Course-level learning objectives: Included are objectives from a variety of 'learning levels', from remembering → understanding → applying → analyzing → evaluating → creating

● Identify different types of dinosaurs and be able to describe major morphological features. ● Describe the relationships of major dinosaur groups relative to each other. ● Explain the scientific methods and techniques used to study dinosaur palaeobiology, including excavation and preparation, taxonomy, phylogeny, functional morphology, and palaeoecology. ● Analyze and evaluate popular representations of dinosaurs in the media for scientific accuracy. ● Create testable hypotheses about dinosaur evolution, ecology, and behaviour.

Introduction and Course Format ● who are your instructors? ● how does the MOOC work? ● what are our expectations for progressing through the course? ● What is palaeontology, and what are palaeontologists?

1. One Day - (total anatomy)

1.1. Appearances Students will learn about the diversity in dinosaur appearances, both bony and soft tissue structures, and will be able to identify major features of the major groups of dinosaurs.

● Students will be able to identify and describe the locations of major bones and bone types (i.e. femur, humerus, vertebrae, skull, jaw) in both dinosaur and human skeletons ● Students will identify the two major types of pelves in dinosaurs, both by name and general characteristics (i.e. pubis points forwards or backwards), identify the three major bones in the pelvis, and state which groups have which type ● Students will be able to identify sauropods, theropods and ornithischians from silhouettes/outlines ● Students will be able to describe/identify the major bony features of general dinosaur groups (i.e. stegosaurs:plates/spikes; ceratopsians:horns/frills; pachycephalosaurs:domes) ● Students will be able to describe major integumentary types (feathers, skin, scales, hair, bristles, osteoderms/scutes) and will be able to identify in which major groups of dinosaurs each of these types appears ● Students will be able to describe the posture/stance of major dinosaur groups, and be able to classify different groups as bipeds or quadrupeds, and if they are capable of flight ● Students will be able to describe how musculature is determined (bone scars), and describe the process of comparative morphology with extant animal musculature (“extant phylogenetic bracket”) ● Students will be able to describe general methods of determining the size (length, mass) of a dinosaur (i.e. 3D reconstructions/submerging them in water, regression equations based on humeral/femoral circumference, footprint depth). ● Students will be able to identify the overall range of size in dinosaurs, and give comparisons to modern organisms (i.e. chicken to whale sized) ● Students will be able to identify major anatomical features ● Students will be able to classify dinosaurs into major taxonomic groups

1.2. Eating Students will understand the variety of food types, feeding habits, and feeding adaptations amongst the major groups of dinosaurs

● Students will be able to describe the differences between carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, and piscivore ● Students will be able to observe different tooth morphologies and be able to accurately classify them based on diet ● Students will be able to describe the functional significance of serrations ● Students will describe tooth replacement in dinosaurs as compared to mammals (humans) ● Students will be able to define a “tooth battery”, and describe the major groups of dinosaurs (hadrosaurs and ceratopsians) that possess them, as well as their functional significance (ability to efficiently mechanically process fibrous plant material) ● Students will be able to describe what a coprolite is, and how they are generally studied (through histological sections) ● Students will be able to state the main carnivorous group of dinosaurs (theropods), and will be able to identify some taxa within that group that do not show the typical carnivorous pattern (i.e. ornithomimids, oviraptors) ● Students will be able to describe different methods of post-oral food processing, including gastroliths and bacterial fermentation

1.3. Moving Around/Locomotion Students will learn about general modes and styles of locomotion in the major dinosaur groups, and be able to describe general methods of evaluating hypotheses on locomotion ● Students will be able to describe the stance of dinosaurs as compared to modern lizards/ crocodilians and birds (i.e. upright vs sprawling) and describe the benefits of an upright stance ● Students will be able to compare and contrast different locomotion styles (i.e. graviportal, cursorial) and be able to determine which types of limbs may be indicative of certain types of movement style ● Students will be able to describe what an ichnofossil is, and some of the possible ways an animal may create a trace fossil ● Students will recognize (but not name) different types of dinosaur footprints and be able to identify potential track makers ● Students will be able to describe what types of trackways represent different locomotion types (running, swimming, turning, walking) might create (widely spaced vs close vs resting trace).

