PALEONTLOGY 5: SPECIATION VOLUME 9, ISSUE 5, January 2020 THIS MONTH DESCENT WITH MODIFICATION • Hierarchy page 2 • Trilobites page 3 • Eyes page 4 The Paleozoic Era lasted from • Size page 7 541 to 252 million years divided • Characteristics page 10 into six Periods: • DNA page 16 • Cambrian • Speciation page 19 • Ordovician • Fun Facts page 23 • Silurian • Devonian POWER WORDS • Carboniferous • BYA: billion years ago • Permian • eukaryote: organism consisting of a cell or At the end of the Precambrian, cells in which the there is evidence of soft-bodied, as an example of how all genetic material is in multicellular organisms (mostly organisms speciate. Trilobites chromosomes frond-like and tubular forms) are incredibly awesome! contained within a found in locations around the distinct nucleus world. This is called the The Ute Tribes are now located • phylum: (plural phyla) a Ediacaran biota. These animals in SW Colorado and Utah. They major division of life were composed of individual roamed throughout the Western after Kingdom and cells organized into colonies, Rocky Mountains, venturing before Class (see pg. 2 like sponges. onto the Eastern Plains. They for more information) found Cambrian trilobites and • prokaryote: a The Cambrian Explosion refers carried them as protective microscopic single- to a burst of fossils. The reason charms, “Timpe-Konitza- celled organism with no is simple; animals developed Pachuee.” or “little water bug internal membrane hard parts, like shells. We find living in a house of stone.” bound organelles, DNA fossils representing almost all of is in a circle the 35 animal phyla! The only Samuel Turvey found new modern animal phylum missing Chinese trilobites. He gave one CAREER CONNECTION is Bryozoa, moss animals. of them the genus name of Han • Interview with Dr. Smith, after the biggest ethnic group in paleontologist page 24 This issue focuses on trilobites, China. The species name is both their natural history but also Han solo! COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION 4-H PROGRAMS ARE AVAILABLE TO ALL WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION HIERARCHY — Organizing Life 2 A mnemonic is a trick to help like the Order Proetida. POWER WORDS remember something. Here is a ○ Within Order Proetida are • Archaea: microorganisms mnemonic for planets: 13 Families, like Family similar to bacteria in size and My — Mercury Proetidae. simplicity but different in Very — Venus ○ Within Family Proetidae, molecular organization Educated — Earth there are 288 Genera • chromosome: threadlike Mother — Mars including Genus Proetus. structure of DNA found in the Just — Jupiter ○ Within Genus Proetus are Served — Saturn two species, P. concinnus nucleus of eukaryote cells Us — Uranus and P. latifrons. carrying genetic information Nachos—Neptune in the form of genes Directions: • hierarchy: taxonomic Before advanced technology in • Develop a mnemonic to classification of successive molecular techniques, Dr. Carl help you remember the levels of complexity of life Woese and Dr. George Fox hierarchy of life: • mnemonic: a device such painstakingly analyzed a very as a pattern of letters, ideas, stable section of DNA of Domain— or associations that assists hundreds of organisms. They in remembering something Kingdom— found a hidden group of single- • molecular techniques: celled prokaryote organisms, Phylum— manipulation and analysis of distinct from bacteria, and called Class— DNA, RNA, and/or proteins them archaebacteria (now called Order— • organelle: organized or Archaea). Domain Eukaryota specialized structures bound organisms can be single-celled Family— by a membrane within a or multicellular. They are Genus— living cell distinct from both Domain Bacteria and Domain Archaea: Species— DNA is formed into chromosomes residing in the cell’s nucleus, and the cell contains organelles. Domain is the highest hierarchy, and all known life falls into one of these three Domains. Within the Domain Eukaryota are 10 Kingdoms, seven of which are mostly single-celled organisms, and three contain multicellular organisms: • Kingdom Plantae (plants) • Kingdom Fungi (fungus) MATERIALS • Kingdom Animalia (animals) ○ Within Kingdom Animalia • Paper are 35 phyla, including • Pencil Phylum Arthropoda. ○ Within Phylum Arthropoda is the Class Trilobita (also known as Trilobitomorpha) ○ Within Class Trilobita are 10 Orders of trilobites, TRILOBITES — A Paleozoic Success Story 3 The Cambrian Explosion of the Burgess Shale fauna in POWER WORDS occurred 541 MYA and lasted the 1980s. These three men • e.g.: Latin for exempli 20 million years. During this were instrumental in bringing to gratia meaning for the time, almost all major animal light the amazing and wonderful sake of example, or for phyla appeared in the fossil life that had lived in there half a example record. Not only that, but there billion years ago! • fauna: animals from a were some weird and wonderful particular region, experiments in life, like Opabinia The Burgess Shale is not the habitat, or geological regalis. with 5 eyes and a