as well as the skeletons and bones that make up a typical fossil, al...

Feb12017

Perspectives: Fossils and the Law — A Summary

Perspectives

by Jack J. Matthews1 Introduction: Geoconservation, also known as Earth Heritage Conservation, is how we protect important examples of Earth’s physical resources. Geological features can be protected for all sorts of reasons, including being important to cultural heritage, geological education and understanding, or the overall aesthetics of an area. A great many designations, management frameworks and legal instruments have been used to govern and protect fossil-rich outcrops in the United Kingdom, but these are poorly publicized and, for example, rarely taught to palaeontologists as part of an undergraduate degree. Field work is an important part of palaeontological research, so it is a good idea for everyone who works with fossils, whether amateur or professional, to have a good und...

Jul12016

Patterns in Palaeontology: How and why did the arthropod shed its skin? Moulting in living and fossil arthropods

Patterns in Palaeontology

by Harriet B. Drage*1 Introduction: Arthropods are one of the most successful groups of animals, in the present day and the fossil record. There are more than 1 million described arthropod species, and it has been estimated that there are at least 5 million more undescribed alive today (Fig. 1). This makes up more than 80% of all known animal species! Arthropods also have an extremely diverse fossil record, extending back to the Cambrian Explosion 541 million years ago. For much of the Palaeozoic era (541 million to 252 million years ago), arthropods dominated marine ecosystems, and they have been significant components of all environments since then. The phylum Arthropoda encompasses insects (Hexapoda), crustaceans (such as shrimps and lobsters) and arachnids (such as spiders), a...