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Geology 331: Questions for Test 3, Fall 2015
All test questions will be taken from the following list, except that additional questions
may be asked about diagrams or figures from assigned readings, PPT slides, and class
handouts. These questions may also be re-formatted into multiple-choice, matching, and
fill-in-the-blank questions.
Fish and Tetrapods – Lecture and Jackson: 117-122
Define agnathans. Ostracoderms. Placoderms. Gnathostomes. Chondrichthyes.
Osteichthyes.
Give an example of a chordate that is more primitive than a fish; living or fossil.
What is the age of the oldest known definite chordate? What sort of animal is it?
What is the evolutionary origin of teeth in fish?
What is the evolutionary origin of jaws in fish?
Amphibians evolved from which specific group of fish? Give an example of a living
representative of this group.
Make a sketch illustrating the difference in bone arrangement between ray-finned and
lobe-finned fish.
Which came first in fish evolving into tetrapods, lungs or legs? Explain.
How many digits did the first tetrapods have?
Define pes and manus.
Your Inner Fish, by Neil Shubin (2008)
Chapter 1
In looking for a transitional species between fish and amphibians, why did Shubin and his
colleagues focus their attention on rocks 375 million years old, and not rocks
either 10 m.y. older or younger?
What was the sedimentary facies, or depositional environment, or the rocks where Shubin
and his colleagues searched for a transitional species between fish and
amphibians? Where were these rocks located?
How did the shape of the head in Tiktaalik differ from that of typical Devonian fish?
Who coined the name Tiktaalik, and what does it mean?
Chapter 2
How does Shubin describe the common plan for the limbs of all animals?
How does the bone arrangement in the base of a typical fish fin differ from that of
lungfish?
How did the limbs of Acanthostega differ from those of Ichthyostega?
Why did Tiktaalik need a functional wrist bone in its front limb?
How did Shubin know that Tiktaalik had large pectoral muscles?
Why does Shubin suggest that Tiktaalik used its limbs to get out of the water?
Prehistoric Life by DK, p. 92-93, 106-107
When did bones and scales first appear in fish?
When did jaws evolve?
Besides eating, what other reasons might there have been for the evolution of jaws?
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Reptiles – Lecture and Jackson: 123-128
What is the major anatomical/physiological difference between reptiles and their
amphibian ancestors?
What could have been the ecological reason for the evolution of the amniote egg?
Which subclass of reptiles were ancestral to mammals?
Which subclass of reptiles had only one post-orbital skull opening (not including
euryapsids)?
Which subclass of reptiles were ancestral to dinosaurs?
Which subclass of reptiles had two post-orbital skull openings?
What was the name of the flying reptiles?
Dinosaurs - Lecture
Name the two major orders of dinosaurs. What is the morphological basis for separating
these two groups?
Give an example of a theropod. Sauropod. Saurischian. Ornithischian.
Compare and contrast the blood pressure values between the lungs and the body for
animals with a 3-chambered heart and animals with a 4-chambered heart.
How does a 3-chambered heart differ from a 4-chambered heart?
What is the relationship between systemic blood pressure and the position of the head in
tetrapods?
How can the density of vascular canals in dinosaur bones be used to support the
hypothesis of endothermic dinosaurs?
Define endotherm vs. ectotherm.
List four lines of evidence for endothermy in dinosaurs.
Why do paleontologists think sauropod dinosaurs used gizzards as part of their digestive
system?
What unique anatomical feature shows that sauropods are more closely related to birds
than any of the ornithischian dinosaurs?
Birds – Lecture and Jackson: 129-130
Demonstrate and explain how the Linnaean classification system fails to show the
evolutionary relationship between birds and dinosaurs, whereas the cladistic
classification scheme can show evolutionary relationships.
Summarize the morphological evidence for theropod ancestry of birds by making
reference to foot bones, wrist and hand bones, and clavicles.
List the theropod characteristics of Archaeopteryx.
List the bird characteristics of Archaeopteryx.
What was the probable function of the first feathers?
Is there any evidence that possibly all major groups of dinosaurs might have had feathers
in at least some of their taxa?
Have pigments been found in fossil feathers?
What skeletal features indicate that the maniraptoran theropods are the closest ancestors
of birds?
What is the significance of the maniraptoran Anchiornis?
How were birds affected by the K/T extinction event?
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How to Hatch a Dinosaur (Hayden, 2011, Wired Magazine)
What is an atavism?
What are the three steps in reverse-evolving that Jack Horner proposes for changing a
chicken into a dino-chicken?
The biologist Matthew Harris thinks that teeth cannot be reversed evolved in chickens.
Why?
The biologist Sean Carroll thinks there would be a problem in restoring the tail in the
chicken. What would that problem be?
Jack Horner claims that if he developed a chickenosaurus its offspring would still be
chickens instead of dinosaurs. Why does he make that claim?
Mammals – Lecture (PPT and videos) and Jackson, p. 131-133
Mammals evolved from which group of reptiles?
How do mammal teeth differ from reptile teeth?
What was the likely origin of mammary glands?
What are the three living superorders of mammals?
Give an example of an artiodactyl. Perrissodactyl. Proboscidean. Feloid. Canoid.
Pinniped. Edentate.
List 3 different skeletal characters you would use to recognize Mesozoic mammals and,
thus, separate them from their therapsid ancestors.
What is the origin of the malleus (hammer) and incus (anvil) bones in the mammalian
ear?
What can we observe in the jaw of newly born possums?
What is the role of the bony secondary palate in mammals?
Which group of mammals may be ancestral to all living placental mammals?
Can the argument be made that mammals were somehow inferior to dinosaurs, even
though mammals are the current dominant vertebrates on land?
Whales – Lecture (PPT and videos)
Which group of mammals are the apparent ancestors of the whales? What is the skeletal
evidence for this relationship?
What living animal is most closely related to the cetacean clade?
What sort of living animal did the earliest whales resemble?
How did nasal openings change during the evolution of whales? What was the reason for
this change?
How do whales differ from fish in the way they swim? What does this indicate about
their evolutionary origin?
What is “caudal oscillation”?
What are the two major groups of living whales?
What environment did Pakicetus live in? What does this indicate about the evolution of
whales?
What did Ambulocetus have at the end of its toes?
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Human Evolution – Lecture; DK: 442-479; Jackson: 134-136
Rank the apes on the basis of genetic similarity to humans from most to least similar on a
percentage basis.
Give one example each for a prosimian, monkey, and ape.
What is brachiation in primates?
Explain the role of neoteny in the evolution of the human brain.
List three consequences of neoteny in human evolution.
Explain why humans lack a fur covering.
Explain why humans have a flat face and small teeth and jaws.
Explain the evidence supporting the establishment of bipedalism in hominins before the
evolution of a large brain.
What does the following synonymy list indicate?
H. erectus (Dubois, 1892)
Pithecanthropus erectus Dubois, 1892
Sinanthropus pekinensis Black, 1927
Javanthropus soloensis Oppenoorth, 1932
How do we know so much about the absolute ages of hominid fossils in Africa?
Were Neanderthals covered in thick body hair, or were they naked like us? Explain.
Were Neanderthals a different species from modern humans? Are there any Neanderthal
genes in modern humans? Explain your answer.
How can one group of scientists accept 19-20 different species of living and fossil
hominins, whereas another group only accepts 8-9 different species of living and
fossil hominins?
Describe the key features of the two competing hypotheses, “Eve or Out-of-Africa
Hypothesis” and “Multiregional Hypothesis”, for the evolution of Homo sapiens.
Which hypothesis is more likely to be correct, and why?