2. One Lifetime (Ecological)

2.1 Reproduction and Birth Students will understand a generalized model of reproduction in dinosaurs, including egg/clutch type, sexes and parental care habits ● Students will be able to define sexual dimorphism and give examples of sexually dimorphic extant animals. ● Students will be able to give examples of possible sexual display structures in dinosaurs. ● Students will be able to define medullary bone and describe how it is used to identify the sex of a dinosaur. ● Students will be able to describe examples of evidence for egg-laying in dinosaurs. ● Students will be able to define terms related to reproductive strategies in extant tetrapods, including vivipary, oviparity, ovoviviparity, altricial, precocial, etc. ● Students will be able to evaluate the evidence for or against parental care in different groups of dinosaurs.

2.2 Growth Students will learn about size range and growth dynamics across a range of sizes in dinosaurs, and the techniques used to determine growth rates ● Students will be able to describe histological sampling techniques. ● Students will be able to define terms related to the gross anatomy and histology of bones, such as lines of arrested growth (LAGs), external fundamental system, Haversian bone, lamellar bone, compact bone, cancellous bone, epiphysis, osteon, primary bone, woven bone, fibro-lamellar bone, etc. ● Students will be able to define developmental biology terms such as paedomorphosis and peramorphosis. ● Students will be able to suggest ways to determine if a dinosaur skeleton represents an adult or juvenile, using such evidence as relative size, body proportions, fusion of skeletal elements, and histology.

2.3 Physiology Students will learn about the crocodilian/bird type physiology of dinosaurs, including possible implications of soft tissues based on extant groups. ● Students will be able to define physiological terms such as endothermy, ectothermy, gigantothermy, homeothermy, poikilothermy, etc. ● Students will be able to give examples of evidence for or against different organs in dinosaurs, such as air sacs (pneumatopores in saurischians and theropods), blood vessels (T. rex and Brachylophosaurus), brains, ‘heart’ (Thescelosaurus), intestines (Scipionyx), muscle fibres (tyrannosaurids, Scipionyx), trachea (Scipionyx), and tendons (ossified tendons in ornithischians). ● Using their knowledge of dinosaur anatomy, students will be able to evaluate competing hypotheses for ‘warm’ or ‘cold’-bloodedness in dinosaurs.

2.4 Attack and Defense Students will learn about behaviours and structures that may have served for attack or defense through the lifetime of a dinosaur. ● Students will be able to provide examples of injury and disease in the fossil record. ● Students will be able to provide examples of defensive/antipredator strategies in extant animals: camouflage, mimicry, warning colouration, dazzle colouration, herding, weapons (horns, claws, teeth, tusks, venom, odours), speed and flight, armour, distraction displays, autotomy, and large size. ● Students will be able to describe examples of how extant predators detect and acquire prey, such as: sight, sounds, smells, intelligence, camouflage, social predation (pack hunting), speed, ambush, etc. ● Students will be able to provide examples of other aggressive and defensive behaviours in extant animals, such as competition for mates or territories. ● Students will be able to suggest methods for investigating predation and antipredation strategies, and other aggressive behaviours, in dinosaurs. ● Students will be able to evaluate hypotheses for predation and antipredation strategies, and other aggressive behaviours, in dinosaurs.

2.5 Habitats, Ecosystems Students will understand that dinosaurs are found across terrestrial habitats, and were able to readily colonise diverse environments. ● Students will be able to define the three main categories of rocks: sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. ● Students will be able to describe why dinosaurs are found in certain areas on planet earth and not others, in a geological context (ie. sedimentary rocks of the right age are not preserved everywhere; in some places, only igneous or metamorphic rocks are visible at the surface). ● Students will be able to provide examples of different dinosaur habitats, including arid deserts, wetlands, polar areas, islands. ● Students will be able to discuss climate change throughout earth history. ● Students will be able to discuss recent research on dinosaur geographic ranges and migration. ● Students will be able to discuss northern vs. southern North American dinosaurs and suggest reasons for differences in dinosaur faunas.