long only location from this time in period proboscis, and Marrella Earth’s history with well • MYA: million years ago splendens. (the lace crab—but preserved fossils. There are • proboscis: elongated not a crab), the most common three other places in the world appendage from the animal in the Burgess Shale. that remarkable preservation of head of an animal (e.g. fossils from this time: elephant trunk) The Burgess Shale is a location Chengjiang and Doushantuo, • stratum (plural strata): in British Columbia that is a both in China, and Sirius Passet layer, or series of treasure trove of these amazing in Greenland. There are fossil layers, of rock in the Cambrian fossils. It was found sites throughout the world, just ground in August 1909 by Charles not with the detail of the Doolittle Walcott, paleontologist ecosystem preserved, like it is in from the Smithsonian. It was these four site. almost at the end of the season, so the following year, Walcott The earliest known trilobites are and his family returned and from 521 MYA found in Siberia, began extracting these Morocco, Spain, and North incredibly well preserved fossils, America. At this time, the both hard and soft bodied evidence indicates that trilobites organisms, from this site dated originated in Siberia, and then 508 MYA. migrated throughout the world. They survived 250 million years. Walcott and his family continued During this time, they speciated collecting at this site until 1924, into over 20,000 species! and had collected over 65,000 specimens for the Smithsonian. Directions: They were considered only a • Explore the links in the green curiosity, and were not studied box below, A Guide to the again until 1962, when Alberto Orders of Trilobites and Order Redlichiida, Paradoxides sp. Simonetta recognized that many American Museum of Natural may represent the ancestral of these fossils did not fit in History Trilobite Website. trilobite. modern groups. MATERIALS The quarry was reopened by the • Computer with internet Geological Survey of Canada • https://www.trilobites.info/ under a trilobite expert Harry • https://www.amnh.org/researcHpaleontology/ Blackmore Whittington. Dr. collections/fossil-invertebrate-collection/trilobite- Whittington had two graduate website students, Derek Briggs (now • Optional: Gould, Stephen Jay (1989) Wonderful with Yale University) and Simon Life: The Burgess Shale and the Natural Conway Morris (now with History, W.W. Norton & Co. Your county library University of Cambridge), who has a copy, or can find one for you. Wonderful began a thorough assessment story! A must read! TRILOBITES — Eyes 4 Prior to the Cambrian, there is In this activity, you will make an POWER WORDS no fossil record of organisms eye model of a single facet of a • accommodate: the with eyes. Cambrian fossils, trilobite eye. ability of the eye to however, show many different change focus from forms of eyes. Eyes can be Directions: distant to near objects simple light sensing cells • Do this by a window during • analogous: structures differentiating between shade the day. performing similar and full sun or extremely • Stand on one side. Hold function but having a complex, like human and bee your paper vertically in the different origin; eyes. Of the 10 Orders of hand farthest from the example insect wings Trilobites, nine Orders had window. and bat wings compound eyes, similar to • Hold the • biconvex: surface insect eyes. Trilobites came up biconvex lens curved like the exterior with a unique solution for a lens vertically in the of a circle on both sides —they used calcite. other hand. Be • birefringent: light will sure that the travel in two different Calcite is a mineral composed of light from the directions when calcium, oxygen, and carbon window through passing through a (CaCO3). It is found throughout the lens to the material like calcite the world. Some forms of calcite paper is not • circumference: the have a unique property: they are blocked. distance around clear and birefringent (cool • Move the lens slowly back something science word!) See the image and forth until the image • compound eye: an eye below how light splits. comes into sharp focus on consisting of an array of • bi means two the paper. Measure and numerous small visual • refringent means split record the distance between units, as found in the paper and the lens. This crustaceans or insects is called the focal length. Definitions continue page 5 Different lenses have different focal lengths. If you have more than one lens, do the same with each lens. Record each measurement. • TP tubes are 4” long, and paper towel tube is 11” long. If your focal length is longer than 7”, you need to also use the paper towel tube. Order Agnostida trilobites lost their eyes. Only the very MATERIALS earliest agnostids had eyes. • magnifying lens (hand lens or biconvex lens) Agnostic means someone who • 2 TP (toilet paper) tubes and 1 paper towel tube believes that nothing can be • wax paper known about the existence or • scissors nature of God; they neither have • 1 rubber band faith nor disbelief in God.