GEOL 104 Dinosaurs: A Natural History Test II Review Sheet Review Test I, and be sure that you remember: • The basics of geologic time • Evolution and evolutionary patterns • Tree-based thinking: be able to read a cladogram, and think in terms of evolving lineages Colonization of Land and Life on Land Before the Dinosaurs Hazards of living on land relative to the water Features exapted from marine animals for life on land: bony internal skeleton; limbs with wrists/ankles and digits to support weight; lungs to breath air; scales & mucous to prevent desiccation New features: necks; claws; amniotic egg Radiations of the Amniota: Late Carboniferous – Early Permian: Basal synapsids Middle Permian – Early Triassic: Therapsid synapsids Middle Triassic – Late Triassic: Crurotarsan archosaurs Jurassic – Cretaceous: Dinosaurs Features of each group that made them successful in their time Permo-Triassic Extinctions Carrier’s Constraint on breathing and locomotion, and how archosaurs (and within archosaurs, dinosauromorphs) got around it! Ornithodira: Elongate tibiae and metatarsi; bird-like necks Dinosauromorpha: Parasagittal stance, digitigrade posture (striding locomotion) Silesauridae Dinosauria’s sister-taxon; herbivorous quadrupeds Diversity of the Dinosauria Be familiar with the lifestyle, major adaptations and their functions, and relationships of the following groups: The base of Dinosauria: Small obligate bipeds of the Late Triassic, with perforated acetabula and hands with semiopposable thumbs and reduced digits IV & V. Divisions into Ornithischia and Saurischia. Basal ornithischians: Small obligate bipeds with specializations for herbivory (predentary bone; leaf-shaped teeth; cheeks; backwards-pointing pubis (after Pisanosaurus)); epaxial ossified tendons. Early representatives include Pisanosaurus, Heterodontosauridae (with ornithopod-like jaws and deep skulls), and Eocursor: all of these retained big grasping hands. Later ornithischians divided into Thyreophora and the neornithischians (small obligate bipeds that themselves evolved into Ornithopoda and Marginocephalia) Thyreophora: Ornithischians with osteoderms as protection; as the dinosaurs became bigger and more heavily armored, shifted to obligate quadrupedality. Advanced thyreophorans split into Stegosauria and Ankylosauria. Stegosaurs emphasized active defense, with plates, spikes, and the thagomizer: their heyday was the Middle and Late Jurassic. Ankylosaurs emphasized passive defense, with osteoderms fused to the skull, heavy rings of armor on the neck and shoulders, and in general lots of osteoderms over the body. In the Ankylosauridae evolution of active defense in the form of tail clubs. Ankylosaurs heyday was the Cretaceous. Ornithopoda: Evolution of the pleuokinetic hinge and a specialized bite (premaxilla margin below maxillary tooth row and jaw joint below dentary tooth row) to increase chewing ability. Primitive ornithopods relatively small unspecialized bipeds (although at least some burrowed); the more derived iguanodontians were typically larger, and many were facultative bipeds. Among Iguanodontia, the Styracosterna were the largest, and evolved the Swiss Army Hand (spike thumb; metacarpals II-IV weight bearing supporting hoof-like unguals; opposable pinky). The most advanced styracosternans (and thus most advanced ornithopods) were the Hadrosauridae (duckbills), with expanded bills and a grinding dental battery (and no thumb). The diverse hadrosaurids divide into the hollow-crested Lambeosaurinae and the broad-billed Saurolophinae. Marginocephalia: Had ridge extending posterior over back of skull. Pachycephalosauria were strictly bipedal, with thickened skull roofs eventually evolving into head-banging domes. Ceratopsia began as small bipedalherbivores with a rostral bone; neoceratopsians added the frill to increase the size of their jaw muscles. More advanced Neoceratopsia had even larger frill (for display), and became obligate quadrupeds. The most advanced evolved horns: first the postorbital (brow) horns, and then (among the Ceratopsidae) the nasal horn. Ceratopsids also evolved the shearing dental battery, and much larger size than all marginocephalians. Among ceratopsids were the deep-snouted Centrosaurinae with a pair of spikes sticking out of the frill, and the long-snouted Chasmosaurinae with long frills and an enlarged rostral bone. Basal saurischians: Specialized joints between vertebrae; had pleurocoels (hollow air sac chambers in their vertebrae), elongate necks, and modified hands with large thumb claws and long index fingers. Saurischians split into the herbivorous sauropodomorphs and the carnivorous theropods. Sauropodomorpha; Characterized ancestrally by small skull size and leaf-shaped teeth with large denticles. The “core prosauropods” evolved larger size, proportionately even smaller heads and longer necks, and possibly cheeks. These in turn evolved into the “near-sauropods”: larger still, and quadrupedal. Actual Sauropoda had rounder snouts, and the Eusauropoda had even larger size and tooth-to-tooth occlusion. Eusauropod had hands that formed a horse-shoe curve and feet supported by large fleshy pads. Eusauropods lose the cheeks and gain a wider gape, allowing for “bulk-browsing”. Eusauropods also had highly complex airsac chambers. Among the eusauropods the most specialized forms were the diverse Neosauropoda. Neosauropods include the long-skulled pencil-toothed Diplodocoidea and the big-nosed Macronaria. The diplodocoids included the Rebbachisauridae (with their grazing/gnawing dental battery), the short-necked Dicraeosauridae, and the enormous long-necked whip-tailed Diplodocidae (which, because their forelimbs were much shorter than their hindlimbs, could probably rear up to feed very high in the trees). Among the more specialized macronarians were the enormous Brachiosauridae (with very long forelimbs, so that they were build uphill) and the diverse wide-bodied Titanosauria (which included the largest of all dinosaurs, as well as the armored but smaller Lithostrotia). Theropoda: Early theropods were long and slender, and evolved the promaxillary fenestra, grasping claws, and the intramandibular joint (for dealing with struggling prey in the jaws). Basal theropods of the Triassic include the Herrerasauria, Eoraptor, and Tawa. The later theropods form Neotheropoda, and are characterized by the furcula (as a brace