2.6 Death Students will be able to describe how fossils form, and will be able to interpret the taphonomy of skeletons and bonebeds.

● Students will be able to define taphonomy, fossilization, diagenesis, bonebed, lagerstatten, etc. ● Students will be able to provide examples of taphonomic features and how they occur, such as preservations of skeletons (articulated, associated, disarticulated), origin of bonebeds, bioerosion, dissolution, abrasian, orientation, and size-sorting. ● Students will be able to describe different types of fossil preservation, including carbonization, molds and casts, permineralization, replacement and recrystallization, and unaltered. ● Students will be able to describe some of the methods used for studying dinosaur fossil sites, including quarrying, mapping, taxonomic identification, relative abundances, orientation of fossils, damage to the fossils, tooth marks, and collecting geological information. ● Students will be able to discuss how taphonomy introduces biases to the fossil record, e.g. why it is harder to find smaller animals rather than larger animals, why we don’t know as much about ‘alpine’ dinosaurs, etc. ● Given a fossil and its geological context, students will be able to create hypotheses about how the animal died, where the animal died, what taphonomic processes occurred, and what information might be missing.

3. One Species (geneological evolution)

Students will be able to define what a species is. Students will be able to describe how palaeontologists identify species in the fossil record.

3.1 What is a species? ● Students will be able to define the different types of ‘species concepts’: biological, morphological, ● Students will be able to explain which species concepts are appropriate for palaeontologists to use. ● Students will be able to describe the basic requirements for erecting a new species name (e.g. needs a holotype specimen, needs a diagnosis and description, needs a name that hasn’t already been used). ● Students will be able to describe the principle of priority in zoological nomenclature, and use it to assess which dinosaur species names are correct (e.g. Apatosaurus rather than Brontosaurus; Triceratops rather than Torosaurus; etc.) ● Students will be able to state major requirements of code of zoological nomenclature for erecting species (diagnosis, provenance, residence in public collection) ● Students will be able to properly write a genus and species name, e.g. Tyrannosaurus rex or T. rex, not T-rex, T-Rex, or Tyrannosaurus Rex.

3.2 Identifying species in the fossil record ● Students will be able to describe the sources of morphological variation in fossils (individual variation, ontogenetic variation, sexual dimorphism, taphonomic variation, and taxonomic variation). ● Students will be able to provide examples of current controversies in dinosaur taxonomy, e.g. Torosaurus-Triceratops, Nanotyrannus-Tyrannosaurus, Raptorex-Tarbosaurus. ● Students will be able to explain how palaeontologists use fieldwork and museum collections to identify new species, by comparing the bones of different animals and looking for differences. ● Students will be able to identify different techniques for investigating differences, such as histological sampling, morphometrics, and basic statistical analyses. ● Given a ‘new’ dinosaur, students will be able to suggest different techniques for identifying a new species of dinosaur, including comparative anatomy, histological sampling, morphometrics, and basic statistical analyses. ● Given a ‘new’ dinosaur description, students will be able to evaluate if the identification is based on sufficient evidence, or suggest alternative hypotheses for identification.

3.3 Origination and Extinction What are some of the reasons new species evolve, and why do some species go extinct? ● Students will learn about vicariant evolution, and be able to describe why separate populations may evolve into separate species

4. One Lineage (Evolution)

Students will understand geological concepts such as the principle of superposition and the geologic time scale. Students will understand evolutionary concepts such as clades and phylogenetic trees. Students will be able to create a phylogenetic tree of dinosaur species or clades. Students will be able to describe the evolution of birds from non-avian dinosaurs.

4.1 Stratigraphy and Geologic Time ● Students will be able to identify the Periods of the Mesozoic Era (Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous), as well as the periods immediately before (Permian) and after (Palaeogene). ● Students will be able to define the geological Principle of Superposition, that younger sediments are laid down on top of older sediments. ● Students will be able to describe radiometric dating? ● Students will be able to describe what a geological formation is. ● Using Dinosaur Park (Oldman, Dinosaur Park and Bearpaw Formations) as an example, students will be able to describe how dinosaurs are found at different stratigraphic horizons and levels.

