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Mankind and Fossils

Learn how fossils are categorized into kingdoms, phyla, and classes. Understand the principles of taxonomy and identify various animal phyla like Mollusca and Arthropoda. Explore the diversity of Chordata classes in the animal kingdom.

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Mankind and Fossils

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  1. Mankind and Fossils David L. Dillon, M.Sc.

  2. Introduction • In this assignment you will be required to learn how fossils are categorized. • You will also be required to identify fossils to the level of phylum and in some cases to the level of class.

  3. Taxonomy – naming and categorizing • The scientific method has attempted to explain the universe through the application of logic. • It relies on a wealth of knowledge gathered by research and organized systematically. • The primary division is into “kingdoms”. For our purposes, we’ll simplify this into Vegetables,Animals and Minerals.

  4. Taxonomy continued • Even with this kind of simplification, things eventually become more complex. Within each kingdom are groups, each of which is called a “phylum”. • The following are the principle phyla of our version of the animal kingdom: • Protozoa – single celled animals e.g. amoeba • Porifera – sponges • Coelenterata - hydrozoans, sea anemones, corals, jellyfish

  5. Principle Animal Phyla continued • Bryozoans - moss animals • Brachiopoda - lamp shells • Mollusca - snails, clams, squids

  6. Principle Animal Phyla III • Annelida - segmented worms • Arthropoda - crustaceans, spiders, insects, centipedes, trilobites • Echinodermata - sea lilies, starfish, sea urchins

  7. Principle Animal Phyla IV • Chordata - animals with a notochord or backbone: fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

  8. Classes • Within each phylum, the next degree of sorting is into “classes”. • This will only be important when we deal with three particular phyla: mollusca, arthropoda and chordata.

  9. Mollusca • There are three classes of mollusks: gastropoda – the limpets, snails, and slugs; pelecypoda – the clams including oysters; and cephalopoda – squids, cuttlefish, octopi, and nautilus.

  10. Arthropoda • Insects – adults are air breathing and have six legs; • Arthropods have jointed limbs within a rigid exoskeleton. In order to keep things simple, we will acknowledge only a few of the arthropod classes: • Crustaceans include lobsters, crabs and barnacles: • Arachnids are spiders • Trilobites are an extinct class that consists of one axial lobe and two pleural lobes.

  11. Chordata • For our purposes, chordate classes are: Fishes; Amphibians; Reptiles; Dinosaurs; Birds; Mammals.

  12. Your Assignment • Use the hand outs to determine the identity of the fossils in question to the level of phylum, or class (as required in the question).

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