4.2 Phylogenetic Trees and Cladistics ● Students will be able to describe the concept of clades. ● Students will be able to interpret cladistic diagrams (phylogenetic trees), including identifying monophyletic groups, paraphyletic groups, and sister-taxa. ● Students will be able to explain why “reptiles” is not a monophyletic group. ● Students will be able to define ‘shared derived character’, and provide examples for major dinosaur clades (e.g. pelvis structure for Ornithischia/Saurischia; osteoderms for Thyreophora, skull ‘shelf’ for Marginocephalia, frill for Ceratopsidae, dome for Pachycephalosauria, etc.) ● Given a set of dinosaur groups, students will be able to create their own phylogenetic trees. ● Students will be able to explain how phylogenetic trees relate to evolutionary concepts. ● Given a cladogram, students will be able to assess whether it correctly shows the relationships between major dinosaur groups.

4.3 Bird Origins ● Students will be able to explain why, in cladistic terms, birds are a subset of dinosaurs. ● Students will be able to identify the closest relatives of birds among dinosaurs. ● Students will be able to provide examples of shared morphological features between birds and their closest non-avian dinosaur relatives. ● Students will be able to evaluate competing hypotheses for the origin of flight, the ‘trees- down’ hypothesis vs. ‘ground-up’ hypothesis. ● Students will be able to discuss the early radiation of birds, including lineages that went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous.

5. One PLanet (Evolution of life)

Students will be able to describe the evolution of dinosaurs from non-dinosaurian archosaurs. Students will understand the evolution of dinosaurs through time, including which groups evolved when and where. Students will be able to describe the end-Cretaceous extinction event.

5.1 Dinosaur Origins ● Students will be able to describe what makes a dinosaur different from other ‘reptiles’. ● Students will be able to discuss competing ideas about the rise of the dinosaurs: competitive exclusion, end-Triassic extinction, etc. ● Students will be able to identify the closest relatives of dinosaurs: silesaurids and other dinosauriforms, pterosaurs

5.2 The Shape of Dinosaur Evolution ● Students will be able to describe the concepts of plate tectonics, sea level changes, Pangaea, Gondwana, and Laurasia. ● Students will be able to discuss global-scale causes of speciation, such as climate change, plate tectonics/vicariance, differential extinction, sea-level rise, dispersal, mountain building, etc. ● Given a time and place, students will be able to suggest probable dinosaurs: e.g. Jurassic of North America - stegosaurs, sauropods, allosauroids; Late Cretaceous of Asia - tyrannosaurids, hadrosaurs, dromaeosaurs, ankylosaurids, etc. ● Given a ‘new’ dinosaur, students will be able to suggest probable times and locations for where and when it existed (e.g. ceratopsian or ankylosaurid in the Late Cretaceous of Laurasia; spinosaurid in Gondwana; sauropod in the Late Cretaceous is probably Gondwanan; sauropod in the Jurassic is anywhere; early, generic dinosauromorph in the Late Triassic of Pangaea; other fairly cut-and-dried examples) ● Students will be able to define ‘convergent evolution’ and provide examples in dinosaurs (e.g. long-necked stegosaurs, short-armed tyrannosaurs and abelisaurs, sauropod-sized hadrosaurs, ‘sail-backed’ dinosaurs, etc.) ● Students will be able to provide examples of gigantism and insular dwarfism.

5.3 Dinosaur Extinction ● Students will be able to provide examples of groups (dinosaurs, pterosaurs, marine reptiles, ammonites, etc.) that went extinct during the end-Cretaceous extinction event. ● Students will be able to provide examples of groups that survived the end-Cretaceous extinction (mammals, crocodiles, turtles, lizards, snakes, birds) ● Students will be able to list reasons why no single extinction theory satisfies everyone (poor fossil record near boundary, spotty regional distribution of end-Cretaceous rocks, etc.) ● Students will be able to evaluate competing hypotheses for the cause of the end- Cretaceous extinction. ● Students will be able to explain why ‘dinosaurs’ did not go extinct during the end- Cretaceous extinction (birds survived).